Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s Mahoney worked as an actress in largely unnamed roles, appearing in Seinfeld as the character Gladys[1] and in the movie Legally Blonde.

[citation needed] Victoria Mahoney made her feature directing debut in 2011 with the semi-autobiographical film Yelling to the Sky.

[4] Yelling to the Sky debuted in competition at the 61st Berlin International Film Festival and was nominated for the Golden Bear.

In a profile accompanying her nomination, Mahoney explained what she wants people to take away from her films saying, “My overriding intentions as a filmmaker, is to tap into individual inquiries and reflect-whatever is hidden... From my filmmaking, I’d love audiences to receive some measure of inspiration; to investigate the human condition.”[2] Mahoney ultimately lost to Ava DuVernay, with whom she would later partner on a television project in 2020.

[5] In 2020, Amazon Studios announced that Mahoney would be working with Ava DuVernay to adapt Octavia E. Butler’s sci-fi novel Dawn for television.