Karen’s Story. From Actress to PA. Part I

A note from Robin: Last December, on a flight to Italy, I met a man who completely broke my usual travel rule: keep to yourself and survive the long flight quietly. Normally I don’t strike up conversations at 35,000 feet, but this guy was different. He was smart, funny, and the kind of person who actually knows how to have a real conversation—rare air on an airplane.

Somewhere between takeoff and the in-flight coffee, we started talking about our lives and the work we both do. He mentioned that his wife had been an actress and model in Brazil. She had a strong interest in the creative industries and was trying to find her path. That caught my attention, so I told him about our course and how it helps people break into production as Production Assistants.

The reaction was immediate. His eyes lit up. You could practically see the gears turning.

When he got home that night, he told his wife everything he’d learned on that flight. A week later, she signed up for the course.

And that’s where this story really begins—because this is her story.

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I Always Knew I Was Creative

My name is Karen Koluchuk, I was born in Brazil, but my roots are a mix of cultures. Half of my family came from Europe—my father’s family fled during World War II and eventually built a life in Brazil. My mother’s heritage is Indigenous. So in many ways, my identity carries different histories and perspectives all at once. I grew up surrounded by that mixture of cultures, creativity, and resilience.

From a very young age, I was drawn to the arts. I dreamed of being an actress, but honestly, I loved everything about creative work. Acting, writing, designing, building—it all fascinated me. I didn’t just want to perform. I wanted to make things happen.

When I was young, I worked in theater in my mother’s city. I didn’t go there with a specific job title. I simply showed up and helped wherever I could. If the production needed scenery, I built scenery. If someone needed more scenes written, I wrote them. If costumes were missing, I sewed costumes. Lights, backgrounds, organizing people—whatever needed to be done, I would jump in and figure it out.

At the time, I didn’t realize what that meant. I was just doing what felt natural to me. But looking back now, I see something very clearly: I had already been producing. I had already been doing the work of someone who makes productions happen.

And the funny thing is, I did most of it without getting paid. I wasn’t doing it for money. I was doing it because it was inside of me. That instinct to build something, to organize people, to solve problems, and to bring creative ideas to life—it was always there.

Years later, my life brought me to the United States. My husband and I moved to Atlanta, and like many people starting over in a new country, I found myself searching for my place again. I continued studying acting and doing creative work at home, but I felt disconnected from the industry. I wasn’t sure how to enter the professional world here.

Then something unexpected happened.

One day my husband Rafael came home from a flight and told me he had spent the entire trip talking with a woman who reminded him of me. He said, “Karen, she is doing the things you always talk about wanting to do.” He told me I needed to connect with her.

That woman was Robin.

When I reached out, the conversation felt very natural. It was one of those moments where you feel like someone immediately understands you. We talked about creativity, about producing, about making things happen behind the scenes. And during that conversation, something clicked for me.

For the first time, I understood that becoming a Production Assistant could be my pathway.

Suddenly everything made sense. Being a PA meant being in the middle of the creative process. It meant helping build the production, solving problems, organizing the chaos, and supporting the team that brings a project to life.

It was exactly the type of work I had always been drawn to.

But this time, there was something new: a real path forward.

I decided to take the online Production Assistant course. When I started the classes, something amazing happened. I began recognizing pieces of my past. There were situations explained in the lessons that reminded me of experiences I had years ago on sets or theater productions. Things that confused me before suddenly made sense.

The course didn’t feel like theory. It felt like real life.

That was the biggest difference for me. Many courses talk about ideas, but this one showed how things actually work on a set—the environment, the pace, the responsibilities, and the mindset needed to succeed.

For the first time, I felt like I wasn’t just dreaming about working in production. I was preparing for it.

And that preparation gave me something I had been missing since moving to the United States: confidence that I could step into this world and belong there.

I didn’t know it yet, but the next step—actually landing my first PA job—was already on the way.

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Stay tuned for the rest of Karen’s story—how she landed her first job on set as a Production Assistant and what surprised her most once the work actually began!

Part II coming soon!