Lana Parilla has admitted that she once spent several months homeless when she was still a struggling actress.
During her appearance on Tuesday’s episode of Tommy DiDario’s I’ve Never Said This Before podcast, the 46-year-old film and television actress said her fear of being homeless again had stayed with her ever since.
‘There’s always a little part of me, in the back of my head, that’s like, “Oh my God, don’t ever stop working so hard,”‘ Lana said to segue into her confession.
‘I was homeless for two months living in a car,’ she shared. ‘I just don’t ever want to end up there again.’
The Once Upon A Time star, who appears with Jennifer Lopez in Netflix’s critically panned sci-fi thriller Atlas, said that her time without a stable living situation ‘forces’ her to ‘be more creative and find new ways to make money and find all these different ways to, like, develop projects and do you own thing and take on all these new talents.’
Once Upon A Time star Lana Parilla, 46, admitted that she was once homeless early in her career on Wednesday’s episode of the I’ve Never Said This Before podcast with Tommy DiDario; pictured in 2022 in Pasadena, Calif.
Lana went on to reveal that she was still a teenager when she went through a bout of homeless.
‘There was a time, early on on my career — and it was very early on — I was living on my own, like 19 years old. It was a really hard time,’ she recalled.
Homelessness can take multiple forms, from living out of one’s car to couch surfing to living on the street, but the Spin City star didn’t clarify what her situation was like at the time, which would have been around the mid-1990s.
‘My family and I were in different places, and I was kind of left on my own,’ she continued. ‘It was really hard to support yourself and, you know, chase after a dream, and also try to get an education all at the same time.’
Lana conceded that she ‘couldn’t do it all’ on her own at the time.
‘I had to drop out of college, which broke my heart,’ she continued. ‘I had to figure how to make more money to support myself.’
Then the fear of losing it all that stayed with Lana after her time being homeless gripped her again.
‘It terrifies me still to this day. That, like, that could ever be a reality for us as artists…’ she said as she trailed off.
‘There was a time, early on on my career — and it was very early on — I was living on my own, like 19 years old. It was a really hard time,’ she recalled; pictured on Once Upon A Time
‘My family and I were in different places, and I was kind of left on my own,’ she continued. ‘It was really hard to support yourself and, you know, chase after a dream, and also try to get an education all at the same time.’
Lana added that the idea of being homeless ‘terrifies me still to this day,’ and sh added that ‘it’s a lot scarier’ to imagine at 46 years old, rather than at 19 years old; seen with Ginnifer Goodwin on Once Upon A Time
Although it was decades behind her at this point, and she has had several major acting jobs since, the specter of homelessness was even more frightening now. Although she is far more secure in her career now, someone her age might not be able to bounce back the way she could as a teen.
‘At 19 years old, it’s different, but, at 46, it’s a lot scarier,’ Lana added.
Just a few years after she said she was homeless, Lana went on to have a main cast role in season four of the Michael J. Fox–starring Spin City, and her career hasn’t slowed down since then.
In addition to working with Jennifer Lopez on her new streaming film Atlas, Lana scored a recurring role last year on The Lincoln Lawyer, and she recently appeared in the well-received One Of The Good Ones, a new play that premiered at the Pasadena Playhouse and wrapped up its run in April