Lana Tailor on Lana Tailor: Some say modeling and acting are the hardest careers to pursue; but, when it’s your passion, it looks like you’re just going to have to fight for it.
Since the age of 12, I took a great interest in modeling/acting and I never gave it up. As a result, I made my dreams a reality by becoming a member of an Improv Team for two years, strutting my walk in runway shows, and signing up to meet agents from around the world at Modeling & Acting Conventions. Personally, I recommend that all aspiring models and actors participate in gigs such as these as it gives a significant background understanding of the industry along with first-hand experience.
Slowly but surely, I knew I’d get to the top and nothing was going to stop me from getting there. Not even the fact that I lived in the small city of Sudbury, which is 400 km away from all the action in the big city of Toronto.
I had no choice but to drive back and forth from one city to another to seize all potential opportunities that could have lead to intense growth in the modeling industry. Though travel costs were becoming a tremendous factor, my passion to succeed could not be contested; modeling was the only thing that made me come alive.
My big break into the modeling industry finally came about from one of those committed road trips. After traveling from Sudbury to Richmond Hill, I met with photographer Gord Scoular to shoot for several ad campaigns. In the midst of the shoot, he unexpectedly paused and said “Lana, I really think I should test you for Playboy”. This caught me off guard because at that time, I hadn’t even seen a Playboy Magazine.
Gord happily proceeded to give me a quick overview of the Playboy world by showing me countless images on the playboy website,
www.playboy.com. Here, I saw how truly classy the women were, so I decided to go ahead with the test-shoot. Little did I know, this was about to be the most gratifying shoot of my life.
The very next day, Gord got an e-mail from Playboy’s Special Editions Chief Editor, Jeff Cohen, stating “we want this girl”. Therefore, an actual Playboy shoot was scheduled for the following week with Playboy photographer Paul Buceta where we shot for Natural Beauties, College Girls, as well as NUDES.
Natural Beauties came out a few months later with me on the cover! It was extraordinarily overwhelming!! Since then, I’ve been so lucky to have graced yet another Playboy Cover, a Cover for All American Curves, been featured in over 11 magazines and counting, and I’m the official host for an online Magazine, Toro Magazine. To make things even better, I’m a lead actress in a HBO/Cinemax series called Lingerie. The show is a comedy/drama/x-rated type that truly highlights my skills as an actress. Other than this hit-series, I am featured as a lead in several music videos, including “Wanna Be Loved” by Imaan Faith & Colby O’Donis.
Making dreams come true is a bigger task than meets the eye. There are a million excuses we can make as to why our dreams have not yet been fulfilled in our lives such as, “my dog chewed my lucky shoes so I couldn’t make it.” Or “I would go to the audition, but I have so many errands to run” and even “I don’t know how to get there, it’s way too far….” The list goes on. But there’s always a way when you’re passion is greater than the matter.
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