Today we’d like to introduce you to Shane Callahan.
Hi Shane, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I didn’t realize I started acting probably until right around 13. Or at least developing tools useful to
acting. Some examples: like rebelling against the very conservative culture in the town I grew
up in. Which on some level is creating a character, finding loud 80s Santa Cruz style skate
wear that was hard to find in western Pennsylvania at the time. I loved the idea of using clothes
to embrace the misfit in me of not feeling a part of the repressive culture that existed during
those years and not being afraid to loudly show it via “wardrobe.” Or the drama of baseball
and wanting to be Roy Hobbs in the Natural. I remember being part of just a small recreational
league team. We were scrappy like the bad news bears. Some kids never played before but
joined the league and we all found ourselves on the same team. I broke my finger that year
and kept playing the rest of the season and if I’m being honest, I loved the drama of it. Still
pitching with a splint on, striking fellow kids out. Keep in mind it was just recreational league with
about 6 teams, but in my mind, we were the bad news bears or Roy Hobbs’ New York Knights.
We embraced the drama and humor from those movies and we made it to the championship
as the worst regular season team, but we got struck by lightning and almost pulled it off. We
lost, but damn, it really felt like a movie. Life experiences like that and others were what really
got me started, unknowingly so. Oh and role playing in Dungeons and Dragons helped a lot
too, hehe.
Then of course that led to wanting to be in a metal band and then going to school for audio to
learn how to record music and there I fell in love with shooting and editing super 8 and 16mm
films. So much so, that I ditched the idea of recording music even though I was signed up for more
of an audio school, I quickly shifted towards any film related classes i could. I still did not want
to consciously act at the time. I made short films, but I would only act if an actor didn’t show
up to film, which was more often than not, hah! Soon after graduating, still not really
considering acting, some new friends of mine in Wilmington, NC talked me into auditioning for
a play. It was 3 one act plays, written by 3 local playwrights. They cast me and my two friends in all
three of them. Later they told us we were the only ones that showed up. Which is pretty damn
funny. I’m glad though, cause I really didn’t know what I was doing. BUT I absolutely fell in
love with the process and performing on stage. It felt similar to getting chased by the police on
a skateboard, or a dirt bike, or a linebacking core for the local high school football team. It felt
like being in the bad news bears coming close to winning what seemed to be the world series.
And then I did more theater, as much as I could, and found some life long friends and creative
partners in the process. I started studying with Tammy Anrold, and I still do to this day. I
started being able to understand acting more and getting paid to do it after studying with her.
She is the most important mentor to me as an actor. In the beginning she let me trade yard
work for acting classes too, because I was broke as hell. She’s fantastic. After I got cast in a
role in Mark Pellington’s “Mothman Prophecies,” I moved to Los Angeles. Even though my
storyline was cut from the movie, it was a great experience. I remember Richard Gere and
Laura Linney being complimentary in a scene I did with them and that felt fantastic as
somebody whom often feels like an outsider. The scene got cut, but Mark was cool and helped me get a copy of it to use for my reel which helped me get more work in the future. And honestly
from there on out, I worked as hard as I could in LA, but also kept working regional markets like
Wilmington, Richmond, Atlanta, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, DC, New Orleans, Philadelphia, ect. I’d
say my first feeling of being part of a streaming/tv series world was playing Barnabis in “The
Outsiders” for WGN. The cast and crew was so damn cool to play with. It felt like a different
world. My first day of filming was me riding around on a 4 wheeler in the woods with a camera
crew for about 4 hours. It was so damn dreamy and fantastic. I was sad when it was done, but I will always be grateful to Kyle Gallner for putting a good fight to try and keep Barnabis from suffering a brutal fate.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I’d say the toughest challenges for me, have been since the pandemic hit. But that also
includes some of my favorite career moments too, so I guess the initial low point of the
pandemic and then how manic it’s been since. Super high to low to high to low to high. So I
guess it’s the relationship between momentum and uncontrollable outside sources. I’ve been
doing this since the late 90s and it definitely was not a smooth path before then, but I wasn’t
quite prepared, along with all of us in this world really, for how things changed after 2020. I
had just finished my first series regular role in Josh Corbin’s “Reprisal” for Hulu in 2019.
Excited as hell. Flew out to New Zealand in February of 2020 with my wonderful wife to film
“The Wilds.” We were there for 7 days, shot for 2, so we got to explore the gorgeous country,
beaches, trails, and meet absolutely wonderful people. Life was great! Then on our flight
back, the news started up about covid. Then of course we all know the rest of that story.
Reprisal was not picked up after the pandemic, so that was very sad thing. I had to figure a
way to get momentum back. It really is key in this business. Endurance maybe more, but
momentum is definitely a solid 2nd. If you have endurance, momentum will always come back.
Dopesick was my first gig out of the pandemic and that was bizarre, because everybody was
masked and shielded, so you really couldn’t see or know who you were really talking to. I did
sit in a tent for hours with Will Poulter and I hadn’t talked to anybody outside of my immediate family for really about 3/4 of
year, and he was a delight to have a conversation with. That really brought me out of it, for me,
because it felt like theater again. Sitting in a tent, talking about life, acting, roles, blocking, all
of the things. I remember being a lot more talkative than I normally am, but it felt good. So
since then I’ve done lots of fun guest stars and roles in movies coming out like “Billy
Knight” with Al Pacino, “Born to Lose,” and Erica Dunton’s “Pretty Ugly. Life is good.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am an actor. I also edit. I love to write, but I’m insecure about it. I’d love to direct, but I’m
afraid of failing as a director, but if I say it in this article, maybe it will kick me in the butt force me to face that
fear. Acting has been where I make a living for the last twenty or so years. I do really love to edit
and I have been able to edit for a few gigs here and there. I edited season 1 of a CBS show
called “The Inspectors,” and I absolutely loved doing that.
You asked what sets me apart form others? I feel like whatever I say here gets deleted as I
type. Like it’s a glitch in the keyboard. I type and it disappears. No matter how many times I
hit the keys. All in all, I hope the kind part of us all is very common in as many spaces in the universe as possible.
What does success mean to you?
Being content with the amount of freedom you have. Being able to be with my family when I choose to. Being able to go hiking with my dog whenever I want to.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_shane_callahan_?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0130253/?ref_=fn_t_1
