For Julianne Arrieta, being at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) feels like something she predicted. Two years ago, she attended the festival with her husband and commented that the next time she came back, it would be for her own film. “I said, ‘I’m going to be back in two years for my own film,’” she tells me. “And here we are.”
As I’m getting Arrieta ready for her TIFF appearance, her seven-year-old daughter comes every so often to chat with us and watch her mom get ready. There is music playing in the background, something that is a constant, whether it’s at home getting ready or on film sets. Being a Las Vegas native, Arrieta grew up going to shows and concerts and started out as a dancer before acting became her focus, so her love and connection to music has always been there. It is how she relaxes when getting ready. “When I’m getting ready on set, I put my headphones in and listen to my favorite songs, and that is something that always calms me when I’m getting ready.”
This time, she is getting ready for TIFF for the largest film role of her career to date. She describes it as an “actress’s dream role” because the character is so different from who she is in real life. “She’s a lot, but in her own mind, she’s right,” Arrieta says. “It was truly such a fun role to play.”
It is also a role she had to fight for.
Arrieta was initially offered a different part in the film, Purgatory. However, she wanted to play another character. “The feedback was that I didn’t really have the look for what they had in mind for this role,” she recalls.
Arrieta, however, knew she could do it. “Sometimes they may forget that as actors, as a good actor, you have the ability to transform into a certain character. So I had to advocate for that role because I knew it was something that I could play and I wanted to play it, and I fought for it.” She got it.
When she finally walked onto the set transformed as the character, she remembers seeing the relief from the producers. “They went, ‘Oh my gosh, that’s Mrs. Davies.’” Arrieta laughs. “I think they were holding their breath until that moment.”
Arrieta isn’t someone who just waits for opportunities to come to her. She creates them. Alongside acting, she is an entrepreneur, producer, founder of the luxury golf-apparel brand FIAGREEN, and a mother of four.
Soon after moving to Los Angeles, Arrieta met a family who worked in entertainment. They advised her that if she wanted to become an actress, she should learn how to produce. So she did. Arrieta produced her first short film, Miserable, with a director she had met at the Upright Citizens Brigade. On the very first day of production, she learned her first lesson. “I thought I had everything put together and lighting didn’t show up,” she says.
She learned pretty quickly that things don’t always go to plan on set. “I’ve learned to be more flexible because when you’re on set, things naturally happen,” she says. “You have a lot of people there, a lot of personalities. So just kind of learning to go with the flow a little bit more and being prepared has really helped me.”
During the pandemic, when acting work slowed, Arrieta felt the need for another creative outlet. Having played golf since she was 12, she felt there was a gap in the market for women’s golf clothing. She began sketching designs. “It was this incredible creative outlet,” she says. “I saw that there was a need for luxury sporting apparel in that space. And it was such a niche space, but it allowed us to grow very quickly.”
Arrieta says the brand is now in hundreds of exclusive country clubs across more than 40 states, with the goal of expanding into department stores and eventually going worldwide. Although acting and fashion may seem unrelated, Arrieta has found both are linked. “That business mind and the shift in focusing on the bottom line and the growth also has kept me very grounded on the business side of acting, which is incredibly important,” she explains. “It’s making sure that you’re getting paid well for what you do and you’re taking on roles that are valuable and add to your career. Taking on the right roles, not just quantity but quality.”
Her husband works on the distribution side of entertainment, which has given her a different view of the industry. “You see all the different variables that come together with financing, how things come together, how things fall apart,” she says. “You see different things that I feel like most actors don’t typically understand when it comes to the commerciality of a film, why people get cast, all those variables.”
All the while, music has been playing in the background. Arrieta tells me just how much of her life revolves around it. “Every single bit of my life is surrounded by music.”
What she listens to depends on what she’s doing and how she’s feeling. Workouts tend to be house music and artists like Tiësto. In the trailer, it’s usually something that helps her relax or get into the character she is playing. When I ask what soundtrack fits this particular period of her life, Arrieta chooses OneRepublic’s “I Lived.”
Arrieta recalls how she used to believe that once she got her first role, she would be truly happy. Then she got the role and wanted another role, and another. “But that’s just work,” she says. “The things that you always go back to are the person you’re in love with, whoever that may be, and your children and your family.”
Work and family are things Arrieta cannot completely separate. When I ask at what point during getting ready for something like this she is able to switch from mom mode to actor mode, Arrieta laughs. “When the nanny shows up.” But that switch never really fully happens. “Once you become a mom, you don’t really have the option to turn it off, ever.”
The same applies to her business. She may be interrupted during a board meeting by a call from her daughter’s school. That call will always take priority. Arrieta hopes that by seeing her do it all, her daughters will grow up believing they can, too. “I hope that I can teach both of my daughters that you can really do it all,” she says. “You really can be a businesswoman, and you also can be an actor and an artist, and also be a mom and a good partner.”
If she could speak to her 20-year-old self, Arrieta says she would tell her to stop stressing so much about everything and enjoy the process. “The right things happen at the right time,” she says. “And the right people will find you, and the right jobs will come to you.”
Arrieta also knows how much work is involved behind the scenes. “People don’t always see the work that goes into the jobs that you have, whether it’s in fashion or film,” she says. “They see the glamorous side of social media and pictures.”
She highlights that she is not alone. While she is at TIFF, her fashion team is still working to oversee sales, production, and logistics. She credits the team with the brand’s success. “I think it’s important to hire people smarter than you, more talented, and to work around actors that are more talented,” she says. “At every angle, I’m learning something new.”
When I ask where she would like to see herself in the next few years, Arrieta says she hopes to move into television and continue to grow her brand and raise her family. She remembers her grandparents’ advice: to do what she loves. “I have friends from all walks of life and all economic classes, and I’ve found some of the most successful are the most unhappy and some of the poorest are the happiest,” Arrieta says. “I think it’s about finding what really drives you and makes you happy and doing it and going at it with everything you’ve got.”
Two years ago, Arrieta promised herself she would return to TIFF with a film of her own. Now she has. There are still plenty of things she wants to do next. But for now, she’s exactly where she wants to be.
