From Monologue to Screenplay: Rose Di Nardo Explains The Trials and Tribulations of Creating Art On Film

Speaking your truth and creating art in motion picture; actress/writer/producer Rose Di Nardo is just that personified. With a number of acting credits under her belt having worked in the 2017 James Franco film “The Mad Whale” and in multiple shorts; Di Nardo is now stepping behind the camera and gearing up for her first major project where she’s in creative control as the writer and producer with “A Sequoia on Fire.” Glambergirlblog chatted with Rose all about the project and what viewers can expect from the feature film.

Before the project even became a screenplay it started as a monologue for school. “I really needed a monologue for class. A friend of mine, Michael Herman who I’ve known since Eastern Michigan University; I gave him some concepts of what I wanted. He wrote me this amazing monologue that I just loved. I did it in class and got some really amazing feedback. I just fell in love with this story,” Di Nardo told Glambergirlblog about how she started her journey to being a filmmaker.

Still from “A Sequoia on Fire”

Still from “A Sequoia on Fire”

She added, “I was watching all different road and travel movies and I noticed that there was a trend that there were no stories about female writers and travelers in a lead role. It’s almost always a male lead and I wanted to have a story that had a beautiful arc of showing the growth of a girl into a woman and growing into her independence.”

Falling in love with the story was the easy part, but actually getting the ball rolling was another story. “I had never produced, same with even collaborating on the screenplay, and I honestly just winged it. I invested my own money and I hired a really amazing team. I had a female director and DP. We worked on it for a few months and the monologue actually ended up being one of the last pages in the screenplay. So it’s crazy that it all came from this one page and now it’s the end of the film.”

Rose learned so much while creating her project, but the most rewarding thing was the journey of it. “The most rewarding thing was honestly just doing it. I know that sounds really vague and cliché, but the whole journey of it was such a process. Working on a screenplay and then deciding how we’re going to approach getting financing and then deciding how I’m going to produce this trailer. It was most rewarding to make stuff happen step by step. Even if I didn’t know how it was going to happen or how it was going to turn out, just deciding I was going to do something and just making it happen.”

Photo: Prithvi Raj

Making it happen is just the advice Rose gives to aspiring creators. “If you want to write, direct, produce, or anything; you can learn and just do things. You should never be like ‘oh I didn’t go to school for this. I can’t do it.’ Speaking your truth is also a notion Rose urges everyone to keep in mind.

“Those three words just resonates so much with me. I feel like there’s such a facade of like how you present yourself and maybe feeling a pressure to be a certain way or say certain things. There’s so much power in the spoken word and the written word; literally speaking your truth. Speak what’s important to you, speak what’s meaningful to you, speak in your authentic voice. I think a lot of people don’t realize how powerful their word is. I think it’s just so important to stay in that, to stay in your truth. That’s definitely something that I feel resonates with me and that I want to share with other people as well.”

Outside of “A Sequoia on Fire,” be on the look out for all projects Rose Di Nardo has coming up by keeping up with her on social media by following her on Instagram @Rosedinardo and on Facebook by searching RoseDiNardoActor. And to really get all the updates on Rose head over to her website, www.rosedinardo.com.

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Photo: Joey Mireles