Taryn Delanie Smith can wear different hats. As an actor, writer and content creator, the 29-year-old social media star has played iconic characters on her own platform, like Denise, the “heaven receptionist.” But her latest portrayal will certainly raise eyebrows. Taryn plays the diva cockroach “Filthina” for her partnership with Raid and the brand’s reality TV-inspired series, The Other Tenants, which she spoke about during an exclusive interview with Hollywood Life.
“I had just a lot of fun bringing [Filthina] to life,” she told Hollywood Life, while pointing out that her character was a stop-motion creation, rather than an AI production. “I think what got me was finally getting to do this as an actor. I really love voice acting, and this gave me another opportunity.”
Since Filthina is a creepy, crawly roach, though, Taryn pointed out that the character is not the type of roommate she’d ever want — nor are the other anthropomorphized bugs featured in Raid’s four-episode series.
“[When] we were creating the character of Filthina, we were joking about our favorite cockroach stories,” the comedian recalled. “Everyone in the room who had lived in New York had a great cockroach story, and mine was that I was living in this horrible apartment on the Upper East Side that has since been torn down. … A picture frame came crashing down, and I looked up, and it was a cockroach that had climbed on top of it. The weight of the cockroach knocked the picture frame off the mantle. It was insane, it was the biggest cockroach I’ve ever seen, and I will say out of every gross thing that I’ve come across in this house, centipedes, stink bugs, beetles, there’s still nothing worse than a cockroach.”
Moving to New York’s Hudson Valley was no easy feat either. Taryn noted that she and her husband, Alec Castillo, “had no idea that there would be a colony of bats living in the attic and that it would be so expensive” to manage.
So, home ownership isn’t as “romantic” as it’s cracked up to be; Taryn had to adjust to new pests. “If you move into the country, you’re going to have so many vermin: it’s like mice, rats, ants, stink bugs — especially in the Hudson Valley, stink bugs are a huge thing,” she added.
Despite the headaches that come with owning a home, Taryn knew that Upstate New York was right for her. Giving her the best of both worlds, she’s able to “drive into the city anytime” while finally having the chance to own animals. In fact, Taryn and Alec are “planning to get many cows.”
“Frankly, the whole reason I live out here is because I want to own more animals,” the Seattle, Washington, native explained. “You surrender to the fact that you’re like, ‘I wanted to be a homeowner, this is something that I valued and that I want to throw myself into,’ so you just kind of take everything that comes with it.”
Taryn is part of the modern wave of Gen-Z women who have purchased a home. And speaking as a female homeowner, she told Hollywood Life how she’s defying the common notion that women can’t “have it all.”
“We get told, especially women, that you have to kind of choose. You’ve got to pick a lane, choose who you want to be, and what you want to be, and then go be that,” the multi-hyphenate noted. “I think the idea, ‘Can women have it all?’ is always that thing. I think I’m just testing the waters of, well, why not? Why can’t I? Why can’t I do both? Why can’t I really enjoy a life that is reflective of all the things that I want?”
Watch Taryn become a roach for Raid’s claymation web series, The Other Tenants, on the brand’s Instagram channels.
