Christabelle Marbun started acting at two years old because her mother could not find a babysitter. By 12, she had been nominated for an award.
The third-year philosophy student said she immigrated to Pasadena from Jakarta at 12 years old and was offered a chance to act in Hollywood after a showcase in Disney World in Singapore. Representatives from the showcase liked her enough to sponsor her O-1B visa – a visa designed for those with ‘extraordinary’ talent in sciences, arts, education, business or athletics, according to the U.S. Customs and Immigration Services website, she added.
After being nominated for “Best Young Performer” at the Citra Awards – one of the most prestigious acting awards in Indonesia – for the movie “The Postman and Kartini,” Marbun said she felt like she hit hit a ceiling.
“I wanted a bigger pond,” Marbun said. “Hollywood’s where it’s at. … I thought in that moment, if I didn’t do it now, I would never do it.”
Marbun said she transferred to Monrovia High School where she enrolled in her first ever formal acting classes. She added that she continued taking on roles throughout high school, auditioning four to five times a week.
Marbun most recently appeared in a short film titled “Icing on Her Cake,” which premiered at the Los Angeles Shorts International Film Festival in 2024.
Marbun said one of her most memorable roles was on ABC’s “Station 19” as Katherine O’Hare, whom she played in 2022. She added that, after auditioning, she was originally shortlisted for the role in the episode until a writer wrote a personalized letter to the network advocating for her to be hired.
The cast trained with a former LA fire chief while preparing for the role, she said.
“We did CPR in our training,” Marbun said. “We learned how to toss and roll up the hoses (and) at the end, they gave me a certificate of completion of ‘Girls Fire Camp.’”
Marbun then transitioned to writing. She said she began to write her own poetry during a unit in high school English and was inspired by Emily Dickinson, adding that she wrote her poetry on gum wrappers and receipts, and compiled it in 2020 in hopes of making it into a book for other teenagers.
Marbun said her early poetry was centered on her daily life and trauma growing up with bipolar disorder and depression as a teenager.
“I wanted to toss a beacon out there to see if other people were feeling the same thing,” she said. “It’s my way of being a cartographer and mapping myself, start to finish, just so I don’t feel so terrified at how much I didn’t know who I was. And then I just tossed it out there.”
Marbun said she began to post videos of herself reading her poetry on TikTok and later read her collection “The Hard Part Is Living: Poems about falling in love with life again.” She added that she thought no one was watching – until she later got a call from a friend saying her book was among the best-selling poetry books by Asian authors on Amazon.
For her book, “When the Dark Spoke to Me,” Marbun took to TikTok again to promote her work. After her audience continuously tagged book publishing company Simon & Schuster to get their attention, publishers from the company reached out to Marbun to offer her a deal, she added.
Alicia Rachman, Marbun’s former manager, said she met her at an event for Indonesian creatives when Marbun was promoting the release of another creative venture in 2022 – her first single, “passenger seat.” Out of all the older creatives in the room, Marbun led the conversation, Rachman added.
Marbun went on to co-headline the Troubadour music venue in West Hollywood.
“That was electric,” said Brandon Severs, an actor and friend of Marbun. “After that performance, I took a copy of her setlist and I framed it and gave it back to her as a gift just because I knew how important that particular performance was for her.”
Severs added that Marbun was open about being diagnosed with tuberculosis as a child and how it affected her music career and ability to sing.
While Marbun said was never worried about the consequences of her tuberculosis diagnosis as a teenger, she added that she now has to be wary of her vocal exertion.
“As I got older, I started to feel it changed the way that I sang,” Marbun said. “I realized that I just had to work two times harder to reach some of the notes that I used to be able to reach in high school. A part of that is the residual effects of having TB.”
Marbun said college was always the next step after high school, regardless of her acting, singing or writing career, adding that her grandmother inspired her to study philosophy.
“She studied theology, so she used to read Aristotle and stuff to me when I was a little kid,” she said. “I don’t know if she understood any of that, but education was always huge for me.”
Going forward, Marbun said she hopes her voice can appear in a movie soundtrack and can continue acting. She also wants to study the ethics of artificial intelligence, she added.
“If I have just impacted one person, then I’ve done my job,” she said. “If I’ve articulated my human experience in some tangible way, then I’ve done my job. And I just happen to find it fun to do it in a bunch of different ways.”
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