Noël Wells

The firing that forged a signature

Noël Wells arrived in New York with a suitcase and an impression of Zooey Deschanel up her sleeve. In 2013 she joined the cast of Saturday Night Live to fill the gap left by the great impressionists. She was the first woman of Latina descent in the show's history. But her time there lasted just one full season.

That firing didn't stop her career.

In 2015 she moved into auteur comedy with Master of None. She played Rachel, and critics praised her naturalness in carrying the romantic weight of the storyline. She worked closely with Aziz Ansari over ten episodes that defined Netflix's aesthetic at that stage.

And the gamble paid off.

The authorship behind the camera

Wells decided that acting in other people's scripts wasn't enough for her ambitions. In 2017 she wrote, directed and starred in Mr. Roosevelt. She shot the entire film in Austin, Texas, on 35mm film to move away from the flat digital look that flooded independent cinema.

Won the audience award at the SXSW festival.

The story of a comedian who returns to her college town to confront her past avoided the genre's usual tropes. Wells controlled the final cut and made it clear that absolute creative control was her real priority. She wasn't looking for deals with major studios, but for stories with a very specific, personal texture.

A refuge in animation and sound

Starting in 2020, her voice became her main source of income and stability. In the series Star Trek: Lower Decks she brought to life the character D’Vana Tendi. She took part in all five seasons of the show, until it ended in 2024. This work allowed her to fund personal projects away from the spotlight of Los Angeles.

And then came music.

In 2019 she released her debut album, It’s So Nice!. It features eleven songs recorded in a psychedelic folk style and released independently. There was no major tour or big traditional media campaign, so the album remained a cult favorite among her most loyal fans.

Her studies in Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas shaped her technical approach to work. Before shooting her own scripts, she usually takes care of the still photography of the locations. In 2024, production of Star Trek: Lower Decks closed its run with an estimated budget of ten million dollars per season.