We recently had the chance to connect with Missy Bell and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Missy, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What do the first 90 minutes of your day look like?
I usually wake up between 8 and 8:30 AM. I’m a slow starter. It took me years to be okay with that. For decades I was a “grab a Pop Tart or granola bar on the way out the door” kind of person, but I’ve learned that’s not the best thing for me, actually, and now I start with ten minutes of meditation in bed, followed by re-hydration, bathroom, sun salutation, and then heading to the kitchen. I have the same breakfast every morning: fried potatoes with peppers, onions, mushrooms, sundried tomatoes, sauerkraut, and eggs with a cup of coffee and a splash of chocolate almond milk. I eat the breakfast while checking the news, then I drink the coffee slowly on the porch if the weather is right. As it gets colder I try to squeeze out more time with hoodies and beanies and wool socks, because porch time is sacred. After all of that I’ll clean up the kitchen and do hygiene tasks like brushing my teeth and a shower if I’m going out, and if I’m not, I’ll head down to my office in the basement to get started on work.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m a filmmaker, primarily a director, but also a writer and producer depending on the project. I’m an independent contractor or I work for my own company, Mouse House Productions, which I run with my partner. The company produces efflorescent films about metamorphic human journeys. I pride myself on running a company and running sets that are well organized, efficient, kind, collaborative, and impactful.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. Who saw you clearly before you could see yourself?
When I was in college, majoring in English Education, my actual dream was to become an actor, hopefully on Broadway. I had grand plans to move to New York City with five friends and split the rent on an apartment and scrape money together to make ends meet until we all made it big. I loved acting, and I was determined to prove anyone wrong who told me I wasn’t good enough.
One fall I wrote a play about Nazi Germany and a romantic relationship there that ended in tragedy and I directed it myself for a student one act sort of event. I’d written it the summer before so I could give myself a lead role, but the project fell through when my friends didn’t want to commit, so I cast my roommate in the role I wrote for myself and a bunch of other theatre kids in the other parts. After the festival one of the theatre professors actually hosted a party for me and my cast at her house. She told me what I’d done was a big deal, and later at a meeting in her office, she told me that while I was a talented actor, my true gift was directing. At the time it felt upsetting. She gave me another directing project for a playwriting major, and I did that, but I had to fight the resentment about acting – I wanted to be seen as worthy of the spotlight, and I wanted to be seen as that person.
Dr. Valerie Flower is the name of that professor. She still teachers in the Philadelphia area. I still consider her a mentor even though we haven’t spoken in years.
I kept acting, but directing work kept dropping into my lap. It wasn’t a thing I could avoid, in the end: it was a true calling. I have directed over fifty stage performances, and in 2018 I switched my focus to film.
I eventually embraced my Director Self in 2021, when I dropped my acting agent and decided to grind at directing full time. I see now how everything I’ve learned was leading me here. The acting makes me a director who loves and understands actors. The stage work makes me a film director who truly understands blocking. My English degree gives me a leg up on symbol, metaphor, and the written word. I’m late, maybe? Or maybe I’m right on time.
What did suffering teach you that success never could?
Everyone is not kind. Everyone does not have a deep well of kindness that you can tap into if you’re nice enough to them. Being nice isn’t going to protect you from people who mean you harm, and there are people who mean you harm.
I have had numerous occasions to learn this hard lesson, and it’s still one that I don’t want to admit is the reality of the world, but you simply can’t trust everyone. Some people are bad, mean, and there to take advantage. You need to weigh things out and measure folks before giving them your actual trust.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. Is the public version of you the real you?
It is, and that’s a struggle, actually.
I don’t do fake. I don’t manage it well and I don’t find it interesting. My goal from childhood has always been to be the best and most authentic version of myself, and I’m still that way. I still believe in that. I don’t understand folks who are constantly pretending something. It’s exhausting. I’ve tried it at times for my own protection. In the end, I’d rather exit a situation than compromise my personhood. I work to be appropriate for the circumstance and the situation, but I’m always me. Maybe that’s my Autism. Maybe that’s something else, but it’s what it is. People tend not to trust that, and that’s part of those hard lessons: most people ARE pretending most of the time, so it’s hard for them to believe that I don’t have some secret agenda.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. Are you tap dancing to work? Have you been that level of excited at any point in your career? If so, please tell us about those days.
Yeah. I really am.
There are days that are impossibly hard. Days where I am so tired I can barely make it. Where I’d rather vomit than get out of bed and drag myself to a film set. But at the bottom of it, it’s always so worth it. My soul is tap dancing, even if my body is slogging through.
I feel like making art and telling stories is the greatest privilege of humanity. I don’t take it lightly. Storytelling is deep and vital and the light in the deepest darkness. It keeps me going. It always has.
Days when it’s difficult, my call time is 0530 or whatever, and I’m nervous we won’t make the day, or feeling unsure of myself, or in some conflict with someone on the crew, I feel that fear and frustration and exhaustion, but I get to set and there’s a hot breakfast some days and coffee all days and these people all working side by side in spite of differences to tell the same tale to try and make some difference in the world… how can I not dance about that? How is it not the most beautiful thing there is?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.missybell.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/missybell_arts/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/missy-bell-59a00b46/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/missybellarts
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@missybell_arts
- Other: https://mousehouse.productions
Image Credits
Single photo: still frame from my feature film: Erased, featuring actor Elias Hamilton.
Photo in front of Erased backdrop: Sally Superville
On set photos and headshots/branding images: Arise Images; except for photo of me looking up at the cameraman on the ladder. That photo credit is to Kaitlyn McCary.
