Eilidh

Zenith Ander
Actor

I am Zenith Ander and I am a Scottish-Australian actress based in Los Angeles, California. I am a professional member of the prestigious BAFTA North America (Los Angeles), the Hollywood-based Australians in Film, Scottish Screenwriters, Women in Moving Pictures (W.I.M.P.S) and am the founder of Female Film Connect, which boasts over 1,700 Los Angeles based film professional members on Facebook, and is a place for women in film to connect, cast and crew.

The end of 2020 currently has me in the midst of a bunch of projects. I just finished shooting Murder in the Heartland with AMPLE for the Investigation Discovery. I am about to shoot the second season of my YouTube series Eilidh, as well as the short film The Heart is an Idiot of which I wrote and star in.

I have two series’ up on YouTube that can be streamed for free - Roommates and Eilidh which have gotten me into many audition rooms and cast in projects off the bat! Roommates is a twee comedy about 2 roommates who live in Hollywood and have some culture clashes. One is Australian and the other American, and they’re both played by me. Eilidh is a political comedy about a Scottish girl trying to find her place in the world.

I was the host and Award Ceremony presenter for both the 2019 World Film Fair, held in Santa Monica, as well as the Dreamachine Film Festival in North Hollywood in 2019.

I have been cast by StandAsOne Production in Oklahoma as a lead actor in 3 projects over the coming years. The first project is Love & Compromise, currently in pre-production - a feature film about a bachelorette weekend that goes awry. I’ll be starring alongside Michael Emery (Shameless / Sneaky Pete) and a bunch of other incredibly talented and diverse American actors from all over the country. It is a Bridesmaids meets The Hangover tale, and I can’t wait to get to Oklahoma to start. It’s going to be a fun shoot! Uncommon Criminals, which is also being produced by StandAsOne, is scheduled to start moving next year. It’s an awesome script, filled with bank heists and action. It’s a super high energy film! The producers have their eyes on some exciting people to join the cast with me, but at the moment they’re being very secretive about that! Another lead role I’ve signed on for with StandAsOne is Roller Daze, which I absolutely fell in love with the minute I started reading the screenplay. It is a cool story set in Venice Beach, California about an entrepreneurial girl who starts a rollerskating delivery service. It’s adorable, and is set to start pre-production in 2022.

A little background on me:

I began my acting career in Children’s Theatre as a teenager, cast in a multitude of shows over a number of years produced by the iconic Australian theater company, Cartoon Creations. They created Fat Cat and Humphrey B. Bear (I guess the American equivalent would be the Teletubbies - big, fluffy suited characters!). I was cast in my first role and signed with my first agent, Janine J Cowie through my end of year showcase while studying at the William Bates Academy of Performing Arts in Melbourne, Australia. Here, I studied under William Bates himself for 3 years. He was an eccentric teacher, (in his 80’s at the time) and was integral in exposing me to the different acting techniques. I was introduced to Practical Aesthetics through him, a technique devised by David Mamet and William H. Macy. I fell in love with the premise, and went on to study Practical Aesthetics intensely with Kim Krejus (16th Street), who is the only Australian teacher certified to teach P.A. During my studies, I worked with ‘Jack of All Trades’ theater company, landing the lead role in a 4-week run at Ripponlea Estate theater. My debut network television role came as Tania Morgan on the multi-award winning ‘Blue Heelers’, on Channel 7 in Australia, which boasted other guest stars who came to Hollywood to do bigger and better things such as Luke Hemsworth (Thor / Westworld), Radha Mitchell (Longmire), Sullivan Stapleton (Blindspot), Hugh Jackman (X-Men / Wolverine), Angus Sampson (Fargo) and Sam Worthington (Avatar).

My theatre career continued to expand exponentially. I starred as the lead Anneke in the Blue Room Theatre, Perth, Australia’s production of ‘Shallow Heart’ which was a sold-out week run. On the back of this, I was cast in the Melbourne Short and Sweet Festival production of ‘The Knitting Circle’, performed at the biggest theater in the Melbourne Arts Centre to sold-out audiences. I moved to Sydney in 2010, and was quickly cast in the lead role in Peter Flaherty’s ‘Perfidy’ for Crash Test Drama. More recently, I have been working as a live script reader for television professionals in Hollywood through Live Read LA, and studied improv at the renowned Upright Citizen’s Brigade, where Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer of Broad city, among many, many others have attended. Most recently I have been at the Groundlings theater school in Los Angeles, studying with Navaris Darson. I am a subscriber of the Meisner technique of acting, which is where Practical Aesthetics has its roots, and was accepted into Advanced Study at the highly regarded Beverly Hills Playhouse, where I studied under Howie Deutch (Dir: Pretty in Pink) and Allen Barton. BHP is an impressive school with equally impressive alumni including George Clooney & Michelle Pfeiffer. At Jeff Goldblum’s Playhouse West in North Hollywood, I further studied the Meisner technique with Robert Carnegie. Playhouse West has an impressive alumni also, including Jim Carrey (Kidding / Dumb and Dumber), Damon Wayans (Saturday Night Live) and Heather Graham (Boogie Nights).
My film career spans Australia, Europe and the United States. I have starred in a number of short films, the first was in the lead role of Adrielle in ‘Left of Centre’ before joining the cast - Patrick Dempsey (Grey’s Anatomy) and Kirstie Alley (Kirstie / Scream Queens) in the international feature film ‘Blonde’. Here in LA, I worked with Special Order Productions on their super secretive World Health Organization’s global pandemic film, and ‘Detroit’ for SCI-Arc. I am an official selection judge for the British Academy of Film, Television and the Arts Los Angeles Student Awards each year, and the 2019/2020 NoHo (North Hollywood) Cinefest.

My international television career began as a host and interviewer in Australia on Melbourne’s Channel 31. I hosted two 8-episode shows called ‘Pathways’ and ‘In Search Of’. This work garnered the attention of ‘Neighbours’ producer and casting agent, Jann Russ, who cast me in the role of Kelly Graham on the long-running network hit. ‘Neighbors’ started the career of many a-list Aussie exports - Margot Robbie (The Suicide Squad / Wolf of Wall Street), Liam Hemsworth (The Hunger Games / Independence Day) and Ben Mendelsohn (Bloodline). Shortly after arriving in the States, I was cast on the ID Channel’s ‘People Magazine Investigates’ series as Melissa Barthelemy. I have been in a number of commercials; Holden Motors, Jetstar Airways and IKEA, music videos for DJ Khaled and John Farnham. With my multitude of accents, I have worked as a voice-over artist in animation for Kyran Wheatley’s (ABC) ‘Lego Election’, as well as radio commercials and promotions for major broadcasters Triple J and ABC Radio in Australia. As a Scottish-born and Australian-raised actor, I am known for my excellent accents and voice work.

For the web, I was cast in Sydney-based radio host, producer and director Kyran Wheatley’s series ‘Surry’, and was a lead actress in both seasons 1 & 2 which were shot in 2011 & 2012 with an ensemble cast.

I’m looking forward to continuing on this creative path. 2020 has thrown a few curve balls (to say the least) at most everybody, and in challenging times, art has always offered salvation. I have taken this more isolated time to reflect and prepare for what is coming next - not just in terms of society, but also creatively.