Barbara Niven
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
Barbara Niven is commited to acting classes and doing theater when she’s not shooting Pensacola: Wings of Gold. She loves taking risks, playing "out there" characters. "I never want to play it safe. I like being afraid, if something scares me, I’m going to say YES and then figure out how to do it."
She has an independent film Anoosh of the Airways coming out where she plays eight different characters, and says it was freeing because there were no limits to where the characters could go. She’s also currently onstage in Los Angeles starring in a John Patrick Shanley play, Psychopathia Sexualis, (click here for review) playing an outrageous Texan named "Lucille" who stomps around the stage in a wedding dress and cowboy boots! She says, "I find that you can play anything outrageously…as long as you play it from an absolute core of truth. I learn something from every character I play, and carry part of them with me from that moment on." She says that Katherine Hepburn and Jessica Tandy are her idols. "You follow their careers and you watch the evolution of two human beings over the course of a lifetime. Age just made their work richer. It takes living to be a good actor. For me, it gets more exciting all the time. I can feel my instrument and my work getting better and better, and can’t wait to see where the journey takes me." A native of Portland, Oregon, Niven’s upbringing hardly suggested the career she chose to pursue. She dreamed of being an actress and writer – and loved being the center of attention as a child – but Niven was also decidedly a tomboy, hunting and fishing for fun (she still carries her duck call in her handbag and blew it at the first Pensacola cast dinner). She married at a young age and had a daughter, of whom she’s very proud. "One day when I was at home with my baby, I realized I was sitting back and not going toward any dreams," she recalls. "I decided I didn’t want to wind up wondering "what if". Despite being told it was impossible without a degree, she talked her way into a news internship at Portland television station KGW and sold her first story to network. But she realized she wasn’t suited for news and discovered acting. "Other than being a mother, acting has been the best thing in my life." She says that she is living proof that anyone can make their dreams come true! "Just put them into action and don’t give up five minutes before the miracle." Niven has also put her money and energy where her mouth is. She has constructed her own website, www.barbaraniven.com and updates it daily, complete with message boards and her own chatroom. On it she has started a Dreamers Network to help other people get the courage to make their dreams come true as well. "Every day I hear from someone who says it has made a difference. It doesn’t get much better than that." While in Portland, she appeared in more than 2500 radio and television commercials and served as spokesperson for a number of companies. She also won her first dramatic role, opposite James Garner and James Woods in the Emmy-winning "Hallmark Hall of Fame" telefilm The Promise. She subsequently won recurring roles in such series as Pacific Palisades, The Bold and the Beautiful and Silk Stalkings, as well as guest-starring spots on Love Boat: The New Wave, Mike Hammer and Wings. Her telefilm credits include The Rat Pack (in which she stars as Marilyn Monroe – a dream come true to play her favorite icon) and Breast Men, both HBO productions, and the offbeat comedy I Married a Monster, a remake of the classic that she describes as " David Lynch meets Norman Rockwell with lots of special effects." |
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
|
|
|||||||||