Voyage LA
Meet Lara Heller
Today we’d like to introduce you to Lara Heller.
Lara, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My story started in a mountain village in Germany. LA was just a place in the clouds back then. Today, I’m very grateful to be living in the capital of the entertainment industry! California is another world compared to where I spent my childhood. The area in Germany that I grew up in didn’t even have a theatre.
The closest cinema was in a village below the mountain and seated a grand total of 15 people. They’d even pause the film for us when we wanted popcorn! I grew up in what felt like a 1950’s upbringing. We watched old movies and I fancied actors like Gregory Peck and Sidney Poitier.
I then moved on to Luxembourg and finally Switzerland. Both countries are stunning… it just wasn’t an option to pursue acting, as we didn’t have the kind of entertainment industry that LA has. What we did have was an amazing Olympic ice rink! So I embraced that and was an athlete for most of my childhood, competing nationally for Germany and Luxembourg. Figure skating filled up all my free time-early mornings on ice and summer skating camps with Russian coaches.
I suppose I first discovered acting when I was 13 years old. My dad directed an improvised movie that my school friends and I acted in. We had a blast and that was the moment I fell in love with the world of storytelling.