Rachel is easy to recognize; though some might not know her by name, it’s hard to miss the willowy girl with the unique head of curly red hair. While Rachel is used to everyone attaching some sort of celebrity status to her, whether it’s that of Merida from Brave or good old orphan “Annie”, only a handful actually know for who she really is, a practically minded romantic with a love for theater, and old timey art and literature. We at Her Campus MCLA sat down for an in depth interview about all things Rachel Valliere.
Year: Junior, Class of 2017
Major: Arts Management
Hometown:Mansfield, Conn.
Relationship status: In a relationship for a little over one and a half years
Activities: “[I’m a] member of Yorick, and Harlequin; currently I’m doing props for the Harlequin Review and I am going to be the box office manager so I will also be running box office for both FPA shows, Romeo and Juliet and Dog sees God . “
Author Edit: (Rachel was at this time also going to be Props Mistress for Yorick’s Antony and Cleopatra, which was canceled earlier in the semester because of low audition attendance)
So you seem like you’re really in to theater?
“Yes, I love theater but I can’t act, or sing, or dance. Well I can kind of dance—not very good, sort of good. Don’t look at me when I dance.
I like doing tech work for theater and to figure out people’s creative processes instead of just watching it. As an actor, you’re a part of that but you get told what to do, on the production team you get to sit down and talk to the director and the stage manager.”
What’s your favorite Broadway Show?
“I’ve only ever seen three plays on Broadway, but I really want to see A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder. I’m very sad because I may not get to, because it’s closing soon. That’s my favorite show because the music is really good and it’s a cool idea. It’s a guy who is the sole heir to his fortune. Then he kills a bunch of his relatives, but he also falls in love.
I also want to see Something Rotten, which is all about Shakespeare, but it’s also a musical and it looks hilarious.”
So you really like Shakespeare then?
“I really like Shakespeare. I just like plays in general, but Shakespeare is pretty cool.”
What draws you to Shakespeare?
“From an early age I was able to understand it, whereas most of the people in my classes didn’t. I read Romeo and Juliet by myself in eighth grade and then we got to high school and we got read it for real and then I answered every question my teacher asked. He had to sit me down and say ‘you literally cannot answer any more questions, you have to give the other kids a chance to talk.’ [I] don’t know, the plays are just really pretty, and really interesting and some of them are funny even when they’re not supposed to be funny. I can’t really give you a reason just really like the classic aspect of something old. That’s why I like Charles Dickens too, it’s the classical aspect.”
You like vintage?
“I like vintage. Vintage is nice.”
What is your favorite Shakespeare show?
“Everybody is going to hate me, but I have to say Romeo and Juliet.”
So you’re a romantic?
“I am a romantic. I mean, I guess I’m not that much of a romantic. I don’t know, I go back and forth between romantic in my head and telling myself ‘no you need to be realistic here, get your sh*t together.’”
How you feel about your hair?
“It’s kind of annoying sometimes but I like it, it’s different. When I was little, random strangers used to come up to me and say, “you look like Annie,” and I used to sit there and think, “I don’t know who that is.” Then finally my mom showed me Annie and I was kind of offended because she had an afro, and I did not have an afro. I had hair down to my shoulders and I was like, ‘I don’t look anything like this chick, my hair isn’t even that color.'”
How do you feel when people say “you look like Merida from Brave?”
“I want to punch them in the face.”
Would you give a PSA to those who might come up to you and talk about Brave?
“I would tell them, ‘No, I don’t like Brave because it was a bad movie.’”
Favorite color?
“Blue, sky blue, teal skyish blue.”
What do you want to do when you grow up?
“I don’t want to grow up. I want to do something in theater, technical theater. I don’t know what yet; I go back and forth between stage manager and props mistress. I decided over the summer that I want to learn as much as I can about all the different technical roles with my time left at MCLA. In addition to props mistress and box officer manager, I’m going to try to go in to the scene shop at least once a month, maybe more depending on my homework load. I want to help Andy and the people there out to get more of the carpentry aspects down to technical theater. And I’m going to try to take more production classes at MCLA to learn those other skills and see if I like it, and if I don’t like it then I still have that skill in case I do need it in the future. That helps me make myself more marketable to theater.”
Favorite animal and why?
“Tigers because they’re awesome. I like cats, but tigers also have this wild do-whatever-they-want appeal to them, and they’re very pretty.”
Is a tiger what you would identify your spirit animal as?
“Yes, a tiger is my spirit animal.”
Because you’re fierce?
“I am fierce, like a tiger.”
Most romantic moment?
“This summer I went to my boyfriend’s house on the beach and we went down to the beach at night and it was really pretty because you could see all of the stars in the sky, and you could hear the ocean. There was nobody around, and we listened to “All of Me” by John Legend on my iPod and we danced under the stars to it and then we just laid on the beach and cuddled and talked. It was really nice.”
Weirdest thing about MCLA?
“How quickly I made friends. In freshmen year you don’t get to pick very much in terms of housing. You pick your building and kind of what floor you want to be on if it’s a special floor and I came in thinking ‘it’s going to take me a long time to make friends. But MCLA and their stupid housing process shoved me on a floor with people whom I found to be fabulous.
So that’s weird. Some colleges have like eHarmony surveys. We didn’t have that and I thought it was weird but decided to go with it, and it turned out to be a great thing because I have some of the best friends here.”
Favorite qualities about the people you love?
“That they’re funny. I like people that are funny, but they’re also really down to earth and are not like, ‘I’m a princess.’ I’m kind of like that, I’m a princess, and they keep me down to earth. I like humor but I also like people who are really smart, and funny, and really chill people. Those are the people I kind of love.”