Olivia Sullivent has been working toward her big break in acting since her first project at 10 years old — “The Flamingo Lounge” —- a college student’s short film.

Finally, it came after years of auditioning for Disney when she was cast in the network’s 2021 short film, “Growing Fangs.”

But before she fell in love with acting, she fell in love with costume design — designing shoes was a passion. She used to want to work behind the scenes in a costume department, rather than center-stage. This changed when she discovered acting.

She found acting after she and her brother were adopted out of a bad situation in Tulsa, Oklahoma and eventually moved to Denver, Colorado. As a way of getting Olivia out of her shell, Olivia’s adopted mother enrolled her in acting classes.

Olivia immediately knew she loved acting. The ability to become another person was an incentive to her, from being able to understand how a character can say things to how they can move.

She’s had to get used to memorizing up to nine pages of a script in a short time span, such as 20 minutes, for projects like commercials. However, that wasn’t always a natural talent.

“I started off doing musical theater and summer camps and youth productions where it was very repetitive and coaches would have you play games to memorize,” Olivia says.

However, by the time she went to her art school in Colorado, “they would give you a scene at the beginning of the week and you would have three days to memorize it, they kind of left students to their own devices.”

Now, she says she can look at a script once and have it down in minutes after years of practice.

Since then, the 18-year-old has played the role of Dora in “Growing Fangs” while attending Redondo Union High School online and taking classes at El Camino College.

She took journalism and political science classes in fall 2021 and sociology and communication classes in spring 2022.

She plans to attend ECC full time as an undecided major after graduating high school in 2022, but is drawn to journalism and French as it’s her second language. As for pursuing El Camino’s theater classes, she isn’t as sure if she wants to do that, as she says she has already gained experience at an acting school.

Olivia honed in on her acting skills growing up in Denver at The Denver Center for the Performing Arts but had a hard time fitting in class in Denver and high school after moving to Redondo Beach.

Upon her enrollment in ninth grade at Redondo Union High School, Olivia had great friends, but not everybody understood the reality of her commitment to acting, especially not RUHS.

In her first semester, she used up all her absences for the entire school year due to auditions. Her social life and academics struggled to stay afloat, but Olivia knew that pursuing acting was worth it and she decided to move to online schooling to better balance acting and academics.

The time commitment for Olivia not only meant missing her friends and school, but having to decide to give up a side interest in dancing for now and focus solely on acting instead. However, the most harsh aspect of the industry was the rejection.

She can’t recall how many times she was turned away for “not looking the part” even though every other girl who auditioned for the part looked exactly like her. She can’t remember how many times she was typecast as the “nerdy girl” because of her glasses and tall stature.

She can’t remember how many times she’s been told that she just isn’t what a project is looking for.

As a teenager, she knows the rejection has changed her. But more importantly, she understands that she has an abundance of experience and success in an industry that isn’t always so welcoming.

Anyone who doesn’t come from the entertainment industry doesn’t have an understanding of what you need to have to make it as an actor or actress, experts say.

Holly Sneed, an adjunct theater instructor who’s been teaching at El Camino for about 14 years says that “more than anything, flexibility” is what makes an actor or actress good.

Making it as a star is rarely about being in the right place at the right time, it’s about rolling with the punches more often than not, Holly says.

“When you prepare for an audition, they give you the words ahead of time, but when you go in, nine times out of ten they’ll say ‘OK, now do it this way,’” Holly says.

What it comes down to is flexibility in terms of direction, but flexibility seems to be Olivia’s strength, and her portfolio is a dead give away when you look at all the projects she’s been involved with.

Olivia has grown her portfolio on and off camera. She’s been in theater productions of “A Christmas Carol” and “The Who’s Tommy” in Denver where she worked with people including Andy Mientus who was in “The Flash” and “Les Miserables” as well as Sara Capner, a Broadway star.

She’s worked on over 200 commercials, modeled and of course has starred in the Disney short film. This June she will play a part in “Stages,” a musical created by Karen Tobey, her vocal coach and Colorado Children’s Theater owner, which is where Olivia and Karen met.

The musical is set to premiere for one night in Denver on June 17.

The 71 year-old coach has had record offers, has had leads in musicals, but “life just kept taking [her] to be a teacher,” Karen says.

Before she began teaching in Colorado, Karen says she taught in Los Angeles, producing over “100 working actors” today, including A-listers like Juliette Lewis, Brie Larson, and Joseph Gordon Levitt.

“Stages” has been in the works for 35 years, with the first premiere being 15 years ago with a third of the play completed, the second in 2017 being half completed, and the one in June being the first full production to premiere.

The musical follows a popular dyslexic teenager who moves schools after going through a difficult time. Upon joining the new school he has a hard time adjusting until he meets a girl and joins the drama club where he learns from the “rejects” within it.

Olivia is playing a cheerleader named Maddie who is learning to love herself and those around her after realizing she won’t find it by sleeping around and being used by men. She’s “one of the emotionally crippled kids,” Karen says.

Before she flies out to Denver, Olivia is working on her craft. She has acting classes with William James on Thursdays and is one of the only teenage students who is in such an advanced class. On Fridays she works with Karen.

Olivia’s coaches and teachers say she is a rising star and she’s already getting recognized.

“Olivia is my best student,” Karen says.

She’s moved her way up in Nickelodeon’s casting process as she was one of only a few to be selected for the network’s training. She’s been recognized by Uber drivers who tell her she “looks familiar,” but the most heartfelt example of recognition to her were people reaching out to her on social media from her role in “Growing Fangs.”

However, making it as a star when you’re a teenager isn’t easy. Holly says it’s “not often,” but it helps “if you’re over 16 and you look younger than your age because you have a better chance of getting work.”

This is simply because of legality; a child under 16 years old can only work on set for so many hours due to child labor laws and the fact that they also need to attend school, often on set.

Another huge legal issue is Coogan’s law, which is upheld in California, and requires that the earnings a minor receives from their work is the minor’s money, not their parents, and that 15% of their earnings must be set aside in a trust account, or a Coogan account.

Before Olivia turned 18, she needed a child supervisor or guardian on set. This came with shorter hours and less pay.

“My mom had to be everywhere with me and the set teacher did too, I had to do school for three hours and I couldn’t get lunch by myself,” Olivia says. “Someone would have to have their eyes on me at all times.”

Needless to say, being over 16 comes with its perks if you consider how many restrictions are removed while you look young enough to still play teenage roles.

Since Olivia turned 18 in July, she says that being on set is easier now.

“There’s a lot of restrictions that are lifted, I don’t need a guardian on set and I can basically do whatever I want in the compounds of the rules that are established,” Olivia says.

She can drive herself to auditions and be there by herself without a supervisor or guardian today, and she often does during the week.

Olivia can confirm that it’s much easier to get cast if you’re a legal adult but can still play younger roles.

“All my auditions now are 18 plus because casting loves people that are 18 but look younger,” Olivia says.

While she’s enjoying the perks that come with being an adult on set, she says she’s also trying to re-brand herself away from the child she was as “a little skinny twig with big curly hair and glasses.”

“It’s a bigger deal now that I’m older and my agency and manager are very direct in telling me to look how I’ve branded myself,” Olivia says. “Now I wear my hair back and my style is edgier, but everyone is on board and supportive.”

As for how a usual project process may go for Holly and Olivia, they start with an open call that is usually found on websites nowadays which provide a breakdown of character names and descriptive words.

Next is a “side,” or in other words a piece of a script they want you to prepare and memorize for an audition. After that would be a “call-back” where actors are paired with other actors to read scenes together.

People are typically cast after such call-backs, and a “read-through” follows suit with stage directions and a group script reading. The rehearsal process usually begins after the “read-through.”

For Olivia, “usually in a week you audition and get a call back a few days later,” but that isn’t always how it goes.

During the process for a printing project, she auditioned a few weeks prior to getting the part, but after not hearing back about anything, she assumed she didn’t get the gig.

Even when Olivia isn’t on set, she’s always busy. Usually a week consists of “an average of three auditions a week,” for various projects like commercials, voice-overs and TV shows.

Besides the auditions, call-backs, and casting, Olivia dog-sits every week for three days, and does school. She explained that she used to be a nanny, but had to stop because of her busy schedule.

While there isn’t a lot set in stone during her days, Olivia currently does rehearsals for her upcoming play in Colorado on Tuesdays, a three-hour acting class on Thursdays and vocal lessons on Fridays.

But despite the ups and downs of gigs, and the brutal processes aspiring actors have to go through with them, Olivia knows that she couldn’t have continued to strive for her dreams without her biggest supporters like her parents and her 20 year-old brother, Stephan.

Stephan is a retired dancer from the New York City Joffrey Ballet School and a current member of the Navy where he studies political science as a D1 athlete on the off-shore sailing team.

Along with Karen and William, Olivia credits her manager April Baker, her agency, Osbrink, her vocal coaches Marin Hill and David Kaufman, who voiced Danny Phantom on the self-titled Nickelodeon show and her friends for being nothing, but supportive.

Olivia’s talent and optimism radiates from her, and it’s obvious to everyone who’s been around her.

“She is going to go out and make the world a much better place,” Karen says, “her positivity is going to affect everything and everybody she touches.”

Editor’s note: Story was updated for clarity on June 7, 2022, at 3:37 p.m.