We recently connected with Ben Bladon and have shared our conversation below.

Ben, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I didn’t seriously consider a career path as an actor as a viable alternative until way later in life. That was something that in L.A. and New York did, and I never saw myself living in either one of those places, so it was never very realistic to me. I don’t have a theater background or anything like that. In my 20s and 30s, I became a vocalist in various punk rock bands (most fleeting, but one band was together here in Atlanta for over a decade). I never made any money from it, but it shows that I’ve always had a performer in me. When I was born, I suffered from neurological birth defects that made me severely lacking in motor coordination among other things., which in my teenage years, made me feel like I never fit in with anybody else, which led to depression, an ultimately a pretty bad drinking problem. I would eventually meet friends who taught me to embrace not fitting in with other people, which not only made a huge impact, but practically defines who I am today, but by that time it was too late and I was already on the path to being an alcoholic. I would spend the next chapter of my life hanging with friends, singing in my band, and taking whatever dead end job I could get to keep my head above water. Flash forward to 2012. I’m 40 years old and I finally make the serious decision that it was time to get sober. After a couple of months of self appointed rehab and getting over the physical withdrawals, I decided it would be a good idea to throw myself into a situation where I could meet new people and making new connections. No sooner had I thought that, than I look at my laptop and see a post about auditions for the Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse , a huge haunted attraction here in Atlanta. I went on to play several characters for them (I see it as my first attempt at theater) for the next couple of years. I was completely oblivious to the fact that the Hollywood industry was branching out and moving here at first, then in my second year of the AZA, people started suggesting to me that I try out to play zombies on the Walking Dead, which I did, and went on to work on the show for 4 seasons (season 5-8’. I went on to do extra work on other shows as well. In 2015, I got hired as a featured extra on Constantine the tv series, where I played a possessed corpse, which was 4 hours in the makeup chair. The director liked my performance so much that he upgraded me to principal actor for that episode, and I got my first taste of the rewards of acting on a big union production. I continued to do extra work and creature work whenever I could , until I got hired on on an Adult Swim show called Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell. I was hired as background, but on that show, being BG required a lot of physical comedy, which they liked so much, they gave me a scene with speaking lines, which led to another scene with speaking lines, and by the next seasons, I was considered an actual character on the show recurring in 6 episodes. That experience showed me that I had what it took to be an actual actor, now the question became how do I get the big casting directors to see it. So, I took some of the money I had made from the last season of YPF and invested it in acting classes, which led to me getting signed to Privilege Talent Agency, which led me to where I am now

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I am a character actor, or an actor hired to portray unique characters in TV and film. I apparently have a unique look in general, plus I have no aversion to wearing heavy SPFX makeup and prosthetics, so that works out nicely. What I am most proud of, I can’t talk about yet because they haven’t been released, so I will default back to my time on Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell, and to a show called Florida Girls because it’s probably the performance driven thing I’ve done, besides these productions I can’t talk about yet. I am proud that I was deemed good enough to be booked on shows like Ozark, Cobra Kai, Stranger Things, and NCIS: New Orleans but those were mostly one scene, one or two line jobs., which was amazing, but of course I’m going to be more proud of the bigger performances

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Even though it still happened relatively quickly, I can say that I wish I had spent less time just doing extra work, hoping I would be discovered, and realized that in order to actually be an actor, I was going to have to take acting classes. I know now that training is essential to being competitive in this highly competitive industry, and I wish I had realized that a little bit sooner, instead of spending a year or two thinking I could get by on natural talent. I take all my classes at Drama Inc here in Atlanta, and I would highly recommend them to any beginning and aspiring actor

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Acting is not easy, and it’s not just luck. In fact it can be one of the most High stress jobs I’ve ever done, but the rewards greatly outweigh the stress

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @theamazingbenbladon
• Facebook: @characteractorben

Image Credits
1. The Walking Dead 2. Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell 3. Constantine 4. Cobra Kai 5. Stalked Within 6. Ozark