By day, Rhonda Pittman analyzes manpower requirements for the Army. By night and on weekends, she’s learning lines, filming emotional scenes and pursuing a dream that began decades ago in the pews of a small church in south Mississippi.
The Resource Management Directorate management analyst landed the lead role of Cynthia Kingston in ”Sinderella Within Part 3,” the latest installment of a Huntsville-produced thriller series that reimagines the classic Cinderella story as a modern drama filled with betrayal, deception and suspense.
For Pittman, the role represents much more than a movie credit. It is the realization of a dream she has carried since childhood.
“I’ve always wanted to be an actress,” Pittman said.
That dream began in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where she grew up as the daughter of a minister.
“I’m a preacher’s kid, so I grew up in church,” she said. “I was involved in church plays from a young age. I’m also a musician. I’ve been playing piano since I was 4 years old.”
Like many preacher’s kids, Pittman spent much of her childhood in church. Sunday services often blended into choir rehearsals, Christmas productions, Easter pageants and community performances. Looking back, she credits those experiences with giving her confidence in front of audiences long before she ever imagined standing in front of a movie camera.
Her father has now spent more than 50 years in ministry and currently pastors a nondenominational church in Villa Rica, Georgia. His example of faith and service continues to influence her today.
Although acting remained a lifelong dream, Pittman’s professional career followed another path.
She became a federal employee, spending 16 years with the Corps of Engineers before transferring to Installation Management Command at Redstone Arsenal about a year ago. Today she serves as a management analyst with the Manpower Team in the Resource Management Directorate, a position she says she genuinely enjoys.
“I love it,” Pittman said. “It makes all the difference in the world when you find something you like and you’ve got good people to work with.”
Pittman arrived in Huntsville after her then-husband retired from the Army. The couple relocated from Fort Bliss, Texas, where she had already begun her federal career.
While building that career, the desire to act never disappeared.
Earlier this year, opportunity knocked when Huntsville filmmaker Julian Isabel announced auditions for “Sinderella Within.”
Pittman joined more than 100 hopeful actors at an audition held in Madison. Candidates were given a “side,” or a portion of the script, to perform before the director.
Afterward came the hardest part.
Waiting.
“I waited from February until April,” Pittman said. “When I received the email saying I’d been cast, I was so excited.”
Not only had she earned a role, she was selected to portray Cynthia Kingston, one of the film’s central characters.
The “Sinderella Within” series puts a darker twist on the familiar fairy tale. According to the film’s synopsis, it follows a young woman attempting to escape her manipulative stepmother, only to become entangled in a dangerous world of lies, betrayal and violence.
Production moved quickly, according to Pittman.
Filming began in late May with two weeks of shooting in Huntsville before moving to Atlanta, where Isabel simultaneously filmed scenes for two movies.
For Pittman, the experience opened her eyes to just how much work goes into filmmaking.
“It’s fun,” she said, “but it was also exhausting.”
Long shooting days sometimes stretched well into the early morning hours.
One particularly emotional scene wasn’t filmed until nearly 2 a.m., requiring Pittman to summon the same intensity after hours of waiting on set.
“The emotional scenes were the hardest for me,” she said.
In one sequence, her character is threatened at gunpoint.
“You know the gun isn’t real, but you’re still reacting to the situation,” Pittman said. “You have to put yourself in that emotional place.”
Despite the demanding schedule, Pittman said Isabel kept the cast focused while creating an encouraging atmosphere.
“He’s wonderful to work with,” she said. “The cast got along really well.”
She was equally fascinated by the behind-the-scenes logistics.
Rather than filming scenes in chronological order, productions are organized around locations to save time and money. Hospital scenes, jail scenes and coffee shop scenes are often completed together regardless of where they appear in the finished movie.
“It was incredible to see how everything came together,” Pittman said.
Although “Sinderella Within Part 2” is expected to debut this fall on Tubi and Amazon Prime, Pittman’s starring role will not appear until Part 3, expected early next year.
Friends have already begun planning watch parties.
“Everybody’s ready to see it,” Pittman said with a laugh. “People think you can just go make a movie and it’s on TV right away. They don’t realize how much work happens afterward.”
The acting opportunities are already growing.
She recently auditioned for another film with a different director and hopes to continue building her resume while maintaining her federal career.
Asked whether Hollywood could someday lure her away from Redstone Arsenal, Pittman laughed.
“That’s what everybody asks,” she said. “No, I’m staying right here.”
For now, Pittman is content balancing two worlds; one requires careful analysis, teamwork and discipline. The other demands creativity, preparation and emotional honesty.
Both, she said, are rooted in lessons she first learned years ago as a preacher’s kid standing before a church congregation in south Mississippi.