Since childhood, Christina Biller, theater freshman, had a passion for movies that has carried her on stage and propelled a life-long aspiration of being an actress.

“I always had a love affair with movies and I have always imagined myself on screen in the character’s roles that I admire and love,” Biller said.

Biller’s love for movies became evident as a child when she would entertain herself, becoming immersed in a world of film.

“I was raised by a single mother who not only attended law school and graduated but also had a very active social life,” Biller said. “Suffice to say, I spent a significant amount of time alone, entertaining myself.”

Biller’s mother, Michelle Chalmers, 49, said her daughter exhibited an incredibly intent focus from a very young age.

“Christina was a dreamer,” Chalmers said. “She was a child who lived inside her own head for a lot of the time. She wasn’t shy, but she was not an extroverted child and was far more interested in her own thoughts.”

Biller said she believes it is her imaginative nature that has allowed for her love of movies and acting.

“I am a fantasist and growing up, I put myself in those roles, pretending if you will, that the characters on screen were me and that was my life,” she said. “It was an escapist facility.”

Chalmers cited her daughter’s diagnosis with fibromyalgia — a disease which produces chronic fatigue, as well as muscle aches and pains — as furthering her interest in film.

“I think her illness did intensify her love of movies because she had so little going on in the actual world, so she lived vicariously through the movies,” Chalmers said. “She lived as the characters in the movies.”

Biller said she concurs with the fact that becoming sick with fibromyalgia forced her to spend a great deal of her time at home, due to the plethora of symptoms associated with the disease.

Biller said she couldn’t stay enrolled in school, struggled to sustain a joband barely had the strength to maintain a healthy social life. Because of the abundance of time she was spending in solitude, she said she was able to watch many more movies than she otherwise would have had the time for.

“I doubt very seriously that I would have seen as many movies as I have and so many different types of movies if I would have had to prioritize my time,” Biller said. “My nightly routine of putting on a movie has become due to patterns that I adopted when I first got sick.”

Although her exposure to movies intensified upon becoming diagnosed with fibromyalgia, Biller’s sister, Ashley Biller, 25, recalled her sister’s incessant love for movies even when the two were growing up. She said her younger sister would watch the same movies repeatedly, almost as if committing every scene to memory.

“She had her favorites that she would literally watch 50+ times,” Ashley Biller said. “She knew every line, every facial expression and even what they wore.”

Christina Biller said she feels acting is, in essence, a character study process that begins and ends with each new character.

“You have to decide for yourself why a particular character said or acted in such a way and in doing so, you discover what drives and motivates you on a daily basis,” she said. “It is a very personally explorative experience to find a way to rationalize even the darkest, most sinister character’s actions.”

Chalmers said because of her daughter’s ability to absorb new information and essentially teach herself, she has gained worldly knowledge through scrutinizing films.

“She will watch a movie, and then she will come and ask me questions about all sorts of things in the movie, and then, when I’m finished telling her what I know, she will go look up on the Internet what else she wants to know,” Chalmers said. “It’s a very haphazard way of learning, but it has served her very well.”

Christina Biller said she agrees the bulk of her knowledge has come from the information she has absorbed from movies and finds it comical that she points out specific scenes in movies to further illustrate her argument.

“When I am speaking or describing something, I almost always use reference points to movies to help clarify my point,” she said. “I am a very metaphorical, picture-oriented kind of person, that’s how I like to speak and explain things.”

Christina Biller maintains that she is not the typical stage actor.

“Most stage actors play to the audience and wait for their laughs, their reactions, but I employ what I believe is the fourth wall,” she said. “I pretend that no one is watching.”

Christina Biller said she has been told she is naturally — without any training — a film actress.

“It makes sense because I am modeling what I have seen in movies, and I tend to act with my face,” Biller said. “It is perfect if you’re acting on film because you see every nuance, every eyebrow raise, every shoulder shrug.”

While viewing herself as an actress destined for film, Christina Biller specifies that she does not want to be a celebrity but a working
actress.

“I believe that the majority of 20-something’s who go to L.A. and wear the cutest, most trendy outfits are people who don’t want to be actors — they want to be stars, celebrities,” she said. “I have no delusions of grandeur. I want to be an actress.”

Although Christina Biller maintains that being diagnosed with fibromyalgia drew her into becoming more immersed in a world of film, it has in some ways, become a double- edged sword due to her lack of energy.

“I can do my best to focus on being the best actress I can be and learning and observing and diving into these parts, but when it comes to the business aspect of acting, the networking, I have to use my energy very wisely,” Christina Biller said. “For me to partake in a play and pursue acting from the business aspect, it has to be worth my while because I have so little energy. I have to make it a priority over everything else at times.”

Christina Biller said  she feels strongly that acting provides her with a source of sheer pleasure in her life that she wholeheartedly embraces.

“Acting is the purest form of happiness in my life,” she said. “It is a source of unadulterated joy.”

By ANNIE MALKA

Staff

amalka@umail.iu.edu