Stacey OristanoStacey Oristano says “gosh” every few sentences.  Her innocent southern attitude isn’t what you would expect from the woman who plays Mindy Collete, the sassy sister of Tyra Collete in the sleeper NBC-hit, Friday Night Lights.

Born into a theatrical family in Arlington, Texas, Oristano developed her love for acting at a very early age.  Growing up in Dallas, her father was a veteran stage actor in town, and would bring Stacey along to his shows and performances at night.  Her theatre experience stems back to when at the mere age of five.  Now 28-year-old Oristano has been named one of the hottest females in television.  

Though if it came down to television and theatre, Oristano remains loyal to her first passion in life.  “Gosh, I get asked this so many times.  I love them both so much but I will always definitely be a theatre baby.  It’s where I grew up and I went to college to train for it.  It’s where my heart is.”  

True to fashion, Oristano attended The Rose Bruford School for Speech and Drama in London, where she received her BFA in Acting with an emphasis on Classical Theatre.  Oristano describes college in England as “amazing.” While in London, she performed in many plays, including working in The West End playing “Anelle” in “Steel Magnolias.” After graduation, the budding star received a rude awakening.

Oristano laughs, “I was doing a show there in the West End after I graduated, and I decided that I wanted to live there because I loved the city so much.  One day the producers of the show came up to me and told me that I had to leave the country because my student visa was up, so I pretty much got kicked out of the country.”

This minor setback didn’t seem to affect ambitious Oristano.  Upon returning to the states, she became involved in television and began to work in the voice-over industry.   “People say that it’s hard to break into,” says Oristano. “I always just kind of played around with silly voices and my agent got a hold of it and thought it was funny.  She started to send me out for stuff, and I just kept on booking commercials and cartoon work.  Once you know the people then it helps you book stuff as well.”  

Thus enters the era of Friday Night Lights:  the American serial drama television series uses a small-town backdrop to address many issues facing contemporary Middle America. Oristano auditioned as the delightfully trashy older sister, without many expectations for landing the role.  

“My agent sent me out.  She told me about this part, and I knew I wasn’t going to get casted as this older-sister stripper girl, but I wanted to read in front of these people because I hadn’t read for them yet,” explains Oristano.   “They called me the next day, and asked me if I would dye my hair and take the part and I was like ‘yeah, sure!’ I was totally caught by surprise.”

The culture gap between goofy Oristano and Mindy the stripper aren’t as vast as one would think.  “We’re both good-time girls, and definitely looking for the sun in any situation.  I tend to get upset when things are serious all the time, and I tend to joke about things, even when I probably shouldn’t! Also, she really does her love her mother and sister so much, they’re a really close family in their own dysfunctional way, and I can relate to that family aspect a lot.”

Growing up, Oristano considered herself as the tomboy and athlete of the family.  She has two brothers, one who lives in Iowa, and one who remains at home with the family.  Oristano is very close with each member of their family, and attributes much of her success to their support.

From tomboy to stripper, it isn’t even the exotic dancing that bothers Oristano about Mindy’s character, it’s the lack of independence.  “It’s not a hard role because she’s a dancer, what I have a hard time with… what’s so opposite from me is that she settled,” Oristano elaborates.  “She got so comfortable in her life sort-of without exploring outside of her town and, you know, she still lives her mom in the town, and those are things I don’t understand.  So it’s hard for me to play that and it’s a weird place for me to tap into because I didn’t understand it at all.”

When looking for inspiration, Oristano looks to starlets such as Kate Winslet, Mary Louise Parker, and Angelo Basset.  “I like strong women. The fact that so many people in the industry cite them as influences has to stand for something, because they are so amazing at what they do.”  She also cites pivotal moments in her life as defining moments in her career.

“Martin Macdonald wrote this play and it was called ‘Pillar Man’.  I couldn’t even talk for an hour after that show because it changed my life.  I was sort of down on New York and theatre because it was so commercialized, and after ‘Pillar Man’ my faith was regained.  That’s why I do what I do.  I also recently saw ‘Rock n’ Roll’ on Broadway, and had the same experience.  Moments like that are tremendous, they embody what I want to do as an artist.”

Likewise, Oristano has nothing but praise for the set and atmosphere of Friday Night Lights.  In an earlier interview, she stated that some of the production is improvised by the actors.  

When asked how much is improvisation, Oristano says “it’s hard to say how much of it is and how much of it isn’t.  They write us a definite skeleton outline of what we’re supposed to do, and there are definite lines that we have to hit, or do a scene a certain way.  Other than that we are given so much freedom in the sense of they’ll write something and we’ll keep the scene going after that. We’re definitely not writing the show in any sense, it’s just a freedom for us to be our characters in the moment.” 

She goes on to say that the chemistry and bond between the actors on Friday Night Lights is “genuine and real,” and they are all “tremendously close.”  Oristano candidly admits that it’s a cliche statement, but entirely true. “I think that’s why the freedom we’re given works,” Oristano hypothesizes. “There’s a lot of trust in that set.”  

In fact, trust is a universal truth when it comes to Oristano.  It is well-known that the life of an actor is perilous, and nothing in their career is for certain.  “There are times in between jobs where nothing seems to hit right, and I look at most of my other friends who have, what I call, ‘real’ jobs.  I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have an actual office and know that you’re going to make this paycheque every week.  In my life, you just have to trust that something is waiting out there for you.”  

Beyond the doubts and uncertainties, Oristano can not imagine herself doing anything else but what she’s doing now.  “Even if I’m down in the trenches, I’ll be figuring out what to do next,” says Oristano. “I want to keep challenging myself, and never take the easy road.”  






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