Zombies: A Success Story

Anonymous — Wed, 01 Mar 2017 12:14:00 +0000

Zombies: A Success Story Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 03/01/2017 - 05:14

Kurt Anthony Krug

Ross Marquand, far left, on the set of The Walking Dead.

Ross Marquand (Thtr’04) was about to give up on Hollywood.

“I was at the end of my rope,” said the 35-year-old actor (top left), reflecting on the summer of 2014. “After about 10 years of living in L.A. and trying to make it work, it just dawned on me that it might not happen.”

He’d appeared in independent and short films, had a role in Mad Men, playing Paul Newman in a 2013 episode, and done a lot of voice-over work. But a career-making role eluded him and he planned to try his luck in New York theater.

Then Marquand got a call about auditioning for a zombie apocalypse show, AMC’s The Walking Dead — the highest-rated TV series in cable history. About a week later, on his birthday, he was cast.

“It’s really changed my life,” said Marquand, an Eagle Scout who grew up in Littleton, Colo., and also counts mountain climbing and firearms among his skills, some of which come in handy on the set of The Walking Dead.

The blockbuster show, based on a comic book series of the same name, is about regular humans trying to survive a zombie apocalypse. Marquand joined the cast in season five as Aaron, an openly gay former NGO worker in Africa who tries to recruit fellow survivors to a safe zone.

Now in its seventh season, with an eighth planned, the character-rich drama is conspicuously gory, a selling point for hordes of viewers: More than 21 million tuned in for the current season’s premiere.

So far, Marquand has appeared in more than 30 episodes. The resulting notoriety has expanded the audience for his spot on impressions of some of Hollywood’s most famous actors. After Vanity Fair magazine published a video called “Nanoimpressions with Ross Marquand,” in which Marquand impersonates Matthew McConaughey, Kevin Spacey, Al Pacino, Michael Caine and others doing everyday things, he found himself performing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

Kevin Spacey himself has singled out Marquand’s impression of him as top-notch.

The impressions are funny, but The Walking Dead is primarily a drama — the sort in which heads are bashed, throats ripped out and entrails on display.

In the controversial seventh season opener, two beloved characters meet their end in a graphic scene at the hands of another (baseball-bat-wielding) human survivor named Negan, underscoring one of the show’s themes — that in the post-apocalyptic zombie world, survivors can be bigger threats than zombies.

“I certainly understand people’s feelings, and I think it’s good that they have strong feelings,” said Marquand. “It means we’re doing our jobs — people are actually feeling connected to these characters, and when two of their favorites are killed off, it affects them. I think that’s wonderful.”

Of fans who found the scene too much to stomach, “we hope we can win them back as the season goes on,” Marquand said, “because I will say that this season is the strongest yet.”

Outside The Walking Dead, Marquand has been sampling what else showbiz now has to offer. A fellow Walking Dead actor, Danai Gurira, cast him in her play, Familiar, for its 2015 world premier at the Yale Repertory Theater. He’s provided the voice of Han Solo for the video game Star Wars: Trials on Tatooine. (He does a mean impersonation of Harrison Ford, who plays Han Solo in the movies.) Other projects are in the works.

Marquand is meanwhile settling into his new measure of fame, “a bit of a shock” at first, he said. “Now it’s a part of my life and you just have to roll with it.”

Overall, success has been a welcome door-opener.

“It’s great to have to go from almost being $40,000 in debt to being on this massive behemoth of a show and having opportunities sent to you,” he said.

Freelancer Kurt Anthony Krug is based in Michigan.

Photos courtesy Ross Marquand

For actor Ross Marquand, a certain zombie apocalypse has been a career-maker.

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Actor Christopher Meloni

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 14:15:00 +0000

Actor Christopher Meloni Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/01/2014 - 07:15

Clay Evans

Character study

With his steely blue eyes, sculpted Italian features and brawny physique, let’s just say actor Christopher Meloni (Hist’83) doesn’t have much to worry about in the looks department.

No, it’s no surprise that People magazine named the long-time star of television’s Law & Order: Special Victims Unit one of its Sexiest Men Alive in 2006. Whether he’s playing quarterbacks or psychopaths, cops or vampires, “hot” seems to be a common denominator — though there was this one time when his agent called…Aco

“He said, ‘I’ve got an offer for you. It’s four days of work and it will take you four hours of prosthetic makeup.’ That really intrigued me,” Meloni says by phone from Hollywood. “Then he said the character’s name was Freakshow and I was like, ‘That’s absolutely perfect, I don’t even need to read the script.’”

And so a Hollywood sex symbol came to play one of the most hideous film characters in recent memory, the dermatologically challenged, frazzle-haired, backwoods denizen in two over-the-top Harold and Kumar comedies.

Of course, nobody could tell it was Meloni under all that latex, and Freakshow is just one small — disgusting — data point in a career that includes not just success on network TV, but also on the big screen and in some of cable’s hottest series, including “Oz,” “True Blood” and “Veep.”

The actor, 53, grew up in Washington, D.C., and came to CU-Boulder hoping to “experience America from a different perspective.” He says he began learning his craft both through acting classes and by keeping his eyes open.

“CU was definitely the first place where I got a chance to really study people, how they interact and react,” he says. “There was a lot of quality people watching.”

After graduation he studied with legendary acting coach Sanford Meisner in New York while supporting himself working in construction and as a bouncer and fitness coach. He began to pick up commercial work and in 1984 was cast as an ex-con quarterback in HBO’s first sitcom, 1st and Ten.

Meloni came to prominence with his visceral portrayal of bisexual psychopath Chris Keller in the 1998-2003 HBO prison drama “Oz.” It made him an icon in the gay community.

In his best-known role, he played the complex, not-quite-by-the-book Det. Elliot Stabler alongside Mariska Hargitay in Law & Order. He left the show in 2011.

“Doing 12 years of something that great on national TV was rewarding,” he says. “I think it was also pretty important to be on a show that resonated with sexual crime. … In certain ways it opened up dialogue for people to confront or discuss that sort of thing.”

Meloni’s recent work includes starring with Shailene Woodley in 2014’s White Bird in a Blizzard, the FOX network comedy Surviving Jack, and his recurring role in the popular supernatural cable series True Blood.

As for what’s next, the actor says you never know when the next Detective Stabler (or Freakshow) will come along.

“You can do all the planning and wishing you want, but at the end of the day you read what’s on the page,” he says. “If you are lucky enough to have your imagination sparked, you know exactly how to fit into that world.”

Photography courtesy Christopher Meloni

With his steely blue eyes, sculpted Italian features and brawny physique, let’s just say actor Christopher Meloni (Hist’83) doesn’t have much to worry about in the looks department.

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