Just Another Day with Megalyn Echikunwoke

Megalyn Echikunwoke stars in the new comedy "Damsels in Distress" along Analeigh Tipton, Greta Gerwig, Ryan Metcalf, and more, which premieres this Friday. Echikunwoke let us into her gorgeous home, where the sun seems to happily shine on.

A day in the life of the Mega…oh my goodness. Well it changes kind of every day because you know, we actors don’t have your average job. So you know it depends on whether I’m working or what I’m doing at the moment.

On a day off, when I’m home in LA, I’m probably doing some sort of exercise, like hike or a dance class. Most likely a dance class and I try to practice my guitar every day. I have musical hour every day. I sing a little bit and I practice my guitar. I try to get some good reading in, try to read the paper, try to read two hours a day.

I’ve always been a singer, but I never sang professionally. I sung a little bit professionally in various TV shows or projects. But it wasn’t until recently. I just started a band. A friend of mine, he’s extremely talented, he and I joined forces. The sound is folk-pop if you will. Kind of like a Mumford and Sons meets someone more up tempo, kind of poppy. I mostly sing and play a tambourine.

I have a movie coming out called Damsels in Distress with Adam Brody, coming out April 6th. I play a college student and have an English accent. It’s a dark comedy, very dark and very funny, actually.

I always obsessed with doing accents as a little kid and the English accent is one I’ve always messed around with. When I went into the audition for this role, they asked if I could do any interesting accents. The character is kind of a little uptight and a little rigid and I thought it would be interesting to do an English accent.

I’m also shooting a pilot for NBC called Beautiful People written by Michael McDonald (“Cougar Town” and “MadTV”). It’s set in the future and it kind of deals with the same themes as Blade Runner and Battlestar Gallactica, not quite that far in the future and not so science fiction-y. It’s set in a world where we have created a subservient race of eight percent robot or mechanical and 92 percent human. It deals with the same themes that we are dealing with as a society right now, the kind of stuff that’s current. I’m really excited to be on what I think is a really great show. It’s a sci-fi show but not sci-fi. The way it’s going to be executed and the people working on it…it’s really exciting.

My guilty pleasure is Glee, mostly the earlier seasons because I love musical theater and I love all of the characters. It’s kind of like, it’s silly, it’s cheesy and very camp. My favorite character is Mercedes. Amber Riley—her voice is so gorgeous. I want her to come out with an album. She is fabulous and needs to come out with movies. She is sensational!

Bored to Death is also another show I love. It was on HBO and just got canceled. My boyfriend and I adore that show. It has Jason Schwartzman, Ted Danson and Zack Galifianakis and Heather Burns. It has really funny guest stars.

It’s not just that I’m on the show, but I really like House of Lies, with Kristen Bell, Don Cheadle and Ben Shwartz. It’s really a smart, funny, sexy show. The writing is so good. It’s so smart, so really engaging.

I cannot live without music. Music is a pretty big part of my life and any time I haven’t been listening to music or singing or seeing music live, my life is just not as good. It’s as soon as I incorporate that in my life, any time my energy’s low, I know I can cheer myself if I can do a little bit of singing. It’s miraculous! I can come away feeling like another person. It’s fantastic.

Interviewed by Michelle Chang Photographed by Vince Trupsin Hair and Makeup by Amber Bruehl

Just Another Day with Melissa Farman

Melissa Farman splits her time between studying the art of storytelling and performing that same art, fulfilling her need to be creative. Rather than trying to be an “unemployed English major” she is working hard and doing what she is passionate about. Zooey sat down with this Parisian to get a look into her daily life.

There are so many incredible things about my job. I would say that the communion you get, in terms of merging reality and fantasy, is one of the best parts. The connections you make with people on set, you get this great energy working with this creative yet industrial feel. It’s like a circus life. It is very creative, but at the same time it is work.

I love traveling. From one character to another, and one city to another. I love living in a place for three months at a time. It is just long enough to get to know a place, without always being uprooted from home. People are very vocational, but it’s a tough industry to work in. The people who are talented, smart, and pragmatic, and have passion, those are the ones who make it.

I’m a senior, English literature and political science major, at USC. I started the honors program at school. It is a specialized program with very small classes, and the teachers know you really well. The first two years of school I was travelling a lot, but the teachers were very flexible. I was able to fly in for exams, it was really great! I have now graduated from the program, but it is still kind of the same thing. They just work with me. If I miss classes, I have to write up what I missed. I tend to write way more papers than I would have if I was a normal student. I’m very committed. I love learning, I love the subject matter. I’m committed to the class, even if I am not there the whole time, and they are very understanding.

The one thing that can calm me down is poetry. Whenever I need time of my own, or to recharge, or just to think, I tend to go to poetry to open me up again. I’m a very analytical person, so poetry lets me loosen up and brings out my creative side. I think that whenever I need to kind of recenter myself, I go to a few of my favorite poets and seek inspiration. Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is one of my favorites for inspiration. When I have free time, I love to go to concerts, especially at small music venues because of the intimacy. I like how you can sit down and take things in. I love doing things like that with my friends. I also spend a lot of time at the beach and hanging out in Venice, or walking around the beach.

I love dogs. I dog sit for my friends a lot though, because I can’t have a dog and I really want one. But, it would not be fair to the dog, because my time is so limited with school and acting.

Without fail, the one thing I do every day is drive. It’s the one constant in my life. And with that, I sit in traffic. But, I’m actually not a honker. I feel like it is super rude, and I get scared. When people honk at me, I tend to have a panic attack. I’m always like “I’m so sorry!” as I’m almost in tears.

I wish I could say I do yoga every morning, or I exercise. But, I don’t. Although, I do make sure to walk for half an hour every night to kind of clear my mind.

My greatest guilty pleasure is ice cream. Unfortunately, I am allergic to dairy. I really try to retain myself, bur every now and then I’m like, “whatever, I guess I will break out in hives.” I cannot resist vanilla bean.

I like to think of myself as organized chaos. I hate dishes in the sink. I’m not even that neat, but I really don’t like dishes in the sink. I get it from my mother. My fridge in particular is super organized, but I am not that organized when it comes to anything else. I get really anxious about anything that is out of place in the refrigerator, because I was conditioned to be that way by my mother.

I hate disappointing people. I tend to be a little too eager to please. I guess it comes with being young, but I’m definitely working on it. I’m learning to be more reliant on my opinion of myself, as opposed to that of others. Sometimes we have to. There is a point when you have to realize that college isn’t just about getting good grades, it’s about learning from experiences and sometimes you have to be humbled.

One thing that people don’t know about me is that I am uncoordinated. Dangerously! It is really scary when I wear heels. Whenever I have to wear them, I scared that I am going to trip, because that’s what happens three out of four times. I would rather spare myself the humiliation, and look a little less tall.

For its practical value, I cannot live without my phone. My grandma lives in the countryside with no internet or phone, and I love that so much as an escape. But, day to day that’s very tough. It makes me realize how reliant I am on technology. I am so dependent on it.

I have like fifty quotes on my mirror at home, including the end of Tennyson’s “Ulysses,” that is one of my favorites. Also, as my grandfather always tells me, “Never forget how young you are, old bean.” I live by those words.

Photographed by Vince Trupsin Hair/Makeup by Amber Bruehl