Taryn Delaney Smith Different hats can be worn. As an actress, writer and content creator, the 29-year-old social media star has played iconic characters on her own platform, such as Denise, the “celestial receptionist.” But her latest shoot is sure to raise eyebrows. Taryn plays the singing cockroach “Filthina” for her partnership with Raid and the brand’s reality TV-inspired series. Other tenantsWhich she talked about during an exclusive interview with her Hollywood life.
“I had a lot of fun bringing it [Filthina] she told HollywoodLife, while noting that her character was a stop-motion creation, not an AI production. “I think what motivated me was to finally do it as an actress. I really love voice acting, and this gave me another chance.”
Since Filthina is a creepy, creepy cockroach, Taryn points out that the character isn’t the kind of roommate she’d want at all – and the other anthropomorphic bugs don’t appear in the four-episode Raid series.
“[When] “We were creating the character of Filthena, and we were joking about our favorite cockroach stories,” the comedian recalls. “Everyone in the room who had lived in New York had a great cockroach story, and mine was that I used to live in this terrible apartment on the Upper East Side that has since been torn down. … A picture frame had collapsed, and I looked up, and a cockroach had climbed on top of it. The weight of the cockroach caused the picture frame to fall off the mantle. It was crazy, and it was the biggest cockroach I had ever seen.” My life, I will say of every horrible thing I have ever encountered in this house, the centipedes, the stink bugs, the beetles, there is still nothing worse than a cockroach.
Moving to New York’s Hudson Valley wasn’t easy either. Taryn indicated that she and her husband, Alec Castillo“He had no idea that there was a colony of bats living in the attic and that it would be so expensive to manage.”
So, home ownership is not as “romantic” as it sounds; Taryn had to adapt to new pests. “If you move to the country, you’re going to have a lot of bugs: it’s like mice and rats and ants and stink bugs — especially in the Hudson Valley, stink bugs are a huge thing,” she said.
Despite the headaches that come with owning a home, Taryn knew New York State was the right place for her. Giving her the best of both worlds, she was able to “drive into town anytime” while finally having the opportunity to own animals. In fact, Taryn and Alec plan to have several cows.
“Honestly, the main reason I live here is because I want to own more animals,” the Seattle, Washington, native explained. “You’re resigning yourself to the fact that you’re saying, ‘I wanted to be a homeowner, and this is something that I value and want to throw myself into,’ so you kind of take everything that comes with it.”
Taryn is part of the recent wave of Gen-Z women who have purchased a home. Speaking as a homeowner, she told HollywoodLife how she challenges the common notion that women can’t “have it all.”
“We’re told, especially women, that you kind of have to choose. You have to choose a path, choose who you want to be, what you want to be, and then you become that,” the multi-hyphenate noted. “I think the idea of ’Can a woman have it all?’ is always this thing. I think I’m just testing the waters and, well, why not? Why can’t I? Why can’t I do both? Why can’t I really enjoy a life that reflects all the things I want?”
Watch Taryn transform into a cockroach in the Raid Claymation web series, other tenants, On the brand’s Instagram channels.
