Ilena Love

Ilena Love was born as Ilena Marie Pacheco in New Bedford, Massachusetts to Azorean born parents Elsa Pacheco and Joseph Morais. She is the 2nd of 4 siblings and was adopted at an early age by her parents Michelle (Beadsworth) Arruda and Bryan Arruda, adding the surname Arruda at this time. Her mother was her former preschool teacher and her father worked in textiles. She started off at the local schools in Dartmouth Massachusetts, attending Dartmouth High School from 2004-2008, and continuing education at the University of Massachusetts- Dartmouth earning a Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in History (2017), and further attending Capella University for her Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling which is ongoing (2019-Present). Whilst growing up in Dartmouth she was attracted to performance based works, and while idolizing theater and TV, she performed, practiced, and loved to create and sing music in her free time. Throughout her life she has ventured into an untold number of creative pursuits including music production, song writing, performance, writing (fiction, kids, essay), classical arts (painting/drawing/sculpting), and classical music (piano, guitar, ukulele, opera), etc. Between 2012-2018 she was most active in performances participating first in local modeling, and then expanding into her acting career. It was then that she took on the performance name of Ilena Love, to be used in all performance works. She appeared in many small local films, first as an extra in the continuation of the South American cult film trilogy "Plaga Zombie" with its 4th installment of "Plaga Zombie: American Invasion" (2020) based in New Bedford MA. Where she played as an ensemble cast and bar patron on film. She also had a supporting character role as Ramona in the small film "Memento Mortis" (2015) about a wayward girl that falls victim to a serial killer. The supporting role of Ilana K. in "The Devil's Orphans" (2016- unreleased) as the deceased wife of the protagonist, and as a bank goer in the short "Bankably Nuts" (2016). During this time she signed with Boston Casting to further her career and was subsequently cast as background talent in Central Intelligence (2016), Dr. Marston and the Wonder Women (2017), Chappiquiddick (2017), Brad's Status (2017), and Netflix's Father of the Year (2018), the latter earning her her first and only SAG-AFTRA accreditation to date. She continues to work on her psychological degrees in Massachusetts while pursuing acting, writing, philanthropic, and musical pursuits.