Photo by Pop Culture Passionistas
When people
contemplate of Dwight Schrute from The
Office, they don’t think deep personal introspection. But Rainn Wilson, the
actor who plays him, has a much softer, more reflective side. In 2009, Wilson
founded a website called SoulPancake, which encourages fans to “chew on life’s
big questions.”
Following
the success of the website, SoulPancake published a book and now has a weekly
video segment on OWN’s Super Soul Sunday.
We met with SoulPancake star Golriz Lucina,
and talked about their relationship with OWN, her favorite SP short and how she’d like to celebrate a holiday in her honor.
Golriz
explained SoulPancake’s new
partnership with Oprah Winfrey’s television network, saying, “We’re really
excited about our relationship with OWN. OWN has this wonderful block of
programming on Sundays called Super Soul
Sunday. It’s a three-hour block of programming… So every week we create a SoulPancake short that’s part of this
larger block for Super Soul Sunday.”
She
described the uplifting content that SoulPancake
is producing for OWN. “We’ve done a lot of fun segments. One of my personal
favorites is called ‘Dance Walk.’ We set up a dance sign on the either side of
crosswalk. And so when the light turned to walk, our sign said, ‘Dance.’ And
people danced across the street and we had we had music blasting and it was
just so much fun to see people take a moment out of their day and just enjoy an
every day activity and inject some fun into it.”
And while
it might seem that SoulPancake is
just targeting a young crowd, Golriz thwarted that impression while discussing
shooting locations. She remarked, “We actually prefer Westwood, [California],
because it’s got a lot of diversity. You have people walking from work. You
have a younger demographic because UCLA is close by but then you also have an
older demographic. So we’ve found this place to be really good in terms of
diversity of age and race and the types of people we get. But we also have shot
downtown in L.A. and other parts of L.A. We’re just constantly looking for a
place that has a good cross section because chewing on life’s big questions is
not just for the young.”
At the
heart of the SoulPancake website are
a series of conversation starter questions. It didn’t seem right to talk to one
of the inner circle and not ask a few questions pull right from SoulPancake. Here are Golriz’s answers
to a few of them:
What is Food for the Soul?
“Food for
the soul is carving out some space in your day where you can go inward and
check in with yourself. For me, food for the soul is a combination. It has to
do with music and with a certain level of stillness and nature. If all that
comes together I find I’m refueled. So that’s my food for the soul but
everyone’s is different.”
What is your approach to life?
“The way I
try to approach is that it will have its ups and downs. Life has it’s challenges.
I just had my first born and I’m still dealing with the overwhelmed feeling of
I’m a parent now but if you come at life with an attitude of positivity and
also generosity and accepting and embracing help and really offering that out
as well and having a service oriented approach. I guess that’s my approach.
That’s what works for me.”
How would you celebrate a holiday in
your honor?
“There
would have to be some kind of party that involves a lot of chocolate and good
music and costumes. I’m really big into dressing up and costumes and big props,
as you can see. So I’ve done many a costume party so I think something along
those lines where everybody has to get dressed up in some crazy outfit. It sounds
like fun. It might be a future SoulPancake
episode.”
See videos
of our interview with Golriz Lucina on our YouTube Channel.
And watch SoulPancake on Super Soul Sundays at 11 a.m. EST/10 a.m. Central on OWN.
Thank you OWN for SoulPancake! It is so inspiring. My girls and i have been doing our own soulpancake of giving.
ReplyDeleteWe've done posters with a "Take what you Need" theme pull tabs with LOVE, ENERGY, HOPE etc on them. Posted them everywhere we could. Buying a big bunch of balloons and just randomly handing them out to people in the mall. It has been fun so thank you for inspiring us to just make someone smile. We love seeing what you do every week..
Thank you Golriz and the crew. Lovely programs by SoulPancake. Visit IRVINE, California and let me know when you taping a program in Orange County. How about UCI? I come and watch.
ReplyDeleteminooYahoo@gmail.com
Thank you Golriz and the crew. Lovely programs by SoulPancake. Visit IRVINE, California and let me know when you taping a program in Orange County. How about UCI? I come and watch.
ReplyDeleteminooYahoo@gmail.com
Great job SoulPancake as always. How about taping a program in Irvine, CA.let me know i'll come and watch. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteminooYahoo@gmail.com