victoria pedretti

Victoria Pedretti. 27 years old. Actress. 

Q1: How is your mental health at the moment? 

VP: Hard to say. Up and Down.

Q2:  Why are you a creative?

VP: I was privileged to grow up in creative spaces. They deeply affected me. Having the ability to experience performance really inspired me and excited me, so I want to offer that experience to other people. 

Q3: What’s your ultimate goal as a creative?

VP: Liberate the world (laughs). No, try to inspire people to see things differently. I think it can be such a gift to step into a show or a movie and have your perspective shifted. That can offer people an enormous amount of relief and it can inspire real change in people’s hearts and minds and lives. And I want to make people more in touch with their humanity. I want us to be less afraid of what makes us human, and for us to be more vulnerable with each other. 

Q4: Do you think there is a specific role you’ve played that accomplished that? 

VP: Yeah. I played a queer woman on a horror TV show. And I think that representation is really valuable. I remember listening to Tati Gabrielle speak - we worked together on “You” - and we talked about the last scene we did together. And it was this scene where these two women who are both being lied to by this man are commiserating. And she said in that moment she was trying to give voice to all the women in the world who might need to be inspired to understand that they deserve better. In a lot of different ways I think that art can try to say something. And in a way that’s easier to digest than some speech or some church, or the places where you look for guidance. 

Q5: What’s one of the hardest things you have had to overcome in your creative career? 

VP: Understanding a business that [I wasn’t] really taught about. Having to have like, my idealistic perspective on what being an actor would be - crumble. Understanding it is a business and there is a lot that is driven by money, and it has nothing to do with people’s values. So I think that’s hard. And within that, it’s been a huge personal adjustment. My life has changed a lot. And it’s been strange to process. Life’s weird. 

Q6: When was the last time you cried and are you comfortable sharing why? 

VP: Wow, I can’t believe you asked this question. I cry a lot. I cry on almost a daily basis. So I am trying to remember. There was a lot of crying going on recently, that I can say. I don’t know, I’ve been really, really - I’ve been undoing some blockage. I’ve been experiencing a release. I think the crying I have been doing recently is releasing some hang ups which feels so good. It's so annoying when we find ourselves caught in these patterns that feel so hard to break out of. And sometimes that’s what it takes. You shake it up a little bit and there is more room for growth. 

Q7: What is your greatest fear? 

VP: I am really scared of the idea of getting a parasite. Something living off of me… I have so many fears I cannot…It’s hard to pick the “greatest” one. (Takes a deep pause). Finding out I have been hurting people and didn’t know. It’s also really valuable to understand that you have the power to be hurtful, and you will hurt people in order to like, be yourself in life. To be honest with people in circumstances where it is very important. Because then you run the risk of letting that fear drive you - and I have. That’s what my crying was about. Letting that fear rule you is not sustainable. 

Q8: What’s a heartbreak that changed you as an artist?

VP: I had so much of that as a kid, in relation to being an artist. I would try out for choir and not get it. Try out for the musical and not get it. Try out for the play and not get it. I would take voice lessons and dance lessons, take classes here and there in order to improve. The rejection fueled me. My dad would email people and ask about scholarships and most all these opportunities were possible because of that - was because of getting a scholarship. Ian so grateful he did that. 

***Victoria mistakenly attributed her scholarships for camp to her father, but it actually was her mother who pursued these things to make her daughters dreams come true. And Victoria says “that makes sense. Moms never get the credit they deserve.”***

Q9: What is the most complex relationship in your life? 

VP: Honestly, my reflection, I struggle with that a lot. Some days I feel like I am looking at… I don’t know why, it's really bizarre. 

The person as a whole or the physical appearance? 

VP: It’s hard to say. Sometimes I think that like, maybe the way I see myself as a person is coloring the way I see myself physically - like I really don't like myself as a person so that ends up being reflective of how I see myself physically. That’s probably it. Cause people I don’t like? I think they are really ugly. And that has nothing to do with what they actually look like, they just become ugly in my mind. 

You are not an ugly person though. 

VP: Thank you. I don’t know if this is my most complex relationship, but it is a pretty intense one…

No you are probably the tenth person in this series of interviews that has said this. I may only have had two people say something different? Usually people say the relationship with themselves and their image or body. 

VP: Aw! That makes me feel less alone! It’s hard to talk about even in my most intimate relationships because it’s like, what am I gonna do about it? I just have to hope to God I stop thinking about it as much. It’s such a waste of my energy. But I think social media has really affected this. The algorithm that puts certain kinds of bodies in front of our faces on Instagram, etc… Yeah maybe sometimes you are in lingerie on a beach, but not many of us are seeing ourselves that way! (Laughs). So it’s like, do I even exist? It’s a universal experience. Even the women in lingerie, on a beach, they feel this way… 

Everyone does. Even moreso, the most beautiful women I know are the ones getting the most work done. 

VP: I am really trying to not get work done. Because it is so common in my industry. Botox? There is so much of it. Buccal fat removal? Dude I researched this shit because I was looking around going, “why does everyone look the way they do?” Especially when it doesn’t look natural a lot of the time. It does start to look kind of uniform, and I am very fascinated by this. And I hate that I spend so much time reading about it but I really am like, “what?” People are trying to take something that was uniquely theirs - and now they look like everyone else… I want people to confidently claim their beauty as they are, cause damn, that’s hot. I think it’s so valuable to love ourselves. Look at Sheryl Lee Ralph. Her [Emmy’s] acceptance speech? Oh my god, like! You have to look in the mirror and love what you see. 

Q10: Are you more like your mom or your dad? 

VP: I think that they would both say I am more like my mom, but more and more so I am realizing how I am like both of them. 

Q11: Do you believe in God or an afterlife and why or why not? 

VP: I believe in God very abstractly. I don’t really concern myself with an afterlife at this point - I haven’t been giving it a lot of thought. I don’t suspect that there is one. 

Q12: When have you felt the most loved?

VP: In the hardest moments. When I feel totally unloveable. 

Q13: What brings you hope? 

VP: Lots of stuff! People. People mostly. Individuals. (Laughs). Who are people. That’s what really gives me hope is the individual or collective efforts of people who try to make a better world.

Q14: What does being happy look like to you?

VP: Being present, being more out of my head. Being busy. I really think that I get bored, and I run myself in circles if I don’t have something to put my energy towards. I think it’s good for me to stay busy. 

Q15: If you could tell your younger self something, what would it be? 

VP: I was asked this recently and I said - I would just listen. But I really don’t know. I don’t know what they were going through, fully. And like what, we can’t have a full conversation? I’m only allowed to say one thing? (Laughs). I’d probably say, “Hey I’m your older self. Look at you now! Bye.” I’d also say: Go outside more. Don’t be so serious. (Laughs). 

Say one thing you love about yourself and why?

VP: I like that I am good at cooking. I like to feed people. I can still get better, which is also fun. 

Will you cook for me soon?

VP: Yes I would love that. 

Anything else you’d like to say?

VP: Being given a platform to say something, what do I have to say? I’m thinking of us, as women, in LA, so: allow yourself to be yourself fully… It is interesting to comment on aging when you’re young, because I get how older women would be like, you don’t know what it’s like so how can you comment on it? But, don’t waste your hard earned money on skin products when they only advertise them on twenty year olds! That’s not what your skin is gonna look like. That’s it. That’s what I have to say. (Laughs).