The Art Of Authentic Living

Joanne Lockwood is joined by New York-based actor and multi-hyphenate creative Sam Turlington for a wide-ranging conversation about what it means to live authentically. Sam reflects on how curiosity and empathy shaped their path into performance, and how acting created unexpected routes into self-understanding, identity exploration, and more truthful storytelling.

Together they talk about representation in creative spaces, including when the arts feel welcoming and when they don’t. Sam shares experiences of bringing their identity to roles across genders, collaborating with directors and writers on the narrative implications of casting, and even adapting scripts and pronouns to make nonbinary identity visible and coherent within a production.

The discussion also touches on the lived realities of being visibly different—through gender expression and body size—and how everyday environments can be built without some bodies in mind. Against a backdrop of political pressure on queer communities in the US and UK, Sam describes “joy as resistance” and the importance of community connection, resilience, and finding places where people can both challenge and celebrate together.