Samantha Herrera(I)
- Actress
- Producer
- Director
Born & raised in New York City, Samantha began studying drama as an actor at LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.
Her parents emigrated from the Philippines both as accountants and settled in Queens, New York. While attending the City University of Hunter College, she worked as a Production Stage Manager for the successful run of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge along with performing in countless productions including: Antigone, God's Ear, The 5th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide, She Has a Name and A Midsummer Night's Dream. She also helped spearhead the MFA playwriting festival with playwrights-in-residence, Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
Her theater training continued at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre ('16) and London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (Summer Shakespeare Course, '18). A week after graduating conservatory, she booked her first tv appearance on Marvel's Iron Fist. Most recently, she played the lead as a jaded pro-wrestler in White Knuckles (dir: Gianna Daginis) and a grieving daughter in Goodbye, with a Side of Lechon (dir: King Louie Palomo) which are both hitting the film festival circuit.
Samantha has directed for both theater and film. Tales of a Shadowboxer marks her directorial debut in collaboration with producer/writer Sharif McFadden which won Best TV Pilot and Best Woman Short at Independent Shorts Award (Los Angeles). In 2024, she co-directed the film Heights with writer/director, Lucy Sarasin.
Saint Vegas marks her first film she wrote and self-produced which had its World Premiere at Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and was a Quarter-Finalist for The Chimaera Project's TO.GET.HER Finishing Fund.
Aside from directing & acting, Samantha works as a Stage Combat Assistant Teacher alongside Fight Director Brad Lemons at her alma mater at The Neighborhood Playhouse, teaches yoga for elders and runs a Filipino food pop-up business called Tikman Mo Ko 'Taste Me' with her partner.
Her parents emigrated from the Philippines both as accountants and settled in Queens, New York. While attending the City University of Hunter College, she worked as a Production Stage Manager for the successful run of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge along with performing in countless productions including: Antigone, God's Ear, The 5th Graders Present an Unnamed Love-Suicide, She Has a Name and A Midsummer Night's Dream. She also helped spearhead the MFA playwriting festival with playwrights-in-residence, Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins.
Her theater training continued at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre ('16) and London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art (Summer Shakespeare Course, '18). A week after graduating conservatory, she booked her first tv appearance on Marvel's Iron Fist. Most recently, she played the lead as a jaded pro-wrestler in White Knuckles (dir: Gianna Daginis) and a grieving daughter in Goodbye, with a Side of Lechon (dir: King Louie Palomo) which are both hitting the film festival circuit.
Samantha has directed for both theater and film. Tales of a Shadowboxer marks her directorial debut in collaboration with producer/writer Sharif McFadden which won Best TV Pilot and Best Woman Short at Independent Shorts Award (Los Angeles). In 2024, she co-directed the film Heights with writer/director, Lucy Sarasin.
Saint Vegas marks her first film she wrote and self-produced which had its World Premiere at Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and was a Quarter-Finalist for The Chimaera Project's TO.GET.HER Finishing Fund.
Aside from directing & acting, Samantha works as a Stage Combat Assistant Teacher alongside Fight Director Brad Lemons at her alma mater at The Neighborhood Playhouse, teaches yoga for elders and runs a Filipino food pop-up business called Tikman Mo Ko 'Taste Me' with her partner.
