TAKEN FROM OUR AUTUMN/FALL 2022 ISSUE, AVAILABLE TO ORDER HERE…

“I’ve always been hungry to create with different mediums and make people feel something, or even impact someone’s life in some way,” shares actor Djouliet Amara, as she picks up the phone from her family home in Winnipeg, a province of Manitoba in Canada. Admittedly, pursuing this feeling and, in turn, a career in the arts was no easy feat for the actor who is set to star on screens in the all-new Apple TV+ series The Big Door Prize and new mystery series Devil in Ohio.

Raised in a Canadian prairie, Amara reflects on her early beginnings, growing up in an apartment without any furniture. “Everything was on the floor. Alarm clock on the floor, mattress on the floor, TV on the floor, toys on the floor – all donated to me from my church. But everything seemed fun. And for me, being a kid, not being tall, that was just my world.” The absence of material possession never hindered her joy in childhood, rather, it “forced me to be creative.” Mimicking the cartwheels from the animated series, Maggie and the Ferocious Beast playing on the television in her early youth, Amara began, without knowing at the time, to pave the way for her career.


Aimless tumbles at home quickly turned into talent, granting scholarships and the opportunity to travel the world and perform as a professional ballerina. And although the world of dance was her first love, Amara was met with challenges to her autonomy as a performer. “I didn’t ever really think while I was dancing that I’d be an actor. But when I was a kid, it never felt like it was out of the realm of possibility. Winnipeg is so simple. That’s what I love about it, but my parents wanted me to pursue academic studies. I had this love of the arts, but also this fear that it would mean being unstable.”

“After I’d been dancing for quite a few years in New York, I had gotten sick with an eating disorder,” she continues. “My body had gained some weight that my dance company wasn’t happy with, so ultimately, I didn’t get promoted. I was forced to create and dance in different spaces instead and find a way to let myself have the freedom to exist as I am.”

Recalling the exact moment she felt compelled by a life in front of the camera, embodying new emotions of fictional characters, Amara notes: “I was sat at a bus stop after performing in a showcase of Cinderella, eating Japanese candy and texting my ex-girlfriend, ‘I think I could be an actress!’” Tenaciously facing her setbacks, Amara made haste, picking up the phone and calling casting agents herself to land roles in campy horror movies and dramatic television series, “the kind where everyone dies at the end.” Without any prior contacts, she began auditioning for a variety of shows, an uninhibited trait she thanks her dad for. “I am open to receiving opportunities. I’m a very spiritual person as well. And I really believe that if you’re open to anything, you can receive anything.” Then, she found representation and started securing roles in upcoming Netflix series Devil in Ohio and previously Riverdale and Hello, Goodbye and Everything In Between.

When lockdown hit New York, a need to create, and to play, flourished in her and confirmed that she found her voice. Such discovery has since amassed through the deep connection Amara fosters when embodying a new on-screen persona. From her first major role, in The Porter, a 1920’s drama series spanning the hustle across borders in North America, Amara took on the role of a leading dancer in a jazz club in 1921 Montreal. Merging her dancing skills into acting, her performances, choreographed by Christian Vincent, landed the show an Emmy nomination. “It was a really special project be- ing in a room full of Black people. It’s not often in Canada that you see that. Telling Canadian Black history through a period piece was really special, we usually hear about American Black history, so it was such a meaningful project.”

Now with a roster of roles under her belt, Amara takes to the screen soon with The Big Door Prize, starring alongside the inimitable Chris O’Dowd, and the actor is gearing up for the world to meet Trina. “It’s my favourite role I’ve ever played. I just love that girl so much!” she shares. Telling the story of a small town that is drastically changed when an unexpected machine appears in a grocery store, Amara assumes the role of a headstrong, intelligent daughter, grappling with her own internal narrative of grief and guilt. Starring alongside veterans of the comedy genre, Amara has firmly found her place in the world of performance, both in body and voice. Using her challenges as mere accelerants to push herself further, Amara is harnessing the energy of her forthright youthful self, cart-wheeling from her childhood home to the high heights of Hollywood. Watch this space.