Stars Making a Social Impact: Why & How Actress & Director Soleil Moon Frye Is Helping To Change Our World
An Interview With Edward Sylvan
I wanted to get involved and do more, so I’ve partnered with GSK as a spokesperson for its “Ask2BSure” campaign to help educate and empower fellow parents to check their child’s records and talk to their kids’ doctor about meningitis B vaccination.
As a part of our series about stars who are making an important social impact, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Soleil Moon Frye.
Soleil Moon Frye is a multi-talented actor, director, and writer who recently reprised her role as the iconic character, Punky Brewster in a multi-camera/hybrid reboot of the same name and released her original documentary, kid90 that is composed of hundreds of hours of real footage of her life as a teenager in the 90s. Frye, a mom of 4, recently learned about a potentially life-threatening disease, meningitis B, that teens and young adults are at an increased risk for and has partnered with GSK as a spokesperson for its “Ask2BSure” campaign to help educate and empower fellow parents to talk to their child’s doctor about meningitis B vaccination. Vaccination is an important cause to Frye, who also sits on the board for CORE, an organization dedicated to saving lives and strengthening communities impacted by or vulnerable to crisis and has helped nearly two million people get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Can you share with us the “backstory” that led you to this career path?
I grew up in a family of incredible entertainers and activists — my brothers and my dad were actors and I grew up watching them. One day I told my mom I wanted to try acting, and I had always been super shy, so she was like really? I went in for my first audition and my mom told them, “I don’t know if she will say anything.” But I loved playing make-believe and acting really helped me come out of my shell and find my voice. We were encouraged to still be kids — I went to summer camp — and I had an awesome childhood. I also loved journalism since I was little, so I would pick up video cameras, write in my diaries, speak into voice recorders and document everything; I locked the footage away for over 20 years and 5–6 years ago, revisited my memories and that led to the journey of kid90, the documentary I recently released about my youth. It started as a documentary about others and became so deeply personal. So, for us, the arts and giving back were always a part of my life and as far back as I can remember, my family and I tried to be of service to others and that’s always been really important to me. I’ve continued to share that with my own children. That helped lead me to my work with CORE, which has been one of the great joys of my life and I am so grateful to help with disaster relief around the globe. When COVID-19 hit, we jumped into action and vaccinated over 1.8 million people and tested 5.8 million people. It’s been incredible. When I learned from my dear friend about meningitis B vaccination, it was a conversation I took to my children’s pediatrician and learned so much so now I am helping to raise awareness about that, too.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career? What was the lesson or take away that you took out of that story?
I have so many funny stories. I’ve been grateful to live such a full life. One of the most amazing experiences in my life happened at Muhammad Ali’s birthday party. My dad was a Golden Gloves boxing champion and I’ve always loved boxing. Someone thought it would be cute for Muhammad Ali and I to take a picture together. They picked me up and my Cherry Coke flew out of my hand and went all over Muhammad Ali and his beautiful white suit. He was like, “Did you do this to me?” and I was stumbling through my words and he broke down in laughter and was so kind and had such a sense of humor about it. It was an embarrassing and also total awe-inspiring moment. This question is one of the first times I thought about what I learned from that experience. It’s an example of someone who was so strong and bigger than life, and he let this little girl feel totally comfortable and ok with this moment. It was a reminder to really look into each other’s eyes and see each other and how we can help pick each other up through kindness. I remember him leaning down and he got right to my eye level (and he’s bigger than life!) and just his act of kindness to me was a reminder that we can all do that in any moment. That just sticks with you forever.
What would you advise a young person who wants to emulate your success?
I think it’s all about each of us finding our own journey and how incredible each of our stories are. That’s something that’s been really moving and inspiring for me, and especially in this experience with kid90, is people will open up and share their own stories. Everyone’s story is meaningful, so may we be inspired to share our stories and connect and be open with each other. Document it, to help never lose sight of yourself and believe in yourself. Our voices really matter and each person can make an impact in this world, whatever it is that we do — teachers, doctors, front line workers from all walks of life. For me, a big part of the journey is not letting the program of things people tell us throughout our lives get us down, like not feeling worthy enough. So often we can feed into that and lose sight of who we really are. So much of this journey for me in the last 5–6 years has been really working on being my most authentic self, living in these tapes of my teen self and healing and revisiting her and letting go of assumptions of programming thinking it is all about you. I’m a constant work in progress. Something I feel is incredibly important is to not take things so personally because it’s so easy when things are painful or hurtful to lean into that programming. Knowing one’s own self-worth is so important.
Is there a person that made a profound impact on your life? Can you share a story?
My family, my mom, my best friend since I was two years old, my godparents, incredible friends that feel like family, my children. Watching my mom as a single mom raising her kids and working while giving us so much love and kindness and being of service to others and filling our house with so much love and joy. My godmom and godfather for being spirit guides to me. My children are my greatest teachers ever. My kids teach me about love everyday and how expansive our hearts are. Throughout this journey of revisiting my youth and going through my personal transformation, my children have been so open and allowed me that journey — loving me, nurturing me and teaching me so much; it has been very profound. They had to sacrifice so much of themselves in me reliving my teen self and diving into working so much and they’ve just supported me and I’m so grateful for that. I went from being there all the time and full-on mom mode which has been my life for so many years to really spending so much time watching these old videos and diaries, peeling back the onion, and researching who I am and they were so supportive and they even did research on the documentary with me and helped me film moments. Just to have that support has been incredibly profound.
How are you using your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share with us the meaningful or exciting causes you are working on right now?
I hope I can make the world a little better through my interactions with people, from strangers to family. I also hope I bring a whole lot of love to my four beautiful children — they are such a big part of my world. Like all parents, I want to do all I can to help keep my kids healthy. I recently learned about a potentially life-threatening disease, meningitis B, that teens and young adults are at an increased risk for. There are two different types of vaccinations needed to help protect against the five vaccine-preventable groups of meningitis. Even though many teens or young adults may have received meningitis vaccination when they were younger, there is a separate type of vaccination specifically for meningitis B — which has only been available since 2014 — that they may miss. I was shocked to learn that 7 out of 10 17-year-olds in the U.S. did not receive even one dose of meningitis B vaccination in 2020. Once I learned all of this, and with my oldest child, Poet, just turning 16, I wanted to get involved and do more, so I’ve partnered with GSK as a spokesperson for its “Ask2BSure” campaign to help educate and empower fellow parents to check their child’s records and talk to their kids’ doctor about meningitis B vaccination.
I am also a board member for CORE, an organization dedicated to saving lives and strengthening communities impacted by or vulnerable to crisis. CORE has helped test over 5.8 million people for COVID-19 and vaccinates nearly 2 million across the US. I was filming our show during COVID-19 and what I learned through CORE really helped — we want to make conscious decisions for ourselves and our family, and I think that includes open dialogue about vaccinations with our doctors and family.
Can you share with us the story behind why you chose to take up this particular cause?
I want to make informed decisions, and, like all parents, I want to do everything I can to help protect my kids. As a mom of four, I love doing research. I want to be informed, especially when it comes to my children’s health. I ask their pediatrician a lot of questions. When I learned about meningitis B and heard the statistics — it was startling.
Three of my children also recently had COVID-19. My oldest was fully vaccinated and did not get it. We have been incredibly safe in our household, so it was a shock. We haven’t been able to trace where they got it from. Going through that experience made me realize that you think that it can’t happen to you. It’s so important to be informed and do all you can to stay healthy and try and prevent what you can help prevent.
It’s really important to have these conversations with our children’s doctors, and that’s why I got involved with the Ask2BSure campaign. If we can help just one family start the conversation with their doctor about meningitis B vaccination, then we’re making progress.
In teaming up with the campaign, I had the opportunity to talk with meningitis survivor and GSK spokesperson Jamie Schanbaum, and Patti Wukovits from the Meningitis B Action Project, who tragically lost her daughter to meningitis B right before her senior prom. It was heart-wrenching to hear their stories of how meningitis changed their lives forever, and it reinforced to me how important it is to do everything we can as parents to help protect our children from vaccine-preventable diseases.
Can you share with us a story about a person who was impacted by your cause?
My daughter Poet turned 16 in August, an important milestone but also one relevant to meningitis B vaccination. When one of my life-long friends, who also happens to be a pediatrician, started talking to me about the meningitis B vaccination, I reached out to Poet’s doctor to learn more. Now Poet has an appointment to receive her meningitis B vaccination. While I hope bringing awareness to this topic encourages other parents to “Ask2BSure” about meningitis B vaccination, I can also say personally it has directly impacted my family and driven me to do what I can to help protect my children from meningitis B.
Are there three things that individuals, society or the government can do to support you in this effort?
The decision to vaccinate against meningitis B relies on an important conversation between the healthcare provider and parent. I urge parents to start the conversation with their child’s doctor to “Ask2BSure” about meningitis B vaccination. There are three things parents can do:
- Take the time to learn about the risks of meningitis and the importance of meningitis B vaccination.
- If you aren’t sure whether your teen or young adult has received meningitis B vaccination, contact your child’s doctor’s office and ask for your child’s vaccination records.
- If you find out your child hasn’t received meningitis B vaccination yet, you can ask their doctor about it during your next appointment.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or an example for each.
My mom and family said these and I don’t know that I always heard it, so the things I remind myself of are: I’m worthy; I’m enough; don’t make assumptions; don’t take everything so personally; if you get knocked down you get back up again (that’s our boxing mentality!). Don’t let anyone else’s insecurity or reflection of themselves reflect on who you are; people judge others when they are more in the judgment of themselves. I think in our business and entertainment in general, so often you are faced with a sense of rejection and it’s very easy to take it personally, whether you’re not tall enough or small enough or whatever. Very often you have to really be a fighter, be a boxer, and either keep going or you lose your heart or faith in it because it can be hard. You hear about the person who has been on 188 auditions, and the 189th audition changes their life, so it’s how much perseverance each of us has and how much we go after it. The other thing that’s so incredible to me is to be of service to others because there’s so much more to life. One of the greatest gifts instilled in me has been, ‘Take your pain and sadness and turn it into art’ and that’s something I’ve tried to do and it’s profoundly affected my life.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
That’s an amazing question and I would love to continue to inspire people to really be authentic to themselves — to share their stories, to encourage others to be of service. Whatever it is or any movement I would like to be a part of, I would like for my children to be in it with me and for us, there are so many things that inspire us. We are supposed to go to DC in a few weeks to work on voting rights and they are so involved in the work I do with CORE and being able to do it with my family is really important to me.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you explain how that was relevant in your life?
There are so many! It’s hard to just pick one. Samuel Johnson said, “The true art of memory is the art of attention.” That’s at the end of my kid90 documentary and one of the reasons I love it is there is so much that in my life I had so many questions about, “had things happened in my life the way I remembered them?” and going through the process of reliving through my tapes and being able to watch so much of my life all over again, it was such a gift in finding true self-love and remembering who I was and the woman I am today. The more attention we pay in life, allows us to really hear things and take them in, and that is an incredible gift.
I also think daily of Einstein’s quote “Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a persistent one.”
Einstein also said, “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.” We set the frequency of our lives and that’s what comes back to us.
We are blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Politics, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
The last few years I’ve been studying quantum physics, frequencies, and philosophy, our conscious, subconscious and our unconscious. I’d love to sit down with people that are open to the concept around frequency and vibrations to really dive into the different parts of these concepts and how they can help change the world. I love studying Tesla, Einstein and others and the shared stories about our frequencies and the secrets of the Universe. I think if we really focus on energy, frequencies, and vibrations as Tesla said, we will make so much progress in the world… In life, in love, in medicine, everywhere. I am interested in speaking with people who think about these concepts and work to implement them to raise the consciousness to help create change and fundamentally make a difference in the world — lovers of Einstein, Tesla, Plato, Diotima, Carl Jung, incredible philosophers, artists, and thinkers.
Thank you so much for these amazing insights. This was so inspiring, and we wish you continued success!
Stars Making a Social Impact: Why & How Actress & Director Soleil Moon Frye Is Helping To Change… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.