BRIAN CLOPP

Biography

Brian Clopp graduated with Highest Honors from Rutgers University in May of 2005. His passions are acting and screenwriting. While an undergraduate, Brian founded the Screenwriters Community of Rutgers University, created the Film & Theatre Alliance, and established the New Jersey Student Film Festival. He is a member of the prestigious Cap & Skull secret honor society, which selects only 18 out of 10,000 students each year based on leadership, merit, and character. The Cap & Skull society has only selected two other actors --Paul Robeson in 1919, and Ozzie Nelson in 1927. During his senior year, Brian wrote an original screenplay "Amazing Grace" for the Henry Rutgers Honors Thesis. He is currently editing its latest draft.

When he isn't acting or writing, Brian can be seen strolling down the beach or dreaming up new ideas. He enjoys relaxing, and spending time with friends and loved ones.

Recenty Updates: He finished teaching for The Princeton Review, currently interns for Mike Lemon Casting, and edits websites. He is currently in Boston studying acting for 6 weeks at the Stanislavsky Summer School at Harvard. Wherever life takes him, he knows he will be true to his heart, and hopes the instinct that has brought him into the entertainment industry will one day lead him to his big break.


Blog

• Friday, 3/10/06: “Running a Casting Session + Having a Callback”
Today I assisted Mike Lemon with a casting session in NYC. At the same time, I had a callback six blocks away for a TV show host. Just a funny scenario, running out during lunch break to an audition, then heading back to the other side of casting.

• Monday, 3/6/06: “Aired on the History Channel!”
Tonight I watched myself on national television! It was pretty cool. :-) Thanks to the friends and family who watched. It was fun to get messages like this one: "hey man, were you on the show ufo files? i was flipping channels and got to the history channel when i coulda sworn i saw you, the episode was canada's roswell, was that you???"

• Monday, 2/6/06: “First Day Interning @ Mike Lemon Casting”
Love the coworkers, everyone is real friendly, Dale was great at showing me how things run. It’s a nice environment, and great to work for a friend.

• Sunday, 2/5/06: “MFA auditions La Final!”
Finished my MFA auditions today, wrapped up with Yale. I feel satisfied with my acting, though didn’t get a callback today. I was a little hurt, since I thought a year ago Yale was where I really wanted to go; it felt right then when they invited me up to visit their campus last spring. But I couldn’t really get upset because of being cast in the play last night. If it’s not meant to be, it’s not meant to be. I actually had a much better impression of the other school I applied to and had a great vibe from the people who interviewed me at their audition in New York, and know I really want to go there regardless of anything else now (I actually had a dream last week that I got in and started classes there), so I’m crossing my fingers. Something just seemed to click. So not really too upset over Yale. =)

• Sunday, 2/5/06: “Landed a Lead in a Big Play!”
So last night I get a call at 10:30pm just as I’m settling to bed; “Hi Brian, we’d like to cast you as Peter in ‘The Passion Play’.” I happily accepted. The director sounds really kind, and it should be a fun, professional production. It is at the Park Performing Arts Center, which seats 1,400. For comparison; Broadway’s Wintergarden Theatre seats 1,482 (where they had “Cats” and now “Mama Mia”); Broadway’s The Imperial Theatre (“Les Miserables” and “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) seats 1,490; Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre (“The Lion King”) seats 1,745; Broadway’s Majestic Theatre (“Phantom of the Opera”), the Trenton War Memorial, and the State Theatre in NJ all hold 1,800. A bit of trivia for you. So I’m building my way up there. I know it’s not the size of the theatre that counts though, but what you can do with it. I’m happy because theatre opens me up to new possibilities, is a lot of fun, and fine-tunes my acting.

• Sunday, 1/15/06: “Third History Channel Shoot”
Wrapped another day. It was -4 degrees with the wind-chill on the Hudson River! There was one fifteen minute shot where I couldn’t use gloves, and could not move or feel my hands at that point; when they thawed out, I felt the most biting pain in my hands. On the way home, I got lost in Sleepy Hollow. Yes, the real Ye Olde History Sleepy Hollow. The trees were bigger and wider than any trees I have ever seen, the graveyard was massive and creepy, and the streets were appropriately named things like “Creepy Ln,” “Rip Van Winkle Ave,” “You’re Gonna Die Here Dr (or something like that… you get the idea).” The next town over was Irvington, and the houses there too dated back to the 1600s and 1700s; the Irvington Estate was enormous.

• Friday, 1/13/06: “Fate Gives a Call to Shoot Again”
This morning on the train into an audition, I get a call from the folks at The History Channel, saying they loved how the shoot came out and are considering picking up another day of production to get more close-ups. An hour later in New York, walking the short two blocks from Penn Station to my audition, I randomly pass by the director Mike Bentley on the sidewalk. The odds of you recognizing anyone on the sidewalk in New York City like that are pretty slim, let alone in a case like this where they just called you. So maybe it’s fate we’ll shoot again on Monday.

• Saturday, 12/24/05: "Do I Really Look That Much Like Santa?"
Today is Christmas Eve., and I filled in for Santa in my first off-off Broadway production. People mistake me as Santa Clause all the time. Really. It was nice, and I made it back in time for desert and church with the family.

• Monday, 12/12/05: “Second History Channel Shoot”
Finished! After 8 hours in 29 degree weather at Sandy Hook. It was pretty cool though, hehe I finally started to feel like a real actor; they had a 1960’s precursor to the Ford Mustang, and I was in it with a camera mounted on the hood and a huge professional setup with the lights and everything. Great experience. And an awesome crew.

• Monday, 11/21/05: “First History Channel Shoot”
Went out in a boat, in the rain for about four or five hours, looking for a sunken UFO in 1967. It’s funny how Seabright, NJ looks a lot like Nova Scotia on the television. It was exciting though… this is my first principal role for national television. A town of over 100 people sees a UFO crash, my guy goes out in a boat and finds this yellow foam extending about a mile long in the bay; the foam disintegrates when his net touches it. It was neat to see the crew make foam from shaving cream, shampoo, yellow food coloring, and glow sticks.

• Sunday, 9/25/05: “Saw the Dalai Lama Today”
So the Dalai Lama came to Rutgers, and talked to a fan-packed football stadium. It seemed out of place to me that they were actually selling funnel cake and pretzels at the event. Who can snarf that stuff down, getting powder and crumbs all over yourself, while the Dalai Lama is talking about being connected with nature and everything? Oh well. It was relaxing, but nothing earthshaking that you or I haven’t already thought about at sometime… plants are alive too, war is bad, we are all connected in some way. The Dalai Lama did actually have a great sense of humor though, go figure!

• Wednesday, 9/14/05: “I’m an Uncle!”
This morning I became an uncle, and zipped over to the hospital to see baby Aidan. He’s adorable. It was a great feeling to see him being cuddled by my sister-in-law Kristen and my brother Greg, all three family members exhausted but happy. Moments like these remind me how precious and amazing life really is.

• Sunday 9/11/05: “Survived Running Out of Air and an Under Water Struggle on a Scuba Trip”
At 5:45am I arose and went scuba diving with my sister as her birthday present to me. On the thirteen mile boat ride out, the WaWa roastbeef sandwich I had for breakfast was shared with the fish as the big, tumbling waves rolled up and down and the diesel fumes wafted out over the deck. My first dive I didn’t have enough weights on, and my sister had to hold my hand to keep me from floating up and away (luckily she’s a divemaster). We swam around a sunken WWII vessel, “The Great Isaac,” at 100 feet below the surface. (Neat bit of trivia: The boat actually survived the war and sunk on its way home, when it accidentally collided with another vessel).

Anyway, at 23 meters down I became entangled in fishing line, suspending me alone just above the ship. The dive leader Gary swam at me with a knife to cut me out, but by then I’d already broken free. This is starting to sound like a pirate adventure, huh? So then on the next dive, and this is where it really gets interesting, I ran out of air. Well, I noticed I was low and made the signal to go up. As you rise to a higher depth, you use less air, so I had about three minutes left… just enough time to make a five minute safety stop at fifteen feet to get the nitrogen bubbles out of my blood (or else become paralyzed). I also had my spare pony bottle, just in case.

But dive leader Gary didn’t quite agree, thinking it was important to get to the surface and breathe, and so tried to force me up without the safety stop. He kept pushing me off the diver’s rope, but I held on. I could see my sister’s eyes cutting through fifteen feet of water to glare at the guy. He became really physical, I guess from worry I’d be out of air, and essentially threw punches to get me off the line. We struggled for a bit. He then inflated my BCD, shooting me to the surface, but on my way up I grabbed the anchor line. I held on as long as I could, satisfying a good portion of the safety stop, and then popped to the surface with zero air remaining. It was an adventure, and may sound crazy, but it was still an awesome trip. At one point I saw an eel inside a cannon… that was a cool image that remains with me. Thanks to my sis for the sweet birthday present! =)