Ten years after actor Mackinlee Waddell first set foot on UT’s campus, she found herself sitting in Jester Plaza. The scene mirrored nights from her college experience, as she told ridiculous party stories and comforted a friend. Waddell, an acting alumna, shot a scene for the indie film “American Spirit” in Jester Plaza in June 2023.Premiering Oct. 27 at the Austin Film Festival and directed by radio-television-film alumnus Christopher Yates, the movie revolves around UT juniors Melody (Yasmeen Fletcher) and Jonathan (Cooper Roth). The movie follows the pair, who dated for a month in high school and bump into each other late one night on campus. Waddell plays Riley, Melody’s roommate who comforts her at an emotional low. The role gave Waddell a unique opportunity to revisit some college memories.
“I haven’t reflected on that time a lot, and I was really different then,” Waddell said. “It was cool to bring the confident version of myself back to where I spent four years of my life.”
Premiering the film at the Austin Film Festival is also nostalgic to Waddell’s time at UT.
“I worked at Austin Film Festival when I was in college,” Waddell said. “I coordinated their script read-throughs and worked with my now agent to get actors for these scripts. It’s gonna be nice to kind of have that punctuated this way.”
Now residing in Los Angeles, Waddell primarily works on comedy. Her comedy group, Dumpcake Comedy, consists of herself, RTF alumnus Clay Flaten and Ruby Monette-Meadow, an RTF and Plan II alumna. Flaten said he met Waddell at a party and was drawn to the believability of her acting and comedy.
“I love working with Mackinlee,” said Flaten. “I think she’s so talented…. She has such an intensity, even just her staring (into) space. Ruby and I love characters that are ridiculous, but take themselves super seriously. Mackinlee can play that really well.”
Yates said he noticed Waddell’s intensity and believability from her audition tape. He said his mom demanded that Waddell was the one who needed to play Riley before they even finished watching all of the tapes.
“She (said), ‘You have to cast her. It has to be Mackinlee,’” Yates said. “Mackinlee was the natural choice. She doesn’t just fit the character, she’s somebody you want to work with and somebody you want to be around.”
Waddell said “American Spirit” served as a way to find her bearings after a difficult few years. She said both the pandemic and a breakup at the end of 2022 slowed her goals, but the film proved reinvigorating.
“It was such a huge reminder that I love doing this, that I can do this, and that I have something important to share and I should keep going,” Waddell said. “(Returning to UT) set me forward on a path of rebuilding my confidence with myself and getting to know myself, which is invaluable.”
This post was originally published on here
