ALYSHIA SAID...
What do you ask an interviewer? I wondered while preparing questions for Alyshia Ochse. The actor, author, and podcast host has spent a considerable amount of time portraying others and asking even more about how they got their starts in Hollywood. Through this research, I began to contemplate the brevity of how our individual stories intertwine and progressively influence others—Alyshia is on a lifelong mission to unearth those unique truths. Today, she boasts a slew of professional credits, though her work carries a common thread throughout: the art of storytelling.
Alyshia grew up secretly writing poetry and hiding her desire to perform on stage. Despite being a gifted athlete, “I couldn’t do drama and sports at the same time. So the interest was always there … I just couldn’t be very vocal about it. I moved from Kentucky to Missouri when I was 10, and I realized how much of an outsider I was. Saying that I wanted to be an actor was going to make me more of an outsider.” A star on the soccer field, a knee injury in her senior year of high school swiftly ended her athletic aspirations. Then her best friend tragically died. Suddenly, writing became an outlet and coping mechanism.
On paper it might appear that the acting bug came out of nowhere, but given that it was something that had always been imbedded in her from a young age, Alyshia recalls, “it was a huge wake-up call. I wasn’t doing what I wanted to be doing … It was a happy shift to kind of wake me up.” She went on to graduate from Notre Dame Academy in Covington, Kentucky, eventually graduating from the University of Kentucky with honors before moving out to California in 2005.
“The way I study characters, I build them from the psychology of their childhood forward. I’m really drawn to misunderstood, flawed human being. I think that’s what makes the most compelling storytelling because then we’re showing a full-fledged human.” With every character, she strives to get inside, feeling and having compassion for them so as to justify their behaviors, allowing her to be more open in real-life situations with people in her day-to-day life. “Judgement is arrogance. I can’t play a character from arrogance.”
The multi-talented woman possesses an impressive list of television roles, including performances on How I Met Your Mother, Days of Our Lives, Melissa & Joey, General Hospital, Hart of Dixie, Satisfaction, Americons, Life Sentence, The Purge, and Ballers, to name a few. But her favorite role to-date inspired her to dive into a character's psyche in a way that clearly reflects her desire to understand the big picture.
Playing Lucy in the 2014 season of HBO’s True Detective, opposite Academy Award Winner and Emmy Award Nominee Matthew McConaughey and Academy Award Nominee and Emmy Award Winner Woody Harrelson, holds a special place in her heart. “Best work I’ve gotten to do thus far,” Alyshia reflects, going so far as to call Lucy “yummy.” A prostitute who remained within a 5-mile radius of her hometown her entire life, the actor was able to get into the character’s head in a special way. “No one is going to get her like I get her,” Alyshia thought, and that sympathy is clearly visible in her acting.
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On the big screen, Alyshia has left her mark in the movies Stash House, Parker, The Other Woman, Home Sweet Hell, Bad Sister, Marauders, and Killer Contractor. Keep an eye out for two more (My True Fairytale and Adult Night), which are in post-production.
With character comes opportunity, as “life lived” is the single most effective way to find empathy. “I’m living a whole separate life in memories and ideas beyond myself, so I kinda feel like I’m getting to exponentially live so much more life. Every character, for me, tends to come in at a point in time when I am struggling or need to face thematically what that same character is kinda struggling with,” Alyshia believes.
“You call in what you need.” The characters she plays always speak to her personally. “I take away something different from every single character. Whether that’s more understanding for other people, more compassion for myself, a different type of resiliency,” leading to both growth and fulfillment.
Take Alyshia’s latest film, She’s in Portland, for example. “In an alternate universe where I wasn’t an actor, I would probably have a full sleeve of tattoos, and a lip ring, and I get to fulfill that expression of myself without hindering my job moving forward,” says Alyshia with a laugh, referring to her role as Sage. “There’s elements of myself as a human that I get to fully express that are completely acceptable,” through acting. “Like the rage. The full expression of emotions that we as human beings try to limit ourselves from sometimes. I think that I get to fully have an excuse to work through those. It’s healing. It’s therapeutic, in a lot of ways. It’s research!”
“... the challenge in what you overcome is what every human being is attached to. And when I interview, I look for the challenge. I look for how that artist has overcome.”
Alyshia is a researcher by nature. That One Audition, her podcast series launched in July of 2017, is clear evidence of that. She had been collecting the interviews for years before deciding to present them as a podcast. “What I do for a living is listen to other peoples’ journeys. For the podcast, it was a very natural enthusiasm and passion and inspiration. And I also just saw a big void.” As an actor, she gobbled up interviews that other actors gave, but never felt they got into the depths of what acting really is. “You know when you go on late night shows and people do those interviews? They’re doing an interview to sell a product. To me, that wasn’t interesting! … I care more about how many failures did you have along the way.” She structures her interviews from a place of pure curiosity, of a creative field that there is no right or wrong. “There’s just your way.”
When Alyshia first had the idea, it was just to get a deeper look into the audition process, and to allow other artists and herself to better understand different practices. “It’s such a deeply vulnerable thing that we as other artists very rarely get to experience another artist doing. You get to see the finished product, but you don’t see the process.”
Coordinating the interview process goes something like this: “They’ve done something that intrigues me, or I like them as a person but we’ve never gotten into the nitty gritty of the work … I like to find a lull in their career, because for me, the hero’s journey, just like when you watch a movie or you read a book … the challenge in what you overcome is what every human being is attached to. And when I interview, I look for the challenge. I look for how that artist has overcome.” Her only requirement is that interviewees must be in the industry for at least ten years.
“I can usually pick up on a theme,” Alyshia speaks of the podcast interviews. “What I love is when a person walks away from their interview and says to me, ‘Wow, I learned something about myself.’” Alyshia understands the power of knowledge and its application on a personal level. Through That One Audition, she is providing a platform for film industry professionals to share their own experiences in the hopes that it will serve its listeners in whatever compacity they may need. The first season of That One Audition wrapped its hundredth episode in November. “Proper, new interviews will be launched in April.”
On screen, on mic, and on paper, Alyshia is constantly seeking to better not just herself, but anyone willing to listen and push themselves. Her characters broaden her own self-reflection. From her interviewees, “I am gleaning every tip, every practical thing they do, every tangible thing they do, as well as every spiritual thing that they do to remain calm and vigilant and resilient in this business.” Those are the keys in any creative field, but it is also universally good advice. Even in her book, Life Letters, which Alyshia published in 2014, she shows readers how to dive into a journey of self-discovery—something she is well-versed in and continues to practice through her range of work. We all have a story to be told—by following Alyshia Ochse’s example, we are all capable of leaving our mark, by helping to expand understanding, acceptance, and betterment of ourselves and our world.
Managing Editor Lauren Barisic
Photographer Ben Cope
Stylist Gabriela Kool
Makeup Brett Freedman
Hair Felicia Rails
