WeissBagel Place de Kieran
Nylah était sur le point de payer quand une main s'est serrée sur son épaule, l'effrayant assez pour la faire fléchir. Whirling autour, Nylah a vu qui il était et a souri largement. "Kieran, juste à temps pour confirmer que j'ai effectivement commandé la bonne chose cette fois — Canuck Cluster, n'est-ce pas?" Passant à nouveau à la caissière, Nylah a remis sa carte de crédit avec un sourire. Si ce n'était pas pour mes parents, je serais vraiment une artiste affamée en ce moment, a dit Nylah à Kieran, un sourire wry sur son visage quand elle a repris la carte.
Bien qu'elle n'ait pas entièrement honte du fait qu'elle ait toujours compté sur une allocation mensuelle de ses parents, Nylah n'en était pas vraiment fière non plus, mais cela l'a sauvée de devenir serveur, un parcours de carrière que presque tous les acteurs de New York semblaient toujours envisager à un moment ou à un autre. En fait, Nylah a pensé, en remerciant poliment le caissier avant de passer à la zone d'attente, elle est probablement un acteur aspirant aussi. Ou de l'artiste, soit.
En mettant de côté les pensées déprimantes, Nylah se tourna vers Kieran avec un sourire. Comment s'est passée ta soirée? J'imagine que — puisque je ne pouvais pas vous joindre par Snapchat après 22 heures — vous étiez dehors?. Les Nylahs ont tiré à la main juste au moment où leur commande est arrivée au comptoir de ramassage, emballé séparément et tout. Sérieusement, pourquoi s'embêtent-ils à appeler les numéros? Nous les regardons tous comme des faucons qui attendent une chance de frapper — ce qui, puisque nous ramassons de la nourriture, est une bonne comparaison si je le dis moi-même.
En ramassant les deux sacs et en les remettant à Kieran — celui qui sent mieux, il n'y a pas de surprises, — Nylah menait le chemin à l'extérieur de la boutique et vers l'une des tables mises en place par la boutique. Les gens prétendent être des touristes, Nylah a plaisanté, se référant au fait que les New-Yorkais n'ont presque jamais touché les bancs et les chaises du café puisqu'ils devaient toujours être quelque part, toujours eu quelque part pour aller après avoir pris leur nourriture. D'abord, je vais mettre en scène ma nourriture et prendre une photo de celle-ci avant de manger, a-t-elle dit, déballant son bagel et l'abaisser sur la table. Juste avant qu'elle ne touche, Nylah s'est rétractée le bras. J'ai trop faim pour ça.
Prenant une bouchée satisfaisante de son avocat de dinde grillée sur le grain entier — Nylah a imprégné dans elle une tendance à manger sainement quand offert le choix, si rien d'autre — Nylah mâché et avalé avant de parler à nouveau. Donc, c'est l'anniversaire de Phillip. Tu lui as apporté quelque chose? – Elle a demandé, prenant une autre morsure de son bagel.
Nylah Weiss

"Smile for the camera!"

N A M E
Nylah Amelie Weiss
N I C K N A M E
None — Nylah doesn’t do nicknames.
B I R T H D A T E
May 21st, 1993
A G E
24
G E N D E R
Female
S E X U A L I T Y
Heterosexual
R E L A T I O N S H I P S T A T U S
Single. Again.
O C C U P A T I O N
Broadway Actor, currently working her way up.
H O M E T O W N
New York, New York — Upper East Side
E T H N I C I T Y
Caucasian
A P P E A R A N C E
Slim and refined at a height of 5’9”, Nylah’s style is sophisticated chic. With a closet of name brands speckled with bursts of color and an impeccable taste for finery, it’s almost impossible to see Nylah not at her best. For her it’s not so much dressing up as a way of life, although she’ll forego the heels for flats for the sake of her feet. She will, however, indulge in a bright red lip now and then just to brighten her day — and her smile. At first glance Nylah is the outgoing girl who’s kind, helpful, and confident, and her hundred-watt smile gives her a mischievous feel. She has five piercings on her ear — two on each side an a cartilage on her left.
H A B I T S
Prone to forgetting things last minute, especially hair ties. Nylah’s constantly trying to fight this, albeit unsuccessfully. She’s taken to keeping a pack of hair ties in her purse at all times.
Running late: As she gets easily distracted and engrossed by things, Nylah often finds herself running against the clock. The only good thing that’s come out of this is a practiced ability to compose herself in a heartbeat — something that’s very helpful when she’s nervous about going on stage.
Getting distracted: When not focused, Nylah is easily distracted by all kinds of things, leading to her zoning out during lectures back in high school and college. While she doesn’t exactly have to sit through boring lectures anymore, she will sometimes tune out of conversations in favor of some passing pedestrian that catches her eye.
H O B B I E S
Cooking: Nylah’s horrible at it, and that’s exactly why she’s still interested. That, and the fact that it’s a basic life skill that she wants to say she’s checked off the list. She’s currently trying to figure out how to make meals she can serve to friends without losing all of her dignity and manners as a hostess.
Running: Nylah enjoys running in her spare time. She tends to shy away from the more popular areas like Hudson River Park, preferring quiet nature meccas like the uptown trails in Van Cortlandt Park or the loop around Central Park’s Reservoir. Running’s the time when Nylah gets some peace from the constantly buzzing world around her, and the quiet — at times — is almost as addicting as the colorful blur of life.
Reading: Sometime in her childhood, someone had told Nylah to always be reading some book, even if she wasn’t actively reading it. She’s taken this advice to heart and now has a small but growing collection of bestsellers, classics, and random selections. Nylah will sometimes take a book down to the cafe and spend an afternoon there reading.
L I K E S
Animals, especially cats. During grade school, Nylah’s family adopted a kitten named Periwinkle (Perry, for short), but really it was Nylah that adopted, raised, and loved the cat until his death during her junior year at NYU. Although she hasn’t gotten around to adopting another, cats are definitely in Nylah’s future.
The color grey, although she rarely wears it. In her mind, it’s the color of sophistication.
Cloudy days: As gloomy as they might seem, they’re like a breath of fresh air to Nylah, often putting others into broody silences so that she can cheer them up — or steer clear of them.
Soccer: Not that she can play, but Nylah enjoys watching it enough. Having been exposed to it at an early age by her brother, Nylah’s now a — while not devout — seasonale fan that flows and ebbs with the competition dates.
Lattes and baked goodies from the cafe: impulse visits to the cafe at the corner of her street are among Nylah’s favorite things, especially if she walks in on a day when the owner whipped up some of her — and Nylah’s — favorite tiramisu. Be it walking home with a box or two or sitting in the cafe and checking her phone as she spooned creamy goodness into her mouth, Nylah lived for these little things.
D I S L I K E S
Horror movies: Despite all her claims to be afraid of horror, Nylah is actually quite unimpressed by the genre as a whole. Jump scares get her, sure, but she blinks all of it off. The flicks feel more like a waste of time to her than anything — why would she sit here and get scared by images if she could just go out and experience life?
The dark, especially if Nylah’s walking around in the dark with only her footsteps for company. It reminds her of horror movie scenes, and she’d like it if the thoughts ended there.
Rain, especially if she’s going to get wet: Water’s all fine and dandy, but not when it’s on her clothes. She’d rather have snow than deal with water droplets that fly and stick everywhere, soaking into things like greedy piranhas.
Visiting home: The family home reminds Nylah more of the bad days than the good, and she would rather not have to tell her parents that she, again, is not and will not in the immediate future be cast for a major role in a production. Thus, Nylah’s glad that her parents only ask their children to come home on the holidays.
Surviving and having to live with a horrible injury: Despite the positivity around survivors strong arming their way past hardships with disabilities, Nylah doesn’t want anything to do with that all. She’s uncertain about her life as is and doesn’t need some kind of life-changing injury on top of it. If she’s going to live through a car accident that leaves her partially paralyzed, she’d prefer if she didn’t live at all.
F E A R S
Commitment, especially romantically: Nylah’s too invested in her career right now, too young to be tied down, too pretty to settle — and just about another hundred excuses she’d give you, not that she’d ever let up for someone to ask more than three times. She’ll settle for flings every now and then.
The future and regretting her choices: This is a slippery slope for Nylah. Although she says and believes that theater is her calling, Nylah also knows that the chances of her getting picked out of the thousands of aspiring actors out there are slim. As compared with her family, Nylah’s future looks bleak, and she lives in constant fear of that same bleakness becoming a reality.
P E R S O N A L I T Y
Bright and vivacious, Nylah generally comes off as someone fun to be around albeit a little frivolous at first. Though she’s quite whimsical and rather prone to getting engrossed in whatever catches her fancy, Nylah shows a different face when it comes to things she cares about, becoming quite serious and dedicated. Under her facade of cheery smiles and easy shrugs, Nylah’s actually quite dedicated to her art and loyal to her close friends. Late hours memorizing scripts are not strange for her, and she’ll always be there for a friend in need.
Dig a little deeper, and you’ll find a girl who’s not so sure what she stands for and what she should do with her life. Insecure about herself and what the future will hold for her, Nylah passes days firmly grounded in the present. To people she trusts, she opens up enough to act a little more goofy around them, but that’s the cutoff line. Being a person who prefers to bottle things up instead of letting them out, Nylah doesn’t like talking about herself much at all, even to close friends.
Romantically, Nylah’s a free spirit, content with having many partners and therefore none at all. Nylah has no real reason for never committing. There was just never a pull, never a reason to tie herself down — not that she’d want to in the first place. Nylah knows that she’s still young, and she intends to take full advantage of it. To her, dating’s a scary and relatively unnecessary commitment right now, and — in case she does get her big break — Nylah doesn’t want to have to have her it conflict with her career and passion.
H I S T O R Y
Growing up in the Weiss household, excellence was expected. With a father who’s one of the biggest names in medicine despite being retired and a mother who’s the CEO of a prestigious business corporation based in New York, Nylah’s been groomed from birth to be perfect, and she would have embraced her heritage with open arms if not for her brother. Oh yes, her older brother. The golden boy who got his DBA at Harvard and now the most probable candidate for COO at his mother’s company. The impeccable image Nylah would forever be compared to. However hard Nylah worked during her grade school years, her brother had done better. A contender for Valedictorian? Her brother was Valedictorian. Varsity captain of the girl’s volleyball team? Nylah’s brother was captain of both the lacrosse and the soccer teams. Though her time at prestigious private schools had yielded acceptances to schools like Wharton, University of Pennsylvania and Booth, University of Chicago, Nylah’s accomplishments had always fallen short from her brothers.
Much to her parents’ disapproval, Nylah enrolled in and graduated from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts with a degree in Performance Studies. Her brother is the reason why Nylah’s fine with pursuing a career in theatre since she figured that her parents didn’t need another perfect child to brag to their friends about, so here Nylah is, pursuing something she’s good at — passionate about. Theatre was and still is Nylah’s one true love, and she’s also fairly brilliant at it — putting on a mask, that is. Because no one know the real Nylah Weiss, only the character. The bright, bubbly, outgoing Nylah who puts her all into her characters and rebuffs romance with smiles and a lack of commitment.
From Tisch, Nylah went on to work her way up from understudies of unknown side characters to her current role as the second female lead in a relatively small production. While she still has a ways to go, Nylah’s comfortable with her life, especially since her parents have accepted that their daughter isn’t interested in going into business. She lives in a nice, roomy West Village flat and likes getting coffee at the corner cafe, Cafe Cheri, where she worked at before she got her bigger acting roles. Her romantic life has been riddled with short-term commitments and flings, though she never bothered counting since she’s always considered herself some form of single.

P E O P L E . T O . B O T H E R
The unfortunate people who’ve been able to make the acquaintance of a certain Nylah Weiss. They’ll see her again — Nylah will make certain of that.

P H I L L I P . D A N I E L S — Aquaintance-Turned-Running Buddy, Fellow Exercise Enthusiast-Turned-Friend —  running buddy."As dedicated runners that drop by Starbucks every now and then, Nylah and Philip are familiar with each others’ exercise routine and comfortable with the silence that occurs during it. Although they don’t talk much while they run, Nylah knows that Phil’s there to listen should she ever need a shoulder to cry on. When they do talk, some light flirting and exchanging of pick-up lines is not uncommon. Spontaneous texts requesting a brief run or a quick drop-by to Starbucks are not unheard of between the two, and only god knows which of them is the faster one.

O L I V I A . B I S H O P — That Perpetually Drunk Friend —  but charming with a big heart. Add a few drinks and it’s friends at first sight."Having met back during their years at NYU, Nylah originally didn’t think much of Olivia. A night of clubbing later, Nylah was absolutely charmed by the other girl, finding her fun, witty, and doubly amazing with a few drinks under her belt. That Olivia’s down-to-earth personality loosens up when she drinks amuses Nylah immensely, and Nylah’s constantly trying to get her friend to give romance another try — mostly just her teasing though.

R U I . R O S A S — The Almost-Not-Really Friend —  me of my older brother, but with none of the arrogant utilitarianism."Having been a rather social person during her time at NYU, Nylah prided herself in knowing people, so of course she’d seen the tall, suave economics guy that came out for a drink every now and then. He’d struck her as a person that fit in her childhood circles at first sight, with the aura of a conservative, high-achieving, wealthy upbringing rolling off him in waves. At first Nylah had been prepared to avoid the boy like the plague — she wasn’t looking to befriend someone like her brother — and it would have worked too if she hadn’t walked into the club one day and found the old money Rui Rosas drinking by himself, looking sullen and just downright miserable. Plopping herself on the stool next to him, Nylah instigated what would become a rather silent yet informative drinking partnership where she’d rebuff every nosy or smitten individual who was looking to order a drink with Rui — or herself. While Nylah would easily call the two of them acquaintances, she would be hesitant to add the “friend” label — although she hopes that even if they never voice it, she’s gotten close enough to call the boy a friend.

]K I E R A N . V I N C E N T . O ‘ C O N N O R  — Partner-in-Crime —  hunk, inner softie."
Nylah was a little surprised to learn that the cute hunk she’d met during one of her earlier theater auditions in her undergraduate years was, in fact, a retired hockey player who had been drafted by and almost played for the New York Islanders. She’d been trying for a role — any role, at that point in her nonexistent career — and Kieran had been one of the hired playwrights being paid to tailor the script to the cast. Having pegged him as an aspiring author, starving artist-type, Nylah hadn’t thought much of the boy until a fellow cast member clued her in about his retirement, and from there Nylah launched a campaign that she never regretted. Although Kieran and Nylah had started their friendship during their time with the production, their friendship grew beyond that, from raving about the FIFA playoffs and sometimes hockey — a new discovery on Nylah’s part, credits to a certain blonde writer — to afternoons memorizing lines and writing to the tune of some old record in the background.

T H U Y . P H A M — Friend and Fellow Epicurian —  spunky foodie. Our minds and stomachs understand each other, even if our words disagree sometimes."
Nylah met Cecelia one day when she walked into the other girl’s family restaurant and struck up a conversation with the spunky, tattooed waiter that turned out to be the owner’s daughter. Nylah quickly found that the girl, bleached hair and contacts and all, was a kindred soul that shared a love of good food and partying. The two often scour the city for good restaurants for dinner and clubs for the bridge until the late AMs with Olivia in tow. Although they might argue at times, Nylah genuinely likes Cecelia and believes the girl to be cute but strong, full of tough-love and fun.