Professional actress and voice-over artist Magdalene ‘Maggy’ Vick stars in both theatre productions and feature films. She recently played Pam in the action movie A-X-L. To people across the globe she is primarily known as ‘the hot girl’ in Ray William Johnson’s renowned online sketches.

“My background is in theatre, performing with The Kansas City Actors Theatre, but here in Los Angeles I have been given a completely different kind of acting education! In my first short film, The Return, I had to play a very emotional scene, in which I greeted my boyfriend who had come back from the war. I made a rookie mistake, I gave it my all on the very first take,” Maggy laughs. “After the director yelled ‘cut’, I was informed that we were going to do the scene again a few times. The scene we just recorded didn’t even include my close-up! That was quite a good lesson, because the experience was so different from a stage play, where you only have one ‘take’ to get it right.”

Energy of the crowd
“Ray William Johnson’s videos often get millions of views from around the world, but there is nothing like having an audience physically in front of you,” Maggy confesses. “On stage you can feel the palpable energy of the people in the theatre and you get immediate feedback on your performance. I felt that effect intensely In 2016, when I played the lead in Theresa Rebeck’s play The Understudy, and I gave it my all every night. Non-stop for the full ninety minutes. And to have the audience come along with you on that emotional journey, is terrifying, but at the same time amazing and incredibly rewarding!”

Thinking horrifying thoughts
Similar to acting on a theatre stage, on a movie set Maggy is in character the whole time. “It’s a bit like method acting. Because it can be too strenuous to turn the emotions on and off again after each take,” she explains. “At the end of the day, you’re actually exhausted. That’s what many people don’t realize about acting. Ators often spend entire days thinking horrible thoughts, to get into the right mind set for the character. It’s actually hard work. Or they just listen to sad music before the director calls ‘action’. That also helps you get to that emotional place!”

Like a princess
But filming isn’t always an emotional, stressful process. “I had a very enjoyable scene with actor Thomas Jane in A-X-L, which was far from dramatic! It was a romantic scene, in which we kissed. Thomas was such a gentleman and he really made me feel like a princess throughout filming! On that set I was also reunited with a cinematographer, who used to be a classmate of mine. And lead actor Alex Neustaedter and I found out we were both from Kansas City, which is awesome! So it was like a big family on set, a really good feeling. This love, friendship and nurturing your creative spirit is way more important than fame and celebrity status.”

Focus on looks
But Hollywood can unfortunately give people a different perspective on what’s important, as Maggy experienced after a visit to the hairdresser. “In the beginning I played this ‘hot girl’ character in Ray’s videos… but the funny thing is, that character is so far away from the real me. The reactions I got after making those videos were really nice and flattering, but when I cut my hair short it seemed like everyone had an opinion about it! The comments I got were insane. It was like my hair was its own character and the emphasize lay more on my hairstyle than my acting. With things like this you notice how the entertainment industry is still very much focused on looks, particularly when it comes to women. But my goal was to make people aware that, no matter what kind of haircut I have, it’s still me underneath! I’m still the same person. This was like a sort of social experiment for me. I hope the world embraces each person as he or she is, regardless of looks. It should be your personality and the love you put out there that is the most important.”

Multifaceted characters
Even though Maggy is happy and grateful for the projects she has worked on so far, she still has plenty of professional dreams for the future. “One dream already came true by playing a part in I’m Dying Up Here, a television series for which the amazing Jim Carrey is one of the producers,” she recalls. “But in the future I’d also love to work with two of my favourite writers-directors, Mark and Jay Duplass (The Skeleton Twins, Room 104). They do a lot of tragi-comedies. I also very much adore Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Twelfth Night, which are such phenomenal plays, because there are times you want to laugh, but also moments you want to cry. It has so much emotion. I’d love to play a character like Viola in Twelfth Night, a very multifaceted kind of woman, who is looking for her place in the world. Or Julia Garner’s rebellious character Ruth in Ozark. There should be more multidimensional female parts like these in plays and movies!”

Follow Maggy Vick on Instagram and Facebook and visit her official website: www.magdalenevick.com for more information.