—Systemic change begins with personal change—
Alexandra has appeared in 100 feature films and television programs, usually as the first or second female lead. She is internationally recognized for her 5-year starring role as Lt. Stephanie Holden in the TV series Baywatch. Alexandra recently launched her wellness coaching business. As a health coach, Alexandra personally coaches clients on the phone all over the world, and speaks to groups on how to change their habits for a healthier lifestyle and a happier life.
In 2019, Alexandra worked on 3 films: Escaping My Stalker, Pink Skies Ahead and The Estate, has spoken at George Washington University’s Human Overpopulation Forum, Scripps Institute of Oceanography and Glendale Community College on the human overpopulation issue. She also co-hosts a weekly podcast, Switch4Good. Alexandra was mostly out of work and in a mask in 2020, but she started off 2021 starring in the film Tethered.
Acting Career Overview
Alexandra Paul began her acting career at age 18 starring in the highly rated telefilm Paper Dolls. She then starred in the Warner Bros. motion picture American Flyers opposite Kevin Costner, Dragnet opposite Tom Hanks & Dan Ackroyd, Eight Million Ways to Die opposite Jeff Bridges & Andy Garcia, Stephen King’s Christine, Spyhard with Leslie Nielsen and two films opposite Pierce Brosnan.
You can just go to her resume but here is an overview of her projects: Alexandra has starred in 14 movies for Lifetime and shot several more in a supporting role. She has played a gay woman in 4 films, which makes her proud as her identical twin sister is gay. She has been in some quirky, terrible movies like Sharknado 4 which were a ton of fun to film. She is still working as an actress, with 2 films released in 2018 and 3 in 2019. In 2016, Alexandra  won an Indie Series award for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy for her work in the web series Mentor. She has also received a nomination in the same category at LA Webfest. Yes, that was Alexandra playing Duck’s wife  in the Emmy nominated series, Mad Men, and in the last 8 episodes of the original Melrose Place. Alexandra loves playing mothers even though she has no kids of her own, and is still in touch with several of the actors to whom she has played Mom. Alexandra is also interviewed and seen getting arrested in the highly acclaimed, award winning documentary Who Killed the Electric Car, now out on DVD and a top ten documentary on Netflix. She has had the good fortune to play opposite many wonderful actors.
For 4 years, Alexandra hosted the extreme sports series Wild Waters on the Outdoor Life Network, in addition to hosting the WE network series Winning Women for two seasons. She also hosted 150 episodes of the environmental cable access talk show EarthTalk Today.
In 2011, she was a spokesperson for the Volt, a plug in car by Chevrolet.
Personal Life
Alexandra was honored by the ACLU of Southern California as their “2005 Activist of the Year†for her long history of fighting for the environment, voting rights and peace issues. In 1997, the United Nations commended Alexandra for her work on human overpopulation. In 1999, she won the International Green Cross award. She walked across America for over five weeks on The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament, and has been arrested over a dozen times for protesting at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. She was also arrested during a peaceful 1990 sit-in for AIDS patients to access fast tracked pharmaceutical drugs, and protecting electric cars from being crushed. She has been arrested 5 times for peacefully protesting animals exploitation. She has been involved open rescues of other farm animals with the non profit Direct Action Everywhere.
Alexandra has been driving electric cars since 1990. She is a vegan and will not use products tested on animals. She has traveled to Nicaragua with a medical aid group, to Louisiana to help animals after Hurricane Katrina, to South Africa to register voters and to Sierra Leone to promote family planning. She volunteered with Food Not Bombs every Wednesday and Thursday for 8 years by picking up food donations and cooking vegan meals for over 100 people. A mediocre cook, Alexandra’s specialty in the kitchen is washing the dishes without wasting water, and overseeing food composting and recycling.
Alexandra was  a certified EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) for 23 years, registered voters once a week for 18 years. She also speaks very good French, havinglived in Paris as a child.
A dedicated and accomplished athlete as well, in 1997, Alexandra spent nine months training for the World Ironman Championship in Hawaii (a grueling 2.44 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, and 26.2 mile marathon), which she completed in 13:18:52. In 2012, Alexandra swam around Key West, a 12.5 mile race and in 2014 swam the 14 mile Reto Acapulco off the coast of Mexico.
In addition, Alexandra wrote, produced and hosted Jam-packed, an educational film broadcast on PBS about the human overpopulation crisis, which has won several environmental awards. She followed that up with The Cost of Cool- Finding Happiness in a Materialistic World, which won a CineEagle award. In 1986, she (along with producer / manager Daniel Sladek) founded Young Artists United, a successful non-profit organization dedicated to helping teenagers in need. Alexandra has also personally spoken, classroom-by-classroom, to over six thousand Los Angeles teenagers on the issue of human overpopulation.
Alexandra has a TEDx talk on the benefits of a one child family which currently has almost 600,000 views.
In 2000, Alexandra and her identical twin sister Caroline were the recipients of the Christopher Street West Rainbow Award for their ongoing support of gay and lesbian rights.
Alexandra's commitment illustrates a result I keep finding. People who have acted to live sustainably the most already find new ways to act more than people who haven't. People who haven't done much, or acted for extrinsic reasons like an article suggested "one little thing you can do for the environment" instead of intrinsic, say they can't think of anything. I conclude that reducing polluting is skills you learn, not a target you reach. As with all skills, mastery brings joy, self-awareness, satisfaction, and expectation of more success through more practice. Alexandra has been mastering these skills for decades and shows mastery in this episode. How does mastery show in sustainability? In this case, I heard her having fun, connecting with people, learning, and enjoying the process. When last we heard from her, she shared how much she loved a particular hummus. She and her husband ate a container a day. A plastic container, that is, meaning a pile of plastic that would exist for centuries, maybe millennia, before breaking down. Yet anyone can make hummus. Why not her? She could get the ingredients as well as anyone, maybe better ones. She committed to making hummus from scratch. The challenge resonated with me since avoiding packaged food started my journey of acting, which led to finding pressure cooking chick peas beat the texture and flavor of canned. Plus my mom makes amazing hummus and baba ganoush. Alexandra shares how she got advice from me and a chef friend for her results.
I saw a TEDx talk on population where the speaker spoke thoughtfully and persuasively on overpopulation. I consider the topic among the most important on the environment, yet nearly no one talks about it, so I had to find out who she was and invite her to the podcast. She turned out to be a huge celebrity. Most people who talk about population are academics, at least in my experience. They know the facts but tend to present them abstractly. Who was this Alexandra Paul? You could see from her bio that she's acted in movies and television. She cohosts the Switch4Good podcast on veganism with an Olympic athlete. She's also finished Iron Man triathlons and been arrested for non-violent civil disobedience. She's genuine, authentic, and mission-driven. Where others lecture or tell others what to do, she smiles and does it herself. If I hadn't met her, I wouldn't have believed she existed. She does and here's the conversation with her.
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