Gil Perez-Abraham
Interviewed by: Caitlin D. Jones, CSA
1) Has there been a Casting Director that has encouraged and/or supported you in your career?
Caitlin Jones, Cindy Tolan, Taylor Williams at New York Theatre Workshop, Stephen Kopel.
2) What work are you most proud of?
Getting started as an actor, I never really got to go to University or college and it was always stuck on me that I wanted to study. I specifically wanted to study at an arts school but even with auditions and financial aid, it was untenable for me. While I was doing my first guest star in the city, in New York, I ran into a friend who connected me with Laith Nakli at the William Esper Studio. He set me up with a full scholarship and I was finally able to live my dream. I studied at the two-year program there while working as a janitor. I was very proud to finish as I am generally very rebellious to schooling systems.
3) What or who inspired you to pursue acting as a career?
I was very much an outsider growing up. I am a first-generation kid born in Baltimore city proper who had moved to Wichita, KS. I was sort of picked on a lot, but a couple of the “coolest kids in school”, one kid named Winston, took a liking to me and would let me follow them around, eat lunch with them. They used to tease our theatre teacher a lot and one day while opening and closing a DVD player that was mounted over the teacher’s head (one of the more popular pranks we loved to do), our teacher announced that there would be auditions for The Diary of Anne Frank, the play. Winston dared me to audition as a joke and I figured, why not…my whole life changed, the experience of “becoming” a 60 year old Dutch man (I was playing Mr. Kraler, one of the benevolent men that helped hide the Frank family) — even though it was mostly sad Ben Nye white make-up lines, I felt like I was able to do something freely, and that was home to me from that moment on.
4) What was your first IMDBPro credit and how did you feel when you saw it?
My first was a short film that I did while I was still studying political science at the University of Kansas. I remember thinking, “I need to drop out and move to New York.” I eventually did.
5) How has IMDBPro helped you market yourself to filmmakers?
I feel, I hope correctly, that it gives the actor, the artist, some power in how you want to present yourself. An actor’s IMDb is also very transparent, so I think it naturally lends itself to forming narrative—in my case I hope that I’m “there” when the next person I want to work with is looking. I feel so embarrassed about publicity and marketing as an actor, this at least seems like a straightforward way to present myself as professional and ready to work, without doing any more self-promotion than I am comfortable with.
6) Any funny casting room stories?
You’d have to buy me a drink for that one. :)
7) Tell us a fun fact about you outside of acting.
Fun fact is that I’m back in school again, a little less rebellious now it seems. One good thing that came from the pandemic was that Berklee pivoted part of their undergraduate degree to include online students; I auditioned and got in so I am finishing my undergraduate in guitar and voice-on my own schedule and on my own terms.
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