Learn more about Paulina Lule: actress, filmmaker and environmentalist

Paulina Lule talks about her new show Emperor of Ocean Parktheir upcoming social commentary project about zombies and the importance of conservation.

S]Nice to meet you, first of all I would like to learn a little bit more about you. You are an actor and filmmaker, where did you find this passion for creating characters, films and stories?

I think it's always been a part of me. When I was a kid, my favorite thing to do was watch movies and all kinds of movies. I watched most of the movies that I watched, I probably shouldn't have, but you know, I was a latchkey kid, so I spent a lot of time alone, after school. But I watched horror movies, Disney movies, science fiction movies, I watched everything.

I've always loved movies and when I was really young I was that annoying kid who could recite the movies with them, and when I was alone it was fine, but when I was with my family they couldn't stand it. There are several movies that I could probably play for you from start to finish, including humming the music. That would be The Pee-Wees' Great Adventure, Red Sonja, The Lion King, The matrix And Speed. So it's always been there.

I live in the Midwest, so the access to Hollywood and the Hollywood career path is not here, or at least not when I was growing up in the 90s. We didn't have social media where you had to know someone or know someone who knew someone who could point you in the right direction. I didn't realize that I could pursue this path until much later, I had an application to USC (University of Southern California) under my bed. The only reason I knew was because I watched the TV show. Dawson CreekI was obsessed, and Dawson was always like, “I have to go to USC!” and so I was like, “I have to go to USC, because that's where you learn how to make movies!”

But ultimately I didn't choose USC, I studied computer engineering and Japanese, and then I ended up in Tokyo after graduating college, and then I ended up in Hawaii. And then I realized I was in control of my future. So I applied to film school, learned directing and writing, and then I took an acting class, and here we are.

S]You have appeared in many hit TV shows like The right place, Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, ABC General Hospitalin the movie Darling, my boyall these amazing projects and now you're starring in Emperor of Ocean Park which will air on MGM+ on July 14^thWho is your character and how does he fit into the story?

So we have the judge, played by Forest Whitaker, who dies. The story takes place in multiple timelines, so we'll see a lot of Forest in the series. His children, played by Tiffany Mack, Grantham Coleman, and Henry Simmons, are left with different levels of grief because they had different relationships with their father. Mariah and Talcott (Mack and Coleman), begin to think that his death may have been due to something other than natural causes.

I play Talcott's wife and I'm a high-powered attorney who is about to be nominated to a federal judgeship by the President of the United States. So my character, Kimmer, is at a high point in her personal and professional life. Her dream is to make a difference in her country from the inside as a Supreme Court Justice. That's her end goal and this is the first big step in achieving that goal. It's incredible news and she has to balance that with the fact that her husband's father just died and she has to support him as she goes through this incredible opportunity. And for anyone who's been in a relationship and has been through this, it's all really great for me but really shitty for my partner, that balance is difficult and dramatic enough, but if you add a conspiracy into the mix that could ruin this really great thing, that's where you get drama.

S]As a filmmaker and actor, when you work with a director, do you ever put aside your filmmaker mindset or follow advice or inspiration?

I think there are advantages to having a filmmaker's brain, in the sense that I understand why certain things happen on set. For example, why we put the camera there, what we're trying to capture in terms of the story. But a lot of that stuff is not helpful to the actor. The actor has to be out of his head, he has to be fully present and just in the moment. So in that respect, I have to turn off the filmmaker's brain. I think it's in the preparation for the role, before I'm on set, when I'm preparing the scenes, that the filmmaker's brain can be helpful, because I'm searching the text for contextual clues, and as a filmmaker, you're going to apply a visual language to that.

As far as collaborating with other directors, I think as a filmmaker it's like the cheat code to film school. That's why you see so many actors become incredible directors, because they're there. So I've been looking a lot and asking myself questions like, why do we film this way?

S]Speaking of your cinema, you have directed several short films, some of which have won awards. And you have an upcoming project that you wrote and are directing, which is in the zombie/horror genre, but also tells a story that is very personal to you, what more can you tell us about it?

It's the story of Miles, who gets out of prison after six years and returns home to a neighborhood called Sherman Park, a neighborhood in Milwaukee, and he tries to start his life over. But the city around him has turned against him (in zombie lingo).

I wrote it as an allegory about recidivism. You know, people who come home after a prison sentence face many obstacles to restarting their lives, especially here in the United States. I don't believe that our justice system or our prison system is a rehabilitative system.

I'm a genre filmmaker at heart, I've written and directed dramas, but I love genre films. So I wanted to write a story about that that was a genre film. So I was thinking about what a hostile society is as a whole, towards people who are re-entering society, and that's where the zombie concept came from. I wrote it because my own brother, who is now deceased, was coming out of prison at a time when this country was at the height of a lot of racial strife. It was 2016, we all know what election that was. It was a few weeks after incidents in Charlottesville where someone was hit by a car and there were tiki torches and all sorts of things. And then also in Milwaukee, there was civil unrest in the Sherman Park neighborhood after a young man named Sylville Smith was killed by a police officer. So all of those feelings and that angst and everything that was going on at that time kind of fed into this story idea for me.

S]In addition to your acting and filmmaking career, you are also an environmental advocate, primarily for your local Milwaukee community. What does that entail and why is it so close to your heart?

Conservation is close to my heart because I am an outdoors person. I love hiking, I am going to hike in Yellowstone National Park this summer with my partner, I ride horses. The outdoors is important to me, animals are important to me, the wildlife that exists here is important to me. I choose to live a lifestyle that supports conservation. I am not perfect, no one is, and it is difficult in the society we live in to live a perfectly carbon neutral lifestyle.

But I really believe that we are all environmentalists, if you take conservation actions, even in the smallest form, whether it's using reusable shopping bags, donating to a cause, cleaning up beaches, all of these things are conservation actions.

As far as what I’ve done here locally, I’ve worked with the Zoological Society of Milwaukee in their arts education program. They work with the Milwaukee County Zoo to work on wildlife conservation and to bring empathy for wildlife to the citizens of Milwaukee and beyond. I worked in the Kohls Wild Theatre program, a children’s theater where we would put on musicals to teach kids about wildlife conservation. We would put on these plays in the summer and then during the school year, we would take the show on the road as a traveling show, performing them in schools and community centers.

S]Thank you, this has been very inspiring and it was really nice talking to you.

Of course, if anyone wants to follow me, follow the show or what I'm working on, we're going to be launching a crowdfunding campaign for our proof of concept soon, they can follow me on Instagram or Threads: @paulinnium.

Emperor of Ocean Park is available for streaming on July 14th^th on MGM+.