Today we’d like to introduce you to StaggerLee Cole.
Hi StaggerLee, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I am an Actor who grew up in Seattle, WA and moved to LA in 2019, just before the pandemic. I’ve always been one to clown around, but it was my first stage performance of “Treasure Island the Musical” in 5th grade that hooked me into theater. My father is a Rock N’ Roll singer and Sax player so performing was something that was always encouraged. I latched on to the drama and film activities I could do in High school, expanding to all sides of film, including live video production for the local Shoreline Channel. I made many videos on an old tape camera my mother had, learning how to edit and get better at story telling. Always comedies, nothing beats making people laugh, even if I tried to start shooting an Action or Horror, it was always so much more fun to go “wouldn’t it be funny if this happened!?” then change the script to make that happen. My favorite role I got to play on stage to this day was Scarecrow in “The Wizard of Oz,” my junior year, the goofiest, silliest, boneless, slapstick main character out there. I still swoon at the Idea of playing him again. After High school, it got even better with the great programs they offered at Shoreline Community College taught by working Actors Tony Doupe, Deb Pralle, and Bryar Golden. That’s where I really learned to act in front of a camera, to tone down my theater presence, and show subtle emotion when your face is the size of a building on a movie screen. I met my best friends there, still making films together now despite being across the country. I moved to Los Angeles just before the pandemic with a good 7 months of normal pre-pandemic LA under my belt. My time was well spent with a few small parts in Netflix shows and a gig at Universal Studios as the “Shortest” Frankenstein’s Monster, standing at only 6′ 1″. I also got a job to pay the bills driving the double-decker Trolley at The Grove, which I still do to this day. It’s actually my 2nd train driving job after the antique Monorail in downtown Seattle, but that’s a whole other story. The pandemic was dry as far as acting gigs of course, I made comedy YouTube videos and performed zoom theater shows with “Lockdown Theatre” that consisted of an elaborate green screen and camera set up in my kitchen. I kept busy as best I could until I started seeing auditions again. I got into a Christmas theater show in December 2021 in NoHo, where I played The Grinch and met a ton of great new friends who eventually formed my current day Sketch Comedy Group, “Fish Licks.” Simon Gissler, Hudson Long, and Molly Sharpe are my cohorts in this wacky group. We have a monthly show at the Pack/Broadwater Theater consisting of a ton of hilarious and musical sketches written and performed by us. Another Huge project I’m currently working on is a 10-episode series I wrote with my friends and am filming, directing, and starring in. It’s a live-action Curious George parody called “The Adventures of Inquisitive John.” The show consists of 1960s Planet of the apes’ style monkeys trying to live their lives with an insane ‘Man with The Yellow Hat’ on the streets of LA. I’m very excited to show it to the world and absolutely Love how it’s turning out so far, I hope you do too. You may catch me around LA driving a Trolley, taking classes and doing shows at Tim Robin’s The Actors Gang, or doing sketch Comedy at your local comedy spot. You can Also find some video and films I’ve made on my YouTube Channel “StaggerLee’s Island of Misfit Films”. In the future, I hope someone will fund my comical shenanigans, following Mel Brooks’s Footsteps of making crazy films no one knew they needed. Then, hopefully, I’ll be able to afford to buy Alcatraz Island to live on, drive trains, blow off fireworks every night, and film until I die.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I have my struggles, but it’s been smoother than most I’d say. My parents supported my need to perform. I drove to LA with nowhere to live and no job, but I got a job and apartment in 2 days somehow. The pandemic and writer’s strike have messed up most of my time in LA since I moved here, but hey? I got a great apartment, a great job, a great cat, and a great sketch group. I’m not starving, and I’m having fun! What more could I ask for? Besides my own TV show and a million dollars and my own Zeppelin. But we’ll get there.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I perform for TV/Film as well as on stage. I have some Dramas under my belt, but I definitely have the most fun doing slapstick comedy bits. Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd, and the Marx Brothers are some of my biggest influences, Jim Carry too of course. I wish there was more of an audience for modern-day Vaudeville shows. That’s what I would put on if I could, and hopefully will someday. I am practicing tap dancing with my professional dancer friend Avissa Ilkhan, and am known for an act where I play a bike pump like an instrument, which I learned from Vaudevillian Wilber Hall on the 1950s Spike Jones Show (another one of my biggest influences). My Love for the old comedy greats that I incorporate into my work sets me apart, especially from others my age. My writing and wacky ideas are very unique in all the projects I work on. I hope they take me far and I get to share them with the whole world!
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
There’s ups and downs in the film industry, it’s awesome we were able to get a seemingly good deal with the recent strike. As far as movies coming out that I would have liked to be in, there’s a lot of great foreign films I Loved, like the Japanese Godzilla Minus One, and Bollywood action films like RRR or anything from S.S. Rajamouli. The US has been dropping the ball a lot. Lately, I’m not a fan of the superhero movies or new Star Wars shows. I am hoping that Taika Waititi and Edgar Wright crank out a ton of films as well as Wes Anderson goes back to his roots with a little more substance over style. Quinton Tarantino thinks the 2020s are one of the worst decades of film history, and I think I might agree with him. Hollywood is out of ideas, so get me in that writer’s room and on that screen baby!
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @staggerleecole
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/IslandofMisfitFilms
