Mariella Spagnolo

Mariella Spagnolo is a New Jersey based actress, award-winning screenwriter and most recently a filmmaker. As a child, she enjoyed writing short comedy skits with her fraternal twin sister. She began performing in the school plays and talent shows and continued her love for acting in college. She is first generation Italian American and very proud of her Calabrese heritage. Returning to the film industry after a long hiatus has been a worthwhile journey thus far. She has been cast in lead and supporting roles in various short and feature independent films, portraying an array of character types from dramatic to comedic. Mariella has lived in Latin America and is multilingual. She has worked in the corporate and nonprofit sector, raising over $4.5M in charitable revenue. She holds an MBA and Post MBA degree and continues to educate herself and acquire new skills. She leans on her cultural and international experiences to create and perform. She identifies herself as an actress but is also a college professor and proprietor of her LLC. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, writing original screenplays, studying languages, cooking, playing golf, dancing Bhangra and making wine with her father. As part of a larger mission, she was Co-Producer of her original proof-of-concept short film, "Desperately Seeking Sikh" (adapted from her feature unproduced screenplay). Her unproduced screenplays (7) are all Sikh-Panjabi based (with an additional Bollywood based/Hindi script). Her platform is to create more leading roles for Sardars in western media. One day, she hopes to produce all her screenplays.