Ep034:
From Hollywood to Zimbabwe
Briana Evigan built the kind of acting career most people only dream about. The Step Up franchise, billboards across LA, film after film. But behind the success was burnout, loneliness, and the quiet feeling that none of it was enough.
A trip to Bali started changing things. What she discovered about elephant tourism led her deeper, into the poaching crisis, two months trekking with mountain gorillas in Uganda and Rwanda, and eventually to Southern Africa. A baby elephant named Selma, caught in a poacher's snare, became one of her most powerful teachers.
During the pandemic, a single night of reflection changed everything. She sold her house, packed up her dog, and booked a one-way ticket. Five years on, she's living in Zimbabwe and co-leading Abundant Village, working from the belief that if we don't heal humans first, we'll never protect the planet.
Links and Info
🌍 Website: abundantvillage.world
📸 Instagram: @abundantvillage | @brianaevigan
▶️ YouTube: Briana Evigan — including the short documentaries The Land Remembers and Circles of Connection
💼 LinkedIn: @brianaevigan
💛 Donate: abundantvillage
Episode Overview
Briana Evigan: From Hollywood Actress to Conservation Humanitarian in Zimbabwe
Briana Evigan spent the better part of a decade doing what most actors only dream about. The Step Up franchise, billboards across LA, film after film. But behind the success was something harder to talk about. Burnout. Loneliness. The quiet sense that achievement and meaning aren't always the same thing.
In this episode of No Ordinary Monday, Briana shares the story of how all of that changed.
It started in Bali. A three-day trek in the rain, a 300-foot waterfall, and a moment she describes as her first real encounter with something bigger than herself. Then came an elephant ride, and what she learned about what actually goes on behind the scenes in tourist camps. That discomfort pulled her toward the global poaching crisis, into Uganda and Rwanda for two months trekking with mountain gorillas, and eventually to Southern Africa, where she came face to face with rhino and elephant poaching. A baby elephant named Selma, caught in a poacher's snare, became one of the most powerful teachers of her life.
The lesson she took from it: if we don't heal humans first, we'll never protect animals or the planet.
During the pandemic, a long night of reflection in Beverly Hills brought everything into focus. She sold her house, sold her car, packed up her dog, and booked a one-way ticket to South Africa. Five years on, she's living in Zimbabwe and co-leading Abundant Village, a nonprofit working across Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia and Tanzania, built around the belief that conservation fails the moment it treats people as separate from nature.
In this conversation with host Chris Barron, Briana talks about what it actually takes to sit down with poachers and come away with a completely changed perspective, how the skills she built in Hollywood translate into humanitarian fundraising and storytelling, and why locally-led conservation is the only kind that lasts. She also gets into what presence really means and why she thinks it might be the rarest thing going in modern life.
If you've ever thought seriously about doing something completely different with your life, this one is worth your time.
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