Alia Shawkat on How to Take Your Characters Career Into Your Own Hands

Awardwinning actor and producer Alia Shawkat broke out in Hollywood as a teenager, which proved to be both blessing and curse. Like any struggling artist, shes had to challenge the industrys preconceptions as well as her own, folding each new endeavor into her evolving artistic philosophy. She has several rules pertaining to acting: One is to watch everything you appear in, but only twice. Another is to reassess what you want out of your craft and career every few years. You have to keep falling in love with it, Alia says. Theres a timing and a luck to this. And then just perseverance. The Californiaborn Alia became a breakout child actor, on first State of Grace and then as Maeby Fünke on the longrunning, SAG Awardnominated Arrested Development. She has appeared on Drunk History, Transparent, and Broad City, and starred in Whip It, The To Do List, The Final Girl, Blaze, Duck Butter, and Animals. Alia produces the TBStoHBO Max mystery series Search Party, starr