Auditioning in the big, bustling city of Beijing is probably very intimidating if you’re a teenage girl. But Dralla Aierken did it and instead of intimidation she found happiness and joy. Of course, she was doing exactly what she wanted to do, which was acting, so she had that going for her. She, of course, got the parts that she auditioned for and took a year off from college to act in theater festivals in China’s capitol city.
After graduating from Peking University she perfected her art with even more intensive training and earned an MFA at Harvard University Theater Training and Moscow Art Theater School. (Languages are no problem for her because she speaks fluent English, Mandarin and Uyghur). She performed in numerous stage productions on the East Coast and then moved permanently to Los Angeles where she works today in film and TV productions.
Dralla is known for her dedication to her career, which means that she takes each role as seriously as the one before it. When she played the role of Gravitron in Light Princess, she WAS Gravitron. And when she played Wendy in the film I Do, she WAS Wendy even though it was a challenge and a rollercoaster of emotions for her. Some people think acting is easy but real professionals, like Dralla, know the hard work that goes into each role. She understands the amount of preparation that is necessary before you can actually become that character. All of her training and schooling have given her the tools she needs to be where she’s at today.
When she played Lucy in the film Devil’s Conversation, she had to find the character. She read who the character was and had an intellectual feel for Lucy but she knew that she had to know who she was on an emotional level, which took some soul searching on Dralla’s part. Of course, she ultimately succeeded and not only found the character’s emotional center point, but, the critics praised her and the audiences loved her in the movie.
So, hard work does pay off and Dralla tells people to not be afraid to do the work in order to get to the core of your character. She also tells aspiring actors to not let anyone define who you are, where you should be or what you should be doing. Every artist’s path is a different one.
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