NYWIFT Blog

By Sofiya Saykovska and Lily Della Pietra

Welcome to NYWIFT, Nicole Murray!

Nicole is a producer, writer, actor, and co-founder of Svelte Dog Productions. She has produced and acted in various productions, including the feature films Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox and Death Perception, both receiving distribution this year.

Under the Svelte Dog umbrella, she has also produced, co-wrote, and starred in the award-winning short 3 Easy Steps and the short Run Out Groove, which premiered in the Platinum Showcase at Outfest. Svelte Dog prioritizes representation in film, and both projects consisted of a team of an entirely women and non-binary cast and crew.

Nicole comes from a science background, with years of research experience in the addiction and individual differences fields.

Get to know her in our latest interview!

What inspired you to join NYWIFT?

NYWIFT is made up of a community of inspiring women who not only take the film industry by storm but also make their own waves as individual creators in society. Seeing this community lit a fire under me to take my pursuit and my passion for film even further, especially in the uncertainties that lie ahead.

NYWIFT has created so many wonderful opportunities to bring this impactful community together, which is more important now than ever. I am given hope, excitement, and my curiosity has been spiked by being around such a talented group of individuals. I am honored to be part of it.

What inspired you to transition from a background in biology to a career in acting and film production?

I was an academic researcher in a laboratory that was doing some really amazing work on addiction and relapse. At the same time, I was making my way onto independent film sets for the first time. The love for film, acting, and being on sets in general ignited in me when I booked my first pilot and was on location for a week. It was absolutely a dream and I am so grateful for the opportunity to have been so immersed in storytelling in that way.

As I was thinking about my next steps, I realized that both the film and research industries are tough, and as fulfilling as both are, they are also competitive, challenging, and require resourcefulness and long work days. So, either way, I was going to be trucking into an industry that would constantly keep me on my toes. I am grateful for my time in research but film called me to my core in a way I have never experienced before – and I have never looked back. 

Nicole Murray with her co-founder Paige Henderson, on set playing pilots before founding Svelte Dog Productions

What motivated you to co-found Svelte Dog Productions?

My co-creator, Paige Henderson, and I had been in Los Angeles at the time for a year and had begun to realize that we needed to make art and opportunities for ourselves. As we pondered this, we realized we had a lot to say, and we couldn’t wait for others to give us the opportunity to say it. We decided to just start making those ideas that had been rolling around in our heads – driving us to make the new media series we had been writing (and were ecstatic about!) called Dead Friends.

As co-directors, writers, and producers, we found we had an aligned vision, we worked together really well and we were both dedicated. Svelte Dog Productions was born! From there, we continued to expand our skillset, making films that came from our own genre-bending ideas or producing stories from other creators of marginalized backgrounds.

Now, as Svelte Dog, we have a mission to defy the boundaries of both genre and industry, through playful storytelling and uplifting hindered stories. We strive to advance representation in the film industry, both through the stories we tell on screen and with the team we have behind the camera. Our stories often follow women and the feminine perspective, queerness, and mental health, all while using visceral storytelling techniques.

Can you share the creative process behind Run Out Groove and what it was like to work with an all-women and non-binary team?

Run Out Groove has such a special place in my heart. It was a COVID-19 short film project initiated by myself and two collaborators, Kelsey Fordham and Paige Henderson. We brought on four others as key crew, so with seven of us in total, it was a very small project.

What do you get when you take seven talented she’s and they’s into the Joshua Tree desert? Absolute magic! All of the team were hungry to be on set and be in the community – we all joked the days on set felt like summer camp. Throughout the entire time filming everyone was so kind, gave each other the utmost respect, and were quick to help each other with anything needed. Ego was nowhere to be seen. We were all like, “Wow, we need more sets like these…”. It was truly the best experience.

Since then, we, as Svelte Dog, have prioritized hiring crew from marginalized backgrounds. Our latest short, 3 Easy Steps, about a woman with debilitating ADHD, consisted of an all-women and non-binary crew, with key neurodivergent creatives who brought their own lived experience to the project.

At the 2026 Sundance Film Festival

What challenges have you faced as a producer, and how have you overcome them in your projects? Are these similar or different to your experience as an actress?

While both producing and acting require so much preparation and hard work, they awaken different skill sets. Producing, as you all know, is both creative and logistical, but most of the time, you are thinking with an efficiency mindset – identifying a potential problem and fixing it before it becomes a problem. As an indie producer, my biggest challenge often comes from trying to make the most of a smaller budget and schedule. I love this, though. Producing requires a lot of flexibility and the ability to pivot, so it really stretches my creativity.

For 3 Easy Steps, we needed a colorful stain-glass-looking background but the location we scouted with this specific look wasn’t working due to space. So, we re-purposed COVID-era sneeze guards with colorful filters overlaid and used them in a cyc stage. It ended up working out even better because the colorful builds could be packed up and taken to multiple locations – giving us room for some added story elements in our forest location. 

Acting is more about diving into a character’s story and opening your heart to their passions, hurts, and desires so you can authentically embody them. An immense amount of preparation must be balanced with emotional spontaneity and the ability to bounce off your scene partner. 

The challenge with acting on film is having to jump between a lot of different emotions due to the logistical aspects of filmmaking: starting and stopping takes for technical adjustments, specifics with blocking, and hopping between different scenes for schedule. This is amplified when I am on set as both actor and producer. When the camera rolls, I drop into the emotional journey of a character, and when cut gets called, it’s right back out into the problem-solving brain of a producer. I have found a few tricks and usually use music to pull me back into the emotional journey of a character. It is a very rewarding challenge, and I have gotten a lot of experience switching back and forth from producer and actor brain, rather quickly!

What upcoming projects are you excited about, and how do they align with your mission for greater representation in film?

I am excited and fortunate to have a few projects in the works. Svelte Dog Productions is currently in development for a comedy feature about a failing singing telegram company that features a queer love story. Recent current events have also inspired us to finish writing a sci-fi feature that gives an intimate look at one homestead in a world that farms women. Then, Svelte Dog is co-producing a feature film, set to shoot in May, which consists of a diverse cast of improvisers as they make their way through Europe.

Learn more about Nicole Murray at her production company website, www.sveltedogproductions.com, or connect with her through her linktree! Nicole is also on Instagram at @lil_ginga, as is Svelte Dog Productions at @sveltedogprod.

(Images from @lil_ginga on Instagram)