Heather Douglas left Penn in 1995 with a degree in English and dreams of one day becoming an actress. She will return next week for the world premiere of her film, Two Days, at the Philadelphia Film Festival.
The story of what happened in between reads like something out of Hollywood.
"I started acting very young," said Douglas, who grew up in Center City doing theater work for Plays and Players. By high school, she had begun modeling and after graduation went from auditioning in L.A. to runway and studio work in Japan. She worked serving tables and bartending in between. It didn't last.
"I got tired of being a waitress so I went back to school," said Douglas, who put modeling and acting on hold while at Penn. But by graduation she was drawn back to the spotlight, passing up prospects of professional life to pursue the theater houses of New York.
Douglas took classes at the Actor's Studio and did off-Broadway theater for the next two years. "I loved it," she said, "but I got tired of being broke and hungry and poor."
"I was bartending up there, and I had some customers come in pretty regularly who were stock brokers," Douglas said. "They had so much money and they didn't seem very bright. They were throwing around a lot of cash and I thought, 'Well if they can do it, I can do it.'"
Douglas traded the stage for the Stock Exchange and began to work her way up Wall Street. In four years she became a financial consultant for Salomon Smith Barney. She had her own office in the World Trade Center, and on the morning of 9/11 was preparing to head into work when her phone rang.
"I had a client call me that needed to see me," said Douglas. "It gives me goose bumps even talking about it."
Such a twist of fate left Douglas with more than a few rearranged perspectives. "Something that huge really makes you take a look at life. Where am I going? If life could be this short, what do I want to spend my days doing?"
For Douglas, the answer was found in a voice from the past. Three months after 9/11 she recieved a call from Paige Griggs, whom she'd taken acting classes with eight years earlier. He wanted her to star in his film.
"When Paige called out of the blue it was strange, but I was like, 'This is right, this the right thing to do,'" Douglas said.
Griggs's film, Two Days, is a dark comedic tale of a poet -- played by Griggs -- who loses his fiancee and his mind over 48 bizarre and bloody hours in West Texas. Douglas plays a femme fatale bartender who she describes as "very driven, very strong ... a little bit vulnerable, a little bit crazy."
Filming Two Days took 17 grueling days, and Douglas left with something more than just her first screen acting credit -- three months later she and Griggs eloped.
Now married, the two live in Florida, where they've opened their own independent film studio, Night Sky productions. It seems like Douglas has finally found a permanent fit.
"It sounds strange but I had a feeling," she said. "I always had a feeling that somebody was going to call me one day, and I'd be working on films."
Two Days is up for two awards at the Philadelphia Film Festival: Best Feature and Best First Feature.
"I'm so excited that the world premiere is in Philadelphia, and they're screening up at Penn," Douglas said. "It feels like coming full circle for me."
Two Days premieres April 8 at the Cinema at Penn.
