ABOUT
Hi there, my name is Annika Hautmann. I’m an actress and writer based in Los Angeles.
I grew up in Nuremberg, Germany, but a few months ago I finally made the big move to LA.
To be honest, I don’t even know where to start. Writing your own bio is a strange sensation. It puts the focus solely on you and you’re not able to hide behind a character. So here it goes anyway.
My love of acting started when I was 9 years old and heard my first laugh from a woman in the third row. I was playing a 70-year- old grandma in hysterics. “I like this. I can do and be whatever I want to be onstage and they’ll still smile at me”. Then in 11th grade I played a prostitute who has a big dance number onstage. Now, mind you I’m not a dancer. But onstage, as people were watching me through my character’s eyes, I moved like there was no tomorrow. That’s the moment when acting became more than just something fun to do in my free time. I was bit. I took my bows positively beaming. “I am safe. I am free. I am home”.
Cut to a few years later, I arrived in LA. City of stars. I have been accepted into the ‘Michelle Danner Acting Studio’, where I would be taking Scene Study Classes, Classes on Acting and Auditioning for Film and TV, Improv Classes, Monologue Classes, Movement Classes and actually learn the famous Alexander Technique from a teacher who studied voice and speech with Kristin Linklater. Not to mention deepening my skills on Meisner, Adler, Strasberg and Stanislavski. Furthermore, I was to participate in a number of Masterclasses at ‘The Groundlings’, one of the most prestigious Comedy and Improv Schools in the world.
I formed a meaningful collaboration with one of my acting teachers Derek Reid and we’re in the midst of shooting a web series called ‘Jackson and McClintock’; a comedy drama about two best friends who work in the police department.
Since I have arrived in LA, I have starred in a Music Video and played an emotionally disturbed wife in the web series ‘American Justice Warriors: The Maid’. But my first love will always be the stage. I seek out memories and moments I have only had in the theatre. They are rare moments where you lose yourself and you transcend the reality of being onstage. The person playing opposite you has become real, not a character. I know it sounds cliché, but there are moments where you’re so lost in the setting that you stop acting and you’re living. It’s a heightened reality, an amazing, almost out-of-body experience. It’s the reason I want to act. Callbacks and auditions keep me busy during the week. There’s not a day that goes by, where I don’t shoot something, have zoom auditions or am on the phone with a producer.
When I’m not acting myself, I love to get inspired by other artists. Whether it be watching Bette Davis on the silver screen, seeing Bernadette Peters absolutely destroy the whole audience with her emotionally gripping performance onstage or experiencing the Patti LuPone magic on Broadway.
Aside from acting, my second passion is animal rescue. Animals, especially dogs, have a special purpose on earth and are really here for us. They teach us about life and our capability of loving and trusting again. I always try to be in contact with all the rescue organizations and to find a home for dogs due for euthanasia.
Whether it be in a non-kill shelter or their forever home.
Acting is my elixir of life. And standing in my way would be like taking my air to breathe. I always go back to what Sally Field said about this.
“When I’m acting, I feel less alone. Even when I’m with my family and all that, there is some knot inside of me that stays lonely, unless I’m acting.”
I couldn’t have said it better.
And I hope that someday, one of my performances will help someone and make them realize that they are not alone.