Oona Roche ’17

Oona Roche grew up in Brooklyn and always wanted to be an actor. “I’ve literally never wanted to do anything else.” Since Purchase, she’s been working in film and television, most notably in the Apple+ series The Morning Show as Lizzy, the daughter of Jennifer Aniston’s character Alex Levy, and in the film The Nest, opposite Jude Law and Carrie Coon. And when her Purchase crew called, she showed up, starring in the short film Does Bigfoot Dream of Flowers? alongside dear friend and fellow actor Shayan Sobhian ’17, who co-wrote the film with another confidant, filmmaker Max Mooney ’17. Sobhian is best known for playing Behrad Tarazi, one of the first Iranian-American superheroes, on the time-traveling CW show DC’s Legends of Tomorrow for seven seasons.

“Max and I have always shared a creative vision,” Roche says, often appearing in his film assignments at school. “We built this relationship over the course of four years, and it’s still alive. And when he was making this short, I was like, ‘of course.’” Roche believes the relationships she developed are some of the most valuable things she took from Purchase. “My best friends are still those people.”