NKD Mag - Issue #63 (September 2016) by NKD Mag

SEPT. musicians: 04 SHAWN HOOK trying to make it in america

20 FOREVER IN YOUR MIND on their world domination plans

34 KELLEIGH BANNEN starting fresh but not starting over

56 ROZES

18 RONNI HAWK

on finding her place on tv & in l.a.

24 ROBBIE KAY on developing his passion for acting

28 WILLA FITZGERALD the yale grad’s stumble into TV

36 EMILY BETT RICKARDS developing both felicity and herself

from an accidental hit to a personal EP

web stars:

actors:

46 JACK BARAN

08 CIARA RENÉE

exploring new interests

on the importance of representation

double threats:

12 KIRA KOSARIN

50 CIERRA RAMIREZ

juggling ucla and being a superhero

on balancing discreet & the fosters

publisher: CATHERINE POWELL

editors: CATHERINE POWELL

writers: MARY BARNES SHELBY CHARGIN TAYLOR DOUGHERTY IAN HAYS NARUEEN NASHID CATHERINE POWELL VANESSA SALLES RILEY STENEHJEM ELIZABETH ZAVOYSKIY

photography: CATHERINE POWELL

design: CATHERINE POWELL

shawn hook Words by IAN HAYS Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Shawn Hook is the singer-songwriter best known for, “Sound of Your Heart”. With a silky falsetto and an ear for pophooks, Shawn is navigating through the trenches of the music industry with panache and grace. But let’s start from the beginning. He was born in Nelson, British Columbia- “a beautiful small town by a lake”. Shawn’s first introduction to music came from listening to his grandfather play guitar. This imprinted on him. When he was four, he started learning the piano. “My parents had a little toy piano at home. And I used to play it. So, they decided to put me in lessons because I would just make noise,” he says. He began with the standard - classical music. But, like many teenagers before him, he began to grow bored. He spent years learning music other people had written. He needed a change of pace, something fresh to reinvigorate the musical sprite within. “So, I had like six different piano teachers. And I went from teacher, to teacher, to teacher. And I finally got one that really helped me getting more into what I wanted to do, which is more pop music,” he says. In high school, he took a music composition course. The curriculum? Write four different songs in four different genres. The real deal. It was an eye opening experience. To no surprise, he excelled. “That teacher was like, ‘You’ve got something. You should really pursue this.’ But, at that time, I was like, ‘No, I have to pursue education,’” he recalls. So, like any good kid, he stuck it out. During college, he wound up pursuing engineering. But music was never far 04

behind. He still played in a faculty cover band at the music campus. After two years, it was time for him to transfer to a university and music was still pulling him in. He met a voice teacher at the college’s music school who had heard his demos. “He was like, ‘Man, you’ve got to get out of town. You’ve got to find a bigger city and really pursue this,’” Shawn says, “So, I decided to put my engineering education on hold and my university transfer on hold and I moved out to Vancouver, B.C. to pursue music and try and give it shot.” As can be expected, his parents weren’t immediately thrilled. Music was always a hobby, so his parents struck a deal with him. If he continued school - but for music - they would do their best to financially assist him. He then went to school in Vancouver, attending classes during the day and going to open mics at night, making connections every chance he could. To help raise funds, he entered a talent show at a local fair and won. A morning television show invited him on to perform which he gladly obliged to do. It was after that performance he met an agent with a big booking agency. They were impressed with his performance and signed him to his first official contract. He was first placed on gigs for classic rock acts, such as Heart, REO Speedwagon, Journey, etc. After putting some of his music online, an industry executive from Los Angeles reached out to him. They asked him when he was going to be in L.A. next. “I had never been to LA before. But I told them, ‘I’ll be there next week,’” he says. This opened the door to the music industry in the U.S. Making more connections, he was signed to ABC Studios for

music writing. He was making constant two-day trips from Vancouver to L.A. to be able to pursue music and continue writing and recording. “Everyone always wants to come to America to make it. Because, if you can make it in America, you can pretty much make it anywhere,” he says. He got multiple placements of his songs on TV, but he still felt held back. Executives would tell him what kind of song they wanted for the show and he had to churn out songs at their behest. And while it was a learning experience, that free reign he craved was missing. He kept this up for a year. After a show in Canada, Capitol Records/ EMI signed him. But, as everyone knows, the music industry is a fickle mistress. There were changes in management and Shawn was wary of where he stood. He then released Cosmonaut and the Girl. “The record did pretty good. It had three Top 20 singles in Canada on the radio, which was pretty cool. It was my first time getting radio play,” he says. With support from his label, it was time for the next record. Shawn journeyed to L.A., couch surfing and writing. After completing a substantial set of songs, he then pitched them to the label. They loved them. And so, Analog Love was born. When his new singles dropped, everyone was knocking on his door. ‘Sound of Your Heart’ went Top 20 in the U.S. and was propelling his popularity. He was then signed to Hollywood Records which also soon represented him globally. An A&R rep heard “Sound of Your Heart” playing in a yoga class and knew they needed to meet the man behind the

music. It was quickly shot up the ladder and their genuine love for his music gave Shawn the reassurance to sign with them. He quickly learned the name of the game for radio play- numbers. While you still have to have a great song, radio is all about the numbers. “I hate quantifying music. But, that’s what radio stations do. At the end of the day, they’re advertisement,” he says, “But people tune into the stations because they like the music. They go hand in hand.” In Canada, 35% of music on the radio has to be Canadian; the rest is reserved for international artists. So, when Shawn peaked there, the next big push was America. And while intimidating, he found it exhilarating to dive in head first. Being in a new market, radio promos were a joy. He got to share his music with new ears. And with so many popular Canadian artists being played in America (The Weeknd, Justin Bieber, Alessia Cara), American audiences were wondering what’s happening in the Great White North. “I had to think about it. And, we really do have a lot of programs that help fund musicians,” Shawn says, “There’s probably three or four different foundations that put money towards artists careers and developments.” Recently, Shawn has been working on a new single called, “Never Let Me Let You Go’” He wrote it back in February and worked with a “dream team” of writers with credits on Maroon 5, Meghan Trainor and Jason Derulo tracks. Shawn is eagerly awaiting the mix because it is a different vibe than ‘Sound of Your Heart’. The new track has a more summer vibe to it that shows another side to him. He and his label are not rushing a new album, though. While Shawn wants new material out, they want the music to have integrity and live up to their standards; there’s no room for rushing for the sake or releasing new music. He just finished a large tour and is focusing on the new album. As for a dream tour? He’d love to jam with Coldplay, Bruno Mars, OneRepublic and Adele. Shawn Hook is just getting started. And while he has had a steady stream of success, it’s his humbleness that keeps him grounded and will lead to his next big break. “I still don’t feel like I’ve made it,” he says, “It’s like I’m still trying to get to the next rung on the ladder.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

ciara renée Words by RILEY STENEHJEM Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

For Broadway and television actress Ciara Renée, her career basically started at birth. “I came out singing. Before I knew words, I was humming,” she says. Growing up in a small town, she started singing at her church and at talent competitions. At age 12, she won a record deal through one of the competitions. “My mom was like, ‘I don’t know, I think you’re too young,’ which is so true. I was so not ready for that,” says Ciara. “I was still wearing oversize boy t-shirts and I had know idea what was going on.” Luckily her career as a child singing star didn’t take off with the record deal, because a few years later, she did her first musical, and instantly realized her passion. “All of a sudden, I was like, that’s what I want to do,” she says. After that realization, Ciara dove headfirst into the world of musical theater, auditioning for anything and everything while she finished up high school. “Junior year I started doing theater, and ended up doing at least six or seven shows before I went off to college,” she remarks. After graduating, Ciara studied at Baldwin Wallace, a small liberal arts school in Ohio, where she learned a lot about the theater business. Straight after college, she made the move to New York City, and had an agent within a few weeks. Like most young actors, Ciara went through a lot of “no’s” before she finally got a “yes.” After moving to the city, she was doing auditions almost every day. “I went through my ’no’s’ really quickly so then I could get all of the yeses,” she says Her first job was a reading of Bull Durham for a lab at Lincoln Center, and then she was booked for three shows at once: Les Miserables, Big Fish, and After

Midnight. “I had to choose,” she explains. “I chose Big Fish because it was a role, and it was originating a role.” Big Fish ran for about four months on Broadway in 2013. Based on the novel by Daniel Wallace and the 2003 film by Tim Burton, the play tells of the adventures of traveling salesman Edward Bloom. During Ciara’s time as The Witch, she learned a lot about what it takes to work on Broadway. “It was super eye-opening, but I didn’t know what I was doing,” she remarks. Though she had been working as a professional actor for a while, Broadway was a whole new game. “I didn’t know how to pace myself for the endurance of doing eight shows a week and singing as high as I possibly could and everything that comes with that. I didn’t know how to do a real, big Broadway tech with all these crazy props and dressers and stuff like that,” she says. Not only was it her first time learning all of this, she was also extremely ill throughout the process, and even underwent surgery four weeks before the show closed. “I came back after two weeks,” she says. “I really learned about endurance. It wasn’t just endurance as a normal human who’s healthy and fine, it was the endurance of someone who’s really, really sick.” Having had that experience, as tough as it was, helped Ciara to prepare for whatever was thrown her way next. “A lot of my life has been learning trial by fire. I just get thrown into the pan and I have to figure out how to get out or not get burnt,” she explains. “I think that that’s good. I’ve learned a lot so quickly because I had to, and I think that’s a big reason why I’ve had so much success, because I just had to learn how to buck up and get where I was going.” Following

Big Fish, she had another trial by fire, as she says, when she was cast as Hawkgirl on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, the third installation of The CW’s superhero lineup. The transition from theater to television was definitely difficult. “[TV] is so much more technical and smaller. It’s more real-life,” Ciara explains. “But my real-life, if you look at me right now, I use my hands, I use my face, so learning how to make that read on camera and not look totally crazy was difficult for me.” On top of that, the entire production process of a television is completely different than theater. “I don’t think any Broadway show will ever be as difficult as TV,” Ciara remarks. “I did a Broadway show as circus people. I was having to do push-ups offstage to keep in physical shape for the show, and we were doing tricks and acrobatics and trapeze, and none of that was harder than doing a TV show.” Working on a show means demanding hours each day on set, and Ciara was shooting in Vancouver, thousands of miles from her home in New York. While other cast members could go home to Los Angeles for weekends, Ciara was stuck. “My people couldn’t come see me, and it was too hard in that way. I really didn’t figure that part out yet, so for the next one I’ll have to work on that,” she says. Despite challenges along the way, the learning process is what makes acting worthwhile for her. “Nothing we ever do as actors feels perfect, and I think that that’s something that I’m learning to really accept and be okay with,” she says. “We want to be perfect, we want to be perfectionists, we want to do the best that we can, but we have to realize that NKDMAG.COM

we’re always learning and that’s a really awesome thing. If you stop learning, then you should give up, you should not do this anymore — in any career.” Because the DC Universe has such a massive and devoted following, Ciara underwent both intense praise and criticism from fans of the comics. Being a woman of color playing a character who was portrayed white in the original series, she experienced some backlash at the start, but was overall incredibly grateful to represent women of color through her role. “I think as a woman of color, we are role models in a really, really important way, because there isn’t enough representation,” she remarks. “When you do see someone like us on TV, playing a superhero no less, I think it’s very important that we show that A, these women have agency, and B, that they’re skilled in whatever they’re supposed to be doing.” She’s done a lot of work with young people of color, and sees how disheartened they can become, in part because of the lack of representation in the entertainment industry. “Speaking to them, it’s sometimes really hard to hear how they feel about their lives, how powerless they feel in their everyday lives. I always hope that what I’m putting forward can show them that there is another way to be. You don’t have to feel powerless, you don’t have to feel out of control,” she says. Ciara hopes to give marginalized stories a voice through her next endeavor: her own production company, called OurSky Productions. “I’ve been finding that just about every actor I know does write, and they’re just like, ‘I’m not very good’. I hate that!” she remarks. “I’m sure you have something wonderful, even if it’s not the most skilled approach. You can learn that stuff. Being able to put your writing out there and being able to get over the fear of it being judged, that’s just the first step.” She’s working on two of her own writing projects now, a musical co-written with two friends, Arielle O’Keefe and Ariana Taxman, called Anything But Love, and a web miniseries called Two Brown Girls. Her main goal is just to put some new perspectives out there. “I think that it’s really important that we start hearing stories from people other than white men,” she says, “No offense, but they’ve been kind of the monopoly for awhile.” NKD 10

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kira kosarin

Words by ELIZABETH ZAROYSKIY Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair & Make-Up by EMILY DAWN

Kira Kosarin is just like your average teenager, with a few minor adjustments. Originally from New Jersey, the 18-year-old is set to go to UCLA in the fall. Her favorite things to do during downtime include hanging out with friends and working on her music - which frequently includes posting cover songs to her Twitter account which is normally riddled with musings of her everyday life. Her Instagram tells tales of everyday looks, selfies and the occasional video with puppies. But don’t be fooled - Kira Kosarin is not your typical teenager. Standing at the height of a platform of over 1.6 million followers, a Kids Choice Award under her belt and her show The Thundermans getting picked up for a fourth season, Kira is a role model to young people all over the world, showing that her superwoman persona on camera exists off screen as well. My first question for the young star gets right into the thick of things. If she had to chose a standout moment in 2016, what would it be? “I definitely think winning the Kids 12

Choice Awards is something that’ll always stand out in my mind. When I was young, I adored Nickelodeon and I watched the Kids Choice Awards every single year and always loved it. I thought if I could ever even go, it’d be the coolest thing ever. So to be on that stage was surreal. I still have no memory of what I said, it was all a blur, until I got home and actually watched what I said. It all happened so fast, it was a very cool experience,” she recalls. With no immediate acceptance speech planned, the process of receiving the award came down to complete surprise and Kira racking her brain in her seat seconds before the announcement, making sure she thanked everyone that’d been helpful to her career in any way. On air, Kira plays Phoebe, a responsible straight A student with telekinesis and freeze breath, among other things. In real life, the two share more similarities than immediately meet the eye. “I think she’s grown up as I’ve grown up, which has been really nice. She’s gotten a little bit more, calm. I think she’s maturing a little bit,

which is nice. and getting a more and more sarcastic and witty, which I love because that’s my sense of humor,” she says, “She started off as very much a good girl and she and Max kind of rub off on each other throughout the season so she’s gotten a little bit more real. I also like that she’s gone through more serious things, like breaking up with Link, with moving into a new part of her life, it’s really fun to watch her grow up.” As a young woman growing up at the same time as her on-screen character, it’s inevitable to ask how Kira has grown with the show, and where she sees the fourth season of Thundermans taking Phoebe. While answering this question, she pauses and reveals that the third season holds a pivotal moment for Phoebe’s life where superhero training will become more and more involved. For Kira, this means a lot more stunts and naturally, more stunt training. “There’s a lot of extra rehearsal time that goes with it, and working with our stunt coordinator who we absolutely love,” she says, “We have stunt doubles for anything that’s

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too dangerous but otherwise we get to wear harnesses and flip upside down, fly, it’s really fun!” Off screen, Kira admits that life does indeed imitate art and that coincidentally there are an unbelievable amount of similarities between her life and that of Phoebe’s. Between a break up spaced out in similar timing for both Phoebe and Kira, as well as a ton of other events which happen to occur simultaneously, Phoebe’s on-screen superhero persona manages to transcend TV screens and blend its way into Kira’s life. Graduating valedictorian of her high school two years early, Kira plans to attend UCLA in the fall, an accomplishment that she says will always fine very cool, but also very stressful. With filming of The Thundermans up in the air, she’d started the college application process a few times before but put it on hold to be able to maintain filming. “What happened last year was we thought Season 3 was the end. We shot a big series finale and thought we were done, so I applied for colleges locally out of my little town and was planning on deciding and going this year,” Kira reveals, “And then we got picked up for this fourth season that no one expected. So it kind of threw that for a loop. So what I decided to do was go to a great school that I loved that’s local, which is UCLA, so that come this time next year, if I’m working a lot, I can kind of try to maintain that while I’m going to school, or I can make the decision to put my acting on pause and study full time.” With plans to study psychology in the fall, Kira says she’s always been interested in the way the mind works and people’s behaviors as well as the ways they relate to one another, but she’d never thought of that in an academic sense. After an AP psychology class that she says answered questions about humans she’d never thought to pose but was always interested in, she decided that her major in school wouldn’t be theatre since she already does that in real life, but rather an academic study that she was truly passionate about and psychology fit that mold perfectly. “Being able to understand the reasons why a character has 16

certain underlying personality traits would be really helpful in portraying that character. Right now I’m playing a role that’s very similar to me, but I’m excited to branch out and think it’d be really useful,” she says, “It’d also help in the business - understanding people’s motives and how people work is really interesting. Especially in a business that’s such a high pressure industry.” And while she makes it look easy, the process of finishing school and maintaining work was anything but simple. “It was really hard trying to balance shooting with high school. It involved a lot of coming in three hours early to get my school work done as much as possible, then bringing AP chemistry flash cards down to set with me and studying them between lines. Doing school was hard, and doing the show was hard but doing them both just made everything exponentially more difficult,” Kira admits, “I had a really great team that helped me and my parents helped a lot, but I didn’t really have a social life for a few years. The past two years since I graduated has been really cool to get to focus my energy on my job and then having the part of my life that I’d always sacrificed in the past. It’s all about balance.” Like any teenager, for the very little time she has off, Kira enjoys spending time with her friends. Even if it’s just hanging out for twenty minutes by the pool or playing video games, being with friends gives her an opportunity to unwind and recharge. Otherwise, you can find her practicing ballet, a craft she’s been perfecting for years. In the next few years, Kira hopes to expand her acting horizons. She’d love to be the lead in a rom-com but is also totally enamored with the process of live acting with a long term sight set on Saturday Night Live. For now, she’s taking things one step at a time. Between acting, college, and maintaining a personal life while being an on and off screen superhero, Kira proves that work ethic and knowing the importance of balance can truly go a long way. With no evidence of slowing down, we can’t wait to see what milestones Kira brings about next. NKD

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ronni hawk Words by VANESSA SALLES Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

If you aren’t familiar with Ronni Hawk, it’s time you start binge-watching Disney Channel’s must-watch series, Stuck in the Middle. The talented young actress stars alongside an all-Latino cast and truly shines onscreen. For the Florida native, acting has always been a passion. However, had things gone a little differently, Ronni might’ve followed in the footsteps of her mother and sister and become a dancer instead. “My whole family dances,” she says. “My mom actually danced at Julliard and she really loved it and my sister, who’s also into dance, went to a high school for the arts. I was going to do the same before moving out to L.A.” Before making the big move to the west coast, Ronni got her start in the modeling world. “I started modeling at 12,” she says. “I had actually heard something on the radio about signing up with an agency and so we ended up calling them. I started working 3-4 days a week and once I started doing commercials, I became even busier.” A year later, Ronni found herself in L.A., ready to act. Of course, that meant having less and less time for dance. “It’s a pretty funny history with me and dance,” she says. “I wasn’t really into it when I was little and I would actually hide in the bathroom until my mom would make me go to class. Eventually though, I fell in love with it and ended up feeling really deprived when I gave it up.” As difficult as that was, Ronni’s come to peace with ending her dancing days and trading them in for days on set. “I used to dance six hours a day but then I realized that I actually like being lazy,” she laughs. “Giving up dance was something that kind of just happened. After moving, I was away from my dance studio and my school, which was hard for me and I decided that if I can’t commit to something completely, I’d rather give it up fully. Even though I did really love and enjoy it, I knew that it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. So, I gave it up to focus on my career as an actress.”

Giving up dance wasn’t the only tough thing about moving; dealing with being homesick and not knowing anyone around you can also take a toll. “Honestly, it took me a few months to get used to everything out here,” she says. “For a lot of nights, it was just me watching Netflix at home. But, now that I’ve gotten to know people and have made more friends, it’s fun being able to hang out with them. I do feel like LA is my home now.” In fact, L.A. is where Ronni landed her first series-regular role as Rachel Diaz in Stuck in the Middle. “I was super excited when I found out that I got the role,” she recalls. “Rachel is like the complete opposite of me and so it’s definitely fun and intriguing to play someone that’s so different. At first, I was actually really worried that people wouldn’t like my character; I thought the viewers might think she’s too mean or too intense but instead, people found Rachel to be funny and reacted really well to her, so that was really cool.” As for her newbie-status in the field, Ronni credits her acting coaches for the help. “I was a total rookie and learned as I went,” she reveals. “I learned a lot from John Homa and Jeff Dockweiler; they’re the ones who coached me and they still do. They’re amazing.” Recalling her audition process, Ronni admits it was quite the journey. “It was actually a two-year process,” she says. “I had my first audition and then they told me I had a callback to see and meet the producers. After that, I got a call to do the testing and ended up booking the pilot. Then, a year later, we found out that the show got picked up.” As exciting as that was, Ronni still remembers the time in between filming and getting picked up as being pretty stressful. “During that time, I tried my best to focus on other things like school and friends,” she says. “I hated not knowing what was going to happen and so whenever I really focused on the situation and how the pilot was still up in the air, it really sucked.

Luckily, everything worked out great. Being on the Stuck in the Middle set means being surrounded by other kids all day, every day. “The set is honestly so crazy,” she laughs. “It’s just a bunch of us running around and with so many different personalities around you, there’s never a dull moment.” A crowded set is no trouble to deal with when the outcome is a show that pushes boundaries and makes for good TV. “It means so much that we’re pushing the Latina culture out there,” Ronni says. “Hearing fans talk about how happy they are about it is such a great thing. It’s been such a blessing to be apart of this show and this network.” In fact, she credits the network for her newfound friends. “It’s amazing that Disney treats us all like one big family,” she says. “When I moved to L.A., I didn’t really know anyone and so it’s cool that they try and make sure that everyone takes the time to talk and get to know each other.” As successful as the show is, Ronni claims she’s still able to walk down the street unbothered. “Everything’s been really chill so far,” she laughs. “People don’t really recognize me while I’m out but, hey, maybe things will change after the second season.” For now, Ronni’s doing her best to just enjoy the present with her loved ones. “I don’t really have a lot of free time but whenever I do, I like to spend it with my friends and family,” she says. As for her career goals, the young actress has some pretty big plans for her future. “After the show, I’d love to move into film,” she shares. “Of course, the TV industry is awesome so I wouldn’t mind staying in it; it just depends on where the world takes me.” When it comes down to it, she’s hoping the world takes her to a role like the one in one of her favorite films. “My dream role would definitely be one like Natalie Portman’s in The Professional,” she reveals. “I really look up to her as an actress and I would love to do something like that.” NKD NKDMAG.COM

forever in your mind Words by NAUREEN NASHID Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Meet Emery, Liam, and Ricky - your new favorite boy band. After forming on The X-Factor in 2013 during Season 3, the boys didn’t stay on the show too long but quickly decided to keep the band going. “Me and Ricky, we met on The X-Factor. We were put together in a band with another guy, Jon. Six months down the line, Jon had to drop out of the band due to certain family issues. And we were performing at Digifest in front of 20,000 people, but we really needed a guitarist because we had rehearsed as a three piece,” Emery says. “And it was Emery’s dad that brought up the idea to bring Liam into the group. We practiced with him for a little bit, then performed with him, and it went really well,” Ricky says. After Digifest, once they returned back to L.A., Ricky and Emery asked Liam if he wanted to join the band permanently since he fit in so well. Liam immediately said yes, bought a one-way ticket to L.A. from New York, and never went back. “And the rest is history,” Liam says. They went to the recording studio soon after to lay down some tracks and see how they sounded as a group. When they 20

were confident enough, the boys were in search of a label that would sign them. It ended up being Hollywood Records. “It’s a part of the Disney family and we met Hollywood through having to deal with Disney. We had an awesome first meeting, and they really liked what we brought in,” Ricky says, “The day before we did the Disney meeting, we were at Radio Disney, and me and Emery were actually about to sign with Nickelodeon for this different show. And the heads of some of the casting came by and we told them that we were about to go to Miami to start shooting for the Nick show. And they told us to wait and to get a meeting with them first.” The boys were eating Chick-fil-A when they got the call, confirming that they were being signed to Disney and Hollywood Records for music, acting and touring. That was the day it really hit them that they were actually doing this. Immediately, they started writing and recording more music. “It was a good choice because they really are a great label,” Rickey says. Liam agrees and adds, “This was ten months after I joined that we got with Hollywood.” With a jam packed contract like that, it could get difficult to balance it all. “It’s

kind of natural. We wake up, we do work. I think it’s the three of us -- we know how to keep each other in a comfortable state. We keep each other in check. We can’t be separate. We are one unit and we are in charge of each other,” Emery says. Not only that, but they also have gained a team behind them that make sure they’re grounded as well. “It’s enjoyable, though it is hard.” Liam goes on to say, “I think it’s better to be a three piece if we’re going to be doing music and acting everyday,” Ricky adds. What makes it harder is that they’re not the only ones who are trying to make it. There are many others who are working within this industry, trying to succeed. Everyone has to do something that will set them apart from the crowd and Forever In Your Mind thinks they’ve got that covered. “I think you just have to have fun. You can’t let what others think get to you. You can’t be afraid to be goofy. Just go all out!” Emery says. Liam agrees, “Just be you -100%. If you’re 99% you, then it’s still not enough,” he says. “Got to push that 1%,” Ricky laughs. The boys are currently super busy working on their album and they’re

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hoping to release it sometime next year. “I think I want it to sound like us. Relatable, free, a hint of our insecurities and our experiences, and also a hint of our rebellious,” Emery says. “In our music, you can hear us. I’m throwing out examples -- so if you’re going to high school, and you can kind of go through every single person, you’ll find a little bit of us in every single person,” Ricky adds. They want to write and sing about things that they’ve dealt with and share that through their music. Until then, however, they’re using their new EP, FIYM, to launch themselves this year. Many musicians have inspired them, including 5 Seconds of Summer, One Direction, Ed Sheeran, Justin Timberlake, The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Rascal Flatts, and Justin Bieber, to name a few. Liam was quick to claim that he isn’t a Belieber, though he did enjoy Justin’s Christmas album. The hardest part of having so many influences is making sure that they’re applying them to their music without ripping anyone off. “You have to be conscious of that. I think I find myself doing this at least every session, where you’re writing and something sounds almost identical. I’m good at keeping myself in check.” Emery isn’t as good, though,” Liam says, “It’s common because you hear something and it gets stuck in your head. But, we can’t ever say that someone owns a type of music. It’s music -- it’s supposed to be how you feel and it’s universal. I think the best thing to do is just be aware, but also write from your heart and what feels right.” Other than the EP, they recently performed in Downtown Disney in July for World Emoji Day. The boys even had their own emojis made. “We also have another project with Disney coming up,” Emery says. They want to continue to set up shows like this throughout the rest of 2016. In fact, they’re one of the headlining acts for the Arthur Ashe Kid’s Day this year along with Flo Rida, Laura Marano, and Troye Sivan. They’ve even launched merchandise, which they’re super excited about. By this time next year, they’d like to go on a traditional tour along with having a number one album. “World domination takes time -- like two to three years -- but we’ll get there. I want a chance for everyone to listen to our music. I want it on the radio so that even if you don’t know us at all, you’ll know our songs,” Ricky says. NKD NKDMAG.COM

robbie kay Words by SHELBY CHARGIN Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Robbie Kay’s confidence is the first thing you notice when speaking to him. He’s poised, but laid back and easy to talk to. Having been in quite a few notable roles up until this point, it’s easy to see how the young star has been able to capture the attention of so many different audiences over the years. Beginning in acting on a whim audition he went to with his friends, soon the entertainment world took over his life. “I just sat outside the waiting room with our moms, and this casting director – this American casting director – was like ‘Well, why don’t you come in, try it out, you’re here, you might as well’,” Robbie recalls. Robbie went inside, read the words off the page without really knowing what he was doing, and soon was cast in The Illusionist. “I was like ‘Okay, cool, alright, let’s see how this goes.’ So I spend five days on a film set and absolutely fell in love with it,” he says. Finding passion in film quickly after those five days, Robbie set out to do more and more. Since the entire process of acting appealed to him, and he fell in love with acting

so young, he soon found himself with an agent after his first lead role in Fugitive Pieces opened at the Toronto Film Festival in 2007. “That was my first film festival experience and kind of getting the whole scope of the industry,” he explains. After living stints in the Czech Repbulic and London, Robbie’s family moved to Texas for his father’s job. It was there he finished up high school and really immersed himself in acting. After getting his diploma from a British school in Texas, he took a gap year and moved out to Los Angeles. Over the course of the past couple years, things have definitely worked out for Robbie. “I’ve had a lot of fun,” he states. And while, the fun is important, his numerous roles in notable series like Once Upon A Time and Heroes Reborn are something to be seriously proud of, and be okay with pushing off university to be a part of. “I was like, ‘Alright, well, let’s make it a gap decade,” he jokes about the subject of going back to university. Among the notable roles he has

had, the largest project that he has gotten to be a part of was Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. He was 14 when he signed onto the project, and while most 14 year olds get excited about vacations, Robbie was excited to spend months shooting in beautiful places like Hawaii, but also learned a lot about the scale of being in projects that are so large. “That was another new kind of experience, a learning curve,” he explains. “I was just really happy to be a part of that, it was great.” From big production movies to big production TV shows, Robbie’s done a lot so far in his career. The biggest difference between the two to him, is the pace. “I think that TV just does generally move a lot quicker because there’s more volume to take care of and also the writing structure is very different. With film you often, you have a script and it is largely locked in,” he says. In his experience, what you read is what you get on film scripts, while on TV shows there’s “a lot more voices that chime in. You’ve got input from the studio and from

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the network and things like that.” It truly is a structural difference between the two in his eyes. “When you come down to it, there’s still and action and a camera,” he says, “But the structures are very different and you can feel that.” However, Robbie feels that the quality gap between TV and film has “diminished over the past few years.” When it comes to TV, one of Robbie’s most well-known roles is his portrayal of Peter Pan on Once Upon A Time. “I feel that with Once you really can jump in and say ‘Oh, wow, this is the great world and it’s populated with characters that I already know about,” he says. Robbie’s role with Pan had a different take where he was very much a villain. “It was great, it was cool, I mean obviously the Disney version that archetype is really a familiar as a good guy, but really J.M. Barrie’s original was relatively evil. You know, that character did kill kids when they got too old. So it kind of was going back to the original version of that character,” Robbie says. And while Peter Pan was a character that seemed to channel a lot of Robbie’s charm, Tommy Clark from Heroes Reborn channeled the very poised and proud aspects of his personality. “I think the biggest difference for me was my involvement in the production. Heroes Reborn was the first time I was a regular in a TV show so I felt that I was starting at the same point as everyone else,” Robbie confesses. The experience of Heroes Reborn was brand new and he was able to feel more involved in the creative process. Involvement in his shows seems to be where Robbie’s whole life is, but between acting and constantly travelling, Robbie’s spare time is spent catching up with friends, taking pictures, and using social media to stay in touch with friends and fans. He’s a big fan of Instagram, and loves taking pictures. He uses travelling as his excuse to see friends. Recently, Robbie started production on No Postage Necessary, which will be out in 2017. NKD NKDMAG.COM

willa fitzgerald Words by MARY BARNES Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair by CHARLIE TAYLOR Make-Up by JULIE HARRIS

MTV’s Scream star Willa Fitzgerald was destined to be an entertainer. A daughter of two musicians, the Nashville native was born with star quality. Through the years, her interests may have changed but her love for the stage always stood strong. “[My parents] encouraged me from a young age to explore anything I was interested in,” Willa says. Although her initial passion was in dinosaurs and archeology, by fifth grade she became interested in forensics, which led to something more. “I entered story-telling and dramatic interpretation where you basically tell a monologue,” she says. “I remember my first competition. I was up against the big eighth graders and I got second place.” Willa broke into tears, sobbing as she ran onto the stage to accept her prize. “The mom standing next to [mine] said ‘wow it’s like The Academy Awards in here.’” It was that moment that started her serious interest in acting and performance arts. With musical parents, Willa always showed an interest in the music field herself. “I very seriously played piano through the beginning of high school and always saw that as a fun side job.” She never considered it as a career, but knew it would always be an important part of her life. “[Once] I started acting, it took up a lot of the time that I once 28

spent waking up at five a.m. to practice piano.” Despite knowing performing was her calling, Willa, a self-proclaimed “huge nerd,” still wanted to go to college. She studied at Yale University. “Initially I thought I wanted to be either a clinical psychiatrist or a research psychologist,” she says. She started off working in some laboratories on campus, while spending a lot of time in theater. It became clear that acting was her destiny. “What I really wanted to be doing with my life was telling stories on stage, especially stories that challenged the form of story-telling.” She graduated from Yale in 2013 with a degree in theater studies, spending most of her time working on experimental theater. “I found my niche with that community and with the community of new plays and new playwrights,” she says. During her senior year at Yale, she worked with the New York City based theater, dance and media company, The Wooster Group, participating in a few video blogs on their website. “A director in New York happened to see me in some of those vlogs and decided that I looked perfect for a part he was casting,” she says. The director contacted her and Willa sent in audition tapes. Though she didn’t land the role, her tapes were passed on to a talent agency who later

signed her. Though Willa’s love for writing, theater and directing were her first loves, they took a backseat to acting. “Plays are definitely something I find so exciting, special and rare. The experience that you have at small theaters, you just can’t replicate.” Working on new plays in particular is where her passions lie. “It’s really empowering and exciting because it’s such a collaborative experience. Often times, it’s the cast, the director and the writer all in the room kind of navigating this new terrain.” Willa moved to New York City after graduating and immediately began auditioning. Soon after, she was cast as a recurring character in the TV series Alpha House, created by comedic intellect Garry Trudeau. “I ended up getting to tell stories in a way that I never imagined,” she says of her television role. “I really did think I was going to come to New York and write plays and create experimental theater.” Willa felt lucky to land the gig on Alpha House, working with acting greats such as John Goodman, Amy Sedaris and Matt Malloy. “Those are the first people I got to act with… not a bad first time,” she jokes. “I was supported by the most amazing people. It was exciting.” Being new to the business, working with these experienced people helped her

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learn and grow as a film actor. “I was in Alpha House pretty much as soon as I got to New York,” she recalls of her first professional gig. “It’s kind of crazy to be learning how to do something while also having that thing permanently fixed in the world. The first thing I ever did, you can watch.” Though she spent her time on television sets with her father, who worked as a prop master after retiring from his music career, the transition to film acting was a major paradigm shift for Willa, who had stage acting so deeply fixed in her brain. “I was interested and prepared to learn a totally different way of acting,” Willa says. “What surprised me the most is just what a totally different set of skills it is to be an actor on film.” After Alpha House, Willa was cast in MTV’s series Scream, based off of the popular Wes Craven movies. “I read the pilot script before I auditioned and I just thought it was really well written,” she says. “It was just one of those things where you read it and you’re like ‘oh that’s appealing.’” She felt that working on this show would be a lot of fun, and was cast as the lead character, Emma. “Emma is such an interesting character because she’s literally thrown into a world where everything is trying to kill her. The threat is coming from all sides and she has no idea where it is actually coming from and that’s a fascinating point to begin from with a character. A really unknown threat and the possibility of constant attack,” she says. On a show where there is a high risk of death for any and all of its characters, Willa never felt a threat for the security of her job. “I think actors as a breed always feel like we don’t have job security,” she says. “[The cast] were all, rightly so, afraid for our jobs, but at the same time, loving our time on the show and excited to be there.” Producers of Scream keep their actors in the dark as far as knowing the major story arc for the show goes. “We enjoy it as much as the audience [does],” she jokes. “There’s a lot of fun finger-pointing that happens at the table reads [when we get the new script].” Not knowing what course the story will take makes the jobs of the actors a bit easier, Willa thinks. “[We don’t have to] wonder how we can fit this episode into 32

the greater arc of the show because [we] don’t know what [that] is. We just focus on the material in front of us.” Scream has not yet been picked up for a third season, but the ending of Season 2 leaves it open to continue on. “But we weren’t renewed [for season two] until the end of our season,” she says. Though she spent the first week after wrapping Scream sleeping, Willa is not taking the hiatus off. “I’ve got some things on the horizon that obviously I can’t talk about yet,” she says. “I’m really excited to just focus on some projects that I’ve been working on very haphazardly on the side while trying to shoot.” Willa plans on focusing on writing and directing during her time off before a new job offer comes before her. “When you have a little window of time, it’s the perfect time in which to really double down and try to work on your own stuff,” she says. Willa has many goals for her future, on top of theater, writing and directing. “I think that getting to act with as many other excellent actors as possible is just something that I strive for,” she says. Not having a formal acting education, Willa feels that being around veteran actors on set helps her learn, and is exciting to watch. “I’m also very excited to direct in the future and to direct my own writing,” she shares. Willa is also looking to collaborate with some people from her past. “I think what’s most fulfilling about this industry is that it is so small and you realize that when you start to encounter the same people time and time again,” she says. Working with someone you’ve already built a rapport with leads to more creativity. “You can create better things more quickly because you’ve already got a short hand for how you’re going to work with each other,” she says. Willa hopes to work in theater in the future as well. “I think that there’s something for an actor in the theater which is so liberating in that every night you have a new opportunity to make a completely new experience for yourself and for the audience, and to find things in the play that you never found before,” she says. “In TV and film, those are locked forever and so many of those traces are totally out of your control. You just have a lot more control as an actor in the theater.”NKD

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kelleigh bannen Words by TAYLOR DOUGHERTY Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

The abundance of talent coming from the women of country music these days is astounding, and one of the most unique in game at the moment is Kelleigh Bannen. Evoking sounds and vibes of a young Sheryl Crow or Natalie Maines, Kelleigh brings an edge to country music that isn’t heard enough. While Kelleigh grew up in Nashville, and always had a love for music and songwriting, she never had any notion that a career as a country singer/songwriter would actually be the path she would take. “I grew up kind of peripheral to the music business but very much aware that it was a thing. It just 34

wasn’t my family’s business,” she says, “I had a lot of babysitters who were demo singers, or back then singing jingles was a big thing. They’d be going to Vanderbuilt but sing jingles on the side for money, so I knew a lot of people that had been chasing the dream and it maybe didn’t work out for them.” For that reason, Kelleigh stayed away as long as she could. She went to college and was planning on going to law school. While studying for the LSAT, she started taking writing more seriously. After college, she moved back to Nashville to fully chase the artist dream. In 2011 she signed a major label

deal with Universal Music Group/ EMI Records, and during her time there released four singles: “Famous”, “Smoke When I Drink”, “You Are What You Love” and “Sorry On The Rocks”. During this time, she began collaborating with prominent Nashville producer Paul Worley, who has previously worked with Martina McBride, Sara Evans and the Dixie Chicks. Kelleigh credits the Dixie Chicks in particular with being “a really formative project” for her because the predominate voice was an alto, and she didn’t sound ‘pretty.’ “For me it was like, oh, you can be really great and it can be about something else other than

sounding pretty,” Kelleigh says. During this time she also began working with Jason Lenning, her current producer, which she calls a “really collaborative, loving, caring, friendship, process.” “[He’s] one of the safest people that I’ve ever met, and one of the most creative. He’s almost like a chemist of sounds,” she says. Although she had released singles to moderate success, an album remained elusive and unreleased, leading to frustrations with her label. So after five years with EMI, she decided to hit reset on her career and part ways with them earlier this year. “This past fall we started feeling like we weren’t sure there was a way through any longer at Universal… I felt like I no longer had the shine to them that I needed to have the attention and resources I needed behind my career. And they were really supportive and let me go,” she says, “For us, it was about regrouping, putting something out and starting again and then sort of seeing what opportunities unfold out of that, and not being so obsessed. I love being on the radio and I love country radio, but the last several years of my record deal were really about writing singles, writing singles, writing hits, writing hits – and I think that doesn’t make for the best music.” This has led her to also be a strong proponent for not just herself, but other women in country music fighting to be heard in the current radio system, which caters heavily towards men and a place where having an absolute smash hit is the only way to be heard on there. “Just because there’s been one or two new female voices on the radio in the last year, I don’t want them to be used as a token and I don’t want to be left out because there’s a token. Let’s be serious about embracing new voices on the radio,” she said. After being released from her label she wasted no time finally getting new music to fans, independently releasing an EP titled Cheap Sunglasses less than one month after ending her relationship with EMI. The EP, which features her current single “Landlocked”, has been a smash with fans new and old. “The people that have been around are still there, excited and ready to cheer me on and spread the word. And then there’s totally new people who have been like ‘Saw

your video on CMT, think it’s cool!’ It’s been really encouraging and I feel like they waited for me, which is amazing.” Eager to stay connected with her fans in other ways, she also began a blog called This Nashville Life last fall showcasing her journey through the world of an up and coming country artist – the good and the bad. “I write about music, but also write about some of the glamorous stuff of being an artist and I write about hard stuff too, and the process. That was sort of a stopgap. I’d wanted to do something that sort of let them in,” she says. Soon she’ll be releasing a podcast

that will be more industry focused. If there’s anyone who’s going to be the next breakout woman in country music, it’s going to be Kelleigh. She has a tenacity and energy that is so rare in today’s industry and a drive that is relentless. In a business that is easier to give up on than to see through, she’s found another way to get herself out there, another way to continue on. She will always find a way to be heard, whether it be through music, blogs or podcasts because she knows what she’s meant for and is someone who won’t take no for answer, and she shouldn’t. NKD

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EMILY BETT RICKARDS Words & Photos by CATHERINE POWELL Hair by MICHAEL DUENAS Make-Up by AMY STROZZI Styled by AUDREY BRIANNE Styling Assisting by JACKIE ROSE

It’s somewhat rare to catch Emily Bett Rickards in Los Angeles – let alone on a weekday. Even this particular Tuesday was not fully spent in California for Emily as immediately after our photo shoot she hopped in a car to LAX to fly back to Vancouver – both her home city and her current place of employment. Just two days before she celebrated her 25th birthday (with her real family) following an exhausting but exciting weekend at San Diego Comic Con (with her cast family). The blending of her work life and personal life doesn’t stop at scheduling, though. After four years of helping shape Felicity Smoak (her character on the hit CW show, Arrow), work is more personal than ever for Emily. Growing up just outside of Vancouver in a home full of animals – that she just couldn’t stop bringing home – Emily was never lonely. She was heavily involved in gymnastics until she was 12, when a back injury forced her to quit. She dabbled in other sports as well through her adolescence in an attempt to ignore her interest in acting, because her parents didn’t fully

understand it. Emily’s initial interest in acting was sparked by two people most girls born in the 1990’s grew up idolizing – Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen. “I just wanted to recite words and have this sort of make believe world,” she says. After attending the same school from kindergarten through 10th grade, she switched schools and expedited her graduation so she could focus all her attention on acting. At 17, she moved into Vancouver and enrolled in an acting program. Following the move, Emily’s first role was in a Nickelback music video. Following that, it was another year before Emily booked another role. Her filmography doted a children’s movie and an indie film before Arrow happened, which changed everything for Emily. “That just became this escalating force,” Emily says. Her initial audition for the role of Felicity was for a one-episode guest role, which quickly turned in to two and then eventually into a series recurring role for the entirety of Season 1, followed by a Season 2 promotion to series regular. “I was working at a dog

apparel shop at the time,” she laughs. Fans of the show immediately responded to the character of Felicity from her first appearance. “She was sort of the audience’s perspective and I guess that’s what everybody was hoping would happen,” she says, “It just started to grow from there and she became part of this storyline, and was able to add what was missing at the time,” Even before being promoted to series regular, Emily was already working more than she ever had in her life – both acting and building up endurance for her role. While most of the characters on Arrow have been pulled out of the Green Arrow comic series, Felicity Smoak was never a major character in any version of Oliver Queen’s story. To give this character who has never really had a story, her own history, has been an exciting experience for Emily. “Just coming from a selfish actor’s perspective, I’ve never spent this long with a character before. I’ve never been able to help her grow,” she says, “It was sort of freeing to not have too much backstory because then I get to create this human NKDMAG.COM

being.” Just as the audience has been learning about Felicity’s family, youth and history, so has Emily – which also has its downfalls. “I don’t have answers, but the thing is our answers are always changing,” she says. In the infinity large DC Universe, there are multiple eras and earths that can impact a character’s story, and that is always at the comic writer’s hand. The writers of the show have taken a large amount of creative freedom with their version of Arrow, so even if Felicity had an established story somewhere, it wouldn’t necessarily come into play on screen. Part of that untold story has been the love story between Felicity and Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell). “From Day 1, I always presumed Felicity to not being able to talk to an attractive man,” Emily jokes, “She gets flustered, and I think that really resonated in an honest way.” Prior to working on Arrow, Emily had never heard the term “shipping” before, but soon after her first guest appearance on the show, fans began rooting for the couple to get together. “It took a while to really understand the weight of it,” she admits, “It’s a popular ship.” She finds it especially rewarding as an actor when fans can connect to characters, but even more so when they can connect to relationships in an honest and healthy way. “We all love tortured love and watching tortured love, but the only thing that really matters in life is your relationships with other people and your relationship with yourself,” she says, “And if that’s something you can find through TV and watching characters, you’re hopefully finding the right things in your life.” After three full seasons of will-theywon’t-they, Oliver and Felicity finally found their way to each other at the end of Season 3, when they (literally) drove off into the sunset together to embark on their new life. Come Season 4 the couple was put back on an emotional roller coaster that peaked with an engagement, and eventually resulted in a break up. At the moment, the two are coexisting as partners on Team Arrow. Emily hopes that the awkward tension of having to work with someone you’re in love with when you’re not with that person will be accurately por38

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trayed, but is also aware that is a hard feeling to convey on screen. “Felicity is so strong, and she’s become so much stronger. I have to relate it to myself – I was 20 when I started playing her, and I just turned 25, and I honestly feel that within the last two years I’ve grown up a lot,” she says. Since Felicity was introduced on Arrow, Emily has asked to keep her light. But following the Season 4 finale – where Felicity had to make the impossible decision of letting 10,000 people die from a nuclear bomb, rather than letting the whole world fall to ruins – Emily understands that Felicity can no longer be light, and is excited to explore that new side of her. “I don’t think that saying something is the lesser of two evils ever really feels like the lesser of two evils, because it still happened,” Emily says, “[Felicity] definitely has bottled it all up.” Felicity is hiding her pain under her humor and behind her computer, but Emily thinks those coping mechanisms aren’t going to work any longer. “She’s carrying this huge amount of guilt, and she’s not letting it go in anyway. All it’s doing is festering up and around episodes 3-5 [of Season 5] we’re going to see her break,” Emily reveals. As viewers began to learn last season, Felicity’s ability to stay strong in order to protect other people is a trait she received from her mother, Donna (Charlotte Ross). “Donna’s emotional intelligence is always on point, and she’s a nurturer and she was always a fighter, which Felicity didn’t realize she was until she started working in this world,” Emily says. Felicity and Donna were able to strengthen their

somewhat strayed relationship last season – just in time for her father, Noah (Tom Amandes), to reenter the picture. “Their brain map is really similar. How they get from Point A to Point B in their synapse GPS is very similar,” Emily says, “I think the writers did a really good job of making [Felicity] really blended.” Being on a show where everyone’s character’s life is constantly put in danger, losing a member of the team is expected, but in no way easy to cope with. Season 4 saw the tragic death of Laurel Lance/Black Canary, portrayed by Katie Cassidy – who had been on the show since the first episode. “We didn’t know who was dying – we knew someone was dying – up until Episode 15. And it was around Episode 8 that it started to get really real, because I just remember thinking ‘It doesn’t matter who leaves, it’s going to hurt’,” Emily recalls, “A very big part of my work life was taken away.” Emily and Katie are still great friends and hang out often, but it was still a change that was difficult to get used to. “I was very upset. Everybody was very upset. It’s hard when a piece of your family, still feels like a piece of your family but their presence isn’t around as much as you want them to be,” Emily says, “It’s like she moved or something.” Luckily, in the Arrowverse, there are plenty of flashbacks that Katie can appear in – but the Arrow creators have gone on record stating that Season 5 will be the last season of flashbacks. Presuming the show gets picked up for a sixth season (which is highly likely given its ratings), it will restructure itself a bit. “The show was always

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planned for five years, and that’s not to say it won’t go on, but this is coming full circle. This is the end of its potential capacity, but it’s not the end of its potential,” Emily says. She expresses that the character of Oliver Queen wasn’t birthed in the pilot and that he had lived a full life before the moment the show started, and that’s what they have been exploring with the flashbacks. Regardless of how much longer the show goes on, it is already clear that Felicity Smoak has made an impact on this generation of superhero lovers. She has been crafted from an awkward, nerdy tech support worker into a powerful, smart, strong and funny woman. “It was always the women in TV that I loved, and it was always the stronger women or the women that were my age at the time, or doing what I wanted to do, or handling situations in ways I hoped I could emulate in the future,” she says, “I’m not sure if I knew that that’s what I wanted to do in terms of being a good representation for women who were my age when I was thinking about it, but having role models is very important. And having a vast majority of role models is very important, and I would like to hope that Felicity is one for women.” Emily respects the way Felicity handles things, and considers her a role

model in her own life, and she wants to present her in a way that is strong, but also shows that she is messy and does make mistakes. “People are dynamic and people are imperfect, and people are strong in their own core, and it’s really important to be able to show that,” Emily says. While Arrow takes up the majority of Felicity’s waking hours, she does have a handful of other projects on the

they have a solid amount of “funny, messy, relatable” material to work with. Looking farther ahead, she would love to direct one day and continue collaborating with people. If at the end of filming Season 5 the cast of Arrow was informed that their story had been told, Emily knows she will walk away with a handful of invaluable lessons and memories. As she reflects the past weekend’s Comic Con, she gushes about her cast mates – all of whom she doesn’t hesitate to refer to as family. “They’re all three-dimensional, fucked up, messy, cuddly human beings,” she says, smiling, “I’ll jump in front of a gun for anyone of those people – doesn’t matter who it is.” As the DC Universe continues to expand on television, if Arrow were to end it wouldn’t necessarily signal the end of Felicity Smoak. Emily believes that Felicity is a role that she could always return to, in some shape or form. “There’s also the possibility that Felicity can come back and she doesn’t need to be played by myself. Felicity can come back as a 15-year-old or a 40-year-old,” Emily says, “I do think that Felicity is timeless, but I am not. It’s really interesting – your characters are immortal within themselves, but they are not immortal in their worlds. If people wanted to keep making DC World forever, Felicity could stay alive forever.” NKD

“I’M NOT SURE IF I KNEW THAT THAT’S WHAT I WANTED TO DO IN TERMS OF BEING A GOOD REPRESENTATION FOR WOMEN WHO WERE MY AGE WHEN I WAS THINKING ABOUT IT, BUT HAVING ROLE MODELS IS VERY IMPORTANT. AND HAVING A VAST MAJORITY OF ROLE MODELS IS VERY IMPORTANT, AND I WOULD LIKE TO HOPE THAT FELICITY IS ONE FOR WOMEN.”

books. She filmed a “meta horror film” titled Slumber with Richard Harmon (The 100), Meaghan Rath (New Girl) and Darby Stanchfield (Scandal) that is currently is post-production, and she has a few things lined up for next summer’s hiatus. Sooner than later, Emily would like to get behind the camera and “create stories on all platforms”. Her and her writing partner work together rather frequently, and believe

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Top by KAREN ZMABOS BLACK LABEL Skirt by AS BY DF Bracelets by CHAN LUU, HENRI BENDEL, AV MAX, HEATHER GARDNER

jack baran Words by SHELBY CHARGIN Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

With 1.4 million subscribers, YouTube star Jack Baran has worked for the past six years on creating a brand that really represents himself. And he’s confident in what he does. “I started on YouTube six or seven years ago, I was really into editing.” Jack expresses happily. “I never really talked on YouTube for the first two years, I just made music videos to random songs, and just edited them together on my computer and honestly, I was just really into the tech side of production and I really liked behind the scenes.” Jack was very quick to understand the community and trends of YouTube. “There came a time when people really wanted to hear me talk. So I started to make videos where I actually talked, spread my opinions,” he says, He focused on pop culture a lot and made a lot of different videos. 46

Jack’s main focus is definitely still editing and making his videos “aesthetically pleasing and clean.” And while he is still very particular about editing, the content in his videos has truly become a passion as well. “I feel like my theme is no theme,” he explains vibrantly. “It just kind of like my own. I feel like content that I make is kind of what I’m interested in at the time, and I go through a lot of phases so I know my YouTube viewers kind of can identify different phases of my adolescence.” He believes it shows in his videos, and with his current obsession being lifestyle videos, he’s able to go back into a lot of editing. “I can take something like a ‘Get Ready With Me’ video, and add my own twist to it. And still, you know, make content that has an overall idea that I like, because you know I like lifestyle, and just add my own touch to it,” he says. For

Jack, having his content be original and creative is so important. YouTube has been such a huge part of his life, that he feels as though his medium is not just a job, but a form of self-expression. He hasn’t felt the pressure as much as the excitement when it comes to subscriber numbers. “It’s definitely an exciting goal to you know just gain in anything. And YouTube numbers are quantifiable. So you can definitely see progress being made. I got excited when I got 100 subscribers, 1,000, 100,000 and a million. And honestly, it just kind of becomes relative the more time you do it,” he says. His view on the numbers is refreshing. It’s not about them to him, it’s about making content that his viewers can really sink their teeth into. “As you grow doing it for so long, like six years, the pressure is relieved because you understand it. It’s all

relative,” Jack says. With the growth of YouTube, some of the site’s users have been known to spread hate, and constantly posting mean comments on videos and using their anonymity to say things they wouldn’t normally say. “I don’t get much hate,” Jack explains, sounding relieved. “I feel like that’s because I’m just like confident in myself, and I come off pretty strong on the internet.” When he gets those comments, he’s very adamant about not letting it get to him. “It’s a comment on their own self-reflection,” he explains. He grew up in YouTube, and it’s made him prepared for those things, and it’s also helped him learn to handle it better. While YouTube is Jack’s favorite platform, he loves Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. “I’m pretty good at removing myself from the YouTube world when I need to, so sometimes I forget I have to Snapchat,” he laughs. Having been around the community for so long, it’s good that Jack knows when to remove himself. He confesses that it can sometimes be very easy to compare yourself to others, specifically in the YouTube community. “Especially now, there’s such an

oversaturated market of YouTubers. There’s ten times more YouTubers than there was when I was starting on YouTube,” he says. He handles it my focusing on himself, and his own content and being proud of what he’s done thus far with his career, and “not getting too caught up in what everyone else is doing.” He believes staying true to who you are is the most important. And while Jack was on two non-scripted Awesomeness TV shows, including First Times With Jack + Jenn that he was able to really showcase himself, acting isn’t exactly his main priority at the moment. He wants to stick with where his heart lies in music and editing. “There’s a lot of pressure and feeling like I should be acting because a lot of YouTubers want to act, but I realized – especially after being out [in Los Angeles] for two years – that I’m only going to do what I want to do,” he says, “To me, nothing is worse than showing up at something and being a part of something that you’re not excited about.” Jack continues to speak to his personal mantra of just being yourself and doing what you love to make the best content. As a YouTuber, his message is extremely

important. It’s easy to get lost in the shuffle, but he’s been able to sustain himself for almost seven years of content. Jack is super into both fashion and music. Having recently gotten to go to Fashion Week in New York, he really was surprised he enjoyed it so much until he realized that’s what he loves to do. “I make fashion lookbooks on YouTube mixed with editing, mixed with music…” he says. He gets to wear outfits and put all of the things he loves together in one amazing video. For him, Fashion Week was so intoxicating because “it was like a real life lookbook.” “There was like a concept, there was fashion, and there was music and I was like, ‘Obviously I love this’,” he laughs. Fashion Week was the perfect inspiration for him to continue to pursue and figure out the things he loves. And while he wouldn’t give any super detailed info about the content coming up on his channel, it’s not a surprise that he has a lot in the works, and that his subscribes, and everyone should be looking out for whatever amazingly creative idea that Jack’s six years of experience can help create next. NKD

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cierra ramirez Words by ELIZABETH ZAVOYSKIY Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

Cierra Ramirez is only 21-yearsold but with a resume that includes a starring role on The Fosters, recurring roles on countless TV shows including The Secret Life of the American Teenager, and a recent musical release that’s been featured on just about every top Spotify playlist in the past few months, it’s safe to say that Cierra’s road to success has reached a level of maturity beyond her years. Currently, Cierra is on hiatus after filming the first half of the fourth season of The Fosters and has recently released her debut EP titled Discreet. Between music and filming, finding time for anything else is difficult but she somehow makes it work. “Not a lot of people know that this is how I originally got into acting - I was a singer before. And I wanted to wait and strategically come out with 50

my music at a good time. I think I’m finally at the right age and the response has been great so far,” Cierrasays. The project, which has been in the works for over a year now, is a collection of six songs heavily influenced by urban pop, a style of music Cierra admits is a departure from the 16-year-old character she plays on TV. But alas, Cierra is not 16 and the EP is not only a testament to her IRL persona, but to her maturity as both a woman and an artist. The EP cover features a mature and polished Cierra, clad in a white shirt and fringe bottoms and since release, has amassed over a million streams on Spotify. While it’s inevitable that there are stark contrasts between Cierra and Mariana Adams-Foster, the teenager she has played on screen for three years now, the writers The Fosters recently introduced a rather fitting

and timely commonality - in the last season of The Fosters, Cierra was given the opportunity to flex her vocal chops and sing on the show, a surprise to fans who didn’t know the actress was also a singer. With the filming for that particular episode spanning over two weeks, Cierra recalls that it’s probably been one of her favorite episodes to date. “To see the final product made it all worthwhile. It was pretty crazy and beautifully done, I’m really happy with it,” she says. An other major priority for Cierra is continuing on with her role on The Fosters as her character deals with the aftermath of a school lockdown and her boyfriend hiding in her home with a gun. “That event is going to stick with her this whole season and create certain situations for her - she’s definitely going to go into a really dark place because of

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that,” Cierra says. For Cierra, this will mean exploring a different side of Mariana who “typically does it all”. Between being on the robotics team, dancing, and being a generally positive character, this entire season will definitely be a contrast from the way Cierra has typically portrayed Mariana. “They always keep me on my toes with her. She’s very inspiring, even to me. She wants to be president one day. And then she’s captain of her robotics team. So it’s pretty cool to play both worlds but then you get that dark side. She’s usually very put together and she’s going to kind of [continue to] break down this season,” she says Typically portrayed as a role model for young girls, Mariana is unbelievably smart, popular and not afraid to show it, “She loves her some nail polish but she’s also really, really smart and it’s important to show girls that because why can’t she be both?” Cierra says, “It’s so stereotypical that girls need to be girly and kind of dumb down but she stands up to that. She’s all about equality and shows that girls can do anything that boys can do”. Naturally exploring a darker side to Mariana in the wake of a traumatic event only takes this complexity further, showing fans that women are multi-dimensional beings and that it is absolutely okay and a natural thing to be. Her real life passion only takes this further and brings her characters on screen mantras into the real world. Aside from the shooting, her character in the series was also recently reunited with her biological father, a story line she credits had more of a prominent effect with her recently recast twin on the show, Jesus. Now played by Noah Centineo, Cierra says, “Noah is amazing, we’ve definitely got that twin telepathy. It wasn’t hard to pick up that relationship at all.” With shooting for Season 4B right around the corner, commencing in September, Cierra is excited to see where the show goes. “How much can happen to this one family? The drama is going to continue - the excitement and the fear. One thing I really love about NKDMAG.COM

the show is that it’s all about the love of the family,” she says, “All of their world’s are going to fall apart, but together they are each other’s worlds. I’m really hoping that fans like it.” When asked what she thinks is in store for Mariana past high school, Cierra concedes that she thinks Mariana would be a great lawyer, “She’d be the best lawyer - I’d hire her. But the route she’s going, the robotics and the coding would be really cool as well. It’s been really great to play with that story line because having a role model on TV that’s smart and girly - there’s not a lot of girls in coding, or there are but this has helped inspire girls. Coding is everything. It really is the base of everything we do and those jobs are needed,” Cierra says “If this role can inspire girls to get into that, that’d be really amazing.” An inspiration to young women on and off screen, Cierra understands that her role is not only as an actress or a singer or a songwriter, but as a model for young girls, a role that she doesn’t take lightly. In terms of singing more on the show, Cierra admits it’d likely not happen on screen, but off screen is another story. “I’m constantly singing and listening to music. Some of the crew, every Wednesday, they bring their ukuleles so there’s just always music on set,” she says. Musically her next step is touring and

the album, which she admits would need to be perfect and ready before release. With hopes of getting really cool features and getting deeper into the writing process, Cierra’s taking things one step at a time. When asked if she’d prefer her own tour or to open for someone, she reflects on the pros and cons of both. Obviously a solo tour would be amazing, but opening for someone would be a more natural and less hectic step. “I’d die to open for Rihanna - BadGalRiRi - I love her. Ty Dolla $ign would be really cool, too. He features on everything and that’d be really fun. I have my dream list of collaborators - like Drake. I mean who wouldn’t want to collaborate with Drake? But, also Fifth Harmony - they’re all about the girl power and I can get down with that - I think that’d be really awesome as well,” she says. With the remainder of 2016 dedicated primarily to filming for The Fosters, Cierra is excited to see where the show goes for the remainder of the season. With writers that remain rather private with the direction of the show until filming, each day on set is filled with surprises. Similarly, the road to musical fame is a winding and twisting route as well, but Cierra is ready to take things one step at a time and see where the future takes her. If it’s anything like her past three years, we’re sure it’ll be quite impressive. NKD

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Words by NAUREEN NASHID Photos by CATHERINE POWELL

rozes

“I’ve always been a musical person,” Elizabeth Mencel (better known as Rozes) says. “It’s kind of always been my emotional outlet.” Brought up in the suburbs of Pennsylvania, Rozes had a hard time growing up. “In middle school and high school, I had a rough time fitting in, you know, like, bullies or whatever, so I kind of started leaning towards music. I wrote my first song in 9th grade,” she says. She started studying piano at the age of 6, and then eventually started playing other instruments, including clarinet, saxophone, guitar, violin, flute and the trumpet. Her home was jazz-influenced, which had a lot of hand in her love for music. She performed in talent shows as well. “It just became my life,” she says. While she’s grown up, and moved on from her small town to the big city, one thing still hasn’t changed. Recently, the singer posted a series of screenshots of someone commenting mean things on her Instagram pictures on her Twitter. “It was something that had caught me off guard. I had not really reached the point in my career where people would write mean things on my page,” Rozes says. “It’s usually just people who discovered my music and followed me because they’re fans. So I kind of was panicking a little bit. I was taking it very personally, and then my boyfriend was like why don’t you go look on Justin Bieber’s page and see that people will say anything just to say anything. And I hate to say that it made me feel better to see that happen to other celebrities, but it did because it made me realize not to take it personally.” “It’s really tough for me because I’m very open about my anxiety and depression,” she continues. These bullies have even gone as far as commenting on pictures her friends and family have posted of her, pointing out her weight, looks, etc. But Rozes continues to be positive and ignores them. The majority of her fans discovered her from the hit song, “Roses,” that she collaborated on with The

Chainsmokers last summer. “They first followed me on Twitter, and then messaged me, sending me a bunch of tracks. And I like building a personal relationship with people and not just through a computer. I asked them if we could somehow get in a session together, and they happen to live in New York,” Rozes explains. “So I took the train out and we met in Drew’s apartment. Then we took this lyrical idea that I had and we transformed it into what is now “Roses.” However, neither Rozes or the DJ duo were ready for the massive hit that it became. “None of us thought it was going to be this big thing. We all just thought, ‘Oh, this was just a fun thing. It’ll probably do well on Soundcloud.’ And then when we released it, it just went crazy,” she recalls. The song was at the top of the charts all over the world, and even went platinum three times in Australia, and two times in New Zealand, US, Canada and Sweden. “I think it was because it was just so different -- not even just for The Chainsmokers -- but for the anything pop today. It kind of just caught us all off guard. Neither my team or I were really ready for what this song brought,” she says. It was because of this song that Rozes’ career really got jumpstarted. “It’s like being able to put something on my resume. Like all my friends went to college and had an experience -- that was my experience,” she says. With her positive experience collaborating with The Chainsmokers, Rozes definitely sees herself being open to more in the future. “As far as EDM goes, I’d love to collaborate with Calvin Harris or David Guetta. I want to go for the top guy,” she says. Her latest EP, Burn Wild, dropped back in February with seven of her own original songs. “It was a very emotional time for me,” Rozes admits. “It was a chapter in my life that I really needed to get past. And so I had written that -- most of the songs -- almost a year earlier. I needed to put it out there to get to the next chapter.” The EP was inspired by a

breakup. “It was kind of just me in different stages of a broken heart, really. I sat down on the piano and just wrote,” she says. When it came to influences, Rozes had a good variety. “I would definitely say Lana Del Rey, BANKS, CHVRCHES, and Adele, as far as emotional lyrics go. And probably Amy Winehouse, though, you can’t really hear much of it in there. There were definitely certain jazz influences,” she says. The making of each song was different, but Rozes was heavily involved, making sure everything sounded exactly how she wanted it to. There is one song in particular that she would say is her favorite. “I think ‘Fragile’ because it’s the most vulnerable I’ve allowed myself to be in a song. As well as ‘Everything’,” she says, “But I think ‘Fragile’ because it’s definitely relatable to a lot of people as far as being promised something, but somebody not being able to hold to their word. And it’s hard for me to admit that it’s hurt me, but I was able to on the song.” With 2016 soon coming to an end, Rozes is in the works of trying to do a tour in the West Coast since she just finished one on the East. Other than that, she’s doing one-off shows here and there, such as in clubs, or a few sponsored by Pepsi. She’d love to do more music festivals as her experiences with them so far have been great. “I did Coachella with The Chainsmokers and absolutely loved it. It’s the people that you meet that are unbelievable,” she says. “I would also love to go on tour with twenty one pilots. I love them so much. Right now, they’re my favorite band.” She promises that there is a new EP in the works, as well as a new song that she’s releasing this month. “We’re just going to keep releasing,” she says. “Like a new twenty one pilots-ish sound. But it’s got a lot of reggae in there with a pop sort of thing.” She’s also featured on “All of Me” by Big Gigantic along with Logic. In terms of the future and a year from now, Rozes sees herself with hopefully a song of hers on the radio and going to the Grammys. NKD NKDMAG.COM

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