For those of you who are fans of the CW’s Beauty and the Beast you are in for a real treat. I got to talk to actor Austin Basis who plays JT Forbes on the People’s Choice Award winning show. In this interview Austin talks about some of his favorite things about playing JT, what superpowers would he and JT pick, what fans of Beauty and the Beast can look forward to this season, along with letting us know his geeky side by telling us his favorite comic book movies!

Austin was kind enough to take the time for this interview and was a lot of fun to chat with. Check it out!

First off, congratulations on the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Sci-Fi Fantasy Show.

Thank you!

What is one of your favorite things about playing JT Forbes on Beauty and the Beast?

One of my favorite things is getting to have the awesome one-liners that the writer’s write and I am lucky in that respect. Another character, Tess (played by Nina Lisandrello), also gets some zingers, but I feel like JT maybe unfairly gets a lion share of awesome one-liners that kind of stand out in the show as a word or phrase that people will remember. It’s always fun to kind of challenge myself to try and say it in as many different ways as possible, but also try to get the most funny out of the line in a way that doesn’t violate the reality or the circumstance that we’re trying to portray in the world of Beauty and the Beast.

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It’s kind of hard not to enjoy an interview when you get to talk about Indiana Jones, superpowers, and Boba Fett mugs. Recently I had the pleasure of conducting a very fun interview with actor Steve Lund who will be appearing in the upcoming show Bitten. Lund will be playing the character Nick, a werewolf who is a fun loving guy and runs his own bar. In this interview Lund talks about his character on Bitten, how Indiana Jones inspired him to become an actor, his thoughts on the meanings behind different superpowers, and his favorite comic book movie.

It was a lot of fun chatting with Lund and you guys should definitely check him out. After the interview we geeked out a bit over how much fun conventions can be. Yes, he is pretty cool.

How is it you got into acting?

Well I always wanted to be an actor when I was really young. I always tell people that Indiana Jones was the reason why I got started, hence my Skype name (his Skype handle is an awesome reference to that character).

It’s a very awesome Skype name, by the way.

Thank you! I always like to do weird names with these usernames. Sometimes I feel it would be too generic to use my name. I don’t know, I just try to get a little creative. They’re misinterpreted a lot of the time, but I don’t care. (Laughs). Anyways, when I was really young I was dressing up like Indiana Jones every single day. I’d go to the mall and I’d have the whip, I had the hat, I had the gun, I had a man purse that I’d put stones into and relics and whatever I would find. That was it for me. I was telling people that I was going to be an actor. You know when you’re a small kid and you don’t have a lot of knowledge of what a career path is and somebody asks you what you want to be and you say, “Oh, I want to be an astronaut,” or, “a doctor.” I said I wanted to be an actor. It’s pretty cool twenty years later to be able to still say that.

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In our geek loving community, we know (and love!) Sean Astin for his portrayal of Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings movie trilogy — or if we go more ‘old school’, we know him as Mikey from The Goonies! Sean is now rallying for our support for his online radio show, Vox Populi, where he hosts a forum for open discussion on politics, government and world events. His show welcomes every view point and encourages growth and learning as a community. Now, he is taking the show on the next phase with a Kickstarter campaign and he wants to reach his second goal within a few days to bring more content for the show.

Check out our interview with him below!

What has been the most inspiring aspect of your first season on Vox Populi for you and what are you hoping will continue on to the next season?

Truth be told, I’ve had the vision for this forum for so long, just getting to sit in the saddle and enjoy modeling an aggressively curious and always respectful tone. Hitting that note was enthralling for me.
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I recently was lucky enough to interview male actor and stuntman Alain Chanoine who can be seen in the upcoming horror comedy flick Evil Feed. The movie will premiere October 23rd at the 2013 Toronto After Dark Film Festival, so if you’re in the area make sure to check it out! In this interview Alain talks about his character Tyrone, who sounds like a total badass, what it’s like to do stunt work and acting, what it was like to prepare for the roll, how he’s a martial arts geek, and how he’s totally psyched about the upcoming Ninja Turtles movie.

Alain has an optimistic attitude that is infectious and it was a lot of fun chatting with him. Make sure to check out Evil Feed and Alain’s other projects.

What inspired you to become an actor?

I always wanted to be. When I was a kid I always loved movies, I always wanted to be an artist, and I was in theater production in high school, but I never actually thought back then that it was how I was going to make a living. With some kind of weird story I just kind of ended up in the business, but it was kind of always meant to be.

What led you into stunt work?

I have been doing martial arts since I was eleven and my teacher, Jean Frenette, was a stunt coordinator and a stunt man and I always wanted to do it too. It’s funny because I wanted to be an actor first, so I got into the business and saw a lot of people doing stunts and thought, “I can do this, I want to do this.” I just ended up going for it too. My transition was from actor to stuntman, but I’m an actor first. I really love stunts and it’s a great profession.

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I recently had the pleasure of interviewing actor, director, producer, and personal trainer Adyana de la Torre to promote her current project Gymnos: A Geek’s Tragedy. Gymnos is a play currently showing at New York City’s HERE until October 6th, so if you’re on the East Coast make sure to check it out! In this interview Adyana talks about the play, what it’s like to combine her passions of fitness and performing, the process of being a director and an actor in the same project, and she lets her geek side out by talking about her favorite comic book movies.

It was so much fun chatting with Adyana. She has such a passion for what she does and listening to her talk about her work was a total delight. Check out the interview below for all the fun details!

What led you into your passion for fitness and for being a performer?

As far as fitness goes I was a dancer ever since I was a kid and right out of college, aside from teaching dance and drama, I started working at gyms. I was a sales rep then I worked at the juice bar and all of the facets at a gym. I loved working out and one of the nutritionists who worked at the gym said, “You’re really good with people and I know you love working out, so you might as well become a trainer.” So I did! I got my certification, I started teaching classes, and so I’ve been a trainer and a fitness instructor for about ten years now. As far as performing, I went to college for musical theater and I’ve always sort of known that it was in me and that it would be an intregal part of my life. I’ve been directing and producing shows with a theater company up here in New York for almost two years now. I’ve been around it all of my life.

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Recently I was lucky enough to conduct an interview with actor and filmmaker Denis Theriault who can be seen in the upcoming film All the Wrong Reasons playing an overzealous assistant manager named Radley Weil. The film All the Wrong Reasons will be premiering at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival. Denis, along with being an actor, is also a writer and director and his short film Sibling Rivalry will be premiering at this year’s Atlantic Film Festival. It was a lot of fun listening to Denis talk about his love for movies because he clearly has a lot passion and respect for film and the filmmaking process. Chatting with him was an absolute delight and if we’re lucky we’ll be seeing more of his work in the future.

In this interview Denis talks about what inspired him to become an actor, his love for filmmaking, what it’s like to transition from acting to directing, and his dream role. Check it out, guys!

What inspired you to become an actor?

Oh, what inspired me? As a kid I wasn’t a huge sports person, but my dad was. He was a carpenter, he plays hockey, he used to play tennis, like he’s a big sports guy, and he’s not so much into the arts. The one thing my dad and I bonded over is that we would go to at least two movies at the theater together a week. It was the thing my dad and I did together, so I think that was kind of the seed of it, of how it started. As a kid I did a lot of theater, but when I got interested in film and TV it was from that, going to the movies. It sounds so cliché to say it, but movies are magic. Everything that’s involved in movies, the process from the beginning stages, and the fact that they wind up becoming fully formed films. They’re miracles. So I think that’s where it started, my dad taking me to see movies, and then I started to make my own short films. The first time I made them I think I was eight or nine. I just used the family 8mm camcorder and made my movies. I literally edited them by filming, putting it into a VCR, pressing pause, like editing the film onto a VHS. That’s how I would edit. I guess that’s how I started my love affair with movies and then I booked my first TV part when I was fourteen.

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Recently I had the pleasure of conducting an interview with male actor Chad Connell who can be seen in the upcoming movie The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones playing fan favorite character, the Blue Haired Demon. In this interview Chad talks about what inspired him to become an actor, the process of landing the role of the Blue Haired Demon, or “Bluey” as a fan has named him, what it was like to play him, and where the inspiration for Bluey’s look came from. He also lets his geek side out by talking about some of the things he likes to geek over, along with talking about his dream role and other projects. If you’re a member of “Bluey’s Army” then you’re in a for a real treat. For the record, Chad is very sweet and it was a lot of fun chatting with him. Make sure to check him out in City of Bones and his other projects!

What inspired you to become an actor?

I started on stage at a really young age. I remember doing a recital where I was Hercules and I was three years old. I was the only boy which was pretty big. I had a big ring because Hercules had a ring and it picked up the light, and there were fifteen or sixteen girls dancing around me and my chest was out to here. At three I think that sort of set the stage, so to speak, to make me crave that type of attention. It developed from there and when I was about eleven I got heavily into community theater and that sort of stuff. I played Oliver and that was another moment of, “Hey everyone, look at me!” I was like a minor celebrity in the middle school world that I was growing up in.

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Recently I was lucky enough to conduct an interview with charming female Canadian actor Kate Drummond. Kate plays Technical Operations Manager Anna ‘Grim’ Grímsdóttir in the video game Splinter Cell: Blacklist. We conducted most of the interview over Skype and before the interview officially began she showed me her Splinter Cell mug that displayed the image of Sam Fisher when hot coffee is poured into it. Pretty cool, right? In this interview Kate talks about Grim, what it was like to act for a video game, her online cooking show, the incredible story of what inspired her to pursue an acting career, and her passion for working with children. She also shows her geeky side by talking about why Iron Man is her favorite superhero.

It was such a pleasure chatting with her and it’s one of the few times I felt like I was having a conversation with an old friend. She also totally channeled Grim during our interview and handled a situation when we were starting to have technical difficulties. Frankly, Kate’s pretty awesome.

Tell me about your character Grim in Splinter Cell.

Well, she’s the Technical Operations Manager of Fourth Echelon. She does all the analyzing, all the data, getting all the information to Sam while he’s on the field. She’s a really skilled hacker and super smart and super by the book. She’s a woman in a man’s world and so she’s one of the guys in a way which I love about her. I grew up with an older brother and all his friends and I was five years younger. I was always so excited to be a part of their group and hang out with them and play road hockey. I grew up as a tomboy, so I feel that Grim has that sort of strength and a sort of presence that she’s able to command in the Fourth Echelon because she has those skills and a strong opinion on those sorts of things.

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