Acting in and making good films, photography, graphic arts and design, art direction, painting, and generally hanging out with people who don't try to impress me with stories about the good old days. Bad stories and scripts that "borrow" heavily from other scripts...well, I won't even go there...you know what I mean. Great art, photography, literature, architecture, music and films interest me and the creative process in man is an incredible legacy to leave to the earth long after we're gone.
Anyone that has something interesting to say and to contribute either creatively or constructively... I would like to meet the Dalai Lama some day. Wouldn't mind running into these people also: Spielberg, Lucas, Spike Lee, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Terrance Howard, Forest Whittaker, Johnny Depp, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchette, Helen Mirren, Peter O'Toole, Jack Nicholson, Frank Gehry, Tarrantino, Scorcese, Robin Williams, John Cleese and the The Monty Python Players, George Carlin, Jonathan Winters, (where the hell is he anyway?), Bob Newhart, Bill Murray, David Carradine, BB King, Brubeck, Ray Bradbury, Winton Marsalis, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Willie Nelson, Annie Lebovitz, Jerry Seinfeld,...mostly, people who haven't sold out.
Mozart to Miles...Jazz, Classical, Latin/Salsa, movie scores by Jerry Goldsmith, Jerry Bernstein, John Barry, Copland, Stravinsky, Tchaikovsky, Ives, Leonard Bernstein... anything by Cal Tjader, Pancho Sanchez, Woody Herman, The Count, early Satchmo, Sinatra, Brubeck, The Duke, Stan Kenton, Santana, The Beatles, Herbie Hancock, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Moody Blues, Doobie Brothers, ELO, The Eagles, Chicago, BB King, Ray Charles, Keb Mo, Quincy Jones, Willie Nelson, Van Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Clapton, Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan... a really good polka and a stirring Sousa march perks me up now and then, especially since my grandfather, Daniel, played with Sousa occasionally, back in the really old days in Chicago... Look these people up...it's important...they don't make 'em like this anymore, folks.HERE'S MY EVER-CHANGING ACTOR'S REEL BELOW...
I prefer old classics preferably, since I'm an old classic too... Films by Kubrick, David Lean, Scorcese, Cassavetes, Bergman, Fellini, Hitchcock and of course, Orson... my man. If you don't know any of these film-makers, you are totally out of touch and you should be thrashed within an inch of your life. I've been fortunate to have been cast in several Indie and feature films such as: Nothing But The Truth, Walk the Line, Soulmen, The Open Road, Forty Shades of Blue, Rookie Bookie, OMG/HaHaHa, 100 Lives, Tricks, Curbside Confessions, EAT, The Garden, Lovely by Surprise, Chance Encounters, Streaker, Rommels' Crossroads, Cherry Blossom and Evil In The Woods, among others... Local Memphis film-makers like J. Lazarus Hawk, (Rising Fyre Productions), Morgan Fox, (Sawed Off Collaboratory Films), and his incredibly dedicated staff at the Media Co-op, Ken Axmaker, (Last Train To Memphis), Arnold Edwards ll, (Cowboy Up Productions), and John Sparks have my respect for the contributions they've made to the film community. The LiveFromMemphis duo of Sarah and Chris are astounding in their dedication to music, film, and photography and art.I've completed six short five minute films called, "The Ancient One," "George and Martha," "What's Brewin" Craig?" "Yer Anus in the A.M," "Elvis Schmelvis," and "I Resolve," which I wrote and directed and were accepted for the 2006/7 Memphis L'il Film Festivals... "Yer Anus" is probably not for young viewers since the language is a little rough...sorry, just trying to make a point here...check out my new short called, "Our Attic." You can also view these films on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=donactmanMy IMDB address is: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0583526/
Productions like, "Rescue Me," "24," "The Shield," "Nip/ Tuck," "Deadwood," "The Sopranos," "The Tudors," get my respirator pumping...productions that take a chance and make a stand instead of most of the drek that makes up what's on TV these days. I've appeared in TV Commercials and Industrials for Hollywood, Horseshoe and Grand Casinos in MS, 1st Nat'l Bank of Oxford-MS, Hot Springs Retirement Village-AR, Baptist Hospital, Bank of Bartlett, Hampton Inns-Intern'l, Med. Group of Oklahoma State University, The Medical Science Clinical Studies Group at UT, Blue Cross-Blue Shield of MS, BankCorp, South-Memphis and Bank of America.
Non-fiction mostly: Classical and modern art, art/music history, film and photography books...Civil war history, aviation history, archeology, Egyptology, Roman history, architectural history, Jazz history. Biographies of George Washington, Ben Franklin and Old Abe...people who shaped our country. I do like a lot of science fiction, especially stories like "October Country," and "Dandelion Wine," by Ray Bradbury, most anything by Arthur C. Clarke, (The Sentinel), Michael Crichton, (Coma and the The Sphere), Isaac Asimov, (I Robot), and Philip K. Dick, (Bladerunner.)
I'll reserve the hero category for my mom and dad and my grandparents, but I would have given up my Playboy magazine collection to have had conversations with Frank Lloyd Wright, Vincent Van Gogh, Salavador Dali, Monet, Picasso, Jackson Pollack, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, Andy Warhol, Gertrude Stein, Ayn Rand, Ghandi, Georgia O'Keefe, Kurasawa, Ingmar Bergman, Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Plato, Jesus, Orson Welles, Lawrence Olivier, Vivian Leigh, Alec Guiness, Stan Kenton, Mozart, H.G. Wells, Dostoyevski, Stravinski, Satchmo, John Phillip Sousa, Napolean, Freud, Ansel Adams, Saul Bass, Andrew Wyeth, John Lennon, Jack Kerouac, John Belushi, John Candy, Lenny Bruce, John Wayne, Clark Gable, Stanley Kubrick, Peter Sellers, Betty Davis, Mae West, The Marx Brothers, Katherine Hepburn, Hitchcock, John Ford, Cary Grant, Judy Garland, Stan and Laurel, W. C. Fields, Bogart, Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, Honest Abe, Harry Truman, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Jack and Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy, Howard Hughes, Buckminster Fuller, Martin Luther King, MacArthur, Patton, Edward R. Murrow, Walter Payton, Johnny Cash, Gayle Sayers, and countless others who have my everlasting respect and admiration and of course, who I will add to this growing list.