Biography

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.
- IMDb mini biography by: Anonymous