Daniela Sea
Encyclopedia
Daniela Sea is an American
filmmaker musician
, performance art
ist, former circus
juggler, and actress. She is most widely known for her role as Max/Moira on Showtime's The L Word
.
/surfer/hippie
parents. When she was a child, her father came out as gay. Her stepfather taught her to surf and moved the family to Hawaii
so they could enjoy better surfing. Her earliest memories are of the ocean
, later inspiring her pseudonym
.
Sea: "I ran away when I was 16 from L.A. and I moved to the Bay area
, like a good gay kid would." While there in Berkeley, she joined the DIY/punk/feminist/artist space Gilman Street Project, studied improv acting
in Laney College
, and played in several punk rock
bands, including The Gr'ups and Cypher in the Snow
.
Sea traveled all over Europe
and Asia
. She hitchhiked through Turkey
, did some street theatre
, and performed as a fire juggler with a traveling circus in Poland
. As a punk rocker, she and her band cross-dressed. At one point in her world travels, she lived in India
for eight months as a man.
She said about her sexuality:
Sea is a longtime vegan and has made a PSA video for PETA.
and decided to re-enter the acting world, giving an audition tape to a friend who worked on The L Word
s writing staff. Sea then got a call at her restaurant job in New York and was asked to fly to Los Angeles
for an audition. She was then offered to perform the role of Moira Sweeney, an androgynous computer technician who moves from the Midwest with Jenny (Mia Kirshner
). Over the course of the season, Moira comes out as a trans man
, adopting the name Max Sweeney. She, Clementine Ford
(Molly), Alexandra Hedison
(Dylan) and Leisha Hailey
(Alice
) are the only out lesbian women in The L Word ensemble cast.
With her girlfriend of the time, Bitch
, formerly of Bitch and Animal
, she helped to form a band called Bitch and the Exciting Conclusion. She was part of the band The Thorns of Life
with her longtime friends Blake Schwarzenbach
(formerly of Jawbreaker
and Jets to Brazil
) and Aaron Cometbus
(of Pinhead Gunpowder
and formerly Crimpshrine
). The band toured the West Coast and played in New York City and Philadelphia from fall 2008 through winter 2009. Besides The L Word, Sea's filmography also includes the films Shortbus
(2006) (with Bitch, both as themselves) and Itty Bitty Titty Committee
, released in 2007. She also appeared in the John Cameron Mitchell
-directed music video for Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" with Bitch. On February 17, 2009, she guest starred on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
as a transgender boy, playing a similar role to Max Sweeney.
Daniela is cast in a leading role in the new film The Casserole Club. Co-starring Susan Traylor, Kevin Richardson (musician)
, Pleasant Gehman
, and Garrett Swann
, the film is set in 1969 and deals with damaged relationships. To be directed by acclaimed filmmaker Steve Balderson
, filming is scheduled to take place in Wamego, Kansas during fall of 2010.
Sea currently plays in an unnamed music project with Will Schwartz
. They played their second show at the Hammer Museum
in Los Angeles, California, in October 2010.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
filmmaker musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, performance art
Performance art
In art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
ist, former circus
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
juggler, and actress. She is most widely known for her role as Max/Moira on Showtime's The L Word
The L Word
The L Word is an American co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood...
.
History
She grew up in Malibu, California, raised by her artistArtist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
/surfer/hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
parents. When she was a child, her father came out as gay. Her stepfather taught her to surf and moved the family to Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
so they could enjoy better surfing. Her earliest memories are of the ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
, later inspiring her pseudonym
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
.
Sea: "I ran away when I was 16 from L.A. and I moved to the Bay area
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a populated region that surrounds the San Francisco and San Pablo estuaries in Northern California. The region encompasses metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, along with smaller urban and rural areas...
, like a good gay kid would." While there in Berkeley, she joined the DIY/punk/feminist/artist space Gilman Street Project, studied improv acting
Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...
in Laney College
Laney College
Laney College is a community college located in Oakland, California, next to the Lake Merritt BART station and the Kaiser Convention Center. Laney is the largest of the four colleges of the Peralta Community College District which serves northern Alameda County.Laney College originally opened in...
, and played in several punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
bands, including The Gr'ups and Cypher in the Snow
Cypher in the Snow
Cypher in the Snow were an all women queercore band from San Francisco.One of the band's first appearances was at the Dirtybird Queercore Festival in San Francisco in 1996. This historic festival also featured Tribe 8, Sta-Prest, Behead the Prophet, No Lord Shall Live, The Need and many others...
.
Sea traveled all over Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
and Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. She hitchhiked through Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
, did some street theatre
Street theatre
Street theatre is a form of theatrical performance and presentation in outdoor public spaces without a specific paying audience. These spaces can be anywhere, including shopping centres, car parks, recreational reserves and street corners. They are especially seen in outdoor spaces where there are...
, and performed as a fire juggler with a traveling circus in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. As a punk rocker, she and her band cross-dressed. At one point in her world travels, she lived in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
for eight months as a man.
She said about her sexuality:
Sea is a longtime vegan and has made a PSA video for PETA.
Career
After Sea returned from Europe, she moved to New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and decided to re-enter the acting world, giving an audition tape to a friend who worked on The L Word
The L Word
The L Word is an American co-production television drama series originally shown on Showtime portraying the lives of a group of lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people and their friends, family and lovers in the trendy Greater Los Angeles, California city of West Hollywood...
s writing staff. Sea then got a call at her restaurant job in New York and was asked to fly to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
for an audition. She was then offered to perform the role of Moira Sweeney, an androgynous computer technician who moves from the Midwest with Jenny (Mia Kirshner
Mia Kirshner
Mia Kirshner is a Canadian actress and social activist who works in movies and television series. She is best known for her portrayal of Jenny Schecter on The L Word and for her role in the 2006 crime film The Black Dahlia as Elizabeth Short.- Early life :Kirshner was born in Toronto, Ontario,...
). Over the course of the season, Moira comes out as a trans man
Trans man
A trans man, transman, trans guy, or FTM is a transgender or transsexual man: a person who was assigned female at birth, but who identifies as male....
, adopting the name Max Sweeney. She, Clementine Ford
Clementine Ford
Clementine Ford is an American actress who is perhaps best known for her appearance as Molly Kroll on the fourth, fifth & sixth seasons of Showtime's The L Word...
(Molly), Alexandra Hedison
Alexandra Hedison
Alexandra Hedison is a contemporary photographer who lives and works in Los Angeles. She is the daughter of actor David Hedison, and is a former actress who appeared on television series such as Showtime's The L Word.She attended the State University of New York at Purchase and University of...
(Dylan) and Leisha Hailey
Leisha Hailey
Leisha Hailey is an American actress and musician most widely known for playing Alice Pieszecki in the Showtime Networks production The L Word...
(Alice
Alice Pieszecki
Alice Pieszecki is a fictional character on the Showtime television network series The L Word, shown nationally in the United States. She is played by American actress Leisha Hailey. Alice lives in Los Angeles, California, and mostly hangs out in West Hollywood...
) are the only out lesbian women in The L Word ensemble cast.
With her girlfriend of the time, Bitch
Bitch (performer)
Bitch, also known as Capital B, is a musician, actress, composer, and performance artist. She sings, plays acoustic and electric violin, ukulele, bass, and keyboard.- Collaboration with Animal :...
, formerly of Bitch and Animal
Bitch and Animal
Bitch and Animal, a duo consisting of musicians Bitch and Animal Prufrock, were a queercore band that performed from 1995 to 2004. Bitch and Animal have kept their birth names out of publication for both political and artistic reasons...
, she helped to form a band called Bitch and the Exciting Conclusion. She was part of the band The Thorns of Life
The Thorns of Life
The Thorns of Life were a punk rock band from Brooklyn, New York. In October 2008, Blake Schwarzenbach, formerly of Jets to Brazil and Jawbreaker, revealed that he had started writing music for a then "as-yet-unnamed group" with drummer Aaron Cometbus and bassist Daniela Sea, formerly of the Gr'ups...
with her longtime friends Blake Schwarzenbach
Blake Schwarzenbach
Alexander Blake Schwarzenbach is an American musician. He was the singer and left-handed guitarist of Jawbreaker , Jets to Brazil , The Thorns of Life , and forgetters -Education:...
(formerly of Jawbreaker
Jawbreaker (band)
Jawbreaker was an American punk rock band active from 1986 to 1996 and considered one of the most influential acts of the early-1990s emo movement...
and Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil
Jets to Brazil was an American rock band formed in 1997. It was founded by Blake Schwarzenbach, former frontman of Jawbreaker. When Schwarzenbach relocated to Brooklyn, New York, after Jawbreaker had disbanded, he reunited with friend Jeremy Chatelain and the two began working on four-track...
) and Aaron Cometbus
Aaron Cometbus
Aaron Elliott , better known as Aaron Cometbus, is an American drummer, lyricist, self-described "punk anthropologist," novelist, and author of punk rock zine Cometbus.-Personal life:...
(of Pinhead Gunpowder
Pinhead Gunpowder
Pinhead Gunpowder is an American punk rock band formed East Bay, California, in 1990. The band has consisted of Aaron Cometbus , Bill Schneider , Billie Joe Armstrong and Jason White for the majority of its existence...
and formerly Crimpshrine
Crimpshrine
Crimpshrine was an American punk rock band from Berkeley, California. The group was formed in 1982 by Aaron Cometbus, founder of the seminal punk rock zine Cometbus, and a friend, Jeff Ott. Within D.I.Y...
). The band toured the West Coast and played in New York City and Philadelphia from fall 2008 through winter 2009. Besides The L Word, Sea's filmography also includes the films Shortbus
Shortbus
Shortbus is a 2006 comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cameron Mitchell. The plot revolves around a sexually diverse ensemble of colorful characters trying desperately to connect in New York City. The characters converge in a weekly Brooklyn artistic/sexual salon loosely inspired by...
(2006) (with Bitch, both as themselves) and Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Itty Bitty Titty Committee
Itty Bitty Titty Committee is a feminist, lesbian-related comedy film directed by Jamie Babbit. It was released on 28 September 2007.The film had its premiere at the international film festival Berlinale on 9 February 2007, where it was nominated for a Teddy Award for Best Feature...
, released in 2007. She also appeared in the John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell
John Cameron Mitchell is an American writer, actor, and director. He is best known for his motion pictures Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Shortbus and Rabbit Hole.- Early life:...
-directed music video for Bright Eyes' "First Day of My Life" with Bitch. On February 17, 2009, she guest starred on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit
Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is an American police procedural television drama series set in New York City, where it is also primarily produced...
as a transgender boy, playing a similar role to Max Sweeney.
Daniela is cast in a leading role in the new film The Casserole Club. Co-starring Susan Traylor, Kevin Richardson (musician)
Kevin Richardson (musician)
Kevin Scott Richardson is an American singer and a former member of the Backstreet Boys, model, actor, and composer. He was the oldest member of the band during his tenure.- Early years :...
, Pleasant Gehman
Pleasant Gehman
Pleasant Gehman is a magazine writer, poet, actor, dancer and musician from Los Angeles.In the 1980s, she was the singer for the punk rock band Screamin' Sirens, and later, The RIngling Sisters and Honk If Yer Horny. All three bands have released numerous titles on vinyl, as well as cd...
, and Garrett Swann
Garrett Swann
Garrett Swann is an American actor. He has appeared on television shows such as The Assistant, Fashion House, and The 70's House. Other credits include Milk, 10 Attitudes and Wild Child.-External links:...
, the film is set in 1969 and deals with damaged relationships. To be directed by acclaimed filmmaker Steve Balderson
Steve Balderson
Stephen Clark Balderson is an American film director.-Early life:Balderson was born in Manhattan, Kansas and raised in nearby Wamego, Kansas until the age of twelve, when his family moved to Manhattan. Balderson attended Manhattan High School. Though his class attendance was poor, Balderson...
, filming is scheduled to take place in Wamego, Kansas during fall of 2010.
Sea currently plays in an unnamed music project with Will Schwartz
Will Schwartz
Will Schwartz is an American pop musician, and a member of the band Imperial Teen, whose debut album Seasick was released in 1996.Of the "queer alt-rockers Imperial Teen," one New York Times reviewer wrote that "though every song on the album is good, the best are the ones about homosexuality ,...
. They played their second show at the Hammer Museum
Hammer Museum
The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Culture Center, or the Hammer Museum as it is more commonly known, is an art museum in the Westwood district of Los Angeles, California...
in Los Angeles, California, in October 2010.
External links
- Daniela Sea's official website
- Daniela Sea on The L Word
- Daniela Sea's official Myspace
- Interview about & her veganism/diet (video)
- The Casserole Club movie - official site from Dikenga Films