The Tribe first heard of Siena Werber when she was still a Chief here at Santaluces, but she always knew who she wanted to be.
When she was still here, Werber stated her fondest memories were her visual art and photography classes. “They were creative. I made a lot of good friends there, and I really liked my teachers.”
But, in her Senior year, she began the transition from high schooler to a future actress. She wasn’t much in school during that time, given the fact that she started attending the University of North Carolina School of The Arts, and then carried on with the college program.
She continued her studies there, and towards the end of her time there, she went through something called “showcase.” That’s where she found out about her most recent role in Brand New Cherry Flavor.
“You go and do scenes for agents and managers, so I did that and got an agent and a manager,” Werber stated. “I lived in New York the following year, where I was auditioning, and my agent sent me Brand New Cherry Flavor.”
She states that it was one of the more interesting scripts she’s ever received, which could definitely be an understatement.
Brand New Cherry Flavor is a Netflix limited series that follows a female filmmaker in the early 1990s trying to pitch her movie to a director who is an all-around terrible person. It’s a show that involves witches, kittens, and curses.
Werber plays the role of Mary Gray, the main character and girlfriend of the woman who’s producing this film.
She didn’t really think anything of it, but the following week she did receive a call stating that the showrunners wanted to meet with her. “So, I had a phone call with them, and they wanted one more tape. It was a self-tape at this point, it wasn’t even an in-person audition, and then I got cast.”
After that, Siena would be in and out of Vancouver, Canada, where the show was filmed. “Since my character was in and out, I wasn’t there for one big chunk. It was a couple of big chunks every now and then,” she states. “I think I went back and forth three or four times and stayed for about a week or two each time.”
Because of this, she didn’t have much downtime when she came back to the States for those in-between periods.
For her, it may have been a couple of weeks to a month, but the show as a whole took around four months, with post-production taking about a year or so due to COVID.
Luckily for those around her that wanted to know about the show, there wasn’t an NDA or some sort of contract that stopped her from telling her friends and family about the show.
“You’re not really supposed to say anything but there’s no serious ‘you better not’,” she joked. “It was a very open process and I received the script sort of as I was going there. It’s not like I received the whole series and I had it in my hands; it would come sporadically.”
Memorizing for her wasn’t that hard, especially when she was thrown in the deep end so soon. “When I first started filming, it actually started before it was scheduled. So they called me, where I was at my restaurant job at the moment, and they told me I had to come in tomorrow.”
She hadn’t finished reading lines, but she absorbed it as quickly as she could. “I had to take it one step at a time because it was overwhelming, but I wasn’t rehearsing my lines the way I was going to say them. I just wanted to get familiar with what was going to go on, and I trusted that my instincts would guide me on the day.”
There’s a lot given to you, atmospherically, when everyone is involved.
“I was excited to do it because I knew it would give me what I needed, and it did,” she stated. “It was an atmospheric show, and I learned a lot from just jumping into it. It was one great little journey.”
For Siena, there are many little things that jump out to her when it comes to set-life, especially when acting alongside established actors like Katherine Keener. “I definitely appreciated every moment with her; she was so nice to me, so there was a lot of fun stuff there. Interacting with everyone on set was just fun.”
As for reaching the realization of making it in the entertainment industry, Werber says that it’s an intricate process. “For me, there won’t ever be a final moment. It’s a process, and I’m intrigued to be on this journey.”
This can be proven by her perseverance. She just finished a short film made by a UCLA grad student called To Live in a Body, which she believes will be shown at a film festival. “I’m sure his plan is to show it during festivals, which is a whole other thing. There are the networks, the streaming. There’s so much streaming these days that the realm of acting and content is all happening before our eyes.”
As of right now, there are no new projects, but she’s auditioning and ready to go back on set when it comes to filming, especially in a big city like Los Angeles.
“I lived in New York before COVID and right before Brand New Cherry Flavor. Then, when COVID hit, I went back to Florida to quarantine with my family,” Werber stated. “I ended up visiting a friend here in LA and loved it. Obviously, LA is a perfect place for actors, but I wasn’t planning to move out here so early.”
This decision may end up being great for her, given the fact that she loves versatility. Siena doesn’t want to just be a movie actor or star in TV shows, she wants to act in a wide range of projects.
“I would never just want to do this or that. It would just have to be the right project and meeting the right person for it, which is such a rare occurrence,” she said. “For me, it would have to be the integrity of the work, and I would just try to pursue that.”
Wherever it lands, it lands.
And that’s exactly what she thinks when it comes to your future goals. If you’re thinking of joining the entertainment industry, Werber stated to be excited that you’ve been called to do something that’s interesting and unknown.
“Don’t be so scared about it not being all figured out, because it’s an interesting journey,” she said. “I definitely would encourage anyone to do it, like a firm ‘do it’. Do what you enjoy, because it’ll take you where you need to go.”
