For many actors, building a career often feels like a perpetual waiting game—waiting for the right script to materialize, waiting for the audition phone call, waiting for someone else to grant permission to create. Recently, however, Los Angeles-based actor Parinas Esmailsadeh decided to bypass the waiting room altogether.
By stepping into the roles of writer and director, Esmailsadeh is actively reshaping her trajectory, proving that she is not just a performer, but a storyteller capable of building her own cinematic worlds.
The catalyst for this creative shift was her recent short film, “And Then There Was Nothing”. The project marked a significant turning point, serving as her official debut as a writer and co-director while she simultaneously anchored the film as its lead. Taking a massive creative swing, Esmailsadeh deeply personal narrative relied entirely on visual storytelling, forcing the audience to connect with the characters through raw emotion and deliberate imagery rather than spoken exposition.
That artistic gamble paid off. The film resonated on the international festival circuit, earning accolades for Best Director, Best US Film, and Best Actress at events such as the Indian Independent Film Festival and the Tamizhagam International Film Festival.
For Esmailsadeh, stepping behind the monitor fundamentally changed how she views the craft of filmmaking.
“Writing my own work challenged me in completely different ways than acting,” she explains. “It forced me to think about every character equally and reminded me just how much collaboration exists behind every finished film.”
Interestingly, the unique aesthetic of her silent film and her emerging style as a director finds its roots outside of traditional film schools or acting conservatories. Alongside her cinematic work, Esmailsadeh has cultivated a long-standing career in international high fashion, walking runways and modeling for global campaigns for brands like Breitling. That extensive experience working on high-end fashion sets has profoundly informed her understanding of visual composition and camera performance.
Years of collaborating with top-tier fashion photographers trained her eye to understand the geometry of a set and the delicate interplay of light and shadow. As a model, she learned how a microscopic shift in posture, the drape of a wardrobe piece, or a subtle change in expression could communicate an entire narrative without a single word. That deep visual literacy and hyper-awareness of spatial dynamics translated perfectly to the director’s chair. When it came time to direct And Then There Was Nothing, she was already fluent in the language of wordless storytelling. By blending a fashion-forward sense of composition with raw emotional acting, she knows exactly how to command a frame, whether she is setting up the shot or standing inside it.
Refusing to let the momentum of her debut stall, Esmailsadeh immediately went to work on a second original project, Tied Up. Once again taking on the triad of writing, co-directing, and acting, she proved that her first venture into indie filmmaking was a dedicated career pivot rather than a one-off experiment. The film, which features a strong supporting performance by Alexus Dawson, recently won Best Short Film at the Tamizhagam International Film Festival, where Esmailsadeh also secured another Best Actress win.
Yet, even as she builds a robust resume in independent cinema, she remains an active presence in mainstream studio productions. She is currently balancing her grassroots projects with major studio work, having recently wrapped a role in David Lowery’s A24 feature, Mother Mary. The project gave her the opportunity to work on a massive set and share the screen with Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway.
Navigating the contrasting environments of a polished A24 set and a gritty, independent short film shoot is a demanding balancing act. But for Esmailsadeh, moving fluidly between major studio productions and her own deeply personal indie projects seems to be exactly the career she intended to build—one where she tells stories on her own terms.
About Parinas Esmailsadeh
Parinas Esmailsadeh is a working actress, writer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. She is a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, having studied at both the Hollywood and New York campuses. Her career spans independent cinema, major studio features, and international high fashion. She is currently developing her next original projects while continuing her work as an actor and model.
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