Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Golriz Lucina Chews on Life's Big Questions on SoulPancake

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. 

4 comments:

  1. Thank you OWN for SoulPancake! It is so inspiring. My girls and i have been doing our own soulpancake of giving.
    We'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..

    ReplyDelete
  2. 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.

    minooYahoo@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. 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.

    minooYahoo@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great job SoulPancake as always. How about taping a program in Irvine, CA.let me know i'll come and watch. Thank you.

    minooYahoo@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete