When the Georgia film industry started to heat up with several shows featuring pageant story lines, Lace Larrabee knew she had the experience to make her a perfect fit.
“I did pageants until I aged out, and I felt like all of that experience could pay off,” says Lace.
And it did.
Lace got her chance on “Queen America,” Facebook Watch’s dark comedy about pageants. Lace said performing in two scenes with Catherine Zeta-Jones will always be a highlight of her career and can’t believe she hugged an Oscar winner.
“I think all of the filming in Georgia validates us as an entertainment community,” says Lace. “Now those of us in the performing arts don’t have to act like it’s just a hobby. You can have a lucrative career right here. That’s huge, I don’t have to uproot my life and move across the country.”
After graduating from college — mostly paid for by her pageant winnings — Lace went on to become a nationally known standup comedian. When not touring, Lace lives in Atlanta, where she created and runs an all-female comedy class called the Laugh Lab Comedy Class.
Whether it’s her comedy classes that are filling up with actors working on their comedy skills or the local bakery in Atlanta where she filmed scenes for “Queen America,” “the Georgia film industry is boosting all of us,” says Lace.