Lola was born as a woman, but their gender transcends the biological sex they were born with: Lola identifies as non-binary. In the social construct that is gender, they‘re neither female nor male, their gender identity is much more complex. As in Portuguese, there is no corresponding word for their chosen pronouns, we will refer to them as „ela“, but in English, Lola would be referred to as „they/them“ signaling their more complex gender identity.
In 2018 Lola C Wolff decided to follow their dreams! Taking a leap of faith, Lola moved from a northern German town to London, a decision that would alter the trajectory of their life and opportunities. Now they’re an up-and-coming non-binary actor, writer, and mentor currently based in London, primed to take another leap of faith and change locations once more.
We‘re in the living room of a small, typically British house in West London, where Lola currently lives with a human and feline roommate. The room is about as conventional as Lola: Between trusted aged furniture is an eclectic mix of spiritual books and tokens side by side with modern appliances. On first glance, nothing fits the norm, but looking deeper, this eclectic mix functions, every piece either fulfilling a need or an idea to strive for something bigger. Lola can be described the same way: On the surface, they fit no mold, below the surface is a person who knows what dated old furniture lives within them and continuously challenges them to strive for their dreams.
In the past years, Hollywood and the respective film industries have made steps to be more inclusive, though that is under attack right now. The implications of tariffs on the film industry can‘t yet be properly foreseen. The progress trailblazers like Lola have fought for is under threat.
„I think we need to have much more bold choices in regards to gender-less focussed casting, because there are so many brilliant Stories that you can tell, but often I still see the same stereotypes in for example fantasy.“ Many fantasy stories, as well as other genres, still cast the villain as „the token heteronormative guy“, Lola points out. „And that‘s something that I question. Why don‘t we put a woman there? Why don‘t we put someone from a different race there?“ The archetype of a villain isn‘t exclusive to the male gender, and yet stories, not just casting agencies, default to the type we already know.
„But luckily there’also great stories that you hear where people don’t even attach any gender or age to characters and these things also get cast and shown and portrayed. And I want to see more of that. I want to see more productions where we come away from the stereotypical boxing of gender focused casting and more into the direction of, like, how can we tell a great story?“ In many way what Lola is advocating for is storydriven casting, serving the story more by picking the performer regardless of gender, race or disability.
Lola themselves are a passionate storyteller through and through. They already independenty published books and more are to come: „I very much create from a place of pleasure and play and likewise statement pieces as I always call them. So the one project that I’m currently working on is a romance novel or more romance leaning but based on my own experience of traveling with boys and bands.“ With this project Lola seeks a traditional publishing deal. The publishing industry, however, faces a similar trajectory as the acting industry, the two going hand in hand.
„There are casting directors who tell you, you know, they ask you how many followers do you have? And the fact that we even have to nowadays kind of like justify ourselves how we present ourselves on social media and it has an impact on whether or not“ The industry is looking for an inbuilt audience to come with their performers, making it even harder for young talent to break into the industry than it had been before, especially when they don‘t fit the boxes that the industry has been reliant on for years.
In the publishing industry a case has recently gone viral that exemplifies that: The australian Luke Bateman started a tiktok account all about his love for reading. Within a month he accumulated over 100000 followers and announced he had gotten a book deal from that. Bateman rejoiced and told his followers he was excited to write the book now. This was the moment that made a lot of his followers stop, because in traditional publishing usually you don’t get a book deal as a first time author if you haven’t already written a manuscript. Bateman has gotten the deal based on his previous fame and his followers, the publishing house trusting in his fame to sell books.
Change is slow and it‘s being spearheaded by individuals. The audience has long since caught on, making more diverse projects a success and they’re calling practices like this out more and more.
“Luckily, for example, like a production like One Piece is a great example. That’s where diversity is really seen.
That’s where we have certain casting choices that are really well done.“ One Piece is only one example of casting choices that would have once been called daring, today they are rightly seen as reflective of reality. These days in some productions we see nonbinary characters played by nonbinary actors, trans characters played by trans actors and characters where neither gender nor race are a talking point in the story so it‘s not one in casting either. One Piece significantly cast from multiple countries to reflect the creator’s vision of a diverse world populated by diverse, interesting characters. A great example for the type of quiet diversity One Piece chooses is the casting of Morgan Davies, a transgender actor whose gender identity has at no point been brought up, nor should it be.
“Why does this character have to be white, cis? We could easily replace that with a trans or non-binary person.” Lola brings up when talking about casting choices. Davies embodies the practicality of it: Like Lola, Davies is an example of how lived diversity isn’t some political talking point, but simply a part of human experience that gets to exist in this world. There is no story driven reason why Davies character Coby should be cast as white cis actor, but Davies is a perfect choice for the character craft-wise. “It should be about the craft we bring to the table.”
Gender norms currently still limit the casting choices and Lola and others seek to actively dismantle those. And while the casting offices have a lot of power in those decisions, Lola seeks to ensure that it’s understood that it’s not a single casting director’s fault. “This is a general industry thing that we have to collectively change. Which is why we need to have those discussions.”
“Obviously, if I can also voice over some animes, that would be absolutely a dream and just being the voice behind a really cool character.” Lola says. “But I don’t want a minor role. First of all, there are no minor roles or small roles. But I would just love to grow with a character over certain seasons or over certain stories that you have.” As such anime is one of the industries where projects still have an amount of longevity, that is currently lost in the western film and tv industry, with some animes running for over twenty years. “There’s so much more depth. Most animes most likely will make you cry eventually. Like they’re very good with that.” And anime has also already embraced diversity in ways the western industry hasn’t yet. There are nonbinary characters whose gender identity is never talked about but quietly understood, but never in focus, because it’s just a facet of their story as opposed to being the only facet talked about.
Another facet of Lola’s journey is the horror genre. “I just want to be part of a cool horror franchise. […] I keep putting it out there, stuff like that. I just love a good horror franchise. I mean I grew up with the 80s horrors of SCREP, Nightmare, El Streets, Halloween, all of that.” And as such Lola would love to one day be cast in the typical “Last Person standing trope”: “I would fucking love that. But likewise, you know, stepping into a character like Ghostface or some sort of like being the villain on the other side is something”
But Lola doesn’t stop at just accepting the status quo and encouraging the discussions. With “Kessler 22” Lola is writing and producing a series themselves about an age old warlock, corresponding to tarot cards, a series that highlights themselves as an performer and creator, further pushing to put narratives and stories out there that feature diversity openly. As the industry is slow to adopt what the audience wants at the moment, there’s also the looming threat of the current US government’s policies of not wanting diversity. It’s entirely plausible that studios will seek it not cast diverse performers because of that. It’s on the audience, led by diverse performers like Lola, to keep having the conversations and keep showing up for projects that feature the diversity that we naturally see in our every day life.
In that Lola has also taken up the mentorship role. They mentor creatives in unapologetic self expression “The biggest thing for me is bringing people into their unapologetic self expression and helping people to dismantle the conditioning that we’ve all experienced in society” Society as a construct of norms is a living system as in is, so we as humans are to constantly question, challenge and break the norms in order to evolve and grow. “its all about unapologetic self expression, questioning gender standards, questioning standards that we generally have been conditioned with in society and how to dismantle that, how to truly express yourself and stop giving so many fucks about what people might or might not think about your expression and just really leaning into like whatever it is that you want to wear a dress or stand and represent for.”
Lola adopts the same attitude for fashion:”Fashion for me is just an extension of our own expression of self.” Their own style is as dual and wild as they are themselves: “I’ve always been the classic Gemini between my wardrobe is either completely black or something very colorful and quirky and there’s nothing in between. Like, I don’t do shades of greay or shades of beige or something like that. I always do something that is like either really etchy or either really quirky.”
But for me, fashion has never been about like, oh, I need the newest piece or I need the newest collection.” Lola focuses on more intentional choices. “I like to pick pieces from different charity stores. I’ve reduced a lot of my fast fashion. I’m still very much like now and then I pick up a piece. But I’m trying to be mindful about my consumtion about fast fashion and finding alternatives I would rather support, like small independent brands and labels than very big ones.”
“Obviously always under the umbrella, no one gets harmed” Lola highlights. It’s not only about their mentorship programm, but about their presence in the industries they chose to break into and the norms they dismantle by just doing that. While parts of these industries fear the change that embracing diversity brings. Along the lines of the often repeated phrase “When someone is accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression” privileged people fear giving others equality, because it takes ease from them. If everybody is given the same chance, nobody gets a headstart. Those that are used to the headstart will feel like they lost something while in reality everyone just has gotten equal opportunity and nobody was harmed.
Lola’s five year vision includes lots of travel. As typical digital nomad they can just uproot their life and work from everywhere in the world. “I really want to go to Japan, Tokyo. I want to go to Seoul, Korea. […] Japan has so much of that but there’s also so much culture and beauty that I keep hearing of from other people and friends. Seoul, Korea obviously is deeply connected with my love for Korean music. But also the once again the culture just being in the atmosphere, the dancing. I just want to dance in a studio in Korea and like just have that experience because their classes are often so they just have a bit of a different culture much more community based in that energy and just […] People are always cheering for you and I just love that ethics.”
“I want to go to Los Angeles. I want to explore New York, Chicago. There’s a couple of places in America that just really want to explore and dive into the energies of these big cities.” Though due to the current atmosphere these plans are nowhere near concrete. What’s concrete is a return to a place Lola holds dear, a potential next step and home on her journey: Capetown, South Africa. “So that’s like whatever comes around with my jobs or the creative projects, wherever they take me.”
