On Our Radar: Felicia Day

The brains behind The Guild proves that smart girls can finish first

By Jordan Young
Published: February 24th, 2011 | 12:02am

It’s hard not to be jealous of a renaissance woman like Felicia Day: She succeeds at everything she tackles, from mathematics (she was a National Merit Scholar) to music to producing to writing to acting. But Day is such a genuine, hard-working artist that she makes it nearly impossible to hate her—and her million-plus followers on Twitter would probably agree.

Chances are you’ve spotted Day somewhere over the past few years: in any number of television guest appearances, as Neil Patrick Harris’s crush Penny in Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, or on her uber-successful web series The Guild. It was a leap of faith that inspired Day, who graduated from the University of Texas in Austin with a degree in math, to pick up and make the move to LA to pursue acting. “Part of it was because of all the theater I did as a teen—how much I enjoyed the process of rehearsing, acting, and creating with a group,” she says. “And the other part was just a bit of sheer blind enthusiasm—a feeling of fate. Not the best thing to base a big life decision on, I admit.”

All those roles weren’t waiting patiently for her upon her arrival in LA, so in 2007 she cofounded the Knights of Good Production with friend Kim Avey so they could have creative control over projects in which they could have fun and become emotionally invested. “I created The Guild out of frustration with acting,” Day says. “I was being pigeonholed in a way [where] I didn't see a lot of long-term growth. I made a good living but wasn't fulfilled, so I sat down to write a TV pilot featuring a role for myself.”

The Guild features a hilarious ensemble cast of gamers struggling with real life versus role-playing-game life—and all the social awkwardness that comes with it. “After it was clear no one would pick such a niche show up for TV, Kim had the idea of doing it as a web series,” Day explains. It was a wise choice: The Guild won the YouTube Award for best series after its first season, and in 2009 it captured three Streamy Awards. The Guild’s success has even allowed the Knights of Good Production to branch out, going into pre-production on a new web series last fall. And that’s not all Day’s got her eye on as far as future projects are concerned. “I'd also like to create something fantasy-based to star in, but I’m not sure if it can be accomplished on a web budget so it might be a TV pilot or even a novel,” she says. “I’m definitely looking to grow while maintaining The Guild. More multitasking—yay!”

Instead of following the stereotypical trajectory of a Hollywood ingénue, Day has managed to create a niche for herself as an adorably relatable whip-smart woman. “[The] bottom line is that hokey but universal phrase: Be true to yourself. If you love something, there's no reason to abandon that out of shame, or hoping to fit in. Don't betray yourself.”