Today we’d like to introduce you to Damian Joseph Quinn.
Damian, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Hi! My name is Damian. I grew up in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, near cows, horses and buffalo. I played pretend with my two best friends and danced for my big, athletic Irish family (Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8r Boi” was a crowd-pleaser). Growing up queer in a conservative town allowed me to dream of elsewhere. I found refuge and sameness on the screen (in film, television and cartoon). I knew I wanted to deliver a similar experience when I got all growed up. I went to NYU Tisch and graduated with an Honors BFA in ’17. I studied in Manhattan, Amsterdam and Florence, and I tackled all sorts of acting techniques.
I moved to LA in the fall of 2017, entitled and expectant of big movie star dreams to come true. Instead, I humbly found the end of the line for the city of actors waiting for their turn to tell their story. I’ve found strength in the community here. I find Flow through writing stories, making sketches, improvising, and dancing in kimonos in my living room. Through meditation, I can practice entering a sense of Nowness at any time, shedding doubts, fears and anxieties so I can be a better conduit for the art I know I’m here to create. Spirituality has been a game-changer for my creativity. I was taught to teach yoga in the Redwoods in the fall of 2019. And have since redefined my idea of success & have unplugged from the need for external validation (little by little!).
I’m an empath. And I want to pour the Universe into the characters I play – lend my compassionate and empathetic abilities into the nature of imagination. Reveal the hearts of the most twisted of us, texture the heroes with flaws. I want to play soft men and tough women, silly sages and brilliant village idiots.
Great, 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?
Yes! The road has only been smooth!! Thank you for asking!! Rejection is hard! I am sitting here with so many gifts in my lap and I really want to give them away. It’s hard to come to peace with timing and match-making. Auditioning is like dating. The right story, the right casting office, the right production team, has to fall in love with me like I have to fall in love with them. Other than doing my art really well, there’s not much other power and control I have over working and creating and doing the thing I love to do the most. And it’s taken me a long time to TRUST that this process has flows, ebbs, long periods of stillness, and disappointments.
As a queer person with a big open heart, I’ve learned to navigate cautiously. My first agents in LA asked for my naked pictures. The first three jobs I had in Hollywood were mixed with assault, harassment and molestation. I’ve had to navigate rampant homophobia (BURN IN HELL FAGGOT written on the door of my apartment) while still daring to keep a tender heart. It’s worth it. Even when I lose my patience or start to doubt my worth or work, there are those miraculous, sacred moments of alignment where I get to be on set, doing my thing, and all of the adversity makes sense. It textures the underbelly of my love. Obstacles and challenges make the joy a lot more grounded and make my humanity a lot more recognizable.
The biggest obstacle is my own egoic mind: comparison, cynicism, cockiness. It takes a certain kind of courage, resilience and stupidity to trust the whisperings of the Soul over the cacophony of the mind. We take the path of the pathless on a totally different plane than the one we’re prescribed and inundated with societal standards and social media tabloids. We’re trained to walk but choose to fly.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I’ve been acting my entire life. I think I’m known for my energetic presence on camera which works for both comedy and drama. When I’m playing in comedy, I’m elastic, goofy and sharp. I write and shoot sketches with my comedy partner and play on the Groundlings stage. When I work in drama, I’m inclined towards characters of intensity. And I love love, love the transformative process. The last character I played was Roy Cohn in Lee Daniels’ “The US v. Billie Holiday.” I like to be unrecognizable – detailing the character’s voice, posture, cognition. I’m an actor’s actor. I love the art of the craft – I’m obsessed with it.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
This moment! 🙂 I’m proud when I can feel a temperature change in the room whether in the theater, onset or in an audition room. When the collective consciousness is in the imagined space, and I’m riding the wave, and we’re all together, entranced in the moment of the story. And by the time the scene is done, our molecules have changed. Those moments are riveting, They’re rare. They’re magic. I’m most proud of and grateful for those.
Contact Info:
- Website: damianjosephquinn.com
- Instagram: damianjosephquinn
Image Credit:
Chris Greenwell, Evan Makuvek, Joseph Adivari, Santino Ferrese, Jared V. Walker, Molly Pan, Kimberly Millard, Sophie Jay.
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