San Mateo native takes best of Silicon Valley, Hollywood

“Outside of my job, I was doing whatever I could to make myself feel creative,” the 35-year-old New York City resident said. 

The side jobs never provided the level of artistic fulfillment she sought, and memories of school plays at Borel Middle School, where she first started acting, popped up more frequently. During her teenage years, she wasn’t landing lead roles but had still fallen in love with theater. Largely raised by a single mother and living in a studio apartment on Second Avenue, Novak was acutely aware that she had far less training and resources than her more affluent peers who attended programs and classes outside of school. 

“I just crashed and burned at every audition that I did,” she said. “I had minor roles, but I felt the support from this one teacher [Amy Hedayatpour] who made me feel like I could really do this.”

But being an immigrant meant pursuing a lucrative, financially stable career, she added, and leaving her corporate job to pursue acting made her mom initially apprehensive, in addition to some friends in the technology industry.

“I told my roommate about the move to L.A., and everyone was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” she said. “Pursuing an art like acting to that community was just throwing away your education, throwing your life away.”

True to Silicon Valley culture, Novak attended Burning Man one year, a particularly eye-opening experience.

“As cliche as it sounds, I saw people who were CEOs or surgeons at Stanford … they were living their truth in this one week at the festival. But that’s because a lot of us are craving to live creatively, and we just don’t get as many opportunities to do so,” she said. 

Quitting her tech job and moving to Los Angeles was a grind, but it paid off. Since her move more than a decade ago, she has starred in episodes of “Ozark,” “Law and Order SVU” and “Stranger Things.” Most recently, she guest starred in the second season of “Mayfair Witches,” which premieres Jan. 5. While the show centers on a supernatural network of witches, Novak felt she harbored similar traits as her character, Polina, more so than almost any other role she’s had thus far. 

“I love to play powerful characters like the one in Mayfair, because the character I’m playing is like the FBI of the witches … and she’s Eastern European,” she said. “She is strong and funny at the same time. This is the first time I’m playing a character that I’m like, ‘this is kind of me.’ I don’t have to do too much acting.”

But any job, even in the arts, can feel constrictive, she said, and maintaining acting as a true creative outlet has remained a top priority. That’s meant forging a different attitude toward the technology industry, where she’s worked over the last several years as part of her day job. Instead of viewing it as stifling creativity, as she once did, it’s now a way to support her artistic endeavors.

“Now, when I close my laptop, I know I have this other world I can turn to for fulfillment,” she said. 

The heightened appreciation also extends to the Bay Area, including San Mateo, where her mom still lives. She still holds fond memories of walking home from school or walking to Draeger’s Market downtown. 

“I always felt very safe growing up in San Mateo, and interacting with the world around me in that way has made me so much better as a human and an artist,” Novak said. “I know that not staying in the Bay Area was a wise decision for me …  but the people I was with, even people I dated in Silicon Valley —  all those crazy stories — have made me a better artist and actor.” 

Mayfair Witches premieres Jan. 5, with Novak’s appearance airing on Jan. 26.