If Liliana Tandon’s name has a familiar ring to it, maybe you’re one of the nearly 2 million viewers who’ve watched her comedic web series, Period Piece, the smartly-written, hilarious sendup that explores women in different periods of history…wait for it…having their periods. The award-winning series serves notice that the New York-based actor is not only brimming with talent, but that she also has her finger firmly on the pulse of today’s cultural zeitgeist, an artist so plugged in that her impersonations share the same rarefied air as those of Kate McKinnon and Melissa McCarthy (more on that later). Tandon’s clever parodies, each less than three minutes long and made on a shoestring budget, are the perfect bite-sized morsels for a socially-connected world in which everyone seems to suffer from attention deficit disorder. The episodes mirror their maker – intelligent, irreverent, and downright funny. They’re also rocket fuel for Tandon’s acting career, the trajectory of which already promises great things. As if that weren’t enough, the comedic powerhouse also boasts some serious acting chops: In 2016, she acted opposite Mira Sorvino and LisaGay Hamilton in the crime drama Indiscretion. On November 8, 2020, the Stella Adler grad stars in her first feature film, UPtv’s romantic comedy, A Ring for Christmas. Headlined with such big-name talent as Michael Gross (Family Ties), and the Academy Award-nominated Lorraine Bracco (Goodfellas, The Sopranos), Tandon plays a spoiled rich girl who gets cut off 25 days before Christmas. When her character, Angie Moore, discovers the existence of a sizeable trust fund she will inherit once she gets married, it jumpstarts an ill-fated hubby-search with a feel-good twist.
“My character wants to get married for all of the wrong reasons,” Tandon says with a laugh. “She’s motivated by the trust fund inheritance and not searching for true love, and she’s determined to pull it off before Christmas. It’s what she doesn’t see coming that changes everything.”
Without question, COVID-19 has also changed everything. While the world continues to struggle against the pandemic, Tandon sees A Ring for Christmas as a much-needed escape from the harsh realities of battling this virus.
“I’m very excited about A Ring for Christmas,” Tandon says. “As horrible as this year has been due to coronavirus, I think 2020 is the perfect year for this movie to come out. I think that people are really craving the holidays. People want cheer, joy, and festiveness. They want to be around their families – and even if they can’t, they still want to feel the coziness as if they were. A Ring for Christmas gives them a little bit of that coziness. The holidays can’t come fast enough this year.”
That A Ring for Christmas is even being released qualifies as a minor miracle.
photoSet dressers for the movie “A Ring for Christmas,” Layla Fee, left, and Rory Brett attach a sign for the fictitious pub McMillen’s on State Street. Photo Courtesy Bryan Eaton
“It was filmed during the 2019 holiday season, so all of the post-production work could still be completed, despite the pandemic,” Tandon says. “Laura Boersma and John Stewart Muller at Granfalloon Productions were simply amazing in that regard. They also introduced us to Michael Lurie, Jeffrey Giles, and Alex Coscas at StoryWorks, who are the producers behind the film. I was lucky, because I was allowed to do some editing with the team in Chicago. I had never been in a studio that size, or with that many big screens. It was really fun to get a peek at all of the post-production stuff, which wouldn’t have been possible if we hadn’t finished filming when we did. Thankfully it all came together. We’re finally able to share this movie with audiences who can certainly use a warm, funny distraction from everything going on right now.”
Liliana Tandon (right) in “A Ring for Christmas” Photo Courtesy UPtv
Tandon is the creative engine behind this holiday gem, and in more ways than one. She not only stars in A Ring for Christmas, she developed the concept and wrote the script.
“The executive team was so generous with me. They knew that I was the writer and the star, and they knew that this project was my little baby. They allowed me to have an unofficial producer role, which is very rare for a writer to have. They were very open to that. They were okay with me having input into the casting. I’m very thankful that they allowed me to have a seat at the table.”
Liliana Tandon’s love of acting goes back to her childhood, sparked during an eight-week summer camp at Brown Ledge in Vermont. Brown Ledge isn’t exclusively a theatre camp, but theatre is a big part of the program. At the time, she could have cared less. A 10-year-old Liliana Tandon was far more interested in horseback riding than learning lines.
“I was obsessed with horses at the time, but my oldest sister, Xandra, auditioned for a play. Being the youngest child of three, I said, ‘I want to do that. I want to copy my sister.’ So I auditioned for a play and discovered how much I loved it.”
To say the acting bug bit Tandon harder than the mosquitos on Lake Champlain would be an understatement. She fell in love with the stage, opening up a world full of new and exciting possibilities.
Mira Sorvino (left) and Liliana Tandon in “Indiscretion” Photo Courtesy Liliana Tandon
“The theatre department at Brown Ledge was unbelievable,” she says. “The camp was eight weeks long, and during that time we would do three one-act plays a week. You would get cast on Sunday, and then you would perform on Saturday night. Not only were we doing a short play every week, we were given two weeks to put together a full-length play, and two weeks to do a musical.”
A young Liliana Tandon was struck by the discipline and focus needed to pull off so much in so little time, attributes that serve her well today.
“Talk about an amazing learning experience,” Tandon continues. “That camp taught us how to build character and learn lines really fast. We were also involved in all aspects of the productions as campers, so it was truly a unique experience. During the day we got to help build the sets, and then we rehearsed during the afternoon and evening time. It was a great place to get my start in acting.”
Now, about Period Piece.
Liliana Tandon’s whip-smart web series has not only garnered plenty of attention – the first season had over one million views on YouTube, and was featured in Cosmopolitan, Seventeen, Women’s Health, Marie Claire France, and India Today – it has also been a critical success, winning Best Original Web Series in Elizabeth Banks’ 2016 WhoHaHa Female Comedy Awards. The episodes are funny from the jump, binge-worthy skits that not only pack a punch, but also aim to destigmatize menstruation in the media as well as empower women to embrace their periods. Whether the “period” is Victorian England or 1920’s Brooklyn, you can rest assured that the comedy is, pardon the pun, bloody funny.
Liliana Tandon (left) – “Period Piece – Season 2 – Ancient Rome” Photo Courtesy Liliana Tandon
“I was sitting on my friend Rachel Kent’s couch,” Tandon says, when asked about the moment that led to the series becoming reality. “She actually has a role in A Ring for Christmas. The two of us were sitting there, drinking wine, and just started laughing about the pun, ‘period piece.’ We were like, ‘That’s just funny when you think about it in those terms.’ We joked about writing a show about it, and then I woke up the next day and said, ‘Actually, I think that that’s a really good idea.’ This was right before the Me Too movement, and women were at the forefront of a lot of the social conversation. It was the perfect time to run with the idea.”
Tandon’s web series is especially brave considering the subject matter: Do it right, and you have an iconic moment on par with Melissa McCarthy’s Brides Maids character Megan, who memorably has diarrhea in a sink (not many Oscar-nominated performances can claim that); mishandle it, and you’re left picking up the pieces. Tandon not only nailed it, she partnered with Racket, a charity that provides free feminine hygiene products to women in need.
“It was so fun to write, and even better that we could help destigmatize something that every girl should be comfortable talking about, laughing at, and owning,” Tandon says. “Each episode is its own historical time period. I had to do my research. I took facts that I learned, as well as myths surrounding menstruation at time, and then exaggerated everything for comedic effect.”
Which brings us back to Kate McKinnon and Melissa McCarthy.
Period Piece was not only a 2016 Official Selection by both the Bushwick Film Festival and ITV Fest, it showed up and showed out in Banks’ female-driven comedy awards event: Two episodes were WhoHaHa finalists for Favorite Parody (against an Amy Schumer sketch), with Tandon herself a finalist for Best Impersonation for her impression of Donald Trump – against fellow finalists McCarthy and McKinnon.
“The Trump episode, I wrote that before the 2016 election, before he became president,” Tandon says. “We just thought that it would be fun to do something that was in the news today. At first I was looking for a man to play Trump, and I was going to play the Megyn Kelly character in the sketch. I had some great options, but my friend wanted to know why I wasn’t playing Trump. So, I thought, ‘Okay, this could be kind of fun.’ And it would definitely raise the ridiculousness of it.
“It was a very proud moment when Period Piece won for Best Original Web Series. And just having my impersonation going up against Melissa McCarthy and Kate McKinnon, who were nominated for the impressions that they were doing for Saturday Night Live at the time, was a pinch-me moment. I didn’t win – I think Melissa McCarthy won – but just being nominated with them was a thrill.”
A Ring for Christmas promises to keep Liliana Tandon on everyone’s wish list. That the Indian-American actor brings intelligence, humor, and beauty to the screen is certain to endear her to audiences everywhere, as well as for Christmases to come. That she gets to do so under the direction of highly-regarded industry veteran Don E. FauntLeRoy, best known for Jeepers Creepers and several Steven Seagal films, only makes it better.
“Don was very kind, and very generous with me. He sat down with me before we shot, and we went through the whole script. Since I was also the writer, he wanted to know if there was anything he should know when it came to picturing these characters, or how I imagined certain scenes would go. That way he could make sure that he was upholding my vision for this film.
“He and his wife have both been in the industry for a very long time. With me being the less-experienced person on the set, I expected them to come in and say, ‘Great, thank you, we’ve got this.’ But Don was so considerate. It taught me that a film is a collaborative effort. The best approach is to start from a place of ego-free collaboration. From there you can come together and talk about the movie and figure it out. The fact that Don has so many amazing credits, it was very generous of him to allow me to be involved in that way.
In addition to a quality director, the cast also packs plenty of star power.
Bracco has been nominated for an Academy Award, four Emmy Awards, four Golden Globe Awards, and three Screen Actors Guild Awards during her illustrious career. Gross, who graduated with an MFA from Yale, has performed steadily since 1975. He was white hot during the 1980s, playing opposite Michael J. Fox and Meredith Baxter-Birney in the hit TV series, Family Ties.
Liliana Tandon and Lorraine Bracco (right) in “A Ring for Christmas” Photo Courtesy StoryWorks
“It was such an honor to work with them both,” Tandon says quickly. “With Lorraine, I hope that people enjoy watching her, because it is very, very different from what she normally does. People know her from Goodfellas and the Sopranos, so they know her as this very tough woman. The way the part is written and the way she plays it, you still see that great toughness, which I think is perfect for this character. But it is a different type of role for her, so it was exciting to see her work.”
Tandon couldn’t have been happier with Bracco’s ‘whatever-it-takes’ attitude.
“Lorraine really helped establish that this was a team effort, and that she was a part of the team. We filmed in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 2019. One day it was 12 degrees outside, before wind chill. When you’re the lone Academy Award nominee on the set, it would have been very easy for her to say, ‘Great, call me right before you say ‘action,’ and I’ll come out and say my lines and then go right back in where it’s warm. But she was out there, with the crew, setting such a good example for everybody, and creating such an all for one, and one for all vibe. I just love that about her. She was just such a trooper. Her work ethic is incredible.”
Tandon was equally impressed with Gross, who plays Margaret Moore’s husband, Graham.
“He is just as nice as you might imagine,” she says, smiling. “Like Lorraine, he was a great part of the team. The scenes that we had together were special because he was right there with me, giving me so much to work with. I felt so incredibly lucky.
Michael Gross (left) and Liliana Tandon in “A Ring for Christmas” Photo Courtesy Liliana Tandon
“There’s story about Michael Gross that always warms my heart. After we finished our scenes together, he asked me if we could get a picture together. It made me feel so great, because I didn’t have to ask him, he beat me to the punch. It made me feel that he was genuinely happy and excited to be there. He understood that I might be a little nervous asking for the picture, so he took it upon himself to take that burden off of me. I’m sure he could tell that I wanted one [laughs].”
A Ring for Christmas also stars South African hunk Dean Geyer as Gabe Hudson. Geyer, best-known for his role as Brody Weston on Glee, and for his strong martial arts background, is perfectly cast as Angie Moore’s love interest.
Liliana Tandon and Dean Geyer (right) in “A Ring for Christmas” Photo Courtesy UPtv
“Dean was really great to work with,” Tandon says. “He came out a couple of days early, so that we could have a chance to meet each other, and try to bond a little bit. Obviously, when you’re playing romantic opposites in a film, it’s always nice to develop a comfort level before the big kiss scene. You have to get to know people a little bit. So it was nice of him to come out early. He and Charles Hittinger, who plays Tyler Davis in the film, have something of a love triangle with me in the film. It was a lot of fun on the set, especially whenever they got together.”
With her magnetic screen presence, it’s easy to overlook the fact that A Ring for Christmas is Liliana Tandon’s screenplay. The multihyphenate is multitalented, and nowhere is that better illustrated than in the script. Tandon, a superb writer, took her time crafting this fun holiday romp. She also made a conscious decision not to overthink the process. The result is a feel-good movie with great character acting and a wonderful, well-paced storyline.
Photo Courtesy Liliana Tandon
“For me, it was about finding something that I’d enjoy for my first film,” she says. “I didn’t want it to be too complicated to write. With these types of movies, they are similar in that they have the same kinds of arcs built into them. Then I started brainstorming, and I thought it would be funny watching a girl rushing to get married before Christmas. I couldn’t believe that there wasn’t already a Christmas movie called, A Ring for Christmas. I jumped on it.”
The fact that Tandon reached out to others for help also shows great instincts.
“I started writing it, and it took me somewhere between nine months and a year to complete. Laura Boersma at Granfalloon has been a mentor of mine for years. I’d worked for her as a production assistant, and then as an actress, and now for the first time as the creative force behind a project. She’s the one who introduced us to StoryWorks – Jeffrey, Michael, and Alex – and they’ve made a ton of these, so this genre is really their bread and butter. Laura knew that we’d be in great hands with them, and that they would know what to do. It truly does take a village to put something like this together. I’m excited for audiences to see it.”
As winter sets in and the holiday season arrives, Liliana Tandon’s career is just heating up. A graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Tandon is excited about A Ring for Christmas and equally enthusiastic about what the future holds. She also has a passion for cooking, which should come in handy when (socially) gathered with her fiancée, Jon, to celebrate film’s premiere on UPtv on November 8.
Photo Courtesy Liliana Tandon
“I love the communal, familial aspect of cooking,” Tandon says. “Hosting dinner parties and having friends over, because those are the ways you make memories. To be able to prepare a meal and watch this film will be a fun way to spend an evening.”
Liliana Tandon is a baller.
Whether she’s being nominated with the likes of Kate McKinnon and Melissa McCarthy, scoring millions of YouTube visits, or acting opposite Mira Sorvino and LisaGay Hamilton, it’s clear that Tandon has both the ambition and the intellect to make a name for herself in Hollywood. That the Stella Adler grad is on the ready to share her secret sauce – her acting joie de vivre – with other creatives, well, that makes it all the better. “My biggest piece of advice would be this,” Tandon says. “If you’re feeling stuck or overwhelmed by this industry, I would say to lean into whatever it is that’s in your way. If you say, ‘I wish I could create something but I’m not a writer,’ I would say, ‘Just try it.’ I wasn’t a writer. I didn’t go to school for writing. That wasn’t something that I was traditionally trained in. There are books you can read, you might have friends you can talk to, and the Internet is practically a limitless source of information. Definitely utilize all of those, but I strongly suggest just jumping in and trying. I’m living proof. There’s nothing like the feeling of saying, ‘Wow I had control of this from the start to the finish. I got to make this film, A Ring for Christmas, and it wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t jumped in with both feet.’ The same thing is true with acting. Do short films. Cast yourself. I did exactly that with Period Piece, and it worked about great for me. You never know where the risks will lead, but you will never know if you don’t try.”
https://i0.wp.com/www.celticsinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/the_liliana_tandon_interview2.png?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1400600Michael McClellanhttps://www.celticsinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/FifteenMinutesWith_NewLogoPrototype.pngMichael McClellan2020-11-02 03:19:392020-11-04 00:05:15Liliana Tandon – A Ring for Christmas
John Riddle has always dreamed big. Blessed with an active imagination and an equally insatiable curiosity, Riddle, who currently plays Raoul in the Broadway production of Phantom of the Opera, is living out his childhood dream by starring in his favorite play on theatre’s grandest stage. You don’t get there without talent, and Riddle was born to act. There’s also his tireless work ethic and natural charisma, both critical in the hypercompetitive world of Broadway theatre: In New York, handsome actors are a dime a dozen, and audition rooms are filled with John Riddles – easy on the eyes, one virtually indistinguishable from another, an assembly line of gifted performers all vying for the same role. Casting directors are numb to the sight. Their antennae is tuned elsewhere, filtering out the room’s beautiful, unyielding sameness in search of the talent that not only comes prepared, but delights in ways both authentic and unexpected. Riddle checks those boxes. That he makes it look so easy is part of his genius. His life has been a series of doors opening at just the right moment, of opportunities presenting themselves as if dropped in his lap by some unseen spirit. Better yet, he has been ready every step of the way.
Born in Vermillion, Ohio, Riddle likely caught the acting bug thanks to VHS copies of The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins. Obsessed, he sat in front of the TV and watched those movies countless times, but it only took a single viewing of each to unlock the passion bound up in his DNA. Riddle absorbed the performances like a sponge – Dick Van Dyke’s chimney-sweeper Bert opposite Julie Andrews’ Mary Poppins, and Judy Garland’s iconic Dorothy – transfixed by the expressions and mannerisms that conveyed so much emotion. How could you say so much without saying anything at all? Even if he didn’t know it then, John Riddle was destined for the stage.
Patti Murin, left, and Riddle in the Broadway show “Frozen” Photo Courtesy Deen van Meer
“I loved everything about those films,” Riddle says. “I remember soaking in every detail, and singing along to all of the songs. I think I gravitated naturally to those musicals because they were so much fun. The fact that a story could be told through singing really triggered my imagination.”
Riddle took piano lessons as a child – ironically, he credits his piano teacher with instilling the discipline that’s helped make him so successful on Broadway – and later sang with the Oberlin (OH) Choristers, laying the foundation for what was to come next. While he often dreamed of singing in a big-time musical, seeing The Phantom of the Opera really lit the fuse. He walked out of that Toronto theatre transformed.
“Phantom was all I thought about for a long time after that,” he says. “We had the CD, and I’d make my parents play it every time we got in the car to go somewhere. I knew every song by heart.”
Little did he know then that he would one day take the Majestic Theatre stage, portraying Raoul in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s masterpiece. He was just a kid living in a small town 35 miles to the west of Cleveland. Sure, he allowed himself to dream. That’s what kids do. And then his voice changed and his interests veered off in other directions, namely soccer and basketball. Broadway? Pure fantasy. By high school he was on a more sensible path, looking ahead and planning to become an architect.
Lola (Sarrah Strimel) tries to seduce Joe Hardy (Riddle) in Pittsburgh CLO’s “Damn Yankees” Photo Courtesy Matt Polk
The course correction came when he learned about a production of Beauty and the Beast, which was being held at the Beck Center in Cleveland. Riddle auditioned, got a part, and was hooked all over again. He put the whole architecture thing on hold, if just for a beat, long enough to apply to a handful of music theatre schools. The prestigious Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati was tops on the list. He auditioned, and was accepted into the program. A career laboring over blueprints and researching building codes receded into the background.
“The Conservatory of Music is very selective,” Riddle says, “so getting in was a pretty big deal. CCM didn’t guarantee that I’d eventually work on Broadway, but it was too big an opportunity to pass up.”
Riddle immersed himself in this new world teeming with creatives. He ricocheted across the spectrum of CCM’s multidisciplinary artistic environment, taking classes in Dance, Musical Theatre, and Acting, the workload hardly feeling like work at all. Then summer rolled around and Riddle was able to land a coveted job at The Muny in St. Louis as part of its ensemble, something he would do again and again during his college career at CCM. Rubbing shoulders with some of Broadway’s brightest stars, he rehearsed and performed at the dizzying, breakneck pace that is the hallmark of The Muny’s summer program. In between, he used the downtime to network.
John Riddle and Roger Rees in the Broadway show, “The Visit” Photo Courtesy Joan Marcus
“The Muny brings in lots of Broadway talent, so I was surrounded by big-name artists,” Riddle says, “and then there were all of the directors and choreographers. It was the perfect opportunity to make a friend, develop a relationship, and learn about Broadway from the people who actually work there.”
Riddle graduated from CCM in 2012 with a boatload of contacts and one destination in mind. Everything had come so easily to this point. Why should the next step be any different? He would land in New York, audition the next day, and voila!, fulfill the dream: His name on the marquee, his family and friends in the audience, the glowing reviews announcing him as Broadway’s next hot star.
~ ~ ~
The best thing to ever happen to John Riddle is that it didn’t go down that way.
It rarely does.
Actors struggle to book gigs in the Big Apple.
Former Kinky Boots star and Emmy-winner Wayne Brady used to dress up as characters and perform at kids’ parties, occasionally being booed by his prepubescent audience; stage and screen star Sam Rockwell worked as a burrito delivery man, a busboy, and a barback; Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda was a substitute teacher while he worked on his creative projects. Young and overconfident, Riddle arrived in New York hellbent on barging his way to the front of the line, bypassing the grind that all actors endure. His life had been charmed to this point, so why would this be any different? He’d already landed an agent at CCM’s New York showcase, and, ironically, auditioned for the role of Raoul that first week in the city. He was disappointed that he didn’t get the part, but he still had his golden ticket, his Disney FastPass, his Austin Powers mojo. He was going to be a star.
John Riddle
And then, nothing.
One week became two. Soon a month passed. He worked as a sailing instructor at the Manhattan Yacht Club during the summer months, auditioning steadily but never landing a role, each rejection chipping away at the hubris he’d brought with him to the Big Apple.
“Broadway has a way of humbling you, no matter who you are,” Riddle says. “As hard as it was for me to see at the time, I really needed to struggle. It was good for me.”
Sailing season ended, and Riddle took a job as a waiter/caterer. The months – and the rejections – continued to pile up. And then, when all seemed lost, Riddle received a call from his agent. He’d been selected for a part in the seven-month national tour of Evita.
“That changed everything. After 10 months looking for work, I was just so thankful to be chosen. I was determined to make the most of it.”
Has he ever.
Riddle has worked steadily ever since, first in Evita and then performing in the Kennedy Center’s production of Little Dancer out of Washington, D.C. And then in 2015, Riddle landed his first Broadway show, The Visit, playing the role of Young Anton. The Visit proved to be rocket fuel, boosting his Broadway career at just the right time: Disney, looking to capitalize on its Frozen phenomenon, was holding auditions for its upcoming New York stage show. Riddle auditioned, and got the part of Hans. That he could make it his own made it even better.
John Riddle
“Since Frozen was a new show, my role was as the original character,” he says. “I didn’t have anyone to live up to, so I had the freedom to put my own creative spin on Hans. It was a pinch-me moment for sure. Taking the stage on opening night is something I’ll never forget.”
The biggest thrill of all came a year later, in 2019, when Riddle again auditioned for the role of Raoul. Seven years of grinding had given him a fresh perspective, as well as a newfound appreciation for what it means to be a Broadway actor. This time, he was ready. The little kid from Vermillion, who’d fallen in love with The Phantom of the Opera all those years ago, had been cast in the longest running show in Broadway history.
“I think that I rehearsed for two weeks, and I felt really prepared,” Riddle recalls. “Opening night for me was so surreal. I couldn’t help but think, ‘Wow, I’m singing this epic music, and I’m on the stage of the Majestic.’ I’d fantasized about that moment for most of my life, and it was finally happening. It was a really great night. I had a boatload of friends in the audience. It was a very fun night for me.”
~ ~ ~
The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything. Broadway went dark in March, more than 200,000 Americans have died from COVID-19, and masks and social distancing have become the norm. Who knows when things will get back to normal – or if the world we knew when the Times Square Ball dropped will ever return. One thing is certain: If and when live audiences are allowed back in those Broadway theatres, John Riddle will be right there, ready to entertain, ready to resume the thing he loves most.
“I miss it,” he says. “It’s helped me keep things in perspective, and to truly appreciate what a privilege it is to take the stage and perform. One of these days we’ll get back to doing that. For me, it can’t happen soon enough.”
The coronavirus pandemic hit New York especially hard. Take me back to the Broadway shutdown.
In the days leading up to March 13, which was when Governor [Andrew] Cuomo’s mass gathering restrictions took effect and the Broadway shutdown happened, we were hearing the rumblings about this virus that was going around. It was very surreal. They brought us together the Sunday before everything shut down and told us about the virus and all of the precautions that they were taking, such as cleaning the theatre. They also talked about a new way to try to contain the virus, which ended up being quarantine. Anyone traveling across the country couldn’t come back to work for a few weeks. There were a lot of questions – everyone wanted to know how real the threat was, and how seriously we needed to take it. It was like something you might see in a movie.
The old theatre adage, “The show must go on,” suddenly didn’t apply.
I am in the current cast of The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway right now, and we have what you would consider a straight schedule with a Thursday matinee. We did a show that day and, about halfway through the first act, Governor Cuomo announced that he was shutting down everything as a 5 o’clock that night. The news circulated quickly that this was going to be our last show for at least a month. It was a strange and surreal moment. The girl who was playing Christine, for example, was playing that role for the last time. In the middle of the show, she suddenly finds out this this was going to be her final performance. So there was a really weird feeling because, for her and a few other cast members, it was the end of a chapter. For the rest of us, we really weren’t sure what the future was going to hold. Ironically, it turned out to be one of those great theatre moments, because everything became very alive and present. We strive for that every time we are on stage, but something magical happened that day. All of sudden, there was this immediacy and urgency to what we were doing. It was a beautiful performance. Then we gathered on stage after the show and they said, “We don’t really know what this coronavirus is, but we will see you in a month.” And that was it. We took a few things out of our dressing rooms and went home.
And then New York City became a ghost town.
New York is the busiest city on earth, and the streets were deserted. It was very surreal. We were shut in our tiny apartment in New York City, and the days turned into weeks. The original plan was to be back at work on April 12, but that date kept getting pushed back, and then Broadway Week announced that we wouldn’t be opening until September 5. The realization that I wouldn’t be going back to work for months – and that I’d have the entire summer off – was a hard thing to wrap my brain around. It was an interesting dichotomy. As actors we deal with uncertainty all of the time. A show ends, your contract is up, you’re let go from a show, or they replace you, so we are used to unemployment. In fact, as Broadway actors, we spend most of our time unemployed. So not working isn’t a new sensation for me. The difference, for all of us in the acting community, was that we couldn’t go out and look for work. That was really hard to wrap your head around.
“The Phantom of the Opera” stars John Riddle and Meghan Picerno. Photo courtesy of Matthew Murphy / Provided by The Publicity Office with permission.
Coronavirus has caused a tsunami of unemployment not seen since the Great Depression. How has it effected theatre?
Unemployment isn’t an easy time, but when you are unemployed you’re moving on to the next thing. You are auditioning and working on getting to the next step. COVID-19 made that nearly impossible. There were a lot of Zoom concerts, as well as online readings and performances, and for a while it looked like those were really the only outlets to make theatre. For me, that didn’t seem like a viable option. I did a few takes online, but you just can’t replace live theatre. It’s a completely different medium when you try to do live theatre behind the camera.
How has your perspective changed in the months since the shutdown?
This pandemic has been so devastating to the thousands of families who have lost loved ones, and it is heartbreaking to think of those who have succumbed to this virus without a family member by their side. It can be very hard to find any sort of silver lining. With that said, my hope is that we’re reminded to appreciate what we do have, and that we don’t take any moment for granted. That perspective can easily get lost in New York, because we live a life that is very fast-paced. If you can’t keep up then you get left behind. It’s taxing and it’s thrilling, but we often lose sight of our purpose on this planet. I think the downtime created by the pandemic has been a wonderful reset in that regard. It has taken some of that pressure off, and we’ve been able to jump off of that wheel that we are all running on and get back to basics. I’ve starting practicing the piano again, which is something that I haven’t done in a very long time.
Photo: John Riddle stars as Raoul in “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway. Photo courtesy of Matthew Murphy / Provided by The Publicity Office with permission.
The pandemic isn’t the only thing that has changed the world. The death of George Floyd has focused the world on racial equality and social justice in ways that we’ve never seen before.
Our whole country is reexamining what racism is in this country. I thank God that voices are being heard, because it is so past due. There is a movement happening on Broadway and the industry as a whole is starting to investigate itself, which I don’t think we could’ve done that without this bigger movement. Broadway being completely shut down has given us the time, energy, and resources to make theatre inclusive of everybody. We should’ve done this a long time ago. It’s sort of a perfect storm in that regard. My hope is that theatre is a catalyst to help effect real change when it comes to race, inequality, and social justice in this country.
You grew up in Vermillion, Ohio. Were you in love with theatre from the jump?
My parents are not theatre people, so I didn’t know what theatre was as a kid. I was obsessed with The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins, so my poor parents had to watch those movies hundreds of times – I wanted to be Dick Van Dyke, and probably Julie Andrews [laughs].
When did the acting bug bite?
My dad was a woodworker, and I remember being in his shop one day as it was nearing Christmastime. He had a radio, and every day a commercial would play for a musical coming to Toronto, something called The Phantom of the Opera. For Christmas that year he said, “I don’t know what this musical is, but it sounds like something we have to go see.” So he bought us tickets and we took a trip up to Toronto to see The Phantom of the Opera. I was only four years old, but I sat there for the entire two-and-a-half hours of the show, on the edge of my seat, and didn’t say a word. And after the show the curtain call happened, and I turned my dad and told him that I wanted to be an actor when I grow up. I can remember riding home in the car afterwards and rattling off all of the details about the show – things that I had seen that my dad didn’t even notice. I still have a vivid memory of that experience, and being mesmerized in that moment. I had never seen anything like that. That is where probably I caught the acting bug.
Phantom has been a part of your world for a long time.
We would listen to the CD of The Phantom of the Opera anytime we got into the car after seeing that show, and if it was a long trip we would listen to it from start to finish. It sort of became like a family obsession…actually, it may have been a personal obsession that I imposed on my family [laughs]. I think they also liked it, too.
John Riddle
Growing up, you played the piano.
Vermillion is about 20 minutes from Oberlin, Ohio, which is where the Oberlin Conservatory is located. I had this incredible piano teacher there, her name is Marion Drummond. She was an old school music teacher, and so disciplined – I was scared of her for about seven years during my childhood [laughs]. But, she taught me how to be a musician. She demanded that I practice every single day. If I showed up to my lesson and I hadn’t practiced, then I was in huge trouble. So, from a really early age it was instilled in me that music is a discipline, and that work ethic is extremely important. She stressed that in order to achieve something, you have to work your hardest, regardless of your talent level. She also helped me understand that it’s okay to be mediocre, but you are not going to be great at something unless you practice and work really hard. I really have to thank her for the discipline that I took with me. In this business it really is about discipline. Everyone working on Broadway has talent. While luck also plays a part, the person who works the hardest is probably going to come out on top.
When did you start singing?
It was one of those weird, fate kind-of-things, because we lived close to Oberlin and were over there quite frequently. I joined the Oberlin Choristers, which is a kids choir, and I started singing three times a week.
What memory stands out most from being part of the Oberlin Choristers?
That was where I first learned that I could sing on my own. We were preparing for one of our Christmas concerts, and there was a soprano solo in a song called Dancing Day. Our director, Katherine Plank, was holding auditions for the solo and asked who wanted to try out. All of these girls raised their hands. I listened to them sing, and I felt that I could do that. I was twelve years old and my voice hadn’t changed yet, so I was still a boy soprano. I raised my hand and I sang it, and I ended up getting the solo. It was the first time I realized that I could sing on my own and not just as part of a group. That was sort of the jumping off point for me. From then on I wanted to be a solo singer.
Was performing on Broadway a dream for you back then?
I would listen to Broadway recordings – this was pre-Internet, so I couldn’t watch videos or anything like that – and I became obsessed with the whole idea of what Broadway was all about. I was determined to become an actor. Then, somewhere around middle school, all of my friends were busy playing sports. Puberty set in and my voice started to change, so I put music on the backburner and started playing basketball and soccer. I think a lot of it was the result of peer pressure, because singing wasn’t considered cool and sports were. I was trying to fit in. Looking back, I wish I could have just made it cool [laughs].
Photographed by Curtis Brown at The Hudson Theatre. Makeup by Claudia Eltabie & Liv Swenson from Rouge Makeup Salons. Hair by Austin Thornton, Styling by Kinsland Howell Alice in Kinsland Styling. Clothing courtesy of Haupt shirts, Alberto pants, Carl Gross Vests, Our showroom, Hyela Makoujy
Were your high school years more in tune with your creative side?
I had given up the acting thing and was busy playing soccer. My other passion was architecture, and I was going down this path of wanting to become an architect after graduation. Those were my two areas of focus. Then, one day, my high school music director told me that I could do plays and also be on the soccer team. I auditioned for the fall play, did that, and realized that acting was something that I still wanted to do. Then a friend told me about an upcoming play at the Beck Center in Cleveland. They were holding open auditions for a production of Beauty and the Beast, and I had just gotten my driver’s license, so I thought I’d drive up there and audition. I had nothing to lose. I ended up getting a part – it wasn’t a big part, I think I played the bookseller or something – and I did the show over Christmastime that year. It was such a great experience that I auditioned for the next show that they were doing, and I was chosen for one of the lead roles. It was a big deal because it was a semi-professional theatre company. That’s when the wheels really started to turn.
Did you ever give architecture serious thought?
My two best friends in high school were a year ahead of me. One of them was going to school to be an opera singer, and the other was going to art school. So, I was surrounded by these artist types. We were driving around in the car one day and were talking about what I was going to do the next year. They said, “Why don’t you audition for a musical theatre program and see what happens? If you don’t get in, then go be an architect.”
So my senior year rolled around, and I applied to the six best musical theatre schools. I decided that if I didn’t get in into any of the schools that I was going to go be an architect. My first audition was at the University of Cincinnati – Conservatory of Music. It was top school on my list and the one that I really wanted to go to. I auditioned and received an offer two days later. I decided right then and there that I was going to go to the University of Cincinnati.
Most people don’t realize how prestigious that program is.
It has a great reputation. Back in the 1990s and early 2000s, you could open up any Broadway Playbill and there would be a handful of graduates from CCM. We used to joke and that CCM was the Harvard of musical theatre, that’s how well-respected it is.
John Riddle
What was it like being part of the UC Conservatory of Music?
It was an incredible experience. I didn’t have much formal training prior to that, at least not in terms of proper theatre training. Then I showed up at this conservatory with 16 other classmates, and almost all of them had gone to performing arts schools their entire lives. I was like a sponge from the moment I arrived. It was the most magical time. It was a college environment, but it felt like being at theatre camp.
I’ve read where you worked at St. Louis Municipal Opera Theatre during the summers. The Muny is a big-time opportunity.
Yes, it’s a 12,000 seat outdoor theatre. Everybody from all of the big colleges go to these auditions, so I went and they hired me that first summer after my freshman year. I was cast in three shows that summer. It was an incredible experience. Some like to call The Muny by another nickname, “Broadway Summer Camp,” because they bring in all of these people from New York. The leads of the shows at The Muny are all big Broadway stars, and the directors and the choreographers are renowned people that work in New York. It was like a dream. I was 18 years old, and suddenly I’m working with all of these people that I had listened to on those recordings growing up. It was very surreal and exhilarating, all at the same time.
It must have felt like taking a Master Class in theatre.
It was very fast-paced. You put a show up in seven days and then you perform it, and while you’re performing that show you are rehearsing the next show that you are going to do. It’s like bootcamp in a way, but you are also working with the best of the best in the business, so you’re also learning so much at the same time. You start out in the ensemble, and then you work your way up to little feature roles. It was a wonderful experience, and it really did change my life. I got my Equity card, and I also made a ton of connections there. I was really lucky. I worked there for three summers, so when I graduated college I had an arsenal of contacts in New York that I had already worked with and who knew me. It was one of those wonderful life things where I was in the right place at the right time.
Networking is important in any line of work, but I imagine it is especially so when it comes to Broadway.
I met a number of actors and directors who I developed great working relationships with while at The Muny. Later, when I moved to New York, I would walk into an audition or a rehearsal and run into someone that I knew from my time in St. Louis. It’s a wonderful fraternity in a way. Having that connection takes some of the fear away, because this business can be completely unforgiving and heartbreaking and terrible in a lot of ways. When you walk into the room and you know people, it doesn’t guarantee you the job, but it removes some of that fear and apprehension.
John Riddle and Michelle Veintimilla in “The Visit” Photo Courtesy Joan Marcus
Is there a favorite moment from The Muny that stands out?
One of my favorite actresses on Broadway is Beth Leavel. She’s a Tony Award-winning actress, and she came to St. Louis and played Miss Hannigan in Annie, which was the first show that I ever did there. Normally, you rehearse a Broadway show for six weeks. At The Muny, you come in and do it in seven. From start to finish you literally put a show up in seven days. You rehearse little bits of scenes, and then you put pieces together, and before you know it you’re onstage performing in front of a live audience.
Well, we’re rehearsing and get to the song that Miss Hannigan sings, a song called Little Girls. It comes time to do Beth’s number, and it’s the first time she’d ever done it, and it’s two days before the show, and yet her performance is completely nuanced. She knows every single word, and she gives a full performance of the song as if she’d be doing it her entire life. In was such a lesson in preparation. I’ll never forget that, because she was so prepared on that day to do that number, which allowed her to be free and just be the character. I think about that all the time when I go into a rehearsal process: Learn your lines before rehearsal even starts, so that you can get over that part of it and actually start breathing life into the character from the very first day. It was such a teaching moment for me. Since then I’ve watched actors come in to rehearse, and when we get to their number in the show they’re still holding their script and trying to figure out the words to the song, while the rest of us sit around and watch them fumble through it. That says something about you, and not in a flattering way. You want to be the best. Beth Leavel came in that day and was so prepared and professional. That sticks with me to this day.
You graduate from CCM, and immediately head to New York. How confident were you that you’d make it on Broadway?
I was on a good run leading up to going to New York, and that helped with my decision to make the jump. I got into the college that I wanted to go to, and once there I got cast in a lot of good parts in our school shows. Right after my freshman year I got hired at The Muny, and ended up going back and working there the next three years. It gave me a confidence that made it seem possible, that I could do this thing called acting and be successful at it. The next step was going to go to New York and chasing the dream.
Did you have to find an agent?
Most conservatory or college theatre programs do something called a showcase in New York, which is where you put this little show together that literally showcases your talents. A lot of agents and casting directors come to the showcase because it’s like a shopping day for them and they can check out the new talent. I was very lucky. We had our showcase day and I had a great response from my performance. I found an agent, signed with the agency, and got an audition right away – literally the first week that moved to New York. Ironically, I auditioned for the role of Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera. I didn’t get it, but it was still a thrill.
John Riddle
What were those early days in New York like for you?
I moved to New York in April, 2012, found a terrible apartment and started looking for a side job to pay the bills. The way things were going, I didn’t think it would take long to land a part in a play. It turns out that it wasn’t quite that easy.
Most aspiring actors end up waiting tables. You took a job teaching sailing.
I come from a sailing family, and my mom used to do this regatta every year in New York Harbor. It was held at this sailing club downtown in Tribeca. She became good friends with a guy named Michael Fortenbaugh, who founded the Manhattan Yacht Club. They had a sailing school, and since I used to teach sailing when I was in high school, I thought that I could go get a job down there. I called Michael up, and I sat down with him one afternoon and he hired me on the spot. I taught sailing that spring and summer. I would audition during the day and then go teach sailing lessons in the evening.
Did you struggle to find work on Broadway?
It didn’t happen overnight, that’s for sure. I vividly remember walking down the dock to teach a selling lesson one afternoon and getting a call from my agent. I had been auditioning all day, and one of those auditions included the Broadway production of Jersey Boys. I just thought for sure that I was going to get this job. My agent calls me right as a I am about to start this sailing class, and tells me that I didn’t get the role. It was disappointing, and also a cold dose of reality. That soon became the pattern – I was pursuing this thing that I loved, but the months started to pass and I wasn’t getting work. I was auditioning, which was a good thing but I kept getting ‘no’ after ‘no’ after ‘no.’ So after the sailing season ended, I got a job as a caterer/waiter.
Broadway is competitive.
Extremely. I continued to audition, but I was still getting one rejection after another. In fact, I didn’t get my first job until eleven months after I moved to New York City. Looking back, it was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. I think that if I had gotten a big show or had gotten a big job right out of college, I wouldn’t have had that time to struggle and really fight for it. Maybe I wouldn’t have learned what it meant to really put in the work. I’d also watched a lot of people graduate from college and go right into a Broadway show. A lot of those people either burned out or became arrogant and conceited, and I didn’t want either of those things.
John Riddle
Hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar raps that there is beauty in the struggle.
I thought it was terrible when I was going through it at the time, but looking back I can see this wonderful, classic New York struggle of wanting to become an actor. I needed that. I think I had started to rest on my laurels to some degree, because I did have some success when I was in college, and because everything up until my move to New York had come so easily. Overcoming rejection gave me the armor that I needed when the doubt crept in. It propelled me forward and became a source of strength, and the motivation that I needed to actually fight for it. Then, after eleven months of struggle, I got hired in the national tour of Evita. It was this unbelievably exciting moment, followed by the thrill of going on tour for seven months. That was my first big professional job in New York. Those eleven months of struggle helped me to appreciate that first job even more.
In 2015 you landed a role in The Visit, which was your first Broadway play.
I came back from the Evita tour and then quickly got a role in the premier of a new show that was being held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. The music director was a guy named David Loud, and I developed a good working relationship with him during that show. When it ended and I got back to New York, my agent called me to audition for a show call The Visit, starring Chita Rivera and Roger Rees. As it turned out, David Loud was directing this show, and he was the one who brought me in to audition for it. I’ll never forget it: I auditioned on Valentine’s Day, 2015, and I went in the next day for my call back, and later that night I had found out that I had gotten the job. The next week I started rehearsing for my very first Broadway show.
What was it like being a part of The Visit?
The Visit was an incredible experience. John Kander and Fred Ebb are titans of music theatre, and they were the ones who did the music and lyrics. I was up on the stage singing with Chita Rivera and Roger Rees, which was such a thrill. To this day I would say it was the most magical time of my life. There are a lot of people who dream up stuff about what they want in their life, but for whatever reason it doesn’t work out. It’s very rare when it goes according to plan. LeBron James dreamed of being an NBA star, and he fulfilled that dream, but for every LeBron there are thousands of others who never make it. It sort of felt like that during that show, because I had dreamt of this my whole life. Suddenly, I was actually doing it. In that moment I was very aware of how magical this was, and what being on that stage meant to me. The fact that it was my first Broadway show made it even more magical. I think I’ll spend the rest of my career trying to match that experience, or at least having something that comes close.
Photographed by Curtis Brown at The Hudson Theatre. Makeup by Claudia Eltabie & Liv Swenson from Rouge Makeup Salons. Hair by Austin Thornton, Styling by Kinsland Howell Alice in Kinsland Styling. Clothing courtesy of Haupt shirts, Alberto pants, Carl Gross Vests, Our showroom, Hyela Makoujy.
Frozen is one of the most-successful Disney films of all-time, and the play is equally popular. How did you land the role of the Prince Hans?
It was about a year-and-a-half later, and my agent called me and asked if I would go audition for the ensemble in Frozen. She explained that they wanted me to audition for the role of King Agnarr, who was the ruler of Arendelle and who had fathered two daughters, Elsa and Anna. It hadn’t seen the movie yet, so I asked if there was a prince. She said that there was, but that they wouldn’t see me for that. They wanted to see me for the king. This was a minor role, which I really didn’t want at that point in my career, but, after thinking it over, I decided to go to the audition anyway. Then a funny thing happened. They called me back afterwards and I ended up in front of the director, who asked me if I would audition for the prince! I wanted to say that the prince was the role I had asked about in the first place, but I thought better of it and kept that to myself [laughs]. Instead, I went home that night and feverishly watched the movie Frozen just to learn what the show was even about.
When did you go back to read for the role of Hans?
The next day. I was in front of the entire Disney theatrical group, including Bobby and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, who wrote the music for Frozen, and the director, Michael Grandage. I gave a very mediocre audition, probably as good as you can expect to do in a night of learning the material. They saw something they liked, because I ended up getting the job. They next thing you know I’m in the workshop of the show.
Workshop?
A workshop production is staged much more modestly than the full production, and they are usually put together for a couple of reasons: To provide a preview of the full production, and to also gauge audience and critical reaction. Afterwards there might be decisions made to adjust or rewrite some parts of the work before the official premiere. We had two subsequent workshops after that, as well as our out-of-town tryouts, and then we finally started rehearsing on Broadway. That was January 2018, so it was a very long road to opening night.
The Visit was special because it was your first Broadway play. What made Frozen special for you?
It was magical in a very different way. Frozen was this global phenomenon and a mega-part of the cultural zeitgeist, so we were very aware of its potential to be big. To be a part of that, and be able to originate that…to be able to originate a part in a musical is the goal of any actor on Broadway. Frozen was my second Broadway play, so I was like, “How lucky can you get?”
John Riddle, Ben Crawford, and Meghan Picerno Bruce Glikas/GettyEntertainment
Frozen was nominated for three Tony Awards. How does it feel to be a part of that?
It was so cool to build something from the ground up. I learned so much about show business, and about myself and about how to create a character. And then there’s all of the wonderful things that come with that, which are Broadway openings, press stuff, the buzz…and there’s really nothing better than being a part of a new production. It creates this incredible buzz in New York, so it was a very exciting time. I also had such a wonderful group of people to work with. I made some of my best friends working on that show. I worked on that show for about two-and-a-half years, so it was a big chunk of my life.
As if it couldn’t get any better, you landed the role of a lifetime in The Phantom of the Opera.
I’d auditioned for Phantom about ten times over the years and never got the job. My agent called me after this particular audition and said that it wasn’t going to go my way this time, either. I took the news in stride. A full month later my agent called me back and said, “Okay, there’s been a little twist. They actually do want you to come and do it.” There was no question in my mind. I couldn’t say ‘yes’ fast enough. Phantom had been a dream of mine my entire life. I couldn’t believe that it was actually happening. It was a wonderful, nostalgic moment.
How was Phantom different than anything else you’d done up to that point?
When you are replacing someone in a show, as was the case in Phantom, you rehearse for two weeks and then you open the following week. That was a very different experience from the first two Broadway shows that I did, when I had the luxury of rehearsing for a longer period of time. You are the guy in something new. You are creating the character, and there aren’t any expectations because no one has seen the show before. With Phantom, I was coming in to replace one of my buddies, Jay Johnson, who was playing the part before me. It’s sort of like, “Tag, you’re out,” and you take over where he left off. There’s no pomp and circumstance.
Tony Awards After Party
How much rehearsal time to you get when you join a show in progress?
It was an interesting experience. When you are replacing someone, you don’t rehearse with the cast until the night you do it. I rehearsed with the dance captain and a stage manager for two weeks, and then I had one little rehearsal with everybody. My first show was on a Monday night, and I sang one song with the orchestra a half hour before the show. I’d never done the show with any lighting, and I had worn the costumes only once. So, there was this sort of this wild moment like, “Wow, I’ve never really done this before, but I’m doing it tonight, on Broadway, in front of 1,700 people.”
Did you feel like you were prepared for Phantom?
There was a moment of doubt, but that was fleeting because I knew Phantom inside and out. I knew every word, and I had rehearsed on my own to fill out character, so I was fully prepared. It was a thrilling experience.
What was opening night like for you?
Before I went on that night, somebody reminded me to have a moment for myself, where I could just breathe and take in the fact that I’m going to act on Broadway. In the second act, there is a moment where Raul climbs this ladder and he’s about to jump off of the bridge. As I was climbing up that ladder I said to myself, “You’re in The Phantom of the Opera on Broadway.” It was an incredibly wonderful, magical moment…and then I went on the bridge and did the rest of the show. It was then that I truly realized I’d come full circle.
It’s not every day that your wildest dreams are realized.
I remember as a kid, my mom used to go to exercise class at a YMCA. She would bring me with her, and it was in some school where the auditorium and gymnasium were combined. The class would take place down on the gym floor and, for whatever reason, they would let me play on the stage. I would be back there by myself, opening up the curtains and playing with the lights while the exercise class was going on. I still can’t believe they let me do that, because I was so young [laughs]. I would stand on the stage and pretend that I was performing on a Broadway stage. That night at Phantom, I felt like that little kid again. It’s not lost on me how fortunate I have been. It’s a combination of a bit of hard work and determination, and getting over the heartbreaks of a unforgiving business. When you have those moments, that’s what makes it all worth it.
What’s your favorite thing to do when you arrive at the theatre before a show?
My favorite thing to do is going out and sitting in the empty house, or just standing on the stage and looking out before anybody is there. It feels like you have this power, knowing that you’re about to walk out on that stage as a different person, and all of these people are going to sit in the dark and listen to you and what you have to say. It feels a bit divine, and also like a bit of magic.
What’s it like to look out at the audience?
You can’t really see much when the lights come on – you can only see the first two or three rows – but it’s this wonderful thing of knowing that there are all of these people out there having an experience with you. Every single day is different, and that’s the thing that I love the most about theatre. Sometimes you will have these incredible audiences that are so in the moment with you, and sometimes you’ll have an audience where you wonder if they even want to be there. The curtain call is wonderful, because you can actually see some of their faces.
John Clayton Riddle
What’s the most interesting aspect of being a Broadway actor?
My friend used to describe what a strange feeling it is to be a Broadway actor, and I experience it almost every night when I go home. The show ends, and all of these strangers stand up and start clapping for you. Then you take your little bow and you walk off stage, and you go home and sit in your apartment all by yourself. It’s very pedestrian. It’s sort of a weird way to live your life, but I don’t think I could do anything else.
Final Question: If you could offer one piece of advice to other aspiring actors, what would that be?
Be true to yourself. There are so many people who want to act on Broadway. When I walk into an audition room, there are twelve other guys sitting in a row, all of them waiting to go into the audition. They are six-foot-two like me, they have brown hair like me, they sing like me, and they are great actors. When a director has twelve options that look the same, what is the one thing is going to make you stand out from everybody else? That can only come from within, from your soul and your being. The life that you live away from the theatre breathes life into who you are onstage. It’s those life experiences that attracts an audience to want to sit in the dark for two-and-a-half hours and hear what you have to say.
https://i0.wp.com/www.celticsinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/the_john_riddle_interview2.png?fit=600%2C400&ssl=1400600Michael McClellanhttps://www.celticsinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/FifteenMinutesWith_NewLogoPrototype.pngMichael McClellan2020-10-25 14:34:572020-11-02 03:20:18John Riddle – Phantom Power
At first blush, Peter Higgs and Alex Amancio have nothing in common. Higgs, the theoretical physicist who, during the 1960s, proposed the existence of the so-called “God Particle,” and later won the 2013 Nobel Prize after experiments at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, proved it true, owns neither a TV nor a mobile phone, and was 80 years old before he acquired a computer. Amancio, now the Chief Creative Officer and Founder at Reflector Entertainment, is one of the hottest guys in the entertainment universe, having served as creative director of the two most successful Assassin’s Creed video games, introduced the technology that brought Madonna to life in her groundbreaking, augmented reality performance at the 2019 Billboard Music Awards, and today is at the forefront of a revolution that is bending, stretching, twisting and upending the worlds of entertainment, pop culture, and tech. Common denominators? Is that even possible? Higgs has spent his life in pursuit of answers to some of physics’ most burning questions: Why did some particles acquire a mass just seconds after the Big Bang, allowing them to clump and coalesce into matter, forming things like stars, planets, and people? Why has our universe stuck around for billions of years, when it should have been a fleeting fireball, gone in an instant? Amancio’s universe, on the other hand, exists as an arras of pixels, with whole worlds created by teams of coders and right-brained creatives, all for the enjoyment of a rapidly growing fan base. It would seem that there’s little, if anything, connecting them.
Alex Amancio
And yet the two men are cut from the same cloth, kindred spirits if you will, one identifying the missing particle in the Standard Model, the other reshaping entertainment’s future with something called “Storyworlds” – an ever-expanding universe that tells stories across multiple platforms or media. Both deal in the currency of creation: Higgs for proving the existence of the omnipresent Higgs field, through which all mass is created; Amancio for interweaving narratives and characters across films, video games, novels, podcasts, comics, and beyond. Both, it turns out, are also modest to a fault. In fact, Britain’s most cherished scientist wasn’t home to take the call on the day of the Nobel announcement, and when a former neighbor stopped to congratulate him in the street, his first response was a puzzled, “What prize?” Embarrassed to be singled out from so many other deserving candidates, Higgs set off to Stockholm to receive his award, blinking in polite bewilderment as his admirers demanded a long-overdue knighthood. The Portuguese-born, Montréal-raised Amancio has been twice nominated by the prestigious Writer’s Guild of America, both times for his storytelling, and yet he’s far more comfortable talking about Unknown 9, Reflector’s maiden Storyworld, than anything to do with Alexandre Amancio.
Peter Higgs
“We’ve launched a novel trilogy, a comic book series, and a podcast for Unknown 9,” Amancio says. “We’re also developing a triple A video game, a television series, and loads of digital content. It’s an exciting time at Reflector.”
At some point in the not too distant future, the humble paths of Peter Higgs and Alex Amancio are destined to converge, and in a very real way. Quantum computing remains in its formative stages, but its potential to process data exponentially faster than traditional computers could bring about seismic shifts in everything from pharmaceutical research (Biogen has explored quantum-enabled molecule modeling) to finance (Citi and Goldman Sachs both invest in quantum). Naturally, gamers want to know if that outsize computing muscle will transform games, too.
“Quantum computing could certainly become the next frontier,” Amancio says. “There’s no question it has the potential to reshape the entire gaming experience, which makes it an exciting time to be in this business.”
Alex Amancio
Amancio and his team at Reflector will be well-positioned to leverage these new advances. The Storyworlds they create are each a unique intellectual property, each with unique entry points into the IP’s universe. This means that your favorite character might be the protagonist in the film, while playing a complimentary role in the video game – the stories are independent, but if you experience them all, they tell a broader narrative that expands the overall mythology. It’s up to you to decide the path that you take.
“The concept of transmedia has been around for quite a while,” he says, “but I don’t think anyone has done it quite the way that we do it.”
Take Unknown 9, for example.
Unknown 9 Courtesy Reflector Entertainment
Your entry point might be Unknown 9: Chapters, an immersive set of website puzzles in which players go through The Leap Year Society’s recruitment protocol to become Quaestors. Or you might decide to start with Unknown 9: Genesis, the first book in a novel trilogy by bestselling author Layton Green. Or you could opt for the comic book series, Unknown 9: Torment, following Jaden Crowe as he is inducted into a mysterious society and discovers his unbelievable destiny. Other entry points include podcasts, the upcoming video game, a feature film…all of it designed to be consumed in any order, a la carte with you deciding how far you want to go.
“That’s the beauty of IP,” Amancio says. “Every entry point brings with it a different perspective, enriching the overall story. If you consume only one platform – let’s say you just watch the film or you play the console game – you feel satisfied, because each is a closed loop. You have a beginning, a middle, and an ending. You experience it, and you complete the whole narrative. But for those who want more, how do you create narratives that enrich the fan experience? The idea of Storyworlds is to craft narratives where each one gives you a peek into a completely different perspective.”
~ ~ ~
If anyone is going to deliver on challenging the status quo, it’s Alexandre Amancio.
Just as Peter Higgs challenged the Standard Model with the discovery of the Higgs boson, Amancio is challenging traditional channels for consuming content. Instead of big companies pushing the content that people consume, such as on TV or in the theatre, for example, Storyworlds interweave a myriad of different producers around a single IP. The result is a democratized platform that is anything but cookie cutter.
“The world has shifted, right?” Amancio asks rhetorically. “Look at the movie industry, even before COVID hit. They were already looking back and asking, ‘Where are the fans? Where are the lines at theaters?’ People aren’t consuming film anymore, at least not in the traditional sense.”
Amancio’s Storyworld epiphany has its genesis in his work at Ubisoft, where he helmed two of the most successful titles in the Assassin’s Creed universe: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, and Assassin’s Creed Unity. Those experiences convinced him that developing an IP and delivering its content across multiple platforms was the way to go.
Courtesy Ubisoft
Consider Unity.
You play as Arno, a native Frenchman who was born in Versailles to an Assassin father. You’re dropped into Paris, circa 1798, during the French Revolution. The streets are filthy with mud and blood, the air thick with gunpowder smoke. The citizens are starving. The guillotines are doing a brisk business. You play to expose the true powers behind the Revolution. You explore the city, and scale towers to unlock missions. There’s plenty of jumping and stabbing to be had.
When you have a game this rich, it begs for other story streams. Amancio took this with him to Reflector, hell-bent on creating ubiquitous IPs that run the gamut, from social media to gaming consoles to streaming services and back again. Books. Graphic novels. Podcasts. RPG’s. Anime.
Unknown 9 is just the beginning.
Amancio and his Reflector team have other Storyworlds in the works.
Like Peter Higgs, Godfather of the God Particle, it’s all about the creation.
Let’s walk it back to the beginning. Please tell me a little about your childhood – where did you get your insatiable curiosity?
I was actually born in Portugal, which is a southern European country on the Iberian Peninsula, bordering Spain. I didn’t live there long, because my parents moved to Montréal, Canada, when I was a little over three years old. I grew up in a French-speaking city, but my first language is Portuguese. I had to learn French for the first time when I was introduced to school – I actually still remember being 5 years old and not understanding a word that the people were saying, so I had to pick it up as I went. My dad was always of the mindset that we would speak Portuguese at home. That way I would be able to keep that language. He knew that I would be learning French at school, so the other decision that he made was that we would watch TV and movies in English. I think that having been plunged into a lot of different languages and a lot of different cultures at a very early age is probably what formatted my brain the way that it is now. I feel like it helped to develop my creative side. I like solving problems, I like coming up with stuff, and I like to learn. So a very healthy curiosity is part of my DNA. I can’t even imagine not learning. So yes, I really think that being plunged into the unknown from a very young age is what probably what drove me to become this way.
Alex Amancio
You are an awarding-winning writer and director of the iconic Assassin’s Creed video game series. Please tell me about your first major effort, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations.
Both of these projects were extremely important in my creative path. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations was my first project as Creative Director, and it was released in November, 2011. This title was the first where I was really helming the creative vision on the project. It was quite a tough one because I had two major challenges: First, we had to create a brand-new Assassin’s Creed team. That was very challenging in itself. Then, we had to deliver this game in a record amount of time. I think we delivered it in 10 months. What I learned from that experience are three things: You need to have a clear vision from the start; you need to believe in that vision enough to be able to hold onto it no matter what the obstacles in your path; and you need to be smart enough to be flexible in the sense that, there may be times where adapting the vision might get you closer to the final vision than if you had held onto every detail. So, by having that sort of rigidity for certain things, and as well as having the flexibility to deal with problems as they arise, we were able to move forward with belief that what we had from seed was good. All of that stuff I absorbed in that project on the fly. It was really a trial by fire.
From a storytelling standpoint, Revelations was about an aging hero who, for the first time in his life, had to take a step back and look at his life. What was he actually fighting for? What does he want his life to be about? Should he continue on this course, or should he just live for himself? It was also an amazing opportunity to connect two of the most iconic heroes of the franchise –Altaïr Ibn-La’Ahad, who is the protagonist in the first game, and Ezio, who ended up becoming the star of the franchise. It was exciting to have them both in the same game, and to be able to create a parallel or a mirror with both of their lives, with two ways that a hero’s life could potentially go. So, Revelations was a very cool project for all of those reasons. I’m very proud of how we were able to overcome all of the challenges, and also proud of the depth of the narrative that we were able to craft.
Assassin’s Creed: Revelations Courtesy Ubisoft
Let’s fast-forward to the fall of 2014, and the release of Assassin’s Creed Unity.
Assassins Creed Unity represented another significant challenge, but we had one big advantage that we didn’t have with Revelations, and that was a lot of time. We also had the biggest team that we had ever assembled for a project. It was about 1,000 people in total. We had 10 studios collaborating together on one single project across several different countries and three continents, from Asia to Europe to America, so it was a very ambitious game.
Unity represented a quantum leap in gaming.
Unity was also based on the AnvilNext 2.0 game engine. Because Unity was the first next-generation title that we were going to deliver using this engine, it was all about how much could we push this new technology – and not just the visuals. We wanted to see what kind of storytelling mechanisms we could push, using the raw power that was suddenly available to us. So we created the biggest city that we had ever created for an Assassin’s Creed game. It was actually to scale; in the previous Assassin’s Creed titles, the houses were actually smaller than in reality. So, if you were able to go into a house, you would immediately realize that things like doorways would be much smaller. For Unity, almost all of the houses could be entered, so they had to be full-scale. We essentially recreated Paris, not as it is today, but as it was in the Middle Ages, and we did it to scale.
The characters were the next logical step in our development process. The thought being, if we create a city that looks and feels more realistic than ever, then that city is going to have a jarring effect if it feels empty. Up until that point, we couldn’t typically have any more than 10-20 characters in a game. We developed a tech that allowed us to have more than 10,000 people, which, for the first time, really allowed us to populate a city as it should be populated. The beauty of these characters is that, if you interact with them, they react like real characters. That advancement really contributed to making the city feel alive and real.
You’ve been twice nominated by the prestigious Writer’s Guild of America.
When I look at the other people that were nominated in that category, these are people that I admire greatly, and whose work I also admire. Just being nominated, and being in the same category as them, is a tremendous honor for me. I’m quite humbled by it, actually.
Genesis – One of many entry points into the Unknown 9 universe Courtesy Reflector Entertainment
You’re a born storyteller.
Storytelling is something that I’ve been passionate about my entire life. I talk about technology and all of that stuff, but in reality, these are all just levers. They are devices that allow us to tell stories. Finding new and innovative ways of telling stories is what I’m in this for, and gaming is the perfect marriage of technology and storytelling. It’s what stimulates me. It’s what motivates me.
It’s an exciting time, because I think that video games open the door to a completely new kind of storytelling. When the film industry was in its nascent stages, it used a lot of the language and mechanics of theater. Then, we started understanding how film could be editing, allowing us to jump cut, flashback, and change locations very quickly. That sort of vernacular was born of experience with the medium. It took years and decades to master. In the video game world, we’re still in that nascent stage. We’re still discovering, every day, every year, new ways to push the boundaries of storytelling within those interactive universes that we create.
From what I’ve ready, you’re into theoretical physics.
Yes [laughs]. My initial path was science. Physics has always been my passion, and I think theoretical physics is as close to creation as science can get. If you look at those Prince Theories in terms of how the very small things in our universe work, it seems to be subjective in the sense that the universe seems to react to the observer. When you start getting into that stuff, you really start getting very close to how video games function. Maybe that’s part of the subconscious reason that I gravitated towards video games.
Torment – One of many entry points into the Unknown 9 universe Courtesy Reflector Entertainment
You’re now the CEO Reflector Entertainment. Storyworlds are at the heart of your new company.
Reflector was born of certain ideas that I started having when I was at Ubisoft. One thing I realized while working on the Assassin’s Creed universe was that the mythology we were building, and the world that we were creating, transcended the video game medium. So, while I was helming both Revelations and Unity,a lot of my time and attention was focused on the novels and the comic books that were being produced. This work was being done with an internal team that we called the IP Team. As we fleshed these out, it was really important to me that the stories weren’t just redundant stories, or simply an adaptation of the video game story. We wanted stories that transcended the video game – maybe from a different angle, or a different character’s perspective, or maybe even a portion of the story that wasn’t necessarily told within the game. So, instead of having the typical ancillary novels for Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, we actually had two novels that, instead of being about the story of the game, were actually prequels. They were the stories of the two main protagonists, and how they got to where they are in the game. In doing so, the novels gave audiences a glimpse into the psyche of these characters. They also fleshed out their backstories, and dived into other important characters that gravitated around them. It was the same thing when it came to the comic books. They weren’t about the game, they were about different things. They were connected to the game through some artifacts, or some side characters. I really felt that this was, in itself, a new form of storytelling.
Storyworld Development Courtesy Reflector Entertainment
The storytelling landscape has changed. Would you consider this a paradigm shift?
In a very real sense, yes. I looked at what people were doing 30 years ago. They used to say, “‘I’m a film fan,’ or, ‘I’m a novel fan,’ or, ‘I’m a comic book fan.’ But today, people are far more likely to compare themselves to an IP. Today, they’re a Harry Potter fan. Or a Star Wars fan. Or a Lord of the Rings fan. Which means that they consume that world through multiple platforms – through films, through books, through comics, and through video games.
Does Reflector fill a niche, or is it leading the way in this bigger transformation?
When I started Reflector, I felt that, even though consumers have the evolved towards this way of consuming content, companies had not. Companies still viewed themselves through the lens of what they sold. I felt that this was, in a lot of ways, very similar to the mistake made by Kodak, where Kodak went from being the first, most valuable company in the world in terms of film and pictures, to being bankrupt within a very short amount of time. The reason this happened was because of digital photography. Digital photography essentially made film obsolete. The irony is that digital photography was actually developed by the R&D department at Kodak. They patented the chip that is actually able to transfer images into digital pictures, but then they sold it off. Why? Because it wasn’t part of their main revenue stream, which was film-based cameras. This was the 1970s, when 85% of the cameras purchased were Kodak cameras, and 90% of the film purchased was Kodak film. If Kodak had chosen to identify themselves not as a film company, but as an image company, or a memory company, they would likely still be the 800-pound gorilla in an industry that today is dominated by others. If they had evolved toward digital photography, they might also be making all the stuff that we take for granted today, things like Photoshop, smartphone cameras, and the like.
It seems like a common mistake that doom a lot of companies.
The same thing happened to Blockbuster. Blockbuster should’ve been about getting entertainment to people wherever they were, but they forgot about that. Instead, they were all about brick-and-mortar stores that rented out cassettes and DVDs. The same thing happened to them. Had they aligned themselves properly, they could have become Netflix.
Do you see the same potential for this cycle repeating itself in the entertainment space?
Very much so. Who knows if the traditional film industry, which has focused on movies being released to theatres first, is going to survive COVID, much less the transformation it has been going through in the past decade. The one thing I know for sure is that people are always going to consume audio and visual experiences. So, if companies sort of view themselves as producers of media, if they see themselves as creators of worlds and characters, then maybe that would open new doors.
Reflector values small teams of passionate individuals Courtesy Reflector Entertainment
Reflector is platform agnostic, with something you call “Storyworlds” at the center. Not the other way around, where channels drive the creativity.
That is essentially the concept we developed while working on Assassin’s Creed, and the motivating factor that led me to create Reflector Entertainment. Reflector is precisely as you describe: It’s a company that creates worlds that we call Storyworlds, which we then deploy them across media. One product is no more important than the other. Of course we have our revenue streams, and we have certain products and certain media that we don’t think will make money, but we still believe that these are good vectors for telling stories, and that they enrich the overall IP. These products bring value to the universe that we are creating, whether or not they make money.
What’s going on at Reflector right now?
We’re busy creating our very first Storyworld, which is called Unknown 9. Unknown 9 is a very ambitious universe that we’ve crafted, which is something that I’ve built around an old East Indian mythology. Right now we are busy creating a novel trilogy, a comic book series, a podcast series, and a video game. We’re also developing a film, as well as loads of digital content. And we’re developing an entire digital platform that will host it all.
Please tell me about the teams that you have at Reflector. Are teams critical to the success of these Storyworlds?
That’s an excellent question, because what we do is ultimately all about the people. IP is all about ideas, right? Reflector is built on what comes out of people’s minds. The critical thing is finding the best talent all over the world. I think that one thing that was really important for Reflector from the beginning is that, yeah, we’re based in Montréal, and we have an amazing talent pool of people that are expert video game developers, but we are not limited to that, right? We will find the best possible collaborators, wherever they are. For this reason, we do work with a lot of people that are remote. For example, some of our authors are in Europe, and some of them are in the United States, so the idea of finding the right collaborators is the most critical element.
Another important part of team development is creating a healthy mix of veterans and up-and-coming talent. You’re reassured by bringing in established talent with proven track records, people that you can judge by their work and the projects that they’ve already been through. The newcomers bring fresh ideas and perspectives. It allows us to counterbalance our experienced talent that with the young, up-and-comers that still have a lot of stars in their eyes and think that they can do the impossible. I think it not only rejuvenates the veterans, it also benefits the newcomers, because they benefit from working with veterans who have years of knowledge and expertise. It’s a very symbiotic relationship. This also helps ensure an amazing level of diversity.
Teamwork is essential to success at Reflector Courtesy Reflector Entertainment
How much creative freedom are they given?
Once you get the right people, you can give them a sandbox and let them create. You have to make sure that everything still fits together, and that everything still lines up, but you have to give people the creative freedom that will allow them to shine. When people feel that they’re trusted and have the freedom to express themselves, I think that they will do their best work and transcend even what they thought was possible. For those reasons, trust, creativity, and respect are the pillars that make up Reflector.
Do you see yourself as the conductor of an orchestra?
I think that that is a great analogy. An orchestra has its sections – you have your star violinist in the first chair, and then there are other very talented violinists occupying the other chairs in that section – and these sections have to be perfectly in concert with the other sections in order for the symphony to sound its best. It’s the conductor’s job to unify performers, set the tempo, and control the interpretation and pacing of the music. That’s really what my job is at Reflector. It’s a great analogy.
Creativity output isn’t the same as mass-producing widgets. Do you have to keep that in mind, even with deadlines looming?
Yes, absolutely. Placing undo stress on someone often makes them less creative, so you have to balance the need to finish something on time with the need to get the most out of your team creatively. You have to keep in mind that creativity isn’t something you produce by flipping a switch. Constant, undo pressure can lead to burnout and a loss of creativity. I want my teams to enjoy their work, whether they are developing a book, a video game, or a comic. Passionate, engaged, and motivated teams can achieve far more than the work given to them.
The Assassin’s Creed titles that you helmed at Ubisoft are known for their quality. Now that you’re at Reflector, how do you maintain that same focus on excellence?
It’s important to keep in mind that excellence is something that is very fleeting. It’s something that is almost intangible – you can chase after it, but you never catch it. If you are lucky, and if you chase it with enough passion, energy, and temerity, then I think it’s something that you can sort of touch the edge of. Sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t, but what’s most important is the chase. When I look around this industry, I think a lot of products have become just that – products. In many cases they are good enough, but they don’t exceed expectations. At Reflector, we want to produce transcendent work. I think can only be achieved when you are truly in the pursuit of excellence.
Final Question: If you had one piece of advice for other aspiring creatives, what would that be?
If you are able to keep that sacred fire kindled, and if you have in your mind the that your work is going to be a lifelong pursuit, then I think it’s possible to have long and successful career doing what you love.
Rich Manley is going places, and he wants to take you with him. The more remote the better. He’s made his way through land as flat and featureless as a page without words, he’s scaled the Peruvian Andes at altitude, and he’s chopped his way through jungle so dense it blots out the sun. Today, the desert calls. Thousands of miles spool out behind him. Thousands more lie ahead. The earth spins. The sun rises. Long shadows shrink into puddles of shade beneath his feet. From dawn to dusk, in every direction, the landscape looks the same. The only thing that changes is the angle of the sun. No matter. Manley is as comfortable here as he would be sitting at home, kicked back on his sofa, a cup of his favorite Turkish coffee in one hand, the TV remote in the other. Nevermind that his GPS is a fickle oracle that gives inaccurate distances and leads him miles in the wrong direction. There’s no cause for alarm, no reason to freak out. Drop Rich Manley in the middle of nowhere, with a compass and a map, and the actor/producer/magician/adventurer is not only coming out of the other side unscathed, he’s going to have one helluva time in the process.
That’s where you come in.
Manley, the star of the upcoming series, Culture Shock: Bridging Cultures Through Magic, wants to share these once-in-a-lifetime experiences with you, taking you on journeys ranging from the high mountain caves of Ethiopia, to the sun-washed plains of Namibia, to the backwaters of the Amazon and beyond. Now available on the Tubi Channel, Culture Shock not only follows Manley to some of the planet’s most exotic locales, it immerses you in the indigenous cultures that he encounters along the way. Manley may not speak their language, but he connects with them through the magic and illusions that he learned from his late grandfather. They, in turn, share their unique magic with him.
“Culture Shock isn’t about the magic for magic’s sake,” Manley explains. “It isn’t about the ‘trick.’ It isn’t about, ‘Look at me, I’m trying to fool you.’ This show, at its core, is about communication through magic – energy, humility, compassion, and collective souls coming together. This is a spiritual and cultural coming of age.”
Rich Manley was seemingly born with a backpack, a tent, and a hunger to stay as far as possible from the ever-beaten path. The Concord, Massachusetts native grew up with this passion for adventure thanks, in large part, to his grandfather, a respected surgeon with a distinct Indiana Jones vibe. It was Manley’s grandfather who blazed the trail, traveling the world in search of esoteric medical knowledge and magic, then years later sharing these stories with his grandson. Manley soaked up every detail: Tales of hiking, alone, through sun, wind, rain, and snow, climbing mountains, crossing plains, and sailing across minor seas. He’d sit for hours and listen, his imagination aflame, so much so that he could practically hear the sound of his grandfather’s boots crunching on the treeless tundra, or see the shimmering heat rise up from a parched and dusty road.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
The result is Culture Shock (www.CultureShockMagic.com), Manley’s wild adventure show that’s full of dangerous stunts, exploration, tests of will…and, of course, plenty of magic. All of it germinating from those visits to his grandfather’s study, where he first learned sleight-of-hand and dreamed of one day performing on his own. He was 10 years old at the time, and by his teen years he was doing tricks in front of family, at events, in bars, and even on TV. At the age of 13, Manley started training in Kenpo Karate, receiving his Black Belt in four years (along with teaching status), at his local school. By his late teens, Manley was also into archeology and anthropology, going on digs to uncover Native American artifacts. All of these elements coalesce in Culture Shock.
“I studied and I trained nonstop,” Manley says. “It was a total commitment: body, mind, and spirit. To be able to bring these things to a series like Culture Shock brings everything full circle for me.”
Indeed.
Manley trained extensively and privately with Shaolin monks in those early years, learning Chan Buddhism, Chen and Yang Taiji Chuan, Chi Kung, and Northern Shaolin Kung Fu. All of it setting the stage for what was to come next: Radford University in Virginia, where Manley studied acting, media and sports. That he was able to minor in martial arts was the thing that sealed the deal.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
“That experience really got me to thinking about next steps,” he says. “I was able to make a connection with someone who was connected to Hollywood, and that world was very interesting to me. I’d always had an interest in film and television. The opportunity to be a part if it was exciting.”
Manley soon left Radford to become part of the crew for a pilot called Stars, Stunts, Action – an experience that further motivated him to pursue all forms of entertainment. Before long he made his uncredited feature debut in writer/director John Wells’ drama, The Company Men, which starred Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper and Tommy Lee Jones. That same year, he made his credited debut opposite Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz in director James Mangold’s Knight and Day. From there he’s kept his foot on the gas: Additional feature credits include The Town, Here Comes the Boom, Cowboy Spirit, Bipolar, The Debt Collector, Slay Belles and the upcoming Angel One Eye.
“I’ve had a blast, and I’ve learned something each step of the way.”
It’s hardly surprising that Manley rarely sits still. In addition to Culture Shock, he stars in the upcoming post-apocalyptic series Fallen Cards, and was recently featured opposite Lacey Chabert, James Caan and Lance Henriksen in writer/director Andre Gordon’s Acre Beyond the Rye (based on Manley’s book). Not bad for a guy who happened upon Hollywood almost as if by accident.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
“I think it found me,” he says with a laugh. “I don’t think I could have escaped its grip if I’d tried.”
Culture Shock, it turns out, is the perfect escape.
With COVID completely changing the world as we know it, adventuring with Rich Manley in the Peruvian mountainside is a much-needed elixir for our mental health. Give it a try. Climb through clouds to Machu Picchu, the fabled “lost citadel” that perches incredibly atop a precipitous Andean peak at the edge of dense rainforest. Travel along the Amazon River as it meanders its way to the sweeping Brazilian coastline. Watch Manley share his amazing powers of prestidigitation, dazzling children and adults alike. You’ll not only find the ideal way to detox and destress, you might even find yourself planning an adventure of your own.
And if you happen to encounter a handsome stranger wearing a backpack and sporting a deck of cards, you might want to stop and introduce yourself.
Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.
Let’s talk Culture Shock:Bridging Cultures Through Magic. Where did you get the inspiration?
Culture Shock is a concept that actually started when I was about 10 years old. My grandfather was a surgeon, and he traveled around the world as part of his practice. He would visit with indigenous cultures and learn about their methods used for healing, whether it was the herbal medicines used in Peruvian Amazonia or the spiritual meditation practiced in Tibet. He also loved climbing; he spent time in the mountains of Japan, and he also climbed the Matterhorn in the Swiss Alps, so there was a bit of an Indiana Jones thing going on with him – he even wore a fedora like Indiana Jones. The study in his house was filled with items he’d collected during his travels, which made it feel like you were on the set of Raiders of the Lost Ark. As you might imagine, I couldn’t wait to visit and ask him questions about all of these amazing, faraway places that he had been. He also loved sailing and he loved the ocean, so there were all kinds of mariner’s tools in his study – compasses, nautical charts, astrolabes, chronometers, things like that. It felt like you were in a museum. So, because my grandfather loved adventuring, I think that in turn invoked a sense of adventure in me.
In Culture Shock, you perform magic for indigenous cultures.
That idea also came from my grandfather. Magic was something that he used to do for the people that he met along his travels. He learned magic because, in the 1940s, the medical profession was teaching surgeons to be better with their hands. Finger dexterity was just starting to become very important, so he learned magic to be a better surgeon. I was 10 years old when my grandfather taught me my very first sleight-of-hand trick.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
How do you select the places you visit?
My grandfather left me his journal when he passed away, which details all of the countries and places that he’d visited during his travels. He was very thorough in his journaling; there are notes about where he did magic, and notes on the cultural aspects and the traditions of the people that he visited. So, Culture Shock is based on me receiving my grandfather’s travel journal and retracing his path to all of the countries and all of the remote areas that he visited to meet these people.
The world has changed dramatically since your grandfather’s travels.
The heart of the show is about meeting all of these beautiful, indigenous people, and learning how the modern world is affecting them. We get to learn how they live, and experience their customs and traditions firsthand. It’s an eye-opening experience; some of these people are far happier with absolutely nothing than a lot of us living in First World countries today. In Western society, we have all of these things that make our lives so much easier, from relatively simple things like indoor plumbing to more complex things like cars and computers and smartphones, and yet we’re constantly bogged down by stress and anxiety. The difference is striking, and I think the viewers will see that. The people we meet in Culture Shock have been living the same kind of life for generations. It was awesome to learn about the traditions and oral stories that they’ve passed down for generations, and seeing how these help to keep them close knit and family-oriented.
Where does the first episode of Culture Shock take us? And what will we learn?
We go to Peruvian Amazonia. It was surprising to learn that many of the indigenous people we met not only have their own stories of magic, but that they have their own forms of magic that they practice. There’s an Amazonian shaman who explains that their form of magic is herb-based. While a lot of the plants in the Amazon have been discovered by the Western world, there remain some that are still undiscovered – and these plants could be potentially used to cure cancer and a lot of other diseases that plague us today.
The first episode is fascinating because it shows how some of these different plants can open you up spiritually, making you receptive to knowledge from what they call Pachamama – which is equivalent to our Mother Nature in Western society. In Inca mythology, Pachamama is a fertility goddess who presides over planting and harvesting, embodies the mountains, things like that. She’s an ever-present deity who has her own power to sustain life on this earth. The first episode goes into this, and shows how they use coca leaves to connect to the cosmos, which is what they do on the eastern slopes of the Peruvian Andes. They hold Ayahuasca ceremonies, which is their way of connecting with Mother Nature and Mother Earth. They live their lives based on the messages that they receive from the huacas, which are the spirits of the mountains, and Pachamama, which is Mother Nature.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
Was it hard to overcome the language barrier?
A lot of times it’s tough to communicate with these cultures that I encounter. Thankfully, I get to share a little bit about myself when I do magic. And since magic doesn’t require language, it’s a good way for me to bridge the gap and make a connection. I might go somewhere in remote Peru, where they speak a muddled language that’s a combination of Spanish and their own dialect. Or I might visit a part of Africa, where they speak a Bantu language like Swahili. So, I use magic to break down the language barrier and find common ground. There might be an awkwardness and lack of trust in the beginning, but all of that goes away when I do magic for them. At that point it’s very easy for them to take me in and say, “Okay, we can embrace this person. We can share our traditions and values with him.” Through magic, you begin to see how similar we all are, and that’s really what the show is about.
Culture Shock isn’t a one-sided experience. There seems to be a real symbiotic relationship between yourself and the people you meet.
Very much so. We were in the mountain area of Pitumarca, Peru, where we came upon a Quechua village. These are people who live up in the Andes Mountains, which is at a very high-altitude. They acclimated a long time ago, grow their crops, and survive in a harsh environment. I met a small village family, and I did some magic for them. They had never seen Westernized magic, which is basically sleight-of-hand tricks, and they were fascinated by it. You can see their reactions; they had the hugest smiles on their faces, which you’ll see in the footage when the show comes out. They had a wonderful time, and we did as well. It was just amazing meeting them, and seeing how innocent and pure they were when they smiled.
After doing magic for them, they introduced me to the village shaman. It was such an awesome experience because they performed a ceremony for me, the mountain ritual in which they give thanks to Pachamama – Mother Nature – and the huacas, which are their version of spirits contained in rivers, mountains, and all of the land. This was in the winter months in the Andes Mountains, so the sky was very overcast at the time the mountain shaman prepared the ritual. It was also very cold, with a mixture of snow and rain. He began the ceremony and we all circled around him. I just felt this energy – you could feel the wind blowing, and you knew that something was going on – a calmness, and the presence of something else around us. I won’t get into too much detail about the ceremony because you’ll be able to watch it…but after the ceremony, the clouds actually separated and you could see the blue sky above. I turned to my cohost and one of the other guys in the crew, and we all couldn’t believe what we were seeing. We were equally stunned to think that this ceremony, with the shaman giving thanks to the mountains, could actually clear up the weather that was so overcast and inhospitable just a few moments before. It really put things in perspective. The magic that I do is obviously just a way for me to entertain, have some fun, or make light of the situation. But after experiencing what happened during that ceremony…it convinced me that there really is some form of magic out there.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
How did you learn magic?
The first tricks that I learned were from my grandfather. There is this one trick, where you have a card in your hand, and you make it disappear and reappear. It’s a difficult trick to do if you have small hands, so, being 10, I had to work on it. From there I read books, watched shows about magic, and then developed my own tricks based on the principles and the basics of sleight-of-hand. I really enjoyed watching David Blaine and Criss Angel growing up, so I’d watch their shows.
When did you start performing magic in public?
During my teen years. I worked in restaurants as a server, so I started out by doing magic tricks for the customers. Then, I became a bartender when I was a little older, and I’d do magic for the people there. I just enjoyed going out and doing tricks. I would do a lot of magic.
You’re more of a close-up magician than someone who does the big stage illusions.
Yes. I prefer that kind of setting over the big stage tricks. It goes back to my roots being in sleight-of-hand. Cards are the thing that I’m most comfortable with, but I enjoy taking everyday objects and doing tricks. If I’m at a bar, I might see a salt shaker, so there might be an opportunity to do something with that. Or I might want to do a trick with something that someone has on them, like a ring or a dollar bill. I like the magic to be organic. Nothing to set up. I was never into the bigger stage allusions only because for me, I loved watching them, but I didn’t have a burning desire to perform them. That’s because I prefer a more intimate setting.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
What about street magic?
When you’re doing street magic, you’re performing in a very intimate setting. It’s basically the same thing as if you’re doing close-up magic at a bar or at a restaurant: Everyone’s right there, right in front of you, so the stakes are higher in terms of people seeing what you are doing. You have to control a lot more, and there’s more psychology involved than a lot of people understand. Part of it is managing people – talking to them as you’re performing, keeping their minds occupied while you’re doing the sleights and making the moves. You’re always engaged with the people you’re entertaining: You’re talking to this person. You’re talking to that person. You have to be very aware that someone could come up behind you, or that someone could be standing at just the right angle to see what you’re doing. There’s a different energy that comes with that type of magic. Whereas, if I’m doing magic on a stage, there’s less of a challenge because everything is controlled. I prefer an uncontrolled environment. I want to be able to take a deck of cards, or take a common item off of someone, and then entertain them while all of these other things are going on, and while people are looking at you and trying to figure it out. That has always been fun for me.
You were into archaeology at a young age. How did that influence what you’re doing today?
I started to get into archeology about the same time that I was getting interested in magic, which was around 10 years old, so the two kind of went hand-in-hand. Maybe I liked it so much because I’d always been drawn to Indiana Jones. I was very fascinated with Egypt. The ancient Egyptians actually had their own forms of magic – they would actually do a few tricks that you see today, like tricks with rings, cups, and balls. As I became more interested in Egyptian culture and history, that sparked a lot of my other interests in anthropology throughout the world, such as in Africa, Japan, and Asia. As I got a little older, I started looking into things that I could do locally to enhance my knowledge and understanding of both archaeology and anthropology. Growing up in Massachusetts, there was a lot of Native American activity, so I joined an archaeological society in my later teens. We went on digs in Wayland, Massachusetts, which was really cool because we found all of these different arrowheads and tools. I enjoyed that a lot. I also enjoyed learning the techniques of mapping out what we’d found.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
You went to Radford after graduating from high school. Why Radford?
Growing up, there were three main interests in my life – magic, archaeology/anthropology, and martial arts – so I went to Radford primarily because it offered a program where I could minor in martial arts. I honestly didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life at that point, but I knew that I loved martial arts; I’d spent time training with Shaolin monks from China as a teenager, and at one point I was training eight hours a day – it was all that I was doing with my free time. It helped me mentally, because the meditative effect of doing martial arts, especially Shaolin, which they consider moving meditation, goes hand-in-hand with having that center that permeates into everything else that you do. It also gives you the discipline and the Zen mentality that you experience when you visit different cultures. My time in the martial arts has really helped that regard. It’s given me a better understanding of other people as well, which really helps with a show like Culture Shock.
You weren’t at Radford long before you made the jump Hollywood. Please tell me about that.
While I was at Radford, I met a man named James Houston. He was the owner of a local martial arts school. I met him through Dr. Jerry Beasley, who was my guidance counselor there at Radford. Jerry used to write for Black Belt Magazine, and he’s a member of the Black Belt Magazine Hall of Fame. During the 1980s he worked with Joe Lewis, the legendary, undisputed American heavyweight kickboxing champion, so he’s someone you listen to when he’s giving advice. He told me that I had to talk to this guy, James Houston, who owns this school and who could really help me reach my potential and become a great martial artist.
So I met James, who is a very charismatic and interesting guy. He was always traveling to Hollywood, and at the time he was working on a TV show called Stars Stunts Action, where he would do behind-the-scenes interviews. He’d talk to people about their martial arts, their stunt work, and working in Hollywood as a stunt person. I was fascinated by this whole thing. I said something to the effect of, “Hey, if you have any openings, I’d like to come along…” So he hired me as a production assistant, and I moved to Hollywood and started meeting people in the stunt and martial arts worlds.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
Did you think it would lead you to where you are today?
I was enamored by the whole Hollywood scene. I didn’t know where it would lead, but I knew that I needed to trust my instincts. In my head I said, “Hey, maybe I can use the martial arts skills that I have to do martial arts in movies.” I was willing to do whatever I could find, whether that was stunts or acting roles. And I was still doing magic. I was invited to a lot of Hollywood parties, so I would do magic for people at the parties. That was the start of me saying, “I want to use my magic and martial arts skills and see where these take me.”
Like an upcoming movie project! Please tell me about Acre Beyond the Rye.
Acre Beyond the Rye is a film based on a book that I wrote. After I finished it, I brought it to a friend of mine who’d self-published a couple of books. He took a look at what I wrote, really liked it, and offered to take a pass at my draft. He immediately dived in and did some rewrites, at which point we put our names on it jointly as co-authors, and then he went through his publisher to publish the book. That was the easy part. Making a movie was something that I’d always wanted to do, but it’s not something that can be done in a vacuum. For that reason, there was a period of time early on when I wasn’t ready to make Acre Beyond the Rye. Besides, when I first came to Hollywood, I was auditioning to get into someone else’s projects rather than making my own projects. But then I started meeting individuals in the business: I got a job at Paramount, and I also worked as a script supervisor and writer for another company, so I used those experiences to network and build my contact list.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
How were you able to take a self-published book and land a movie deal? Especially one that stars James Caan?
Oddly enough, my big break came while I was doing magic tricks at an L.A. sushi restaurant. I was doing magic for the sushi chefs, and this guy came over and introduced himself. His name is Barry Bernstein. He said that my sleight-of-hand was really good, and that he managed a lot of magicians, guys like Max Maven. He explained that he was an accountant, and then he asked me if I needed one, which I did. That was how we became friends. Before long he learned that I had ideas for all of these movies I wanted to make, including Acre Beyond the Rye, but that I didn’t have the financial means to make it happen. I had all of my contacts from my time at Paramount; I had all of my contacts that I’d met through James; and I had all of my contacts that I had through the other productions that I’d worked on. I just didn’t have the financial backing for a film, and I didn’t have a clue how to set up my own production company. Barry helped with that. We started out doing some other smaller projects, but I eventually got back to Acre Beyond the Rye, and wrote the script based on the book. Once we had a script, we used my contacts from Paramount to find a producer, a director, and all of the other pieces that we needed to make the film. We were able to put together an amazing cast, headlined by James Caan and Lacey Chabert. Barry jumped in and helped raise the money that we needed. He eventually became the executive producer, so my accountant is now my business partner.
What can you tell me about Fallen Cards?
Fallen Cards, was the first project out of the production company that I started with Barry. I actually started writing Fallen Cards while I was still at Paramount – I’d work on it when I had free time in my office. They say that you should write what you know, so I created a story of based on a magician who is also a martial artist as well. It’s set in a Mad Max, post-apocalyptic world. I spent a lot of time writing that screenplay. Like Acre Beyond the Rye, we didn’t have a lot of funding for it, so I took it upon myself to really raise money with Barry. When it came time to cast, I went out to my contacts… I knew all of these funny guys, guys like Kevin Farley, who is Chris Farley’s brother. I called up Brandon Morale, who is a good friend and who has been in a bunch of films with Adam Sandler. Even though they were primarily known for comedy, I thought it might be interesting to see them in a serious role.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
What was it like putting this film together?
I wore a lot of hats. I would run all over town; one minute I’d go to the prop houses and pack my car with everything needed for a particular shoot, the next I’d be packing my car with service food to feed that cast and crew. Kevin Farley looked at me one day and said, “You’re acting in this film, you’re doing the martial arts, your bringing everyone their food, you’re pickup up the props. How in the hell are you doing everything?” I just said that I’m going to do whatever it takes to get the ball rolling. The funny thing about it is that the more that I invested my time and energy to make it happen, the more people responded to it. Pretty soon we had the funding for it. I think that’s the way it is a lot of times. If you want to do something worthwhile then you just go for it. If there is value in it – if it’s a good idea and a good product – then I think people will get behind it and the resources will come. They will want to be a part of it, and word spreads and others want to be a part of it, too. That’s what happened in the case of Fallen Cards.
Let’s look ahead. What’s next for Rich Manley?
Everything is up for speculation due to COVID. With Culture Shock, we were ready to visit Madagascar and shoot an episode there when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Hopefully the situation will improve and we’ll be able to pick that back up in April, 2021. I picked this particular place because it was actually a utopia for pirates back in the 1700s. We’re going to go there and explore shipwrecks, and then go inland in search of a lost pirate colony called Libertalia. We also have a trip lined up for Greenland, and also one for Rwanda, which we’re very excited about. So the plan is to go to those countries and film those three episodes for Culture Shock.
Photo Courtesy Rich Manley
You’re living your dream. If you had one piece of life advice, what would that be?
You have to follow what you love doing. I love magic; I love martial arts; I love culture and history. Because I’ve followed what I love, and because I’ve kept pushing forward, I’ve been able to do some things that I never thought I’d get to do. So follow what you love, keep doing it, and don’t give up.
