My Guest Today, Ione Butler, is a british film, television and voiceover actress based in LA with a lot of different credits, including Marvel's Black Widow, a leading role in emotion picture, which premiered on the SCI-Fi network, as well as guest starring in hit tv shows on CB's Spike, TLC, BBC and others.
Growing up biracial in west London Southall neighborhood, which has been known for a long time as Little Punjab or Little India since the sixties, really, she was surrounded by different cultures and developed this sort of early curiosity for people and relation and community, and along with that, a passion for acting that led her to the iconic Brit school of performing Arts, eventually heading to LA as an adult to build her career in the business.
She became increasingly called to really both create her own roles and focus on producing positive media, and also take control of her career, founding uplifting content, a social media platform, followed by over 1.4 million people hosting the uplifting content podcast and most recently, writing the book uplifting stories.
So we dive into all of this, and we also explore what it's like to navigate the world of entertainment and act on the impulse to put positive, optimistic ideas, media and offerings into the world at a time where the world needs it more than ever, but also when we personally may be carrying the weight of a lot.
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is good life project.
Really excited to dive in with you.
I'm kind of fascinated.
Before we got online, you were talking about how you were about to bounce out to big bear.
And I know that you grew up in south of west London, but when you look at sort of your instagram, you're in Yosemite, you're in Joshua Tree, you're in Tahoe.
And it got me really curious, you know, because I'm somebody who's lived in the city pretty much my entire life, but I am passionate about the outdoors.
I love it.
And it seems like that is a huge part of you as well.
Oh yeah, it's part of my therapy.
I think being out in nature is very healing for me.
And as much as I love living in LA, I've been here for eight years now, and I always noticed that I would start to get a little bit antsy every month if I didn't leave.
Because as much as it's a big city, you know, I'm just.
I feel like it's a bubble.
I'm driving around the same areas and there's a lot of people.
And so sometimes I just need to get out and be in nature just to reset and breathe and connect again.