Whorephobia by Lizzie Borden

Author:Lizzie Borden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: harm reduction;anthology;labor organizing;labor rights;labor history;labor;motherhood;sex work industry;sex worker rights;sex work activism;sex work;stripping;strippers;essay collection;women's studies;social science;feminism;sociology;feminist;art;books for women;feminist books;art history;art books;sociology books;feminist theory;artists;art book;history books;history;self love books for women;politics;feminist book;artwork;feminist gifts;good books for women;feminism books;women in history
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Published: 2022-09-19T20:52:55+00:00

INTERVIEW WITH ESSENCE REVEALED

lizzie borden: From your stories, you seem funny and vulnerable.

essence revealed: In person, I present tougher than I am. That was actually an ongoing critique of my acting: that I was too tough, that I wasn’t vulnerable enough.

lb: Are you from New York?

er: No. I was born in Massachusetts, and I grew up in Dorchester during the height of the crack epidemic. I’m first-generation Caribbean, from Barbados and Guyana. My mom was born in Guyana but raised in Barbados. My dad was born and raised in Barbados. I’m the reason my parents were able to stay in America.

lb: Did you go college in Boston?

er: No, in New York. NYU. I was in the acting program at Tisch. For grad school, I was in the Steinhardt School.

lb: At that point, were you in student films? Did you go on auditions?

er: I’d been auditioning since I was sixteen, so I came to college already having an agent. I think that a lot of students I was going to school with thought I was weird because I had never taken acting classes or anything like that. I just had been doing pageants. The woman who was my first agent was one of the judges at a pageant. She invited me to come to New York to read for her agency and started to rep me. I had the same agent as Tempestt Bledsoe and Emmanuel Lewis. When I got to Tisch, it was the first time I had taken class, but I had been auditioning for a few years.

lb: At that point, did you book anything that made a difference?

er: It was toward the end of grad school that I booked my first national network commercial, for Wendy’s. I did Wendy’s spots for years. I ended up in the world of voice-overs and commercials—versus film and TV, which is what I really wanted.

lb: You must have been making decent money at that point.

er: I was. And when I started dancing, I would sometimes see my commercials on TV when I was onstage.

lb: What was the impetus to dance?

er: I graduated from school and found myself like, Wait a minute. Now what? There’s no employment office. I auditioned, and when people say you hear no way more than yes, that’s not a euphemism. When yes happened, it was great, but you don’t know when you’re going to get that next yes. I had reached this point where I was working four or five jobs—I was temping, teaching, an art model, a hostess at a restaurant—and could barely pay my bills.

lb: Where were you living then?

er: I had an apartment in Brooklyn. I remember there was one day I was on my bed crying because I was like, Even if I get an audition, I don’t have the money to get on the subway and get back home. My girlfriend at the time paid for me to take a bartending course, and I attempted to try to get bartending work, which I failed miserably at, because I’m a horrible liar, even though I’m a good actress.

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