In the past, actor Nicole Pacent would have been labeled as a type of “Renaissance woman”. These days, “multi-hyphenate” may be just as fitting. I sat down with Nicole to discuss a myriad of subjects. We spoke about her groundbreaking role as Rebecca Wilson on Criminal Minds: Evolution (2005–), her interest in ministry, polyamory, and podcasting, plus how she managed to get Stephanie Beatriz to join her in a closet, among many other topics. When you’re chatting with Nicole Pacent, there’s never a dull moment.
Jennie Roberson: How did you know you were bi?
Nicole Pacent: When I was 15 years old, I was an elite field hockey player. [Laughs] Like, already just so gay. I’m from Connecticut, so I was at UConn [University of Connecticut] for a summer camp with other girls on my team. We knew there would be a mix of collegiate players, who were counselors, and the men’s New Zealand team — because internationally, field hockey is a men’s sport, or both at the very least. We were horny 15-year-old girls being like, “Ooh, hot New Zealand guys are gonna be there coaching us. Cool!”
So, the first day we went out onto the turf, and we saw some of the counselors across the way scrimmage. We’re ogling them a little bit, and we see this one tan guy who’s kinda skinny in lacrosse shorts that are hanging perfectly — just hot. And then that counselor came over and took her hat off, and it was a girl with a shaved head. And everyone was like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe I thought a girl was hot!” And I’m looking at her [with] cognitive dissonance and being like, “I know this is a girl. I know it’s a girl, and she’s still really hot. Nothing has changed for me. What do I do with this information?”
That night, I took a two-hour walk by myself around the campus. I tried a payphone (because that’s where we were at the time) to call my best guy friends. I couldn’t talk to any of the girls about it. They’d be so freaked out. I didn’t want to alienate anybody in a locker room situation, you know?
I couldn’t get in touch with anybody, but over the week, I like held a crush on this chick named Ricky. Many years later, I found her and had her on my podcast, which was the coolest thing. [Laughs]
But that was the beginning of it, where you have that one realization and then all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh my God, now this makes sense.” “Oh, I totally had a crush on that friend of mine.” “Yeah, I definitely was looking at that Playboy when I was however old.” It was so fascinating seeing all of these little things come together. That’s when I knew, “Oh, yeah, I’m for sure bisexual.”
That was the moment when it all started to make sense, and I had to consciously acknowledge the things that had been subconscious for a while.
What has it been like for you to be out as a bi artist?
When you see me doing this work out in the world and have played a lot of queer roles, that part of me isn’t just pretending. I’ve always had the philosophy that when you see somebody else living their truth, it gives you a certain permission to live your own. And so, I feel very honored and privileged as an out, bi artist to hopefully inspire other people [who are] trepidatious, questioning, or maybe just at the beginning of their journey, to explore that and to come out, if they feel called to do so.
Is there anything about yourself you would like to share that might surprise people to know about you?
Anyone who listened to my podcast, Coming Out Pod, would’ve heard me say this multiple times, but in addition to being an artist, I am very interested in ministry. Specifically under the umbrella of Unitarian Universalism. To me, that’s the organized religion that comes closest to the way I experience spirituality. Sort of a pan-spiritual “let’s just explore the mystery together and support each other and act with love and integrity, and then come together in community and sing and do these lovely things” [approach].
I also find theology very interesting. I believe strongly that we are at a critical point in human existence where, if we don’t get reconnected en masse with ourselves as spiritual beings, as connected to one another, to the living Earth, and to the great beyond (however you want to name that), that will be the end of our civilization. I feel very, very strongly that the humility and connectedness that come from spirituality are necessary for humanity.
I used to be active on YouTube, and my minister friend said to me at one point that my videos were really just like 3–5 minute sermons. I was like, “Oh, yeah, that is what I’ve been doing!” I’ve actually been thinking about going to seminary — which really just means me taking one or two classes at a time remotely in grad school while I act and raise a child [laughs]. In any case, a lot of what I do is a kind of ministry. Whatever form it may end up taking is definitely part of the long game of my life.
So, you’ve popped up in a few favorite pieces of our Mini Unicorn Scales. Tell me how you came to be part of the acclaimed short film Raul Playing Game (2022).
Raul Playing Game is just such a fun, beautiful, silly little short my friend Will wrote and directed. He’s like a one-man band. He’s just so impressive. He is a musician, a writer, and a director, and he has been awarded in all of those areas. We met at Biosphere at the LGBT Center in LA. We bonded over the difficulty of relationships and being bi and all of that.
I love how out he is as a bi guy. He wanted to do this short about this guy who doesn’t realize he’s double-booked himself with two dates in one night — one is a guy, and one is a girl — and they both show up at the same restaurant. If you’ve ever seen Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), it reminded me of when Robin Williams is going back and forth between his family and his ex-wife as Mrs. Doubtfire, and then to his boss as himself, in the same restaurant. It’s chaos, but it’s also very cute.
I loved the stereotypes it broke down with bi men, and just seeing a bi man be super torn between this man and this woman, and picturing his life with both of them and how those two things could look. And then the assumption that “women aren’t gonna be attracted to bisexual men” and having the girl on the date really be like, “That’s cool” when she finds out. It did a lot of bumping up against stereotypes and knocking them down. I’d never seen anything like it before, and Will is great. So, that’s why I got involved.
You are also featured in Lucy and La Mer’s “Blue Dress” music video. Was it difficult to learn all those dance moves?
I entirely wiped clean any memory of having to learn choreography. I was a musical theater kid growing up. That was where I started. I still love musical theatre and all of that. But dancing was always the weakest part of the triple threat for me, to the point that I would only now call myself a triple threat in the loosest terms. I dance better than I used to, but choreography is still really hard for me. So any time someone tells me, “You have to learn these moves and do it in the next 30 minutes,” It just sends me [back] to every musical theater panicked audition I ever had. So I blocked that out. I assume learning the choreography was fine.
So, you have also been featured with your work in a Bi.org favorite, Good Trouble (2019–2024). Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Good Trouble was exciting to get cast in, particularly because I knew that it was a bi favorite. And I had also had other bi friends who were on the show as well. I almost didn’t take the audition because it was [a smaller role]. And I was at a point in my career where I was not taking those roles. It was only a few lines, but I took it because it was a new love interest of one of the main characters, and the character had the potential to come back… and then I didn’t come back [laughs]. So it was fun and also a bit of a nothing burger at the same time. If I remember correctly, I think the character I played was a lawyer. I got to play out my lawyer fantasies on Criminal Minds in a much more expansive way.
You’ve also expressed yourself through self-produced work, such as your YouTube series, Only Us. Can you talk a little bit about that?
My YouTube channel started out as The Nicole Show because it was something I’d been toying with for a while. I’ve never really only been an actor. I’ve always been multi-hyphenate. I was really interested in doing more, whether it was little sketches or direct-to-camera addresses — being unmasked, not playing a character. And [in the 2010s], having a YouTube channel was a very big thing.
The real impetus for starting it was that my sister passed away. It completely rocked my world. One of the ways I coped was by diving into the YouTube channel. While I did a few sketches at the beginning and here and there, it pretty quickly became direct-to-camera, authentic, vulnerable conversations about what I was experiencing, things that I was grappling with. Mini sermons, if you will.
Several of those videos were about my sister, but there were also videos just about life and getting real. In doing that, I did an entire series on bisexuality, bi visibility, and different issues I had come up against or was actively dealing with and wanted to discuss with other bi people out there.
So, that was the goal. I switched it from The Nicole Show to Only Us because it felt like a way of being like, “We can be safe. It’s only us in here, but also it’s not only us who are feeling these things, we’re all are.” So, we can have this Only Us community in which to bond and feel safe, and also recognize we’re having a universal human experience. That was the idea.
Perhaps one of your most prominent successes was your recurring role in Criminal Minds: Evolution as Rebecca Wilson, a DOJ prosecutor who has a same-sex relationship with Aisha Tyler’s character. Tell me what that experience was like. How has the feedback been for you playing such a prominent character on a major show?
So, Rebecca and Aisha’s character, Tara Lewis, had a hot-and-heavy romance in Season 16. I’ve now shot three seasons of the show. In my first season, which was 16, I was in about five episodes. In Season 17, I was in seven episodes. And then I‘m in this upcoming Season 18, and it’s just gotten better and better.
And I absolutely love the people I work with on that show from top to bottom. For everybody who’s a Criminal Minds fan out there, they’re awesome and have been so welcoming from the very beginning, and they’ve all been very excited about the storyline.
In terms of the feedback, it’s been lovely to have long-time Criminal Minds fans start doing the “shipping” of the characters. I get so excited about it. Also, my character and Aisha’s are the first series regulars to be in a long-term relationship in the show. And my character is also the first recurring guest queer character who isn’t either a victim or a killer in the entire series.
No #KillYourGays and not being a bisexual predator, like Catherine Trammel in Basic Instinct (1992)! What a concept!
What a concept! To their credit, they really have done a very good job of navigating those waters and making it representative, and also not making the queerness the only thing. My character has a full work storyline and a full love life storyline. The issues that come up between my and Aisha’s characters aren’t about sexuality — they have to do with the conflicts of having an interpersonal relationship at work, communication, and things that come up in any relationship.
Rebecca Wilson even has her own Wiki page! How does that feel to you?
It feels, in many ways, that with my Criminal Minds [role] I’ve finally “arrived.” At the same time, you’ve never finally arrived as an actor. You’re always trying to get jobs, and then you die. It’s nuts. [Laughs]
Either you’re hoping for your big break, or you’re Meryl Streep. There’s no in-between.
There’s no in-between. Even with my extraordinarily accomplished, high-profile co-stars, they’re still sending in self-tape auditions. And I’m like, “Oh man, you’re still doing it.” [Laughs] We’re all still doing it.
So, for many years, you hosted the Coming Out Pod podcast. Tell me about its creation and what sticks with you most about that experience.
It actually came out of my work facilitating at the LGBT Center in Los Angeles. My hilarious co-host Lauren Flans and I had done a staged reading of a play several years prior. That’s how we met. We were both like, “You’re awesome, I wanna hang out with you more!” at the same time. Shortly after Trump was elected [in 2016], Lauren felt she needed to do something to feel like she was helping. We both ended up volunteering as social group facilitators at the LGBT Center.
After my first training, Lauren approached me and said, “Hey, what do you think about [making] a podcast?” She was facilitating the women’s coming out group, which was almost like a loose program for women who wanted to come out but didn’t quite know how. Lauren realized, “These women who come to this group, all they want is to hear other people’s stories. They wanna know like, ‘How did this person do it?’ And they want resources, and I feel like there’s nothing out there like this.”
After a little preliminary search, we found someone had started a podcast about coming out a few years prior, but it only had a few episodes and was clearly abandoned. We saw our opening like the Red Sea parted. So we did it. We dove in. To make us commit to it, before we even started recording, I announced it at ClexaCon as a way of holding us to doing it. I announced it on a panel with Stephanie Beatriz and other celebrities, and Stephanie was like, “Let me know when you do it. I’ll come on.” And she was one of the first people we had on.
It started out literally in my closet — that’s where my studio was. We had Stephanie Beatriz in my closet. It’s a little embarrassing.
So, to be clear, for you to do a podcast about coming out of the closet, you had to start by going back into a closet.
The irony was not lost on us that we were recording from inside a closet. And then at the end of each episode, we’d step out of the closet. The closet actually got very hot and uncomfortable, so coming out was always a joy anyway.
I did it for five years, 269 episodes. Lauren continues doing it. And all the handles are @comingoutpod — you can find it on Spotify and all those places.
I got to meet so many cool people and had fascinating, mind-and-heart-expanding conversations. I definitely had my mind changed and was challenged in some ways — whether it was my own ignorance, naïveté, or bias — and having to work through those. I felt that I was taken on a five-year journey where I was just deep in the weeds of queerness and queer identity and people’s own experiences. It was a community-building experience.
You are also openly in bi, and poly relationships and hold workshops on alternative relationship dynamics. How did that come about in your life?
I am in a bi relationship currently. And I was also previously in a different configuration [where] one of those partners was different for five years. So, I’ve now had multiple experiences in this realm for almost 10 years.
I call polyamory my second coming-out journey. For me, it was intimately tied to my bisexuality, but was also something running parallel to it and, unfortunately, repressed. I felt a deep need to prove I wasn’t the “greedy bisexual” stereotype and that I could be monogamous and loyal and committed and blah blah blah. I had so much of that shame and internalized biphobia going on in my brain. Until the past 10 years, polyamory has not been in the zeitgeist. I didn’t have the language to say, “My capacity to love more than one person is not a dirty, shameful, greedy thing. There’s a name for this.”
Monogamy does not have to be the default relationship orientation. And so, once I came to terms with that, I started exploring it. I came out as poly on Coming Out Pod in maybe 2019. And when I’m out, I’m out. It’s the same thing as being bi. I can’t shut up about a thing. I’m like that flag-waving person. [Laughs]
What I am very careful with, in terms of being a bi poly person, is that I don’t pretend to represent all bi people. I know many bi people who are monogamous or just prefer that because it’s less complicated. I’m also very careful when I speak about polyamory not to collapse it with bisexuality. For me, they are interconnected, but they are also two different things, though I’ve found that bi people — and queer people in general, frankly — tend to be more open to polyamory, maybe because we’re already thinking outside the box.
In terms of the workshops, I’m getting [that] more off the ground. I’ll be posting about it at @nicolepacent. But I’ve done several panels speaking about polyamory. I’m honestly just responding to demand. I cannot tell you how many people — friends of mine, acquaintances, fans, and followers — have reached out over the past few years wanting to pick my brain about polyamory. And I’m just like, “I really should start doing group calls, not just because it’s more efficient, but also because then everybody can meet each other and recognize we’re not alone in this, connect, and [see] that there are communities around this.” I don’t pretend to be an expert on any of this. I’m just bringing my experience. But I think that community-building is extraordinarily important for [being] polyamorous.
Do you have any future goals for your career you’d like to talk about or dream roles that you’d love to go for?
Theater is my first love. It always will be. I absolutely still want to be on Broadway, though not necessarily in a musical. A Broadway play. I want to perform Shakespeare at a very high level. I love classical theater.
But I’d say my ultimate career goals are being in major sci-fi, fantasy, prestige shows and films, à la Lord of the Rings, Sandman — RIP, unfortunately — Game of Thrones, etc. Living in that realm. I’m just a big old classical theater nerd at heart and everything that stems from that.
But then, in other ways, I’d like to create and star in my own series. I have one [pilot] I’m shopping around, and if that doesn’t go, I’ll create another one. Other career goals include being a minister and then maybe a politician or social leader of some sort. Who knows? Life is long.
*** This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.