Mouna Traoré

“The Porter” star discusses the business of acting and why she’s become a mental health advocate.

By Lindzi Scharf

Photography by Birdie Thompson

Mouna Traoré has been a working actress since was a teenager in Toronto. She's appeared opposite major names in projects like "Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker" with Octavia Spencer, the hit Netflix series "The Umbrella Academy," and "The Porter" with Alfre Woodard.

But Traoré is blunt when asked what she considers her big break.

"I'm still waiting for it!" she says in a mock-exasperated tone that lets you know she's only half-kidding.

Thirteen seconds of silence follow as she ponders the question from a couch inside her Los Angeles apartment. Having moved into the airy 1920s building a handful of weeks ago, unpacked boxes, which were delivered four days earlier, sit by the front door. It may be a new home for Traoré, but make no mistake; she's no newbie to Los Angeles or the business.

"It's funny because, looking back at [moments in my career], I'm like, 'That was not a turning point,' but at the time maybe I thought it was [going to be]," she says, reflecting on her starry resume. "I think that a lot of projects are deceptive. I've done projects thinking it was going to change my career and it was, like, the worst experience of my entire life."

Traoré approaches her performances with the same honesty, which has led to roles like her feature film debut in 2013's "Carrie" with Julianne Moore, Chloe Grace Moretz, and Ansel Elgort; series leads on "Murdoch Mysteries" and BET's "In Contempt" as well as appearances on "Suits," "Shadowhunters," "Rookie Blue," "American Gods," and the list goes on.

Despite consistent work and a childhood dedicated to acting classes, Traoré says nothing could have prepared her for the entertainment business.

"It's brutal—the rejection and the constant unknown," she says. "I see how unpredictable this industry is and the kind of resilience and foundation that you have to create for yourself if you're going to endure. I went to a performing arts school. I had a lot of friends who started as actors who are no longer actors because it's fucking hard." She adds, "This industry will never love you back as much as you love it – so you have to be clear about what your boundaries are with it and what you'll give."

Traoré insists that – despite appearances – the life of an actor isn't as glamorous as it may seem. Yes, she plays dress-up for a living. Yes, she's walked a red carpet or two. (Case in point: she attended the 2022 BET Awards in a show-stopping feathered pink gown from the Albright Fashion Library.) But she insists the entertainment industry is all smoke and mirrors and that few people understand the moments in between career milestones.

"My life and my journey cannot be encapsulated by images that you see on Instagram or soundbites that you hear in an interview," she insists. "There is so much hard work, struggle, and pain that has gone into building my resume and having these experiences on set. My parents have seen more of the struggle than they've seen the glitz. They just came out to L.A. for the first time in March and they were like, 'Oh, this is what this city is like.' For them, most of their perception of my career has been, 'This looks rough; Why are you doing this? Why are you putting yourself through this? You seem so stressed and sad and you have no money.'"

But it's Traoré's belief in the power of storytelling that keeps her going—as underscored by her latest project, "The Porter," a historical drama about a group of 1920s railway workers who unite to form the first Black union in North America. "It feels so important to be a part of a project that's raising the ceiling for what Black people on both sides of the camera can do," she says of the series' predominantly Black cast and crew. "I feel so honored and blessed to have been able to work with the artists that I got to work with."

Traoré, who also writes and produces, hopes to pay it forward with projects of her own. "Taking control of what I do is important to me," she says, "but I don't know what that looks like and I don't know if there is a singular person or trajectory that represents that…"

A DRAMATIC CHILDHOOD

Born and raised in downtown Toronto, Traoré discovered her passion for performance early on. "I remember watching people on TV and thinking, 'I should be doing that,'" she says. "When you watch Eddie Murphy in 'Beverly Hills Cop,' he is so on fire." She looked up to actors like Murphy and Whoopi Goldberg. "I love watching actors who are in complete alignment with the truth of who they are as they're performing," she says. "That's what I saw when I saw Whoopi in 'Ghost.' As a kid, I was like, 'I want to do that.'"

Throughout her childhood, Traoré packed her schedule with drama, improvisation, sketch, and ensemble acting classes through Young People's Theatre in Toronto. She also attended the famed Interlochen Center for the Arts summer camp in Michigan and dedicated her high school years to Toronto's Etobicoke School of the Arts. "I had an extraordinary experience there," she says of the performing arts high school, which counts Keanu Reeves among its alumni. "While I was there, my last year, I got an agent and started auditioning."

Traoré's family had their reservations. "For a long time, my parents were…" she stops mid-sentence, then explains that her father is from Mali and her mother is from Haiti. "They wanted me to be cautious. They were hesitant because it's not secure. Especially coming from an immigrant background, you want your kid to have certain things because you sacrificed so much and you want them to have a certain life. I've had big highs and really low dips. I think my dad would see me auditioning and would see me struggling and he wanted so badly for me to [have a more straightforward path]."

Even so, her parents were supportive of her aspirations. "I was able to concentrate on auditions and school because my parents were able to support me," she says. "There are a lot of actors who have three or four jobs and they're auditioning and doing this and that and I was really lucky to be able to go to university and audition. I had little jobs here and there, but I wasn't staying up at night, anxious about how I was going to pay my bills. I'm grateful for that."

While attending college at the University of Toronto, Traoré continued pursuing acting professionally and landed various television and film roles. "I was trying to keep my parents pleased and stay busy in university," she says of getting a degree in Caribbean studies, African studies, and Buddhism psychology. "I had no desire to go to school, but it was important to my parents that I did."

After graduation, she moved to Berlin for several months to model. Upon returning to Toronto, Traoré booked the Canadian series "Hemlock Grove" and, soon after, landed the role of Rebecca James on CBC's "Murdoch Mysteries," a part she played for the next four years.

While Traoré has often had the good fortune of regular work, she acknowledges it took time for her to learn how to navigate a demanding, and notoriously tough, industry. "I've overcome a lot of..." She chooses her words carefully. "…external energies that were trying to guide me but not necessarily in the right direction; more in a desire to control me or manipulate me. When I was young and more vulnerable, more naïve, I was trusting of people who didn't necessarily have my best interest. It took me a long time to be able to be strong enough and aware enough to be able to see that for what it was."

Without getting specific, Traoré explains she's overcome "a lot of self-doubt, a lot of imposter syndrome, feeling like I don't belong, feeling undeserving, feeling unwelcomed." However, her family's belief in her and their unwavering support has helped keep her going—even if it took some time for her dad to understand. "Because I'm visible and his friends are like, 'We saw your daughter in this…' Now he's a lot more comfortable with it," she says. "But he always says, 'I don't know how you do it. I don't know how you do it.' The rejection and the work, work, work for no job, you know? It's not something that makes sense. I think he equates it to something like the lottery. Like why would you do it? But for me, I'm just glad they are supportive and I'm glad that they see how far I've come."

A STRONG SUPPORT SYSTEM

Traoré is just as supportive of her family, which is why she's become an outspoken mental health advocate. "My mom has schizophrenia," she says, adding that one of her sisters has also overcome mental health challenges. "I have other family members who have dealt with bipolar and schizophrenia as well. I, myself, definitely deal with depression and anxiety. I've had a lot of extreme experiences with people who struggle with mental health issues and my family has done a lot to support other families."

Traoré shares that her sister, Sarah, works for The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. "She runs a peer support program," the actress explains. "Within that program, they do family workshops for parents who have a child who is in psychosis or dealing with schizophrenia. My family is a mentor family. We advise on how to support a family member who is dealing with those things. My sister went through it and we came out on the other side."

"My sister is someone who if you saw her and you met her, you wouldn't imagine that she had that experience," Traoré continues. "She wants so badly wants to help people who are like her and have dealt with similar things."

Traoré says she's proud of how her family has navigated their collective journey and says being vocal is their way of giving back. "We have an amazing healthcare system [in Canada] and we were able to get so much help for her through the system," Traoré says. "When you have doctors and nurses who care for their patients and understand that this is a human being and that it affects families and are kind and generous with their time, you want to do what you can to support them and to support the system."

"There is no manual on what to do when your child is having a schizophrenic delusion," Traoré adds. "So we talk to people about things to look out for; what the situation was; how we all responded because it's hard for people to recover and a lot of the time people don't know how to get there and so as a family that's on the other side of it, we talk about it."

Of that period in her sister and her family's life, Traoré remembers, "It was hard. Without going into too many details, it was like losing my best friend. Me and my sister are fifteen months apart and we're [close]. It's not something I ever expected to go through or for her to go through. I think for me, it's why I don't do drugs. It's why I try to focus on my mental health and self-care. I started to have strong boundaries about what I will and won't do and what I'm capable of and not capable of."

THE MOVE

Traoré has spent much of her career working in her hometown of Toronto since many major projects have been filmed there. However, she often visited the west coast between gigs. "I had friends who lived in Los Angeles after high school who moved here to try and make it," she says. "I would come to visit them and see what their lives were like. I don't think since I was 18 there's ever been a year that's gone by where I haven't spent some time in Los Angeles, whether it's a week or two months."

Traoré officially moved to Los Angeles just before the pandemic hit. However, she briefly found herself displaced. "I struggled with all of the border limitations that came with COVID," she explains. "It was hard—the speed at which things would change overnight. I was in the UK and then overnight 40 countries closed their doors to the UK and suddenly I wasn't allowed to come back to Canada and I couldn't get a direct flight to L.A. I was beholden to whatever was happening."

As travel restrictions were lifted, Traoré split time between her previous apartment in Los Angeles's Beachwood Canyon and her childhood home in Toronto – depending on where work took her at the time.

Throughout the pandemic, Traoré booked a handful of notable gigs including "Self Made" and "The Umbrella Academy." The latter television series even led to a viral moment for Traoré as fans on Twitter went into a frenzy trying to figure out who she was since she hadn't initially been credited for her role. "It was kind of bizarre that I wasn't credited," she says. "It speaks to the fans and how important every piece of the puzzle is [to them]. They're invested in all the characters and in who we are outside of the work too. They want to connect with us. That situation made me hopeful because it made me feel seen. It made me feel like, 'I am important,' even though I'm a small cog in a massive machine, I still matter."

She also filmed "The Porter," which was particularly meaningful to her. "There are so few opportunities to be part of that kind of story in terms of new representation and taking control of a narrative of Black history in Canada," Traoré says of the historical series about 1920s railway workers who formed the first Black union in North America. "[It's important] to be able to tell a history that hasn't had a lot of attention because there are implications for my family. My parents are immigrants. Immigration policy was affected by the work these porters did and I'm grateful for that."

Despite keeping busy during the pandemic, Traoré admits it's been a tricky time for her personally. "I did not cope with COVID very well at all," she says, sharing she battled "depression, anxiety, sadness, weight gain, feeling shitty about myself." She adds, "Everything felt so out of our control. It was a great lesson for me because I'm not someone who likes to surrender that kind of control. I internalized a lot of my fear and I struggled."

She says she navigates anxiety by recognizing and accepting what she's feeling. "When I'm in a state of surrender and relaxation, I can accept that there's a seed of grace in whatever struggle I'm going through and that there are things at work that I can't anticipate," she says. "But when I'm in a state of ego, trying to force something, I have an idea of what I want and how it should be, I am someone who will obsessively try to get something that I want without thinking about whether or not it's what I need."

While Traoré says she's appreciative that she "worked so much during COVID," she explains, "I lost some people and my family went through a lot. The reality is that – for me – who I am and how I feel about myself has nothing [to do with work]. Well, not nothing, but work only has a certain percentage to do with how I feel about myself and how I feel about the world. If I'm working and my life is great, but the people around me are suffering, [I feel it]. Yes, I'm grateful for what I have but that still affects me."

A LOVE OF WRITING

During this time, Traoré – who also enjoys writing as a form of self-expression – has returned to working on personal projects of her own. Years ago, she'd launched an independent production company "The Mini Films" with a friend to support emerging talent. "I knew so many talented people who I thought needed a platform and an opportunity," Traoré remembers. "With a partner, we decided to create a company where we would try to do something about it."

Through The Mini Films, Traoré wrote and produced two short films including 2015's "Adorn." While she's since dissolved the company, she says, "It gave me the experience and the understanding of what I want to do on a bigger level for the next stage of my journey as a creator."

"It feels important to go back to my work as a filmmaker and a writer and to redefine what the next steps are," Traoré says. "I've been so focused on one part of my career and I think now more than ever, I'm feeling like I need to do more on the other side of the camera." However, Traoré is tightlipped about what she's working on. "I don't like to talk that much about the projects I'm developing because they're like secrets in my heart," she says. "But I have a play that I'm writing that could be adapted to a movie and I have a few TV projects that I want to continue to develop, but they're in such early stages."

Writing and producing aside, Traoré says that for the first time in a long time she's surrendering to the universe. "After COVID, I have completely given up having a picture of anything," she says. "I can't anticipate much because God has been throwing us some plot twists. I'm also in a transition personally and spiritually."

WHAT’S NEXT

Traoré says her view of the entertainment industry has evolved. "When I was a kid, my idea of acting and performing was so different," she says. "I didn't know what the stakes were. I didn't know what was required of me. Whereas having done this for a good amount of time, I think the quality of the experience is so much more important to me than quantity. When I first started, I just wanted to be on set. I just wanted to work and do the next thing whereas now [it's] about the experience. The dream has changed so much over the years."

Traoré says she’s only scratched the surface of what she hopes to accomplish. "I'm still a student," she says. "I'm still learning. I'm still growing in my understanding of myself and my craft. I'm still coming to terms with what is it I've chosen to do and how I would like to continue doing it."

She's learned to set healthier boundaries to better balance her career and personal life. "I'm old enough and at a place where I'm like, 'I'm not going to give you that weekend [to prep an audition],'" she says. "I love this, but I'm not going to spend my whole weekend working on this one audition to maybe hear back and miss out on this great life experience that's going to feed me for days, weeks, months. I have to prioritize nourishing my soul, nourishing my spirit, nourishing my relationships and my friendships because that's what I'm going to remember when I'm on my deathbed."

She continues, "For a long time, when I started in this industry, it was, 'Work by any means necessary.' Missing family events, missing social gatherings, constantly grinding to get a callback or to not get the job – which is fine. That's part of the game. But now, especially after COVID, I was starved for social interaction. That's what's important to me, being able to show up and be there and be healthy for them with them, and making decisions that still honor the truth of what I want in my career but at the same time offer me a high-quality life experience and to support and feel supported by my family and friends."

As for how long Traoré sees herself staying put in Los Angeles, she says, "It's up to the universe. I don't know at this point." She laughs. "Work dictates that, so we'll see what happens with work. This is home for me… right now."

HOW SHE LIVES…

“My dad and I shipped all of my stuff from Toronto,” Traoré says. “I had so much stuff in storage in their garage in Toronto.” Despite many of her belongings being in her hometown, she doesn’t currently reside there. “I have no base in Toronto other than my childhood bedroom at my parents’ house,” she says. “I’ve been there for long periods of time and I love my parents, but I’m an adult and they seem to forget that sometimes,” she adds with a laugh. Traoré also already had some furniture and a handful of items in Los Angeles from her previous Beachwood Canyon apartment. “I could have lived something that was newly renovated, but I love character so much. This place was built in the twenties. The arches and the little details make it so unique. They’re part of the reason why I wanted to live here. It all tells a story.”

THE COFFEE TABLE

“I bought this on Instagram,” she says. “It’s a beautiful travertine table. I got such a great deal on it, and it was off an Instagram story.” She buys a lot of her pieces secondhand. “Right as the pandemic was happening, there was a girl on Facebook Marketplace who was trying to go to Israel because she was pregnant,” Traoré says. “She was trying to leave with her partner and so she was selling everything in her house and I was like, ‘I need a whole house.’ I got a lot of temporary furniture from her.”

THE KEEPSAKES

“My stepmom used to sell African goods,” she explains. “She traveled throughout West Africa, so I have all kinds of beautiful little pieces from their collection. Some of those statues, some of the baskets. I grew up around African sculptures and art. They’re all unique and beautiful.”

THE STOOL

“This stool was in my grandmother’s office,” says Traoré. She then points to a basket a plant sits in and a few other items nearby. “That was in her bathroom. That was in her bedroom. It’s important for me to be surrounded by things that have stories. A lot of my furniture is secondhand. I got these from an antique dealer on Instagram. Everything has a story. Part of it, too, is that I don’t want somebody to be able to go into a catalog and find everything in my apartment. Each of one my sisters, we all have one of these stools from my grandmother.”

A LOVE OF BOOKS

“I’m a big reader,” Traoré says. “All my books are in boxes over there because I don’t have bookshelves yet. But I have this collection of art books waiting for a coffee table. So I’m glad I finally have one.”

THE COFFEE TABLE BOOKS

“Malick Sidibé is a Malian photographer who is quite famous, so this is a book that has ties to part of my culture,” she explains. “I love Deana Lawson’s work. I love Noah Davis's work. I’ve seen their work in galleries and exhibitions. There is a beautiful picture of one of Deana Lawson’s prints in this book. I’ve been trying to get my hands on a copy of that.”

THE VIEW

“Look at this view,” Traoré says. “It’s quite beautiful from here. I don’t have a TV in this room because I sit and watch the sunset and the hummingbirds. There are lots of hummingbirds who visit these trees. I’m like a kid. When I go for walks, I smell the flowers. They’re so fragrant and beautiful. Hummingbirds always remind me of my grandmother. It’s such a silly thing, but I love watching them.”

THE DELIVERY

Traoré spots a UPS truck. “Is that my rug?” she says, looking out the window as the driver makes their way toward her front door. “That is my rug!” She excitedly cuts open the delivery. “They were having a sale.” As she unpacks the rug, she exclaims, “Yes! It’s cozy! This is cute. The rug is from Morocco, but they ship worldwide. It’s from Benisouk. They have so many amazing rugs.”

THE CRYSTALS

“I have lots of crystals,” Traoré says. “When I was 18 or 19, I became obsessed. I was unpacking the other day and I didn’t realize how many crystals I had in storage. All my big crystals are on that thing over there, but then I have a box. My attitude is, ‘I can’t enjoy all of them all of the time,’ so I might as well share them.” As a result, she often gifts crystals to friends. “I started buying crystals when I was a teenager. Some of them I’ve collected from all over the world.”

THE BENCH

“This bench I got on Facebook Marketplace from a designer who didn’t have any more room for it in her studio,” Traoré says. “Coming from West Africa, indigo cloth and mud cloth are things that I grew up wearing and find so beautiful, so I love this bench.”

THE PHOTO

“It’s by a Canadian photographer called Laura-Lynn Petrick,” she says. “I think I bought it from her at a photo show.”

A SACRED SPACE

“This is my manifestation room,” Traoré says. “I’ll play transcendental music or sound frequencies, and I’ll vibe out, meditate, read my spiritual books, and chill.”

SCENTED SELF-CARE

“I love lighting candles and incense,” she says. “I like to have sandalwood, Palo Santo [sticks], or sage candles burning. It feels nourishing.”

A BELIEF IN MANIFESTATION

Traoré is big on manifestation. “I made a vision board in January of 2022 and I had all these images of how I wanted my space to look and how I wanted to feel. I had all these affirmations on it including all of the arches, the view, and everything and I got exactly what I visualized.” She has a practical approach to manifesting. “I believe in it, but at the same time, I feel like we’re co-creators in life, so I think that as much as I want to manifest—whether you believe in God or the universe or whatever… that greater energy is also working at manifesting something and sometimes your goals are in alignment with it and sometimes it has a greater goal that we can’t see.”

GUA SHA

“I love to take time to gua sha my body,” she says. “I have two gua shas. This one is a jade gua sha. It’s more traditional. There are so many different ways you can use it. This curved edge is good for your chin.”

FACEGYM

“ I have a stainless steel gua sha from FaceGym,” she says. “This one is so much thicker [than the jade one]. I find it’s good for draining the lymph nodes and going through my body. I’ll take a skin brush because that’s good for the lymphatic system, so I’ll dry brush my skin and then I’ll rub myself down with oil and do lymph drainage with gua sha. … I love — once I’m covered in essential oils — putting on a robe, putting on my diffuser, getting cozy in bed, and reading a book.” Traoré pauses. “Have you ever been to FaceGym?” she asks. “It’s like face yoga. I’m going in a couple of weeks and getting the cryosculpt. I have the funniest video of my dad. My dad went to FaceGym in New York and got a facial. My little sister took him. He didn’t want to do it and then apparently he loved it.”

THE KITCHEN

“I normally cook a lot but because I just moved here I’ve been ordering Uber Eats a bit,” Traoré says. “But I’m a huge cooker. I just got my rice cooker. I just got my slow cooker. I’m obsessed with seafood. I love to cook clams and crab legs. I come from a food-obsessed family. I grew up in a family where we cooked all of our tomato sauce from scratch. My stepmom makes her own ice cream and bread. My parents go to organic markets for everything. We get our meat directly from a farm. I grew up with my parents paying a lot of attention to the quality of the food that we ate. We’re all food snobs.”

THE ARTWORK

“These were made somewhere in West Africa,” she says. “There’s a store in Paris called CSAO. It’s a store that goes to different African communities and gets all kinds of African goods imported, so they have unique little things. One of my sisters gifted these to me from that store. But we all have these little portraits. I have some bags from there. It’s fun, beautiful, printed stuff.”

THE GIFT

“This is by a famous artist Romare Bearden,” Traoré says. “He’s an incredibly amazing African-American collage artist. I didn’t even know that this was a Romare Bearden print. It was gifted to me. A month or two ago I was looking at Romare Bearden’s work because there were some famous pieces, and I was like, ‘I would love to buy a Romare Bearden piece,’ and I was looking at different pieces to see what was available and then this came up and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I already own one.’ This is a rendering of the Amistad, which is the famous slave ship where the slaves rebelled after tons of them were thrown overboard. It’s a picture of the rebellion.”

THE JOURNAL

While Traoré is a big fan of tarot cards, she asked that we not photograph them because of how sacred they are to her. But she’s also a fan of journaling. “One of my co-stars got this for me,” she says. “It’s a beautiful tree of life journal. I’m not a consistent journal person, but I have moments of inspiration and I come down here and write.”

THE PRINT

“This is by a friend of mine who is an amazingly talented artist named Gyimah Gariba,” Traoré says. “He’s an animator as well and he has a cartoon show called ‘Big Blue.’ It’s a cute kids show and I got to do voices on it.”

THE CALENDAR

“This is a nude calendar I did,” she says. “Every month is a different model. I was Miss January. My friend Justin Aranha is a photographer, and he asked me if I’d be down to do it. When we shot, I was doing a lot of kicking and screaming and he felt like it was a good energy for January 2022.”

HER STYLE

Traoré has an innate sense of style, but she also loves getting cozy at the end of a long day. “I have an old robe of my grandma’s that I used to wear as a costume when I was a kid,” she says. “It’s from the sixties. It’s the funniest thing. I used to wear it to play dress-up.” She also appreciates a nice pair of slippers. “UGG slippers are very much me.”