Judi Rae is all about honing her craft.
Still in the early stages of her wrestling career, Judi Rae is continuing to learn and dedicated to fine-tuning her work. In the character aspect, Rae has transformed herself from the “Queen of Kentucky” into the present day “Appalachian Queen” as a nod to her Native American roots. Over the last year, though, Rae has been honing her craft in other departments as well.
Speaking with WrestleZone‘s own Ella Jay, Rae explained the different approaches she’s been taking to improve her fitness, acting skills, and in-ring work.
“As of the past few months, everybody notices on my page, I’ve been going to the gym and getting into different types of lifting and working out, increasing my cardio, building up my muscle more. Then I train with different people throughout the week. I’ve been switching up my training as far as wrestling. And then I recently just got an acting coach to help me with my promos and my character. I pay like $25 an hour to sit down with my acting coach once a week, and help evolve [my character],” Rae revealed.
“So, I’ve just taken like an acting approach, a fitness approach, a wrestling approach. I’m just trying to tie it all together, to bring Judi Rae as a product and as a brand that a major company would want to sign. I feel like that’s a different way to do it because everybody’s just using the wrestling approach. Everybody’s just using the social media approach and just using the modeling approach. Who uses the acting and the fitness and taking a bit from everything? I feel that’s different way to get over.”
Rae continued on to elaborate on her experience with her acting coach so far. “I have a whole journal. And all my promos I write down after I shoot. I write down my promos and what I’m going to say and my facial expressions and to give myself more of an actor’s [edge]. I used to do musical theater and competitive theater. So, I have an acting background…I figured if I step back into it, that might be able to help elevate me in a different way. So, I was like, ‘Let me go back to where the scripts were, where in acting, where there was a script.’ I write out my script and act it out as if I was doing theater, and it’s helped me so much more with my promos.”
“A great piece of advice that she’s given me is to — and the scene starts in your mind. Everything you’re about to deliver the scene, the setting, what you’re going to say, what you’re doing, you have to think, ‘What was your past-self doing in order to talk about your present self To tell everybody what your future self is going to do?’ You have to have the past, present and future, and you have to set it all in your mind before you speak.”
Watch our full interview with Judi Rae below:
RELATED: Women’s Wrestling Wrap-Up: Willow Wins Gold, Night Of Champions, Judi Rae Interview
