NICHOLE Galicia
With THE ORCHID FOUNDATION
After positioning herself to be the next big thing in Hollywood, Model, Actor and Philanthropist Nichole Galicia sits down with JEZ Magazine for a behind-the-scenes look into her unbelievable world of film, fashion and mentorship.
Ty-Ron Mayes (JEZ): First, I have to say you look gorgeous and you smell divine. What are you wearing?
Nichole Galicia (NG): {laughing} Why thank you, I’m wearing work ethic and positivity.
JEZ: Well, you wear it well. By the way, you had a birthday in October, happy belated birthday. Did you do anything special?
NG: Thank you. I usually spend my birthday with QuintEvents in Austin watching the Grand Prix but, alas, I was filming this year... fancy people problems.
JEZ: Oh yeah, you are such a sports-nista... Nichole is fancy everyone. You are tri-costal, bilingual, you give the best art tours, you are elegant, funny as hell, smart as a whip, tough as nails and you speak fluent Formula 1 and football.
NG: OK this is weird.
JEZ: What the truth?
NG: No, you doing this. Interviewing me, asking me questions like you don’t know me.
JEZ: Ok... for interview purposes, let’s act like we are strangers, we will pretend that we don’t sit front row at New York Fashion Week or take last minute trips to Madrid where you guide us through restaurants, neighborhoods and conversations like a native. Today, allow me to introduce you and your project to the world. We will get to your football, Formula One, Baroque, Pop Art and stock market obsessions another time. I won’t mention your supermodel days traveling the globe as a model doing ads for TheGap, Hanes, Pepsi, Shiseido, Iman, or your L’officel, Elle and W magazine layouts to name a few. Let’s pretend you weren’t everyone’s favorite villain on Season 3 of SYFY’s “Defiance”; not to mention being Quentin Tarantino’s muse appearing in his Oscar Award Winning, “Django Unchained”; a role he wrote for you describing you as a chocolate woman with confidence 200 years in the making, then followed up with appearing in his critically acclaimed, Golden Globe nominated, “Once Upon A Time… in Hollywood”. You worked with Ron Howard and Jamie Foxx when he cast you as his female lead in “And She Was My Eve”. I don’t think people understand your insane level of work ethic or how truly talented you are as an actress. You wrote a book on Pop Art called, “Equipo Cronica: The Nichole Kent Collection” and I’ve watched you leap tall buildings in a single bound, but okay... all that is for another time. Today, I need to say I’m so proud of you for starting a nonprofit organization called, The Orchid Foundation. What is its mission?
NG: Thank you for all of that. I’m blushing... thank you. The Orchid Foundation’s mission is to mentor underserved high school girls. We choose girls that are excelling in their academic and/or extracurricular pursuits and help fill the resource gap presented by their socioeconomic backgrounds. Our “Orchids” are athletes, honor students, artists, humanitarians and feminists packed into 14-18 year old powerhouses that deserve the same opportunities as the top ten percent enjoys.
The Orchid Foundation is a 501(c)3 nonprofit so all donations are 100% tax deductible. You can give by visiting our website: www.theorchidfdn.org. We have a ton of programs, some of which include: a college preparatory bootcamp, year round tutoring including SAT prep, a financial literacy course, an art program (I took my Orchids on a 9 day guided tour through Spain with art historian Kent Alessandro), we do community service every year, we have career days where my Orchids meet business tycoons and entrepreneurs like Daymond John from ABC’s “Shark Tank” or Atlantic Pacific Capital’s CEO James Manley and tons more. “Star Trek” and “Wonder Woman 1984” star, Chris Pine is one of our Super Donors. He supports my Orchids every year. He is responsible for putting one of my girls through college. He keeps the lights on around here. We love us some Chris Pine! We doodle his name, we call him Orchid Bae and we give anyone who crosses him the evil eye. Chris has seven die hard fans forever. Amyn Hassanally and the entire Coller Capital team, as well as, Ed Zimmerman (partner at Lowenstein Sandler and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School), writer, director Taylor Sheridan (Sicario, Yellowstone) and so many more have embraced our cause and taken an active role in the success of my Orchids. I’m very proud of the work we do here. I say we because you have been a huge support to my Orchids as well Mr. Ty-Ron Mayes, by way of self esteem boosting photoshoots so we can look fancy in all of our foundation literature and press pictures, to providing my Orchids with internships, to allowing them to assist you on shoots, to supporting our fundraiser every year and tons more things both seen and unseen. Mark my words MORE THAN ONE of my Orchids is going to change the world. The rest of us are going to be close behind holding her up.
JEZ: OK well now I’m blushing! But, I will ask you publicly what I asked in private when I first learned of The Orchid Foundation. Why? Why do you do this?
NG: Because I can. Because we are all supposed to give back. Taylor Sheridan brought my Orchids to Utah for Spring break courtesy of Paramount. They did not want to go. Their friends made fun of them for going to the “boonies” for Spring Break. They did not want to go! But just four magical days later when it was time to leave Utah, every single girl cried because they didn’t want to go home. Taylor and his amazing wife Nicole, the horses, sweet Gus, the mountains, being out of their comfort zone but comfortable and being so welcomed by strangers changed my Orchids’ lives forever. Their whole universe shifted. That’s why
I do it. I want my girls to experience everything, to know everything, to have choices. That’s why I do it.
I know that some of my girls would not be in college without The Orchid Foundation. This is my proudest achievement to date! My girls are currently attending College of the Holy Cross, Emory, George Washington, Ithaca, U Albany, SUNY New Paltz and York. Orchid Alison (Holy Cross) is everyone’s dream kid. She has the most incredible work ethic. She’s so smart, feminine and sweet. Alison is that kid that’s going to quietly start from the bottom and the day you blink she will be running your company. She’s a dancer, a singer and actor who is busting out A pluses in biology lab. Orchid Coumba (Emory) is driven. She’s gorgeous, the smartest person in the room, but down to earth and laser focused on the finish line. Coumba is set on having seven streams of income before she turns 40. She’s investing in the stock market with my help and we are learning how to buy and sell real estate. She’s 18. Thank you very much. Orchid Markayla (U Albany) took a gap year to beat stage 4 cancer . Last year I was by her bedside holding her hand through chemo this year she is showing me A’s in Shakespearian literature and Korean, which she taught herself some basics in so she could swoon over her favorite K-Pop band BTS. I go to Markayla so we can nerd out over classical music or Broadway plays which we both love or to get makeup tips or discuss politics. Orchid Mariama (York) is the kind of sweet, generous soul you wish the entire world could experience. She really is the soft warm spot of The Orchid Foundation. I hope one day she decides to run the foundation so I can go take a seat somewhere. Mariama is interested in a career in aviation. Oh did I mention she started York with so many college credits that she leap frogged freshman year and started as a sophomore or that I taught her how to buy stocks so now she texts me with hot stock tips? Yeah THAT. Orchid Alexa is straight A smart. She’s athletic (basketball, softball, volleyball anything with a ball)… She’s cool. She’s hardworking and she loves animals, she’s a Francophile and she hates Thai food. She’s sartorial. Like Coumba, she’s driven; like Alison she’s elegant. Alexa’s idea of failure is a B or being second. Want to best her you need to come better than a 3.93 GPA because that’s her current standing in her high school junior class. Orchid Michaella is also a high school junior and is just cool people. I can’t say her name without smiling. Michaella knows how to get the party started, but she also knows how to stay in her books. She’s well read, hard working, can dance, can sing and knows how to properly eat a chicken wing. Trust me you are doing it wrong. Michaella is on the
volleyball team and is a cheerleader. YEAAAAH ORCHIDS! I also have some girls that I hip pocket like the brilliant Francina and my sweetie Peaches. I have a few boys that I look out for as well like my “little brother” Eddie who survived foster care and is now a college student. Okay, it is a lot but, none of this life is worth anything if you can’t bring a few amazing people along with you. I just happened to create the coolest, brightest, girl squad ever. Send us a donation please because we are changing lives over here.
www.theorchidfdn.org My Orchid Angels fashion designers, Carmen Marc Valvo and Nicole Miller who been so generous with my Orchids. Carmen gave us all prom gowns! Frank Pulice, the super generous
Udo Spreitzenbarth, Therese Hoarty, Yamandou Alexander and Eric Ortner, Matthew Goldstein, sculptor Xavier Mascaro, Kent Alessandro who continues to educate my Orchids about art and me about everything, Deborah Mannis-Gardner, Gustav Christensen, Steven B Walters, Grace Morton and
The Peter Morton Foundation, Alexander Paiusco, Rosemarie DiLorenzo, Michael Benanbib, Ron Contarsy, Emily Bergyl who mentors Orchid Coumba, Emmanuel Baptist Church and Rotimi Akinnuoye, Dr. Savoy Brummer who is mentoring Orchid Alison,
Josh Wexler, John Mayes who photographs my red carpet events, you Ty-Ron who provides the most wonderful internships, guidance and opportunities and many many more. I could not do this work without my team of Orchid Angels. Thank you for picking me. Thank you for believing in my work and for supporting my Orchids. We are changing the lives of underserved girls.
JEZ: We all, can not wait to see each of these bright young ladies achieve their shared goal which is success. This program is a game changer in their lives. They are going to graduate and fan out and pay it forward. They are your little superheroes. Speaking of superheroes, let’s get back to you as an actress. You have what I dubbed an “Iconic Body” blessed with “other worldly beauty” and you want to use them to play… Marvel Studio’s and Disney Plus’ live action, “She-Hulk” television show?
NG: {Laughing} Well, my bestie is a comic book geek and I know if I could land She-Hulk or the Bionic Woman or Storm / T’Challa’s bride in Black Panther 2... I could pretty much get him to do anything I asked. I would love to play a super hero! Is there room for a Black Wonder Woman? I would look so hot in that bodysuit with thigh high boots and my biceps stay ready.
JEZ: Excuse me, as I comic book geek out here for a second but, Black Wonder Woman’s name is “Nubia”. She was introduced into the Wonder Woman comic book series in Issue #204 and was described as Wonder Woman’s lost twin sister. And if anyone could play a super hero, meta-human, Amazon or a weather controlling mutant, it would be you. Anyway, you definitely look like a drawing come to life. And you have loads of experience with special effects make-up after bringing Kindzi to life on Defiance. You would make a “Sensational She-Hulk” or a perfect MCU/ Marvel Cinematic Universe Storm. Hopefully, Ryan Coogler or Kevin Feige is reading this article right now because you are a real life superhero.
NG: OK I feel like I owe you money right now.
JEZ: (laughing) YOU DO! You can pay me after you book one of these roles. What’s next for you? Do you have another project lined up, you mentioned earlier that you were filming?
NG: I’m the lead in a thriller called, “Shimmer”. It will be in theaters late 2020. Shimmer takes the idea of being afraid of the dark and turns it on its head. I play a forensics scientist who is investigating a series of strange deaths. Eventually my character realizes she is being hunted by the killer. “Shimmer” is written and directed by Rob Ciano (Blackout).
JEZ: How can fans get in touch with you via social media?
NG: My instagram: @officialnicholegalicia or @theorchidfdn twitter: @nicholegalicia