Kat Graham Calls Love In The Villa The Best Project She's Ever Worked On: "It Was Lightning In A Bottle"
Kat Graham has had an illustrious career as an actor, singer, producer, and activist, but still hadn’t had that once in a lifetime project that was a great experience all around. That is until she booked Netflix’s romantic comedy Love In The Villa. I spoke with Graham about her “lightning in a bottle” experience, inclusive storytelling, and destiny.
Graham stars as Julie in Love In The Villa, a young woman who takes a trip to romantic Verona, Italy after a break up, only to find that the villa she reserved was double-booked. “I've just been on cloud nine all day. Everyone's like, ‘Wow, you're really happy.’ I'm that girl today. I’m so happy,” gushed Graham. “This has been a total passion project. I just love this movie. It was the best experience of my life, easy.”
It wasn’t just beautiful Verona that won over Graham, but the team she was working with — including writer/director Mark Steven Johnson and actors Tom Hopper, Laura Hopper, and Raymond Ablack. “I think a lot of times when we think of Hollywood a lot of people have stars in their eyes and they think it's so glamorous. […] Then you get to set and […] you deal with a producer who's being a bully or a disrespectful actor or bad writing or inexperienced directors and it just chips away at your dreams,” she shared. “For me, I can honestly say that that happened too. I had big stars in my eyes. I've been acting since I was five and in the 20 plus years that I had been acting I never had an overall all-around great experience. There was always one thing that was off — whether it was a person or the material or something. This was the first movie in my entire career where everything from the studio — Netflix, who I'm obsessed with — the writing, the directing, the wardrobe, the cast, the caterers, the producers. Everyone was awesome and amazing and I’m like, ‘Oh okay, it does exist.’ These kinds of people and this kind of formula does exist. It was like lightning in a bottle. It really was.”
She continued: “There's a reason to get jaded because you get so disappointed by so many different projects and so many different things that you're just like, ‘You know what? I'm not going to care as much.’ I don’t want to be that way. I want to keep caring. I want to keep getting excited about things and have real gratitude for […] the blessings that I get in my career.”
When it comes to what she hopes people take away from Love In The Villa, she hopes to inspire others to trust in themselves and what the universe holds for them. “I look at the things I’ve done and […] I hope that they can see themselves watching this movie because I didn’t have anyone that was young, Black, funny […] when I was younger. […] Not in film. I mean we had Moesha and stuff like that, but I didn’t have [representation] like this, so I hope that people see themselves in it,” said Graham. “But if I think about [it] from a grand scheme of the universe and why God would choose me to do this kind of movie […] I think the answer is stop trying to control everything. Some things are destiny and it might not look how you want it to look. But if you trust the universe and you trust yourself, things will happen that you couldn’t have even imagined that’ll make your life so magical and amazing and beautiful and let love win. I think that’s the message. Trust the universe.”
Graham highlighted the impressive work Netflix has done to tell more inclusive stories. “Netflix had made it a priority pretty early on that they wanted to show a lot of diversity, a lot of different storytelling. Multi-dimensional characters in every form and helping tell LGBTQ stories, Latinx stories, Black girl, Black men, all of these different [stories]. Because we are living and we’re existing and we want to create more love and tolerance and diversity and acceptance in the world,” she shared. “A lot of that comes from what we’re watching at home, so I think that it’s really important to continue to tell these stories and have different people from different backgrounds, different ages, different heights, different weights tell their stories. It’s really important to create more tolerance in the world.”
These values are points that she also considers when taking on a new project. "I think about it all the time. I’m like, what does this movie say? What does this show say? If I go on the show, what does that have to do with making the world a better or ore patient place, a more loving place? Am I actually going to be bringing anything or being of service to the world if I do this role? If not, let it go to somebody else,” Graham said. “I won’t even audition for anything that I don’t feel is in alignment with God or the universe or what my path I think is supposed to be. I won’t do it. I’ll never been successful if I do things from the wrong place.”
Love In The Villa is streaming on Netflix.
