Movies open up brand new worlds for people, especially when we’re kids and our imaginations have no boundaries. When we see new images and characters and magical locations on the silver screen in front of us many of us want to run away to Hollywood and become actors. We want to inhabit the roles and the lives of those interesting people we have been watching and we want to say their lines and be courageous and smart and likeable and witty just like them. And then our parents tell us that we will indeed get over it and that acting is not a real job. That happens over and over again day in and day out to thousands of kids and the ones who succeed in attaining their dream of becoming a professional actor are the ones who never give up believing that they can do it.
Gioya Tuma-Waku is one of those wonderfully talented actresses who from the age of 10 that acting was her passion and career path and has never looked back since. She got a degree in Marketing and Finance, which made her mom and dad happy and then with their support she came to the United States and earned a degree in acting at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, which put her on a real path in the entertainment industry.
Since then, Gioya has been working steadily as an actress and has built up a resumé that can stand up to anyone else’s in L.A. Her work ethic and immense talent has also established her as an in-demand actress and has given her a reputation of being a hard-working actress who can perform any role she is given. She has played everything from Greek classics to Shakespeare in plays and from good characters with an attitude to cold, uncaring personas in films.
She has also made significant and original contributions to the entertainment industry especially in her last film Pink Lemonade which she wrote directed and starred in about the effects of a tragedy on and international and interracial couple where their origins or race had no bearing on their relationship. It was purely based on the hardships of relationships and the importance of communication and the heartbreaking effects of loss. For her outstanding performance she got nominated for Best Performance for the 2019 Actors Awards in Los Angeles, she won Honorable Mention as Best Actress for the Los Angeles Film Awards 2020 where Pink Lemonade was an official selection, She was a best Actress Semi-finalist for the Olympus Film Festival 2019 and Pink Lemonade was also an official selection for the Indie Short Fest 2019 and the Marina Del Rey Film Festival 2019 where it screened on the 19 October 2019 at Cinemark 18 & XD.
After all this success, where will she go from here? Well, she has been cast in an upcoming Hardly Famous Productions’ motion picture in a part written just for her. She will be one of four leads in the film As You Find Me. Another soon to be filmed project is going to be directed by James Avelar of Calixtro Films called Cherry Chapstick. Gioya will not only star in the movie but she will also hold the title of Producer. She also co-wrote State of Grace with writer/director Jonathan “Gus” Eid with the lead role written specifically for her too and they plan to get into production with that with both of the producing it and is also in talks with Gus to star in a few other projects where he has written roles specifically for her. And if that isn’t enough, Gioya has also recently started up her own production company Perfectly Imperfect Entertainment where she plans to continue writing, directing, producing and most importantly acting in stories that she feels are different and leave an artistic imprint on society.