This week’s guest was actress Gina Simone Pemberton. It was lovely meeting her as she was very passionate about her work and her story was really interesting to me. She had always been interested in performing as her dad was a performer and she had pictured them performing together one day. Despite this early interest in theater she did not think she could get into LaGuardia high school but with a push from her middle school teacher she applied and got in. After high school she went to college to further study the arts and received a degree in music education. She got a degree in music education as she knew a job in the arts wouldn’t always be steady and she could use this degree to be financially stable while pursuing theater. I really liked her perspective on her career as she said she doesn’t want to be rich or famous she just wants to get to a point where she can pay her bills doing what she loves. People often think that if someone wants to work in the arts they need to be extremely famous or rich but that’s not the case. She also spoke about the topic of money tainting art and said that she doesn’t believe money taints art as artists put work and effort into their art and they can’t do that if they aren’t getting paid. I agree with her and think the whole idea that money taints art is strange because for every other career no one questions this. Artists put time and effort  into their work and deserve to be compensated for it just like any other profession. It was also interesting to hear Gina’s process working on a role as she said for her part in Lady Day she did not watch any performances of Billie Holiday because she didn’t want to be influenced by other actresses’ portrayals. She also discussed how she has to make a personal connection to the art before she can share it with others. I never thought about that before but when an actor is able to connect to the character themselves it is much easier for the audience to connect to the character too. Overall, I enjoyed meeting Gina and hearing another artist show that it is possible to pursue art without struggling financially.