Stephanie Hungerford: Classroom Dreams to Hollywood Screens

Stephanie Hungerford’s Biography:

Stephanie is a screenwriter, actor, director, and adjunct professor at UBC. Her path on the way to the film and television industry began as early as elementary school and she has since fallen in love with performing. Throughout the years, she has had a variety of different experiences shaping her to become who she is now. Stephanie is an individual who loves funny things and never fails to laugh even through a tough day. Keep reading for a morsel of Stephanie’s story.

Stephanie’s Story:

I am Stephanie Hungerford and I work in film and television. I am a screenwriter and actor. I direct and produce corporate videos for clients, and I am also an adjunct professor at UBC in the creative writing department. There, I mainly teach writing for new media but it depends on whatever courses pop up for me to teach out there. 

The story of how I got started on this career path goes way back to when I was in elementary school. Back then, I had a very inspiring English teacher. He was Scottish and very passionate about teaching which was honestly a gift to us. As a school assignment, he wanted us to study the play Antigone. As an activity, he had us get into groups and perform scenes from the play. Somehow, I got the nerve to play Antigone and I just could not believe how much I enjoyed it. That was my first time performing and from that moment on, I kind of got this love of being on stage and being in theatre. Eventually, I ended up taking all the drama classes and even joined the senior drama program my high school offered. My drama teacher from that program then encouraged me to go to UBC and apply for the Bachelor of Fine Arts Acting program and everything kind of just went from there. 

One of my proudest experiences was when I was twenty-four. I packed up my car with a bunch of boxes and moved to Los Angeles–a city away from home where I did not know anyone. Back then, I was young and did not know exactly what I was doing either. After a while in LA, I ended up with the opportunity to work at 20th Century Fox Studios as a temp which means I got called to work whenever they needed. Eventually, I started working as a temporary Administrative Assistant for all these different producers which, after a while, I managed to turn into a career. I was very young at the time and I ended up managing the new marketing division. Before, I didn’t realize that acting could lead to so many different paths such as being on a stage as a comedian, doing commercials, but also running an entire department; it was a crazy but amazing experience. 

I was in LA for almost four years. I must have had a lot of guts back then because I honestly don’t know if I could do the same thing again now. I mean, it was a rocky experience. I slept on an acquaintance's–a cousin of a friend that I had only met once–couch for the first month! I slept on his couch for an entire month until I found my own little studio which was actually a converted garage in someone's backyard. Luckily, I met someone who opened up a bunch of doors for me. First, he encouraged me to sign up for a few courses in television writing at UCLA. At first, I was unsure if I would be able to do it but taking his advice really got me started on the path of screenwriting and I eventually graduated from the UCLA television writing program. He was also the same person who suggested I  just call the 1-800 number at 20th Century Fox and ask how I could work there. These two suggestions completely changed my career path and I am forever thankful for the advice I received. This happened around a year after I had arrived in LA and it was amazing. Around that time, I also started doing stand-up; I co-hosted at the Laugh Factory and even to this day, I don’t know how I was able to do that. I’m not sure, I think I just had a lot of guts when I was younger. I don’t know if I necessarily have that anymore. I mean, when you are in your twenties, people aren’t usually married with kids yet so you just have the opportunity to try a bunch of different paths. LA was a strange place. I had a bunch of friends there but I definitely still missed home. Living in the US, I could feel a lot of the chaos that we are witnessing right now. There was definitely that racism aspect; it just was not like Canada at all. I knew that I would eventually want to come back to Canada.

After working in this industry for so many years, the one thing that I love the most is definitely how creative it is. I know it sounds kind of cliché because it is a creative profession, but there is actually so much variety and different things you can try within this field. For example, I started out as an actor but that led to me becoming a writer, doing standup in LA, and eventually expanding into directing. There are just all sorts of things you can do in this career–it has always felt so versatile for me. Of course, there are people who say that actors can only be actors and we shouldn’t do other things but I just do not think that is true. In my opinion, when you are a creative person you can try all sorts of different endeavours. 

As great as everything sounds, there were definitely challenges that came with it as well. This was way before the whole Harvey Weinstein news broke out but when I used to work at the studio, I had to face a lot of what you could call sexual harassment in the workplace. Not necessarily to the degree that Weinstein went to but there would be comments, comments from men, comments about how I looked… it was pretty outrageous. There was a time when I had a boss who would constantly make all sorts of comments and I just got so fed up with the treatment that I wrote an email to HR, CC'd my boss, and listed out every single thing he had ever said to me. Of course, I was thinking to myself that I was definitely going to get fired. It was easily the gutsiest thing I had ever done and also the most challenging. Unfortunately, HR did not have my back. All they were worried about was whether they were going to get sued and no, my goal was not to sue them. All I wanted was for my work environment to change. I wanted to be in a space where I would be able to do my job, do a good job, and go home but that was hard. After the incident, my boss did not speak to me for a long time which also meant I could not get my work done. Eventually, when he did decide to speak to me again, it was all like, “Well now I have to be careful about what I say to you”. The truth is that this kind of stuff happened around there all the time. This was just one of the many circumstances I have had to face there. Back then, I took a risk that could have gotten me fired, and by some miracle, I didn’t, rather, I got promoted a few months later. The irony of what happened was just ridiculous but unfortunately, that was the cliché of LA at the time. There was this sort of casting couch mentality and I just did not like that. While I am not saying that others should not speak up as I did, of course, they should, but the reality is that it is a very scary thing to do. I was able to do that because I was gutsy and I knew I had a fallback. In the back of my head, I knew that if all went wrong, I could just move back to Canada. Having that sort of safety net helped me do what I wanted to do without worrying too much about what other people thought because I knew I could always just go home. Most people do not have that option though. If they got fired, they would not have anything to fall back on. 

Another challenge that I have had to face is that a lot of people do not know that I am actually still an actor. I have hidden the fact that I am still an actor before because I did not want other people to make comments like, “She is just an actor”. I guess it has always been an insecurity of mine. There is still a bit of stigma with actors so I sometimes hide the fact that yes, I still act and I still go out on auditions all the time!

Being in this industry is very hard, I am painting a very rosy picture. I mean, I have even quit acting before–I have wanted to quit a million times! Especially with the pandemic, I felt like I was feeling a different emotion every hour. One hour I would feel extremely anxious and depressed and then I would feel okay again the next. Acting, writing, and just being in the screenwriting industry is really volatile. The highs are high and the lows are low. When you are in the lows, you just feel like you want to quit and forget everything. 

I honestly am not sure what has been keeping me going all these years. I think it has changed and evolved as I have gotten older. When I was younger, I had a ton of ambition; it was just this inherent drive that I had. Now, it’s different. Now, when I am not doing something, I get really bored and anxious which is not really healthy for me. In those slumps, I feel like I am not being a great mom or great wife and I am just sitting around without a purpose. I really enjoy working because it keeps my mind active and makes me feel like I have a purpose.

How has the pandemic affected you?

I have two little kids, one is four and the other is six and a half. When the pandemic hit in March, I was kind of in denial thinking that everything was going to be fine. I thought that the pandemic meant that I would just spend a lot more time baking and cooking with my kids, and homeschooling them–it was a massive failure. Everything kind of felt like it went down a hole. I was not able to write anything and teaching was not happening either. My life basically went on pause. Luckily, one of my projects came back to life in May and by June, I was back on set for a couple of days a week; everything finally felt like it was going back to normal again. 

During the beginning of the pandemic, I had read all these articles online about how people were planning on doing all these creative things at home, but the reality is that it is almost impossible to do those things with kids running around in the house. I mean, I have not written a word in months! My creativity has definitely been hurt by this whole childcare situation. 

There are still moments that make me feel like what I do is worth it though. For example, last night, my kids wanted to learn how to read and write. Of course, I am not a primary teacher but I came up with this idea where I had them write letters to these fairies and that the fairies were going to write back to them. For a moment, I felt that maybe I wasn’t such a bad mom and maybe I wasn’t such a bad writer after all. The pandemic has forced me to use my creativity and writing in a different way and that’s okay. I think the biggest thing I have learned during the pandemic is acceptance. I had a big moment the other day where I realized that I needed to learn to accept that this is just the way we are right now. I needed to accept that I am not going to write my book at this moment, that I am not a super mom, that I suck at cooking, and most importantly, that that is all okay. 

One thing that I am quite grateful for from the pandemic is that I feel like my family has become closer through this experience. Of course, this was not always the case but throughout the pandemic, we have spent so much more time together and it has honestly been so great. 

What is your biggest fear and why?

I am afraid that when I turn eighty, I am going to look back on my life and feel like I should have finished that book or that I should have done more. I feel like that has always been my biggest fear but also what drove me to be ambitious. I don’t want to look back on life and feel like I should have done this or that I missed out on that. I mean, there will always be regrets but my biggest fear is looking back and feeling like I didn’t do something that I maybe should have. 

What is something you would tell your younger self?

I don’t think I really knew what anxiety was when I was a teenager because no one ever really talked about it. I thought I was just stressed all the time. If I could go back, I would tell myself that it was normal to feel this way and I would encourage myself to talk to more people about it. I think mental health is something I never really understood until I was in my thirties and I feel like if I knew what I did now, I would have been able to save myself from a lot of sleepless nights. So I would just tell myself that it is okay, it is normal, and don’t be afraid to talk to people about it.