Personality Complex: "Graceland" Star Serinda Swan Is About That Wanderlust Life

The Graceland star talks traveling around the globe, riding her motorcycle through Los Angeles, and dealing with Hollywood typecasting.

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Complex Original

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Personality Complex is a regular feature of Complex's Pop Culture channel, where you'll be introduced to rising stars of film and television. Check back in next Wednesday for the next installment with The Bling Ring star Israel Broussard.

As told to Tara Aquino (@t_akino

Serinda Swan arrives early for her portrait shoot at Complex at 5:30 on a Friday evening. Upon meeting her in the lobby, it's a shock to see her standing alone, sans publicist or beauty team, unlike most Hollywood-types who visit the office. She's leaning against the glass wall, fiddling with her phone, when she perks up to introduce herself. The 27-year-old Canadian actress is gracious and kind, her smile drawing from ear to ear, the kind that puts you at ease. 

"Thanks for meeting with me! I did this radio interview this morning in full make-up because I knew I was going to do this shoot today. I hope they don't think I'm a diva," she says, laughing. 

For the record, she's not. When she gets in front of the camera, she asks Liz, the photographer, what she's looking for. "Just be yourself," Liz says.

"Easy enough," Serinda replies. She jokes as she strikes poses like a natural and laughs the whole way through, complying with every request the photographer makes. It's done in no time.

As she gets situated on a decorative couch, which looks straight out of The Jetsons (it's less comfortable than it looks), she mentions meeting her friend for sushi after the interview. But she makes sure to reaffirm that she's in no rush.  

When asked about her peculiar name, she explains that her parents named her after an ancient Tibetan musical instrument. "I was probably named in between bong hits," Serinda jokes. 

Soon, her name starts to make sense. Sitting with her is like listening to someone narrate a Lonely Planet travel book from cover to cover. Immediately, all typical questions about life in L.A. are scrapped in favor of hearing her stories about hopping everywhere from the garden island of Kauai to the capital of Cambodia. Being in her presence when she lights up about her passions—from acting to her non-profit organization Friends to Mankind to traveling for the sake living her life— makes you feel like you're re-experiencing those moments with her. It's almost exhausting, not in the way where you're tired of hearing it, but in the sense that you feel like you just flew thousands of miles across the world with her. 

And yet she's right in front of you, promoting her new USA show Graceland. It's a wonder that she's here at all.

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Serinda Swan, Upbringing

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Despite being born and raised in Vancouver, Canada—which she makes evident when she inquires about Complex's "washroom"—Serinda Swan didn't have a typical upbringing. By the time she was 7 years old, her mom, overcome with wanderlust, uprooted their lives and moved Serinda and her older sister to Kauai, Hawaii, where she lived on and off through high school.

"I didn't have much of a social life growing up. I was into gymnastics when I was younger, so I ended up cutting my hair short. I looked like a little Russian gymnast boy. The sport was really aggressive, so I didn't fit in too well. It's great that I moved a lot because people who were in my school or in my class didn't get to define me."

"I have really amazing parents who love to travel and, growing up, it wasn't necessarily for work. They just wanted to travel. My mom is sort of a nomad; she actually doesn't live anywhere. When people ask, 'Where does your mom live', I say, 'Well, where is she right now in the world?' Right now she's in Malaysia; she was in India before that, and before that she was in Norway and Sweden. Before that, Costa Rica. She literally doesn't have a permanent address. I mean, you can say she lives in Vancouver because that's where the rest of my family and my sister is. But my mom has this beautiful crazy soul that isn't tied to anything in the material world. Her thought is, 'Oh, you want to go somewhere? Go! You want to go play in the forest? Go! Just remember where the house is. And if you don't, I'll come looking for you tomorrow.' My dad is the same way."

"As soon as I graduated, my dad and my stepmom took me Europe, all through the French Riviera. Then, my mom took me through the Mayan Riviera. We took a canoe up a river and then ran into Guatemala and went hiking around the jungle there.

"There was no specific religion that they were tied to, just a lot of encouragement to figure out what makes sense to us. Now, I'm studying with an enlightenment master out in Malaysia. It’s not a religion. It's just knowledge and information, very  Dalai Lama-esque, and it suits me perfectly. It’s finding what makes you live the best life, what makes you live the best of you, no matter what religion that is.

"I've gotten a little bit of everything from my travels in life. You finally see how big the world is and it pops the bubble we tend to grow up in: "My high school is the only high school that matters," and "That's the only popular crowd in the whole wide world and if they don't like me, hmph!"

"I want to go Greece. That's a selfish one, not a philanthropic one. I would go back to Cambodia or Malaysia at anytime because that's where the headquarters of Friends for Mankind is, and Cambodia is where my girls are for the Somali Mam foundation. I haven't been there for almost a year. Last time I was there I did an awareness campaign where I cycled across Cambodia from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap. That was amazing, but definitely not one my agents wanted to see. [Laughs.]"

Serinda Swan, Friends to Mankind

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Along with founder Dhyan Vimal, Serinda focuses her time off-screen on her international non-profit organization, Friends to Mankind, geared toward raising funds and awareness for other like-minded non-profits, focusing on issues ranging from local schools in need of supplies to helping developing countries provide shelter for victims of sex-trafficking.

"When I first got into acting, it definitely satisfied that little 3-year-old girl who wanted to get dressed up in party dresses and have that glamorous life and act and play make believe everyday. But the adult I was growing into wasn't necessarily satisfied with that. I wanted to make sure there was a tangible outcome in the world that came out of my success. The key was, 'How do I tie my success into a way that I can be giving back in one way or another?'"

"A way to do that was brought to my attention when when I was shooting Breakout Kings in Toronto. I watched a documentary on sex trafficking and it rocked my world. I was so humbled, and so ashamed that I didn't know this was happening in the sheer volume that it is. When the show finished, I grabbed a backpack and I went to Southeast Asia for a month and sat with victims of sex trafficking. I sat in orphanages and rescue shelters and was basically like, 'What do you need? What voice can I give you based on my position?'"

"My partner Dhyan Vimal for Friends to Mankind lives in Malaysia and he already had the concept for the foundation going since 2003, so I sat down with him and we modified it in a way. Through that we started a couple of awesome fundraisers, one where I throw celebrities out of planes called '18 for 18,' $18,000 for 18,000 feet."

"The idea originated when I met the girls from the Somaly Mam organization. I asked them what they needed financially and they told me they needed $8,000 for medical supplies for the girls when they are rescued. They also needed a van because what happens is when they go and rescue these girls from the brothels. They can't be borrowing cars, they can't be rescuing them in tuk-tuks, a bullet is faster than a tuk-tuk and a tuk-tuk doesn't have doors. If these girls are brave enough to be like, 'I need help,' we can't put them in danger while rescuing them."

"So I asked, 'How do we raise $8,000, and how do I make it sustainable? How does it be something where I don't just give them $8,000 and leave it at that?' The answer was by mobilizing Friends to Mankind. Originally, it was going to be just me jumping, and I figured the highest jump in North America, which is oxygenated, is 18,000 feet. I figured I would get a dollar a foot if I threw myself out of a plane. I wasn't on Twitter and I hadn't activated my Facebook account in ages, but I just got on it, and started broadcasting our mission."

"Our first year, we doubled our goal, which was amazing. Last year was our second year, and we decided to go for $50,000 because that actually covers a year of rescues for Somaly Mam. And that's how it really "18 for 18" started. Now, I'm going to be, like, 18 for $150,000. We are trying to figure out a way to make it sustainable and then once we get it sponsored and once we get it fully rocking on it's own, then we will hand it over to the charity and say, 'This is yours now and you run it.' Then we find another charity that we work with and build an awareness campaign for them and hand it off to them. Eventually, we want to have this sustainable model, where we get different organizations ways to get funds that are reliable every year."

Serinda Swan, Hollywood

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Swan will keep it real with you: She's aware of what she looks like and how you might categorize her because of it. But don't expect her to dwell on the typical typecasting that occurs at Hollywood auditions.

"In the beginning I definitely felt like I had to fight the 'hot girl' stereotype when I walked into castings. But I learned two lessons: One, that I was going to be put in that box, and two, that I had to show them that I could do that box well enough that they'd let me out of it. What I look like was not determined by me, so I can't take any credit for that. That was genes, those were my parents, so I'll pass the compliment on to them if you think I'm attractive. But there is something else inside of me that would really like to express itself. Yes, it can be frustrating. Yes, there is a tendency to walk into a room and want to put on the show and be like, 'I'm more than this, I can do things.' But that'll all come with time. It takes patience."


 

My philosophy is that authenticity is beautiful. Never make a choice based on somebody else’s opinion. That, for me, is freedom.


 

"I play a lot of otherworldly characters, like aliens. [Laughs.] I don’t get cast as the basic girl next door. I try to. I would like that. I’ve gone out for roles where casting directors are like, ‘Yeah, you just look too provincial.' What does that even mean? They say, ‘Oh, you look too exotic’ or ‘Oh, you have very severe look.' Then, now with my long blonde hair they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s very soft looking.' What? I’m just going to dye half of my hair blonde and one half of my hair brunette. Put freckles on one side to fulfill whatever they're looking for."

"It’s a hard industry to not want to try and change yourself in order to fit in. There are times when I get fired two to three times a week, if you think about it. Like, I go into a job interview three to four times a week, when it’s busy, it's 15 to 20 times a week. And it's frustrating and easy to rethink being the industry when I don't get those jobs. But the method that I found is to not try to fit in. Just be who you are and you’ll eventually make room for yourself in the world. My philosophy is that authenticity is beautiful. Never make a choice based on somebody else’s opinion. That, for me, is freedom. I can be all of these things. I can be a motorcycle-driving badass Krav Maga expert at the same time as I can be crying in Cambodia with my girls, or I can just be at home snuggling with my dog.

"Ultimately, it's all about having an awesome time and finding a way to make this journey into my celebration of life as opposed to setting a goal and struggling until I get there. I’m just going to have fun until I get there. I don’t even know where there is yet, but I'll figure it out."

Serinda Swan, Relaxing

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When she's not paddling across the Mayan Riviera for fun or cycling from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap for charity, the Los Angeles-based actress slows it down with her dog Buddha at home. Or with monks in a cave.

"I meditate, and there are different ways to do that. Being from Vancouver, I'm very outdoorsy, so I love hiking and I think there's a meditative quality in nature. But there are definitely times where I just sit at home and I’m like, ‘All right, it’s time to center.' I make sure I haven’t slipped based on social requirements or social ideas of what I should be doing or wearing or saying. I make sure I’m not starting to mold myself based on the ideas of other people. I check in with myself and ask, 'Where do you want to go? What are you doing? What are you accepting into your life that is benefiting you? What are you accepting into your life that is actually throwing you off course?' It's just a little checklist that you go through and then ponder. [Laughs.] That’s what works for me, so that’s where I go."

"Other times, I’m a massive hippie and I go on meditation retreats and sit in monk caves in Thailand. I’ll go sit with baggy fisherman pants on and my hair is all crazy."

"I'm never bored. I just got my motorcycle license so I've been riding around with friends at home. Even when I’m by myself—actually, that's a lie. I’m probably with my dog, so I’m never by myself. He’s snorting or doing something stupid beside me all the time. I call him my little fur chicken. He’s a French bulldog and the cutest thing in the world to me."

Serinda Swan, Graceland

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At first she turned down an audition for Graceland, but casting directors begged her to come in and read for the part of DEA agent Paige Arkin. The following week, she was in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida filming a regular role on the USA network drama.

"I'm not sure why I keep getting badass characters to play [namely, Zatanna on Smallville and convict Erica Reed on Breakout Kings], but I take it as a compliment. Actually, I think they border on bitchy, so I don't know if I should take it as a compliment; some of them have severe anger issues and one was a murderer. [Laughs.] I'm happy I could portray a strong woman, but maybe I should start taking a look at myself and see why I am really getting cast in these roles. But Paige on Graceland is a little different."

"Paige has a big heart, she's funny, and she's definitely a little crass. She'll call you out on your shit when you need to be, but it's only because she cares. She keeps everyone in line in that way because it is sort of her compass, but at the same time she's not a doormat. She'll punch you in the face and then step over you and walk to her room and say, 'Yeah, stay down.'"

"And she's the life of the party. As you can see, I've been a brunette for 27 years and all of a sudden the producers are like, 'How do you feel about blonde?' And I was like, 'How do you feel about blonde? Why are we having this conversation?' Lo and behold, I am blonde now, so that took a little bit of getting used to. But Paige is very light and beachy and the surfer-girl-next-door, who also happens to be an undercover DEA agent that is kicking people's ass. I'm sure you'll find the exact same thing in your neighborhood somewhere. [Laughs.]"

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