Being on stage terrified her. So she majored in theater.

This first-person narrative was written from an interview with Kelly Mou, who’s graduating with a degree in theater and performance studies this May. Have someone you think we should write about? Contact [email protected].

“There was this Chinese film series I watched when I was younger. It was called Tiny Times. I was captivated by the drama and the boldness of the characters, who were always taking risks and having adventures. I must have been in third grade — I didn’t speak English then. 

My family moved around a lot between Shanghai and California for my parents’ work, and it was hard for me to maintain friendships. I was a lonely child. Whenever I watched Tiny Times, though, I felt so vibrant. The characters were such good companions; just seeing them interact on the screen felt like I was interacting with them. I thought, ‘That would be a great feeling to give to other people.’

I officially moved to the U.S. — first to Los Angeles, then to Palo Alto — with my dad and stepmom in 2015. I was in sixth grade. In China, I’d been with the same cohort of students every day, but in the states it was different: Every class had a whole new group of people. 

I felt anxious about being Chinese and studying in the U.S. Classmates would always tell me, ‘Kelly, you have an accent when you speak.’ Most school subjects came easily to me, but communication was really hard. I had a lot of anxiety around speaking English in front of people. Then I developed a speech impediment.

When I feel a lot of fear towards something, I always gravitate towards it. I want to do things that really challenge me. So I decided to take an intro to drama class.

Nothing in the world challenges me like acting does.

In the class, we did monologues and a final showcase. I was even cast as Juliet in The Seussification of Romeo and Juliet, a satirical parody that reimagines Shakespeare’s classic tragedy by replacing the heavy drama with absurd, over-the-top character tropes. It was really fun, but I was still terrified. After that, my anxiety got so bad I had to take a break from acting.

When I got to UC Berkeley, I was planning on majoring in English and was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just take an acting class and see what happens.’ 

During my first semester, I helped out a friend on a short film and my anxiety got so bad that my speech became really rapid, I just could not control it, and I was so embarrassed. I went to my acting instructor, Patrick Russell, crying because I was so upset and he said, ‘We can help you. Take this class on voice and speech with Jessica Berman Hirigoyen.’ 

That class helped me feel more comfortable with performing. I learned a lot about breath work, and how to use techniques to release my natural voice and stay connected to my body. 

In the summer after my first year, I co-founded Untitled Theater Company with a classmate. It’s a student-run acting group where we use minimal design and focus on really good acting.

Untitled performed its first show — excerpts from some of our favorite Shakespeare plays, including Hamlet and Much Ado About Nothing — in 2023 on the lawn in front of the Valley Life Sciences Building on campus. Over the next few years, we put on a new show every semester in the Ciel Creative Space in Berkeley, wrapping this semester with a contemporary adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s 1896 play The Seagull. We’re going to pass the company to other Berkeley students to run, so hopefully it will keep going after we’ve graduated this May. 

Every day I wake up and I can’t tell if I like acting or not. I still get really nervous sometimes, but I also love bringing characters to life and making them feel like real people. And I know it’ll always challenge me no matter how hard I work at it. 

When people ask me what my plans are after graduation, I don’t have an answer. I don’t really plan my life like that. I never buy a plane ticket more than a day in advance. I’m a huge risk taker — I think it’s a pretty good way of living, for me anyway. I’m just excited to see what will happen next.”