We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ian Coleman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ian below.

Ian, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

The most meaningful project so far has been the short film No Dogs. My friend Georgina Tolentino who I met in acting class at Howard Fine Studio pulled me into the project when she first started working on it. It was amazing to be a part of the process from the beginning and see all of the work that went into it. The short is based in Filipino American history about the race riots that happened in Watsonville, CA in the 1930’s. It is a dark and complex piece that really found a lot of support among the community, so Georgina was able to pull an amazing team together to work with us on it. We spent a long time preparing for it and then had one wild night of filming during covid in early 2021. It’s so hard to tell along the way what any project is going to end up being. You hope for the best on each and every one. With No Dogs we achieved a truly amazing short film that brought us to many festivals where we won quite a number of awards including Best Short Film, Best Director, Best Actress, and two Best Supporting Actor awards for myself, as well as more recognition for the film and team as well. Through the journey I made a lot of new friends, ate a lot of great Filipino food and learned quite a lot about certain areas of history and culture as well. It was an amazing experience that built many lasting friendships and taught me a lot about success as a creative.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I grew up at a small school in Vermont where my parents ran the Organic farm that grew food for the school. Thinking back, I am quite happy that I grew up with that rural childhood, climbing mountains, mountain biking through the woods, fishing, exploring places that were perfect for a wild imagination, studying the stars, playing in the snow and enjoying thunderstorms. I grew up with a deep appreciation of good food and the natural world. I enjoyed the theatrical pursuits that I had access to in school and was always drawn to singing, dance, gymnastics and martial arts. I took some acting classes and performed in plays and musicals and there was a brief period of time after high school where I thought about pursuing acting in New York, but the decision didn’t take shape until much later. When I first knew that I really wanted to pursue an artistic path professionally was when my mother died at the end of 2011. She passed away at 64 of a rare degenerative disease after quite a number of difficult years of decline. That was the first time in my life that I was really faced with death and with the finite and unpredictable nature of life. My mother was someone who ate healthfully and lived a good active life, so her illness and death were shocking. At the time I was working full time in IT, I always had a passion for and fascination with technology and fell into the work. A few years after my mother’s illness was discovered I started acting again in local community theatre and from the first 10-minute play festival I was hooked, performing in one play or musical after another, as well as hosting a trivia night for a number of years as well. Whatever creative avenues I could find. It was a hard thing wishing my mother could see me really doing something that I loved, though by then she was too sick and was living at my grandmothers in Pittsburgh. By the time my mother passed away I had been acting again for two years. After she passed, I had some decisions to make. Did I want to continue down the career path I had been on? I knew I wasn’t really happy and when I thought ahead 30 or more years until retirement, it felt like I was putting off happiness until a future that I may not even live to see or may not be in good enough health to enjoy. I’d felt a different calling for a long time, so I finally made the choice to take the risk and pursue a creative life.
My training and experience have been quite varied. While working in IT, I found an acting teacher, Richard Waterhouse who had moved from LA to Vermont with his husband. I started training with Richard while dipping my toes into the search for more professional work. I earned my first creative dollar during that time acting in the play Gross Indecency in 2013 for the Randolph, VT Pride Festival. It wasn’t much but it was something and it meant a lot that my teacher, Richard, recommended me for the production. We had two weeks to get ready and I was playing 4 different characters each with different accents, so it was truly a trial by fire and a great experience. David G. Zak, the director from Chicago, was wonderful to work with and we all had a lot of fun pulling it together.
Wanting to travel during my transition I completed an 8-month course at the New York Film Academy in Australia and during that time I was praised by my teachers for my work ethic as I completed the full curriculum as well as performing in close to 35 short and student films during the evenings and weekends. I’ve had a number of trials by fire and that work ethic has gotten me through. Over the years I have trained in many different acting techniques, voiceover, singing, dance, screenwriting, stunts, weapons, motion and performance capture and everything that I’ve had the opportunity to do, as well as the projects that I’ve worked on along the way, where I learned something from each one. Early on I heard someone say that we each develop our own technique, taking pieces from here and there and that has definitely been true for me. Some classes helped more than others, though all were learning experiences as I continue to find and refine what works best for me and all these experiences helped to build the community I have today.
My friend Richard Scott and I have also started our own production company, Endless Imagination Productions, and are working on producing our first projects. Richard has written a number of award-winning screenplays, so we have great material to work with. I also have a personal passion screenplay I am working on based on my grandmother’s book Justice about her time as a judge on the Pennsylvania courts and the corruption she fought against, and I look forward to bringing the story to life.
The stories I have always loved most are the ones that make us think and that remind us of what it is like to be truly alive. Many stories have a message though I think it is best when telling a good story is at the forefront. No matter what an artist might intend each person will take something different away from the experience, sometimes in expected and often in unexpected ways. The best stories have engaging characters where we care what happens to them and see something of ourselves in them and their struggles, whether they may be deemed good or bad, and that the experience leaves us with something we want to talk about, something that has touched each of us in our own unique way. Many stories left a mark on me over the years, some helped me through tough times, others to work up courage for something I wanted to do, and other innumerable impressions through different periods of my life, and I hope for my work to do the same for others.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

For me the most rewarding aspect of being an actor and creative is something that I believe can apply to many of us. Asking myself what contribution do I really want to have and then digging into that wholeheartedly. My contribution to the world can come through stories I create and through the characters I play in others stories. I can entertain, I can inform, I can provide escapes or humor. I can inspire and I can keep investigating new avenues. I can collaborate with others to create works that we are truly proud of and that will enrich the lives of others in various ways, even when I often won’t be aware of the impact. I can also help those I can along the way. I feel that being an artist allows me to explore endless aspects of life and for me it is the best way to use all of myself in what I do.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Currently the best thing that can be done for creatives and for all citizens is to support the No Fakes Act that was just introduced in the US Senate. It is a bipartisan proposal that would protect the voice and visual likeness of all individuals from unauthorized recreations from generative artificial intelligence (AI). This will establish Federal Intellectual Property Rights over each individual’s voice, image, name and likeness and provide a system to take legal action against non-consensual voice clones, digital doubles and deepfakes. This is especially important for creatives and many of the artists that we love because their continued ability to create the art that we enjoy is in jeopardy without these protections, and for the rest of us this also provides protection against anyone using our name, image or likeness without our consent and causing harm to us in many potential ways. It is important to make sure that we support artists ability to make a living through their art as well as provide protections for the rest of us too. Other than that, make sure to support the arts and the artists that you know. During difficult times like the pandemic, we all turn to art to get ourselves through and the true value of art and artists shines through.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ianrosscoleman.com
• Instagram: ianrosscoleman
• Facebook: ianrosscoleman
• Linkedin: ianrosscoleman
• Other: www.endlessimaginationproductions.com
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3XQ_hwIomIM

Image Credits

Image 1 and 2, David Carlson
Image 3, Hoots Headshots
Image 4, 5 and 6, Matthew James Photos
Image 7, Peter Konerko
Image 8, No Dogs