Tonya Kay, Actress and more

Brief Bio
This Magickal Child from Michigan farmlands is an award-winning actress, award-winning writer, professional dancer, burlesque performer, danger artist, world-traveling conservationist, raw vegan celebrity and living proof of what a child raised in love grows up to be.

On television, you’ve recognized her on Speed TV’s My Ride Rules, Glee, Criminal Minds, Secret Girlfriend and The Tonight Show With Conan O’Brien.

When she’s not road tripping this blessed continent in her vegetable-oil-fuelled Jetta, Tonya Kay is seeking out organic farmer’s markets, sustainable vineyards and life-changing art. It is this renegade’s passion to shape reality, push evolution, exist in love and take the whole wide world along for the ride.

http://tonyakay.com • http://imdb.me/tonyakay

#1 – You’re a vegan and a raw foodist and, in a lot of people’s minds, that would put you as a health nut, but you act, dance, do stunts, and a whole list of things for work, right?

Yes, I do.

#2 – What got you motivated to become a raw foodist?

Well, at that point I had been vegetarian for a good long time. I haven’t done the math in while, but I had been vegetarian for well over a decade and vegan for probably close to a decade, and I was still experiencing symptoms for manic depression. That was really frustrating to me because I believed in the natural lifestyle – I was a vegan after all. I considered myself a whole food vegan, and I pretty much believed in natural selection too. So, if you couldn’t make it on your own…then I was questioning whether I should make it or not, you know? I was medicated and on all these medications; for seven years I was in and out of support groups and psychiatrists and psychologists and even an emergency room visit. And I went raw vegan, well, simultaneously was deciding to go raw, because of medications for the third time in my life. [...] So, I’d say that I went raw vegan because I wanted to get healthy.

#3 – You had a hard past it sounds like. Would you attribute a lot of the psychological issues that you were dealing with to being unhealthy physically?

Physically? I mean, there’s so many levels of health. There’s so many things that make up health, but there’s one thing that you do every day, all day long. There’s not a day in your life you don’t eat – unless you’re fasting or something, but that’s an exception to the rule. Everyone eats all day long, and so that’s a major part of your health. If you want to change your life, you really can change what you eat. But, there are other things you do. You sleep. Paying attention to your sleep cycle is a major important part of health. Exercise should be something you do every day too. These are physical health creators. Then there’s relationships and that’s emotional and mental health. Then there’s the news you feed your mind and the periodicals you read and the books you choose and the music you listen to and the conversations you have. I don’t watch television, I don’t listen to the radio, I don’t read magazines or newspapers because it’s a conscious decision to take care of my mental health. [...] There’s stresses like food and the way you sleep and the relationships that you have that I have, indeed, found that if you take away those stress triggers that the symptoms decrease no matter what your symptoms are – whether it is migraines or arthritis or mood swings. And, I just took away the stress.

#4 – What things do you do throughout the day to keep your energy up?

[laughs] I was born with energy! I’m an energy machine! I actually have to do the opposite. I have so much energy that my tendency is to not sleep. It’s to do so much. I’m so inspired and passionate that I’ll catch myself over committing and exhausting myself because I have so much energy. [...] I’ve never had a hard time finding energy, but I can say this… My energy is its cleanest, and its most sustainable, and its most reliable when I do an hour and a half of sweaty exercise a day. Not like walking around the block, I’m talking like really work out and lift your weights and do your sit ups and get your heart rate up. That really helps me. Eating the clean diet of raw food (no animal products, no cooking), that really just makes everything run so much more authentically. [...]

#5 – What has been your biggest influence in choosing to have a healthy diet?

There’s no reason to not have this diet for me. It’s super common sense. The super common sense is A) I’ve started a vegetarian. Back in the day people didn’t just go raw food overnight like they are today. It’s very popular and, bless it, I’m so glad it’s popular, but they don’t realize what us long termers went through in order to have this long term raw fooder lifestyle. But, I was vegetarian for almost two decades before I even went raw. That’s a long transition. So, I started out a vegetarian like most of us did back in the day. And, that means that I’m an animal rights advocate, so that’s a major reason. It’s compassion – a desire to see less suffering and less violence in my world and not be a chronic part of violence. [...] I love being a renegade. This is absolutely not what we’re supposed to do. We are not supposed to get to live happily and healthfully for free. I’m breaking the system right now by being happy and healthy for free.

#6 – What about you is renegade, would you say?

Well, it’s the spirit, you know? It’s the spirit of the renegade… It’s the outlaw. It’s like when you question the system and you question authority. I think that is the driving force of spirituality today. It’s not being led around and told what to feel and told what to buy and told what to think and how you can use your mind and how you can use your body. The real spiritual renegades, the real outlaws, of today are the people who are breaking the system by questioning authority and saying, “Wait a second… Is neon colored puffed wheat actually food? Something’s wrong here…” It’s not that hard to question. [...] We’re the outlaws that don’t buy health insurance, we don’t buy medications, we don’t buy what’s on the commercials, and we are happy and healthy for it.

#7 – The occupy this and occupy that movement… How do you feel about that?

[laughs] I just did a big article on that. I write for an online environmental magazine, and I am all for any movement like the Occupy Wall Street Movement that gets people involved, gets them feeling empowered, makes them want to stand up, use their voices, all of that. That’s great questioning material, but you can’t stop there or else it’s just a performance. And I am the queen of performance. It’s what I do – it’s like my calling in life is to entertain people and perform. So, I know what it means to put on a show that simply entertains for a moment, and I also know what it means to put on a show that inspires people to do something else. And that’s my challenge… [...] If you can’t occupy yourself, then it’s a movement that’s just a performance.

#8 – Do you have any special brand of makeup you like – like moisturizer, cleanser, base, anything like that?

Yah, actually, and here’s what’s more interesting… The skin is your protection from the outside world, right? So, to have healthy skin you have to protect yourself. And, there’s a lot of people with unhealed childhood emotions where one of their parents didn’t protect them in the right way. They harmed them in some way, even if it’s just subtly. We carry that stuff into our adulthood. So, having great skin – the first part – is deciding to protect yourself and be your own best parent. So, that’s a journey for everybody, but I just want to say that metaphorically, your skin is your protection from the world and to have healthy protection is a spiritual journey as well as a physical what-do-I-eat journey. [...] Just keep your gut and keep your food light and water-rich and you too can glow.

What do I use on my skin? Well, I think women are most beautiful without makeup. I think that naturally beautiful is the beautiful way. But, I found RMS Beauty – out of New York – she has a fully raw product line which I absolutely adore. It’s more like putting moisturizer on when you’re putting foundation on. And it’s stellar! I can use it under the lights, on camera, or on stage. I also use a high-def silica – like a finely ground silica – for a powder. They call it soft finish or high-definition powder because it’s so fine that it’s like silt. It’s like the bottom of an ocean, and it’s just silica, which is a mineral. And, the silica comes from the ground, it’s one ingredient. I think it’s called High Definition Makeup. [...]

The moisturizers I use – I just use living moisturizers. I’ll use coconut oil, pomegranate seed oil is really super awesome – I’ve noticed a difference in my skin. And then, recently, I’ve discovered, as I mature, that doing those things like exfoliating and getting the top layer of skin and clearing up the pores is super important and actually makes a difference. So, one of those soft brushes – like a skin brush – and a natural sugar scrub or a walnut scrub [...] really helps a lot. Something else I enjoy – is after exfoliating (here’s the best face mask) – go squash up (as if you were making guacamole) half an avocado. Spread the avocado fresh all over your face. What oil could be better than a fresh oil – a fresh avocado oil? [...]

#9 – Is cleansing and detoxifying an important part of your life? If so, how would you suggest someone start cleansing?

Yes, cleansing and detoxying is a major part of my life. I didn’t start cleansing or detoxying… Well, see, detoxying is something you do every day. You use your lungs to detox, you use your tear ducts to detox. You’re getting toxins out of your body every time you exhale, every time you sweat, every time you urinate or have a bowel movement – all these things are detox. So, every day at every moment you are respirating, you are sweating, you’re oiling – this is detoxifaction. So, don’t worry about. Your body’s got it down. It knows how to detox. It’s doing it right now. Cleansing is kind of usually a more formatted way that you target a certain system in your body and you try to cleanse that system specifically. [...]

You never want to throw yourself back. So, trust that you’re detoxying every day. And, if there’s something specific you want to target and you know you’re not going through a like major detox already, naturally, then start learning more about it. Take it easy, though. I’d hate to see somebody who is 50 pounds overweight call themselves doing a cleanse just so they can lose 20 pounds in three weeks and gain it back and revert back to it. Cleansing is not a substitute for a healthy lifestyle. My healthy lifestyle is my cleanse every day.

#10 – You’ve recently cut off the dreadlocks you had for like 10 years?

Yah, I had them for a decade. It was time to change. You know, people project onto you that you’re cool and you even start to believe them. You’re like, “Yah, I am cool because I have dreadlocks!” And, when I realized that I was having that experience, I needed to change up my identity. I needed to be no one for a while because I was trapped in cool. So, now I’m way less cool, but I’m way more possible.

#11 – What is your favorite (or least favorite) thing about being in acting?

Well, my favorite thing about acting is it’s a noble art form. It really is the fascination with another human being’s psychology and experience of life so much that we would sacrifice or forfeit our own personal experience to know what it’s like to be someone else. And I just think that’s really noble. I think it’s beautiful, and if everyone could work with that level of empathy there would be a lot less arguing and warring in the world. So, leave it up to artists, you know? Another one of my favorite parts is I get to play dress up and [make believe] for a living. Who doesn’t like that? But, my least favorite part is, you know, right now I spend a lot of free time auditioning for other people’s projects. [...] It comes and goes. There are months that I don’t audition because I’m working and then, at times, you find yourself looking for a job.

#12 – What do you think the biggest misconception about being in entertainment is?

I don’t know. I live in this world – I don’t know what other people think. I mean, I do know that the hardest social thing for me to navigate as an entertainer versus the rest of the world is the rest of the world really doesn’t understand how actors (in Los Angeles specifically) how flexible we are to our career. So, when somebody tries to make plans with me next week and I say I don’t know what I’m doing and they can’t understand why I wouldn’t… They think I just don’t work every day. [...] I don’t get to clock in at 9:00 am and clock out at 5:00 pm.

#13 – Do you exercise? If yes, when and how often?

Oh, gosh, yes! Since I was four-years-old, I’ve been an athlete! And professional dance is a major sport. We have to coordination, we have to have flexibility, we have to have stamina, and we have to be able to pretend like we’re having the time of our lives while we’re doing it.

Right now, my fitness is really centered around bikram yoga, moksha yoga, weight lifting, dance (of course), dance classes, and dance gigs (I’m dancing a lot), and Pilates, sit-ups, you know – the general stuff. Just something for my flexibility, something for my heart and lungs, and something for my muscles. Every four to five days a week there’s always some intense sweat and some intense effort.

#14 – What is something hardly anyone asks you but you wish more people would? Or, is there something you’re proud of that people don’t know about or something that you’ve done that you wish that people knew?

I love my family. I grew up in a farm town and, you know, not everybody sees things the same way. So, there’s contradictions between myself and a small town, but I love the town that I grew up in. My parents are definite reasons that I turned out the way I did, and so often in today’s world people are like, “Ah, my family’s split up!” or they have a sob story about their childhood. [...] So, I guess what I would want to talk about is how important the supportive relationships are to people in their lives. And, when you know that’s important to your life, how can you be that to someone else.

#15 – On a nice, sunny day, if you could be anywhere, where would you like to be?

On a nice sunny day…? I would love to be driving through Santa Ynez and stopping at Demetria Vineyards for a taste of their biodynamic wine and stopping at Alma Rosa and Beckmen. I would just do a wine road trip on a nice sunny day. It sounds beautiful. So gorgeous to the eyes and the taste buds and the sensuality. It’s just a good time.

#16 – What is the number one thing you look for in a guy?

[laughs] Rock and roll! [laughs] They gotta have the renegade spirit too, somewhere in there. And then they have to be open-minded to the clean lifestyle – they don’t have to already be clean, but, you know… Basically, every time I date somebody they like what works. And what’s working – I’m a pretty strong example of that. So, I’ve had no problems with men adjusting their lifestyle to become more clean – a vegan, even raw vegan. That’s a delight – to watch people’s health transitions through love, through your relationship. That’s pretty cool. So, they need to be open-minded and they need to be rock and roll.

#17 – Are there any special side projects you are working on to better the community/world – or something that you’re really proud of?

Some projects that I’ve been involved in that are specifically conscious projects are Bold Native Film (if anyone can watch the film, get a hold of it – go to their website: boldnative.com) – this film has become a movement in itself, and it’s imperative. It’s a masterpiece of independent film making, first of all, with all extremely talented industry people making a scripted film – it’s not a documentary. [...]

Another thing is I’m the voice of Green-Girl in the Rawman and Green-Girl series. It’s an animated superhero series for kids. Three of the short films (or episodes – I don’t know what you want to call them) are available if you go to rawmanandgreengirl.com you can see that. All of these have Facebook pages as well if you’re more inclined to Facebook. Rawman and Green-Girl is an animated superhero series about raw vegan superheroes and they, you know, fight the beekeeper, and fight Frankenfood, and they do really cool things with their superhero raw food powers. And it’s a great way to get kids instead of, “I want that for my happy meal!” – this is the opposite of that.

You can link to my Clean and Green Every Day column in ecohearth.com magazine. It’s a free online magazine and I’ve been writing for them weekly for over two years, and there is a plethora of what I do every day to keep my city life green, to keep my health green when I get on set, to run my businesses green. It’s just common sense, practical, everyday knowledge.

Oh! And then, one other thing – if you visit my website, the motions part (tonyakay.com/motions) – that’s where my video is and in there you’ll see a series that I produced. It’s not finished yet, I’m still making more episodes, but it’s called the Eco Tourist, and it takes people with me to Thailand where I do volunteer work with the endangered species, the Asian Elephant. [...]

#18 – Since you don’t seem to be the type to eat at fast food places or traditional restaurants, is there anywhere or anything you eat that is “out of the ordinary” for you?

Uh – yah! Vegan Thai food. LA is known for it. When I went to Thailand (I’ve been there several times now), I was sitting next to a Thai girl on the airplane and we tested my Thai language skills and she tested her English language skills, and we communicated. And we talked about Thai food in Los Angeles and she says there’s a lot of vegan Thai food in Los Angeles – it’s famous, it’s good! And I said, “I know!” So, that’s the out of the ordinary food for me. Otherwise it’s all Farmer’s Market, you know, good old southern California, always in season, fresh fruits and vegetables.

#19 – What do you do to relax in the evenings after a long day/week?

I come home… I’ll write, I’ll dance a little bit. I just set up a pole in my living room, so I’ll pole dance, listen to music, write, and look at astrology charts.

#20 – Did you learn to dance on your own, or did you take lessons?

Well, I’ve been dancing since I was four years-old, so that’s quite a long time. So, I know how to dance, and I’ve done some aerial shows… I was in De La Guarda, cast in New York and performed in Vegas, and I’ve been in Stomp and some really physically strenuous shows. So, my upper body is just developed and I keep it that way. So, yah… I just come home and right now I’m looking at it like another prop that I’m working into my repertoire and building strength. Building strength, building strength, and I’m sure starting January I’ll probably go find one of my friends to give me some tricks.

#21 – Do you have anything you want to say, anyone you want to mention, or anything to promote?

Well, I hope everyone can check out remineralize.org. My friend, Don Weaver, is a major advocate for reminerlization. And sometimes I think people get stuck thinking that organic is going to save the world, and, by all means, buy organic every chance you can. But, if you want to be really renegade and go a thousand times deeper, go remineralization, learn about remineralization. Because our farming practices have basically depleted the soil so much that just stopping putting chemicals on and stopping putting fertilizers on (chemical fertilizer) – this is not going to heal the problem. [...] I would suggest anyone who is pure renegade go learn about remineralization [remineralization.org]. Also, turn off the TV. I know I do TV for a living, but just try it. Try it for a week and see what happens with your family.