Actress Gabrielle Byndloss tells Rival about her time on 'Ozark', 'Outsiders' and Marvel's 'Winter Falcon'
Before becoming a budding actress, Gabrielle Byndloss was just a small-town girl living in Georgia depicting, "It's really all that I know. We moved to Georgia when I was six years old from California for my parents' jobs. Growing up in the South seemed normal to me until I got older and could really recognize the lack of diversity where I was raised. It wasn't until then that I could really see the dynamics of what it meant to be raised in the South."
Byndloss competed in competitive cheerleading for four years where she learned that her favorite part of the sport was simply performing on stage for others. Competitive cheerleading then turned into theater.
When asked about the inauguration of her acting talent, she joked, "I started acting as a Sophomore in High School. However, if you asked my parents that question, they would say when I threw my first temper tantrum as a young child.
They used to applaud at my tantrums and say, "The Academy Award goes to...," I have always been very dramatic."
What Byndloss parents' claim was dramatics, blossomed into real potential as the young starlet got older. She got her first TV debut on Halt and Catch Fire where she learned about all of the people that it actually takes to execute a scene noting, "I had no idea how many people go into making me look good. I came from a theatre background where everyone did multiple jobs. I was in charge of my hair, makeup, wardrobe, and sometimes, even the sound or lighting design. When I stepped on set for the first time with Halt and Catch Fire I was in awe at how many people come together to make three minutes of a scene."
The actress then started booking roles in bigger television shows such as "Brenda" in Ozark, and eerie "Andrea Hopkins" in Stephen King's The Outsiders on HBO. Unfortunately, meeting Stephen King was not on the itinerary. It's safe to say that Gabrielle's personality strays far away from Hopkins' personal being, making a note that eerie characters are immensely interesting and complex to dissect and portray on screen.
"Andrea Hopkins is a master manipulator. She poses as a teacher to get insight into Glory Maitland's children and the scandal going on in the town. While she says she wants a job as a homeschool teacher, what she really wants is the story to help her rise to fame." She continues to say, "I love eerier characters. For me, there is more depth to them. They have a sense of dimension that the audiences sometimes never get to see. Just like real life. We only get a portion of someone's story, but in reality, there is so much more to them that we may never know."
Switching gears, Byndloss shows a different side of herself in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. She depicts "Olivia Walker;" a calm, soothing character, opposite of Andrea Hopkins in The Outsiders. She vocalizes that Walker and she differentiate from one another. Byndloss accredits herself as a more direct and honest being, while Olivia displays much more empathy and the ability to see from other perspectives other than her own.
The audition process from The Falcon & The Winter Soldier comes as a unique surprise, but not too shocking because of Marvel's fame.
"The audition process was wild," she says, "With Marvel, everything is top secret. The audition sides were "dummy sides," a script that is not the real script, and there wasn't much character breakdown given. I remember on the breakdown it said that while we were auditioning for the role of "wife", we were actually being looked at for multiple different projects. On one hand, you felt the pressure since this was your audition for a potential Marvel show. On the other hand, there was a freedom in understanding that they just wanted to see you as a character to find out if you can fit into the Marvel Universe."
On working with director Kari Skogland, "Empowering. On all the TV shows I have worked on, I have only had three female directors. When I walked onto the set, I couldn't help but smile. Kari has confidence in her. You just trust her as a director and she gives you the space to create. She was wonderful to work with."
Talents besides acting?
"I am really good at couponing. It's my superpower. I can find a deal anywhere. I even got a deal on my wedding dress."
The Falcon & The Winter Soldier concluded its' season at the end of April and can be streamed on Disney+.
Make sure to Follow Gabrielle Byndloss on Social Media
Meet the Author
Brianna Vacca is a Philadelphia-based writer. She has an unhealthy addiction to true crime documentaries, celebrity gossip, and writes overly dramatic sad songs.