SHABANA AZEEZ
Shabana Azeez is an actor who has performed in TV guest roles in ABC’s The Letdown, SBS’s The Hunting, and Channel 9’s Metrosexual. She co-won Best Female Actor at Tropfest in 2019 and was nominated for Best Performance at Stellar Film Festival and Best Actress at the South Australian Screen Awards for her work in Leela Varghese's Crush.
She was a 2019 Raw Comedy South Australian State Finalist with her comedy band The Coconuts and is developing a web series of the same name. She made her theatre debut in RUMPUS’s production of The Wolves in 2019 and looks forward to performing in RUMPUS’s 2020 production of Jamila Main’s Butterfly Kicks.
Passionate about telling stories that push the envelope, Shabana has worked with a number of female directors, queer creatives, and culturally diverse teams of storytellers.
Shabana is proudly represented by Buckland and Gun Management based in South Australia.
More From Shabana:
How have you been keeping up with your acting during isolation?
I’ve done a bunch of things to keep up with my acting during isolation! In the beginning, a few initiatives were cropping up for actors to participate in – self-taping exercises and competitions, etc. And then I got an opportunity to do a new play over zoom with an independent theatre company called tiny bricks, which was exciting because working online in that capacity was unchartered territory for the whole team.
I’ve also been doing a lot of non-acting related creative work, like writing and playing music, which has helped me so much during isolation. I find that all my creative outlets feed each other—I feel like a much stronger creative in general when I’m doing a lot of arts work.
Who's your biggest motivator?
I think I’ve spent a few years now making friends with the creatives I’m so lucky I get to work with, and now I have a network of really inspiring people who motivate me in different ways. Some people push me creatively in my acting, others inspire me to be more business savvy in this industry. I think it’s equally important to be a great performer and to be great at navigating this business as a professional.
I have a lot of friends who are creative in different ways, and they’re all making leaps and bounds in their careers. Seeing the diversity of people succeeding right now is so motivating because it shows me that there’s room for all kinds of creatives—you don’t need to fit into a mould to make good work.
What's the best advice you've received?
The best advice I’ve ever been given is to ‘book the room, not the gig’ which has made it so much easier to deal with the near-constant rejection in this industry. I try not to measure my success by how many gigs I book compared to how many auditions I do. Instead, I like to focus on whether I’m having fun and playing with my character in the audition room. A healthier measure of success for me right now is if casting directors are asking to see me again, even if I don’t book the gigs. If they like me enough to ask me to audition for something new down the track, I must be an okay actor.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
I find watching great performances inspiring and motivating. But that's so obvious.
I also find myself observing real people and their mannerisms a lot. Iso has been a strange time for that because people-watching is so difficult now.
I’m also really inspired by listening to actors I admire talking about acting and their process. Off Camera with Sam Jones is a great show for that, it’s on Netflix now!
