Women Behind the Scenes Spotlight: Felicia Day

Felicia Day is known by many titles – actress, comedian, writer, series creator, author, business woman as well as video game expert.

Day was born in Huntsville, Alabama where she started acting at the age of 8 in a local production of To Kill a Mockingbird. She was home-schooled for much of her childhood, studying operatic singing and ballet professionally, and started college at the tender age of 16. By the time she was 19, she graduated from the University of Texas at Austin (rather than attending the Juilliard School of Music where she was accepted), earning a double major in mathematics and music performance (she went to college on a full scholarship in violin performance).

After graduation, she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting, and while she appeared in various short and independent films, commercials and guest spots on TV shows, it wasn’t until 2003 where she garnered attention by sci-fi fans as one of the potential slayers on the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Over the next few years, she appeared in a variety of short-lived television shows, but it was in 2007 when she decided to make work for herself by creating the fan favorite web series The Guild. Day not only starred in the web series, but served as writer, series creator and executive producer. The Guild had six seasons, ending in 2013.

It was during this time (in 2008 to be exact) that Day appeared in what would become one of the biggest web series success stories, created by none other than Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog where she starred alongside Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and Nathan Fillion (Castle). During the duration of The Guild, she appeared in episodes of the TV shows My Boys, Dollhouse and Lie to Me (among many others). In 2011, her Knights of Good production company (which she formed to produce The Guild) partnered with EA/Bioware to create the innovative web series Dragon Age: Redemption, which she not only wrote but also starred in the lead role.

In 2011, she had a recurring role on the fan-favorite Syfy series Eureka and then had a recurring role on the long-running series Supernatural; but sadly both of those characters died much to the dismay of the show’s legends of fans.

It was in 2012, that she launched the premium YouTube channel Geek & Sundry that has gone on to produce countless online series and two years later was acquired by Legendary, becoming part of Chris Hardwick’s Nerdist Industries.

Most recently, Felicia spent time writing her first book, a memoir entitled “You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)” that came out on August 11 of this year; and she will appear in the upcoming Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk (of Firefly fame) online series Con Man.

She has been nominated, and won, several Streamy Awards that recognize and honor excellence in online video as well as International Academy of Web Television Awards that are devoted to the advancement of the arts and sciences of web television production.

For the past eight years, Day has been appearing at sci-fi convention across the globe, most notably Wonder Con and Comic Con. It was during her appearance at Wonder Con 2015 in Anaheim, CA back in April where Day spoke in length about her then upcoming book, Geek & Sundry and much, much more.

Among the questions that she answered during the convention were:

• It’s been “such a gift to be on Supernatural, representing women who are into geek things”;
• She is “determined to make more episodes” of the web series Spooked (from Geek & Sundry);
• She was “kinda burned out” with The Guild after working on it for six years, but now “she’s looking back on it and maybe in the future the characters could come back”;
• She said, when asked what it was like to work with Jensen and Jared on Supernatural, that “every person is treated like an integral part of the show”; and,
• She admitted that her favorite project to work on to date has been Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, sharing that she would “never trade that experience for the world” and despite her character dying in the end, she actually “liked the ending” and thinks it’s a “compliment that her character died because they (the Whedon family) only harm characters who people really care about”.

Make sure, if you haven’t already, pick up a copy of Day’s book “You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)” which, since its release, has made her best-selling author.

You can learn more about Felicia Day here and learn more about Geek & Sundry here.