Today we’d like to introduce you to Bryan Mittelstadt.
Hi Bryan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
Originally from Texas, I grew up one of six kids in a military family. Life was mapped out for me as a kid, oblivious to the difficulty of moving over a dozen times in my childhood. It wasn’t until going off to college at Texas Lutheran University that I finally had a say in my life. Even then, I jumped around majors from Kinesiology to International Studies, until I finished school with degrees in Communications and Dramatic Media and a Music minor. It awakened a love of storytelling; finishing with a one-man song-cycle complete with monologues and a few So You Think You Can Dance dances. On top of that, my Communications thesis was a 70-page paper on the trajectory of Film Noir. Clearly, I was still trying to figure things out.
After graduation, I wasn’t clear on what to do until I was offered to work on opera in New York. This was what pushed me to leave Texas and dive deeper into performance: opera, acting, storytelling. NYC gave me a kind of freedom I had never experienced, and I was lucky to be surrounded by excellent people who helped me stay on course, even when I didn’t know where I was going.
After a few years, I finally felt like I had a direction I wanted to follow. I decided I wanted to hone my acting craft and was 1 of 10 students accepted into the MFA program at University of Connecticut. With only one grad class every three years, I dove headfirst into acting. I once thought I might end up in politics or law, but somewhere in those three years of intensive study (and crawling across the floor as an animal while reciting Shakespeare), acting and storytelling just made more sense to my life.
With graduation just on the horizon in 2020, I was about to open Little Shop of Horrors as Seymour when the pandemic hit. Plans to return to NYC disappeared as I (and the rest of the world) stayed still for once. I wrote scripts, tried to make sense of it all, and, perhaps most importantly, learned to play guitar. Finally being able to accompany myself changed my outlook on singing and music.
September of 2020, I booked a small pilot in LA. I flew out for a week with two suitcases and never left. Six months later, I moved everything out here to LA. Since then, LA has become home. I’m now proudly out as a gay man, I have amazing friends and a stable home. For the first time in my nomadic life, I’ve been in a location long enough to call it home and take time to focus on expanding my artistic life.
Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with some incredible people. A few favorite projects come to mind: Give, directed by Kenya Gillespie, which made its way to Aesthetica, Phoenix Film Festival, deadCenter, and many others. My second film (Give was the first!), Julius, premiered at the esteemed Torino Film Festival. I’m also looking forward to several features releasing this year and next—especially Quiet After Supper, a feature that offers an inside look at a serial killer and explores why he kills. Much of the film was improvised with a tiny team, emulating a documentary style at many points. It was an incredible acting challenge and an exciting testament to the power of indie filmmaking.
I also write screenplays, recently placing in Outstanding Screenplays competition and Austin Film Festival. I am also about to release a film I had the pleasure of working on with Laura Cantwell: Mission A, Plan B, a comedy of errors around a couple’s miscommunication around abortion. It had a great festival run, finishing with Hollyshorts Comedy. Laura and I are launching our Indie Production Company (Middle Well Productions) at the end of this year with plans to produce intimate indie stories with a lean toward political and social issues.
Finally, I make music and am beyond excited to release my debut album, Darling, this year as it explores the ups and downs of a relationship fraught with missed connections.
In short, I do it all and have a great time doing it! I’ve worked on dozens of national commercials and nearly a hundred film projects of all kinds. I’m still chasing something bigger than just stability. I believe deeply in the power of creativity and storytelling. It’s what helped me build bridges within myself around politics, social justice, and connection. And that, after a life of constant motion, feels revolutionary.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I don’t think any journey worth taking comes without challenge. One of the few things we all share is the inevitability of pain. But I have found that by sharing mine, it sometimes gives others the comfort or courage to share theirs or at least feel a little less alone.
There are a few moments in my life that have really stuck with me. One was the difficult coming-out process that overlapped with a court case against a teacher from high school. It is strange to type that now, knowing many people in my life today have no idea it ever happened, even as I created a one-man show about it and have since grown comfortable talking about it. The hardest part was not just the case, it was the isolation and not being believed. For the first three years in college, I felt completely alone, and I ultimately lost my case against a teacher due to a lack of hard evidence. Then the MeToo movement happened, and over the next few years, more than a dozen other students in my high school came forward. It was validating, but also difficult to process. That time was rough, but I would say the arts and the people within them carried me through.
Another turning point came after moving to LA, when I found a kind of clarity I had not experienced before. For a while, the way I coped with stress was unhealthy. I had convinced myself that as a gay man, a sort of bohemian detachment was not just expected, but required. LA has a strong and welcoming community, one that is not rooted in religion, but in honesty and self-respect. It helped me reconnect with a set of values I did not know I had been missing. And this made all my acting freer; whether playing an abusive straight boyfriend, a closeted military cadet, or a perilously sweet serial killer.
Furthermore, LA gave me the space to truly reconnect with my family. It’s not the easiest part to explain, but the gradual comfort I felt allowed for deeper and more open conversations and understanding to be had. Maybe it’s the palm trees, maybe it’s the art, but it certainly allowed for a certain peace in my life to take root.
And finally, the arts. We all know it has been a hard time. I have made it into quite a few film festivals and watched the industry shift in ways none of us expected. But through it all, I think it has been an incredible journey. To keep creating, connecting, and expanding.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Los Angeles is a hub of creativity, culture, and dreamers. I know that sounds annoyingly obvious. But as someone who came from a very different world, it never ceases to amaze me. And though I got here late in life, the vibrance of LA is special. And those connected to me (even afar) are on the same journey. My brilliant romance novelist bestie, Stephanie Prehoda; my grad classmates, my agents and managers; even my family. We’re all working to stay curious and keep learning, pivoting, and creating.
I think a few other fun things are that I’m an editor for a small indie studio called StavisFilm that has an incredible custom-built space in the Hollywood Hills. I love the great outdoors, staying fit, and traveling. Lord, I love traveling!
Finally, I have found that the work or pieces I am most proud of are often the ones I did not think anyone would care about. The quiet ones. The ones I was not trying to package or promote. That is something I wrestle with in this age of constant content creation; how to keep the work honest when the world wants you to always be selling it. I do not shy away from difficult subjects like addiction, political differences, shame, or grief, but I try to approach them with humor and humanity. It allows me to hold space for both the absurd and the sincere, the painful and the beautiful. And that is where I think the best stories live.
Any big plans?
I think a dose of reality has finally set in. I struggled through my twenties. I loved deeply, traveled a lot, and got to do some incredible things. But now I find myself sitting with a different question: What do I actually want? And why?
That question has quickly shifted the kinds of stories I want to tell. My interest in sobriety, medicinal journeys, documentaries, and creating original work has taken center stage. Middle Well Productions keeps expanding more and more, even before the public announcement. People are curious. “What are you doing next? What are you making?” Which surprises me every time.
Acting is still my favorite thing in the world, but I also feel a pull to expand and to connect in new ways. I love being the glue that binds a project together. Maybe it comes from moving so often growing up, but I’ve been told I can connect and communicate with all kinds of people. And I think that’s something I can really use. I’d love to produce and direct more.
Right now, I’m working on a music album, several feature scripts, a podcast about creativity (Creative Instinct), and a few other projects that live outside the box of just acting. For a long time, I thought that meant I had to let go of acting. How silly of me. As it turns out, the space for creativity is infinite.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bryanmittelstadt.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bryanpatrickm/
Image Credits
Adam Reed
Cameron Radice
Casey James
