[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: What is character?
Paola Baldión, Filmmaker/Actor: I think character is what you build as you grow. It’s part of your personality. I think that you become a character as you have life experiences.
Also as an actor, you can choose to become another character by stepping into other parts of yourself which you haven’t explored yet right because we have so many parts whether they’re hidden or we wear sort of a mask in public.
We’re never the same person. You’re never the same person you are with your parents or with your husband or at an interview. You have so many different layers of yourself. I think character is building those layers.
Film Courage: As an actor how do you determine whether a character has complexity?
Paola: On the script. It’s all about the script. If it’s good script writing I can spot it right away. If it’s just like a sloppy screenwriter, that’s the character that I’m not as interested in playing.
Film Courage: If you did have a quote sloppy screenwriter, is there a way…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Paola Baldión is an award-winning actress, director, and producer of Colombian and European heritage. Born in Paris and raised in Italy and Colombia, Paola is a multilingual Latina artist fluent in Spanish, English, Italian, and French. She began performing at age four in her parents’ marionette theater and later trained under renowned masters Edgardo Román and Paco Barrero in Bogotá, followed by HB Studios in New York and Stephanie Feury Studio in Los Angeles. She holds a BFA in Theater and Film Studies from Concordia University in Montreal.
Paola made her feature film debut in the lead role of Marina in Retratos en un Mar de Mentiras (Portraits in a Sea of Lies), which premiered at the Berlin and Guadalajara film festivals. Her performance earned her the Colombian Academy Award for Best Actress, along with Best Actress honors at the Guadalajara and Amiens International Film Festivals.
As co-founder of Dos Almas Films, she has directed impactful short films and documentaries, including For Alma and I Am Migration-a documentary where she and partner Jamie Toll travel across the U.S., offering free DNA tests to explore ancestry and identity.
Her latest fiction film, Abrazo, tells the emotional story of a pregnant Central American woman crossing the U.S. border. The film has received 29 festival awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Writer, and Best Actress. Through her body of work, Paola continues to champion stories about identity, migration, and social justice-bringing visibility to underrepresented voices in both dramatic and comedic roles.
WATCH ‘I AM MIGRATION’
Facebook.com/iammigration/videos
WATCH ‘ABRAZO’ – NEW SHORT FILM BY PAOLA
CONNECT WITH PAOLA BALDION
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New book from Film Courage! – See it on Payhip here
New book from Film Courage! – See it on Payhip here
