It's nearly impossible to watch Cara Rose DiPietro's TikToks without feeling like she's your best friend. With her kindness, weekly motivational encouragements, and bright smile, her videos will give you an extra pep in your step, even if you've never met her. That BFF feeling becomes even more tangible when I meet up with the peformer at a Maman in New York City — as soon as she walks through the door, all confidence and joy, DiPietro comes straight over to give me a hug.
She immediately brightens up the coffee shop (not just because she's wearing a rainbow sweater), and before long, we're chatting like old friends. When I mention how friendly her TikTok channel is, her whole demeanor lights up: "That makes me so happy. That's all I could ask for."
The 24-year-old (who's originally from Massachusetts) moved to the city in 2021 after graduating from Elon University with a BFA in musical theatre. "I'm an actor, I've done it my whole life," she says. "It's all I've ever done. I had two parents that were performers and so I was really lucky that I was raised in an environment where we were just exposed to theater at such a young age and they were always so supportive and knew that this was exactly what I wanted to do."
When Cara Rose DiPietro first moved to The Big Apple, she worked full-time to afford life in the city, but found it difficult to find the energy for her passions. "I wasn't getting auditions, I wasn't getting callbacks, I wasn't seeing any success," she says. That's when she decided to take TikTok more seriously, and it changed everything. "I was on my break...and was like, 'I'm 20 years old in New York. These should be the best years of my life. I don't know what changes today, but today something changes.'"
DiPietro filmed a video in the break room and posted it to the app (the video currently has more than 52 thousand views), and 24 hours later she booked her first professional post-grad role: Amy March in Little Women. "I was like, 'Okay, I'm taking that as a sign,'" she says.
Since that first stint in Little Women, DiPietro has played Amy March a second time, as well as Ariel in Footloose and Olive Ostrovsky in The Spelling Bee. She's also sung at places like 54 Below and Times Square as Wicked's Glinda, The Princess and the Pauper's Annaleise, and Frozen's Anna. She's already dreaming up what's next.
"I would love the opportunity to play Elle [in Legally Blonde]," she says. "I feel like this last couple of months have been full of me personally stepping into my power as a human and as a woman. And Ariel unlocked so much of that for me personally. And now I'm like, 'Okay, now I want to do Elle. I want to do that woman.'"
Mamma Mia is also on her list ("I joke that [Legally Blonde] and Mamma Mia are my white whales," she says. "I go in for them and it never lands, but it will one day."), as well as Satine in Moulin Rouge. While the actress admits very few people would expect her to play Satine, the idea of going after an unexpected role reminds her not to limit herself.
"As artists, we like to put ourselves in boxes...because that's the easiest way to figure out, 'Where do I fit, how do I market myself to find the most success, career-wise?'" she says. "[But] I do that to a fault sometimes, and I really will put myself in a box and say, 'These are the only things that I do.' And so most of my very short career, or at least at the very beginnings of it, are filled with a lot of very fun, comedic, bubbly roles, which...bring me so much joy. But there's also something to be said about a character that is so three-dimensional."
With a huge smile, DiPietro refers to herself as a "trashy actor," and loves talking about the ins and outs of what makes a character tick: "I could talk for hours and hours and hours about character work. So when I meet someone else and I can, it's a disaster." (Note: we do in fact talk about character development for a long time since it's also one of my favorite topics, and I eat up every second.)
"It just informs everything," she continues. "The performance is so much more authentic and so much more genuine because you're not playing a character...you're playing a three-dimensional human being."
Image via Weston Lecrone
DiPietro isn't only playing three-dimensional humans on stage, she's also dedicated to showing the world she's a three-dimensional human on her own social media. Her TikTok feels like a direct reflection of her personality, and features Get Ready With Me videos, performances, and plenty of videos with a Dunkin' coffee in-hand, but she's also open about parts of her life like losing her mother and eating disorder recovery. When I ask her about balancing the good and the bad, she smiles.
"There was a time in my life when I just accepted that I would always live with...these big, dark, scary emotions," she says. "Now that I've experienced what life is like on the other side, and the just sheer amount of joy that it holds...I say, 'You know what? Today was really hard. These are the things we're going to do to make it easier, and tomorrow's a new day.'"
DiPietro makes the conscious choice to remind herself of those new chances, as well as the fact that she has total control over what she does (or doesn't) post: "Something I try very, very hard to protect is that I will only post what I want to post, because the second I start posting because I feel like I have to, it loses all the joy and then what's the point?"
Image via Seth Abel
Since the launch of DiPietro's channel in 2021, TikTok has become even more of an influence. Viral songs have gotten musicians signed to record labels, and fed soundtracks for shows like The Summer I Turned Pretty. Celebrities like Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus have used their own video strategies to market new music with mini series. From fashion videos to hilarious pranks, there's something for everyone on the app. For a moment, DiPietro and I bond over the devastating slideshows that feature existential quotes like "womanhood and having a voyeuristic relationship with your own pain."
"I'm sobbing because I'm watching eight of them in a row, I can't stop, [but] I saw one that I think about every day," she says. The quote in question comes from an end-of-life patient remembering their life fondly. "It was just so fun. All of it," the patient says. "I just had so much fun."
Whether or not the conversation is fictional, it's stuck with DiPietro. "I think about it every day when there are moments when I am freaking out about something or really stressed about something," she says. "I want to look back and say, 'I had so much fun. I just had so much fun.' I think about it all the time. I saw that and went 'Ah, that's it! That's it.'"
Image via Weston Lecrone
Revelations like this allow DiPietro to fill her life with opportunities and relationships that light her soul on fire. "There are people now that I know who will be at my wedding one day that I've met because of social media...It's just such an incredible gift," she says.
It's also a responsibility, and it's one she holds close to her heart. "I started doing social media because I wanted to be the person that I needed to see when I was 14: someone who was in this field in New York City, hustling like hell, but who was putting themself first and glamorizing it," DiPietro says. It caught her off guard when she moved to the city and the actors around her prioritized rest as much as they prioritized work. "When I have these moments and I choose to share them, a huge reason is because if 14-year-old me needed to see it, and I feel comfortable enough to share it, I'm going to say it."
Her channel has reached the point where DiPietro is having to decide what exactly she wants to post, and she also jokes that videos involving more personal aspects of her life (like ones featuring her partner) lead to the same conversations: "People are like, 'Hard launch?!" I'm like, 'No, I just don't share it.'"
We chat for awhile after the interview, an off-the-record, fun conversation about Little Women and friendships and what it means to be in New York City in your '20s. When we've drained our iced coffees, we make our way back outside to part ways. DiPietro hugs me again before walking away in her rainbow sweater, a kaleidoscope against the grays and browns of Manhattan.
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Lead image via Weston Lecrone.
