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Actor and content creator Kalissa Persaud sat inside at Forest Cafe, a cozy coffee shop tucked into a quiet residential stretch of Forest Hills. The steady hiss of espresso machines blended with the low hum of casual conversations and the gentle tapping of keyboards.
The 24-year-old walked in looking effortlessly stylish. She wore an oversized white jacket paired with relaxed jeans, black cat-eye sunglasses and gold hoop earrings, her short, layered bob softly framing her face.
Kalissa comes from a Queens family through and through. Her dad’s side of the family has lived in Bayside and Corona, and her mom’s side in Jamaica, Woodside and Sunnyside, before settling in Forest Hills. Both her mom and her sister went to CUNY schools in Queens. She described growing up around “so much food, so much diversity, so much music, so much culture,” noting that Forest Hills feels like a tight-knit anomaly within the borough.
She later added that it comes with a complicated identity.
“Perceived wealth is a really weird thing to deal with,” she noted when speaking about the juxtaposition of living in Forest Hills. “And I understand that perception, but I’m just here by happenstance. This is where we ended up, and my mom has been able to maintain that.”
She shared that her family had been in some tough spots growing up.
“Even through her trials and tribulations, she’s been able to keep us here, living this life.”
As she sat down across from me, she took off her sunglasses, and her eyes immediately stood out, expressive and alert.
She would later acknowledge this herself.
“Social media and acting-wise, this is always getting compliments,” she said, gesturing with both hands pointing at her eyes, “because it is just constantly in motion, and I think that is very interesting to people.”
Photo courtesy of Kalissa Persaud
The Queens native wasn’t always set on acting, however; in fact, when she was younger, she didn’t even realize it was something she could pursue.
“I didn’t know that it was a career,” she said. “I was like, no—Hannah Montana is real! This is a real-life story.”
Persaud’s journey actually began in singing, which she picked up from her older sister.
“You know, you copy everything that your older sibling does. So I would hear her sing and be like, oh, I guess I have to do that too,” she said with a laugh. “I don’t know that I was amazing or anything, but it just started to develop into a little bit of a passion.”
By the time she was about to enter high school, she had heard stories of Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, the renowned public arts school for talented New York City students.
“All my friends were telling me about LaGuardia, this place where you could refine your craft and find very like-minded individuals that also wanted to sing,” she said. “And I was like, oh, I should audition, let’s do it.”
However, a friend accidentally provided her with incorrect information, telling her she had to audition for both the Vocal Music Studio and the Drama Studio to be considered. As a result, Kalissa auditioned for—and was accepted into—both programs, which ultimately led her to pursue drama.
“Something special was happening at my Drama audition that wasn’t happening at my Vocal audition,” she shared. “They were having us do monologues. They had us do improv with another student.”
She found the process new and exhilarating.
“I didn’t know this was considered acting, just kind of making stuff up on the spot. And I learned later that your imagination is your greatest asset as an actor,” she said.
Persaud found high school in Manhattan to be a very different experience from her upbringing in Queens. For one, it was the first time she had to take public transit to school. Back in Queens, she would walk to school in less than 15 minutes. Getting to Lincoln Square was a whole ordeal.
“I would take the F to the E to the D to the 1. So you can imagine how late I was to class every single day,” she said.
She grew up in a close-knit community alongside her childhood best friends, Sania and Kyros, and remained close with them despite attending different high schools. She described those friendships as “super grounding.”
At the same time, she found an unexpected pocket of familiarity at LaGuardia.
“Somehow Queens people found me,” she said, sharing that two of her best friends in high school happened to be from Bayside and Jamaica.
“Some days we were able to take the train home together,” she recalled. “So many kids that go to LaGuardia are from Brooklyn and Manhattan, so it was really nice to have a little piece of home with me there, if that makes sense, because it was like a whole different world.”
That “different world” soon became overwhelming for the then-13-year-old.
“My freshman year was hell,” she recounted. She felt like she had made the wrong decision. “I was miserable. It was really bad. I just felt like I didn’t understand anyone. I felt like an outsider.”
The transition took a toll on Persaud, and she even considered transferring back to Forest Hills and returning to her childhood routine, but her mom stepped in, saying she would regret it later.
Looking back, she’s grateful she didn’t quit.
“I would have regretted that big time,” she noted, explaining that she eventually found her place. “The opportunities that you get from going to that school, you can’t trade that for anything.”
LaGuardia opened many doors for Persaud, and the intense environment brought out her competitive side, pushing her to perfect her craft every day.
“I was already competitive. I’m a very competitive person, but [at LaGuardia] it just multiplies it by 10. And then by the time you get to your senior year, it multiplies it by 100. Everyone just wants to be the one,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you have a crush on a guy—you still want to beat him out for the lead role. Everyone is just trying to make a name for themselves, and that obviously mimics the industry.”
Persaud acting in a production of Pride and Prejudice at LaGuardia High School. Photo courtesy of Kalissa Persaud
Being in such an environment, it comes as no surprise what Persaud did next.
“I went behind my mom’s back, and I got an agent at 16,” she said.
She eventually told her mom everything, who then attended the meeting with her.
“I did not ask for permission, I asked for forgiveness,” she said half-jokingly.
Her mom went along with it, and Persaud got signed, beginning her professional acting career while in high school. Now she’s nearing her ten-year mark in her acting journey.
“They say it takes 10 years to become an overnight success, so I’m really looking forward to [reaching that milestone],” she said, smiling widely and crossing her fingers.
After high school, Persaud attended Hunter College. While scrolling on TikTok one day, she came across a video from CUNY’s official account. On a whim, she commented, “I’m really funny. Can I be on this page?” The next thing she knew, she was creating content for CUNY.
Around the same time, she began posting more on her personal account, marking the start of her solo content creation journey. At school, some students recognized her from the videos and would call her “CUNY Girl” or “TikTok girl.”
After graduating early, Persaud began to reconsider how she wanted social media to fit into her life as it started to feel more like a career, and her motivation to act began to shift after facing rejection since her teenage years.
“I wanted to be honest with my reps for the first time,” she said.
She told them she wanted to take a break from acting, and they were supportive, but by the time she was ready to return, the SAG and Writers’ strikes were in full swing.
“Not divine timing, but I was really able to focus on social media during that time,” she said.
Persaud shared that building community is at the forefront when creating content.
“There’s a curation of community happening, there’s fun happening, there’s sharing of journey and vulnerability happening,” she said.
Persaud went full-time doing content creation two years ago and credits her social media presence with many of the opportunities that have come her way, even influencing her acting career.
“The craziest things in my life and the best things in my life happened through social media accidents,” she said.
One of those “accidents” came in the form of a short film, Or Forever Hold Your Peace, in which Persaud plays the lead role.
Persaud in Or Forever Hold Your Peace. Photo courtesy of Kalissa Persaud
The project came to her unexpectedly from her friend Tope Babalola.
“He said, ‘I have this idea for a short film… and I want you to be the lead of it,’” she recalls.
She had met Tope, a filmmaker from Canada, a few years earlier at an influencer event, through her friend Gregor, who is now her boyfriend. She met Gregor, who is a content creator, through social media as well. She laughs as she recalls their early interactions, saying, “He had just been giving me unsolicited business advice at the time.”
Over the next few months, as pre-production went underway, Persaud threw herself fully into the role. Knowing she had already been cast as the lead, she approached it with a new level of intensity.
“I felt very empowered to really go ham, like I knew my lines four months before we shot. I was not gonna mess this up… I wanted to be perfect, because I knew that this could be really good for my confidence. It was shaky at that point… it just felt like the right opportunity to give it my all. I always give it my all, but… if I usually give 110, I wanted to give 130 on this,” she said.
Filming took place in July 2024 in Burlington, Ontario, and Persaud described the experience as less like a traditional set and more like summer camp, saying everyone had an amazing time. But the journey getting there wasn’t exactly smooth. Between delayed flights, a monsoon, and even a last-minute trip to the emergency room, nothing seemed to go according to plan.
“I was in the ER the day before we shot because I had E. coli,” she said. “But nothing was gonna stop me from doing this film.”
Once filming began, something shifted.
“When I was performing, I felt like a beast. I really felt like I was doing my big one… it felt like a comeback of sorts, not for anyone out there… like an internal Kalissa comeback,” she said.
Working alongside her boyfriend added another layer to the experience.
“He didn’t know I’m quite intense when I’m working. I’m definitely intense, I’m definitely precise, and he had never seen me in that capacity, so that was also really exciting,” she said.
The film, which follows a maid of honor trying to hold a wedding together after things begin to unravel, premiered at the Miami Film Festival in 2025.
“The whole cast and crew essentially flew down there and got to see it on the big screen. It was a really fun moment,” she said.
The project was released on YouTube on April 8, 2026.
Since filming this project, Persaud has continued building momentum, working on a Super Bowl commercial, her first movie and an upcoming project that remains under wraps for now. “It feels like building blocks to something really special.”
Whatever comes next for Kalissa, she is no longer uncertain about her future—she’s forging it.