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Sweta Lamichhane
The greatest treasures are those invisible to the eye but followed by the heart. Sweta was born in Patan Hospital in the Kathmandu Valley in 1983. This is what 26-year-old Sweta Lamichhane has discovered after what many might see as a story of personal conflict, resistance, and struggle with the self, and a resolution finally made by the decision to listen to her heart.

Who would not like to cherish and pursue a career in the world’s most elite fighting force, the US Marine Corps? Being the first Nepali woman to join the force, Lamichchane did achieve something that many would only dream of. But Lamichhane has now set herself another goal; of being the first Nepali woman to win an Oscar.

She was born in Patan Hospital in the Kathmandu Valley in 1983. When she was two years old, her father moved to Australia with a scholarship at the James Cook University, and then to the US. “Sweta developed a passion for acting at a very early age,” says her sister Priyanka Lamichhane, “She had an immensely vivid imagination and knew that acting was what she wanted to do.” And it was this call of the heart that drove her later in life to seek an honourable discharge from the Marine Corps to try and carve out a career for herself in Hollywood.

It wasn’t an easy decision. In her late adolescence, she was filled with doubt over what career to choose for herself. She wasn’t sure acting would be a viable profession, fraught as it was with uncertainty. So she suppressed her creative side, thinking it would be better to seek other career options. After much contemplation, she decided that the military would be the best institution to give her direction in life. Thus began a new chapter — that of a Marine.

In her two-year stint with the Marine Corps, Lamichhane moved from Boot Camp in Paris Island, South Carolifna to the Marine Combat Training Camp in Lajune, North Carolina, and then for on-the-job training session to Palms California. Finally, she found herself at Camp Pendelton, where her job description changed from communications, to administration, to career planning for re-enlisting marines. She was also the personal driver of the Company commander.

On her life as a Marine, Lamichhane has this to say — “The training rips away everything you thought you were, and builds you back into a disciplined person who can work hard under any condition. But despite this and all the reorientation and career prospects, the passion to act within me only grew stronger.” She dreamed of Hollywood every day and realised that she had failed to suppress her heart. Finally, she called it quits and got an honourable discharge from the Marines.

“I have tried many different things in life to fit in with society, and knowing that I could no longer hold it in, the desire to act just burst out of me in such a way that I dropped my whole life as it was, to follow my dream,” Sweta says.

A transition period followed, during which she earned a degree in theatre from El Camino College, where she was involved in community theatre. Then, seeking a career in acting, she moved to Los Angeles.

In 2009, she was accepted at the Beverly Hills Playhouse, the alma mater of the likes of George Clooney, Jim Carey, and Michelle Pfeiffer, where she trains with the best of the industry. Along with acting school, she’s also a professional actor who has a busy schedule auditioning and hearing scripts and working her way up. She considers herself lucky as she hasn’t really had to struggle like so many other aspiring actors, thanks to the many people who have helped her throughout her journey. She says she is one step away from joining the Screen Actors’ Guild.

Her achievements so far include leading roles in Destiny, a New York Film Academy production and in the short film Shoot ‘em Up, which will be pitched with Disney Channel. She has featured in MTV’s Freedom Writers and has also worked in TV shows like ER, Greek, and Glee.

Her theatrical performances include: Arranged Marriage as Mummy Ji (Love Faith Theatre/Jenna Belushi), Triage as Veronica (El Camino Theatre/Barry Maxwell), The Joy of Having a Body as Anna (El Camino Theatre/Tim Wright), and Tunnel of Love as Theresa (El Camino Theatre/Barry Maxwell). Along with films, she continues to be involved with the theatre.

Today, there’s no looking back for Lamichhane. She says, “This passion was put inside me for a reason, to deny it is to deny God because that passion comes from a place deep down in my soul, where I believe a piece of God lives… This is the one thing I have known my whole life and I have to follow it. My heart is leading to my Oscar.”

Whether or not the Oscar materialises, her story reveals that the heart has its reasons which reason can’t reason.