Photography by Eric Carroll. Tearsheet by Casey Claros. — Photography by Eric Carroll.
Tearsheet by Casey Claros.

1. Name?
Mary Kate Wiles

2. Where are you from, and where do you currently live?
I’m from Fayetteville Arkansas and I now live in LA.

3. Tell us about yourself.
Well, I’m an actor/content creator who’s found an audience in the digital space through appearing in many popular web series over the past eight years. I joined Shipwrecked Comedy about four years ago and I've produced multiple series and shorts with them. I’ve also tried to be as open and forthcoming about the realities of pursuing a career in acting through my Patreon and my YouTube channel, and I’ve managed to find such a wonderful, supportive and engaged audience there. I’ve been with my producing partner and love of my life, Sean Persaud, for six years, and we have two cats. I am super passionate about cooking shows, making cocktails, traveling, and vintage clothes.

4. What made you want to pursue a career in acting?
I was an only child, and I was always in dance classes and choirs growing up, so I was performing from an early age. Seeing The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring for the first time made me fall in love with the absolute magic of movies. I knew that I wanted to spend my life being a part of art that makes other people feel the way that movie made me feel.

5. How did your comedy group, “Shipwrecked Comedy,” come to be?
I didn’t actually join the group as a member until late 2015, but Shipwrecked Comedy was founded in 2013 by Indian American siblings Sean and Sinéad Persaud. I first worked with them on their 2014 series Kissing in the Rain, which is when I met Sean, and, well, the rest was history. When I read the script Sean and Sinead had written for our series Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, I thought it was the best script I had ever read, and I wanted to do everything I could to make sure that it came to fruition. I came on to the project as a producer, helped Kickstart over $73,000 for the series, and since then I’ve found so much fulfillment in helping Shipwrecked make the “loosely literary, vaguely historical, stupidly smart comedy” content that we love to create.

6. You also create content on Patreon. What type of content do you provide for your supporters?
I’ve had a Patreon for over six years. The perks that I’ve offered have gone through a lot of changes over the years, but, as of recently, I’m really happy with the work that I’m creating there and the support that my wonderful and encouraging patrons have shown me. I do monthly live-streamed play readings of different film or play scripts that many of my collaborators participate in. I produce a monthly podcast called Dear Old World with ultra-long episodes where I bring other creators on to talk about their artistic process, and I deep dive into all my various projects to talk about the ups and downs of bringing them to life. I created a radio play version of the Anne of Green Gables books, where I read the series and bring in other actors to voice the different characters, adding music and sound effects to create an all-new listening experience. Through my Patreon I’ve just been encouraged to think outside the box when it comes to making acting work for myself, and also just enjoyed sharing all my behind-the-scenes experiences with my Patreon community.

7. You’ll be starring as Artemis in the upcoming series Wayward Guide for the Untrained Eye. What can you tell us about your character?
Artemis is a super tenacious, super driven reporter. She loves nothing more than digging deep and getting to the bottom of the story. She and her brother Paul are such a good team because they each bring something different to the table: Paul is whimsical and charming and curious, while Artemis is practical, logical, and hungry. These differences, of course, can both be a blessing and a curse for the twins, as we’ll see in the story. But I loved getting to play such a badass, complex female protagonist.

8. What are your favorite aspects of the production?
Well, the Tin Can Brothers are my good friends, and the cast has some of my favorite people, so getting to work around the people you love is truly the best. But, for me especially, getting to work with my hero and Hollywood legend Sean Astin on this project was an actual dream come true. Sean plays Artemis and Paul’s boss at The American Podcasting Network, Lesly Stone. He was so lovely, and I couldn’t stop pinching myself. Working with Sean will always be a career highlight for me.

9. You’re an actor, producer, and content creator. Which area are you most fulfilled?
It’s been interesting to see how my creative desires have evolved over time. When I first started out as an actor I thought I would never produce, because I thought that that must be a failing in some way. The landscape, however, has changed a lot for actors in the past ten years, and now we’re almost in some ways expected to create our own content. I’ve learned that having a group of people that I care about and works so well together (like on Shipwrecked), and seeing a huge project come together from start to finish with those people, are enormously more fulfilling than just playing a character in someone else’s story. I think it also gives you so much respect for the productions that you’re a part of as just an actor once you have some experience on the other side. Producing is hard. I think it’s certainly made me a more understanding actor. And it also is a nice relief when you can just show up to set, say your lines and hit your marks, and then go home at the end of the day without the weight of everything that comes with producing.

10. If you could work with anyone, who would it be and why?
I adore Cate Blanchett and I would just die to work with her. She’s such an inspiration for me in terms of consistently creating characters that are so rich and believable. On the more comedic side, Amy Poehler is a big inspiration. Parks & Recreation is my favorite show of all time, and I’d be beside myself to work with any of those actors. I am very lucky that I got to appear with the wonderful Jim O’Heir on Poe Party.

11. How have you been spending your quarantine?
Honestly, quarantine hasn’t looked all that different for me than normal life. Thankfully, because of Patreon, I’ve been able to build a sustainable workflow and have the support for that workflow coming in month-to-month, and I’m so grateful for that. I started my Anne of Green Gables audio series last year, but it turned out to be a pretty pandemic-proof way to make content since I can record and edit from home, and all my cast can record remotely. Shipwrecked, on the other hand, had big plans for this year that have absolutely gotten up ended by the pandemic. We’ve had to be a little more creative and are just doing as much planning as possible for when we are able to get back on set and pick back up where we left off. Aside from work, in the day-to-day, I’ve been doing a lot of cooking: trying out new recipes, and I’ve become much more of a bartender than I was before the pandemic. Ha!

12. Where do you look to find inspiration?
I get a lot of inspiration from classic literature, as you can probably tell by the themes that keep popping up in my body of work. Classic literature is such a fun playground, and it’s in the public domain. It’s something that people like me, who aren’t writers, can use as a jumping off point to create stories. I’m constantly inspired by the great work of all my creative community. We all have such different skills and we’ve managed to find ways that those skills work together and it’s something I’m happy and thankful to be a part of.

13. What’s next for you?
Definitely looking forward to the release of Wayward Guide over the next three months. It’s been three years in the making. It’s so exciting that it’s finally going to be seen by people who are so excited for it. After that, hopefully Shipwrecked will be able to embark on the big project we had planned for this year sometime in 2021. It’ll be our biggest project since Poe Party, and it will be at once both a return to some things we’ve done in the past and something completely new and different from anything we’ve ever done before. As for myself, I’ll just keep trying to find ways to grow and connect with my Patreon audience and create the work that I want to do on my own.

14. What is your life motto?
I don’t know that I have one particular motto that I live by, but “Forth, and fear no darkness” and “Have courage and be kind” are two mantras that have spoken to me and stayed with me over the years.