Ian Merrigan - Actor of the Month for April 2025

Actor: Ian Merrigan| Interviewed by: Tiffany Little Canfield, CSA

1) Has there been a Casting Director that has encouraged and/or supported you in your career?

Yes! Tiffany Little-Canfield has had my back for over 20 years. When I moved to New York after school she gave me my first auditions and hired me to be a reader. She gave me advice and put me in plays at her theater company. Through Tiffany and her colleagues at Telsey, I’ve gotten to work on Broadway, in Hong Kong, and recently on Dan Fogelman’s Paradise for Hulu.

2) What is the project you're most proud of and why?

The role I just got to play on Paradise (Hulu) is probably my favorite piece of work I’ve ever gotten to do. I don’t want to spoil anything for anybody who hasn’t taken the ride yet, but I got to do some things in it that I’m really proud of. There was such a strong vision for what needed to happen. It felt amazing to come in and create within those boundaries.

3) What or who inspired you to pursue acting as a career?

I had a teacher in high school named Rodger Cilley. He was an incredible director. He used to pace in front of the stage on opening night and say, “you’re gonna get out into the world, and they’re gonna tell you you’re small. They’re gonna say, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it too.’ But they’re wrong. YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL!” And then he’d clear the theater of everyone including himself for 10 minutes before showtime to let the spirits have the space. I don’t know if I knew what “career” meant until years after that but I knew that was the direction I was headed.

4) What was your first IMDbPro credit, and how did you feel when you saw it?

When I first got to New York, a director filmed a couple of my poems and they wound up getting picked up to run interstitially on IFC. When they popped up on IMDb, I felt like I was actually doing it. Something I wrote and performed was officially logged in the entertainment encyclopedia. The very hallowed volume where one could go to check their 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon math, was now home to little old me as well.

5) How has IMDbPro helped you market yourself to filmmakers or other professionals working in the entertainment industry?

Whenever I audition for anything, I look everybody involved up on IMDbPro. It’s so helpful to be able to see what they’ve worked on for context. Plus, to be able to see who I have in common with them is amazing. Reconnecting the craziness of this business to the human connections that make it work is so essential.

6) Any funny or memorable casting room stories you can share?

Tiffany hired me to be a reader for the callbacks on Peter Hedges’ movie Dan in Real Life. It was a week or two of incredible actors that I got to read with. Early on, an actor came in and went up on a line. Knowing that feeling intimately, I improvised a little to help get them back on track. When they left, Peter (who I hadn’t really spoken with much) turned to me and said, “what made you think you could do that?” I spluttered something about trying to help, certain I was about to get fired. This was the guy wrote the script after all! But he stopped me and said he loved it. He had me improvise with most actors after that.

7) If you could play any character in a movie, past or present, who would it be and why? 

I want to play John Prine. I may be a little taller than he was but he looms large. I’ve been playing his songs on my mother’s old guitar for my whole life. Timing feels perfect for a movie about him. His life story would be amazing or I could also see him popping up in so many other musician’s stories. I wanna hold a guitar and sing and act in service of a story like that.

8) What is something you’ve watched recently that you would recommend?

I, like most people right now, am riveted by Severance. I rewatched the first season before this second one came out. The intricacies of the emotional story telling combined with the unraveling sci-fi element are totally my style. The cast is so incredible. I love it.

9) Tell us a fun fact about you outside of acting.

I’m a dad. I’ve got 2 kids— a daughter named Polly and a son named Woody— and we are always in the middle of creating a whole world of fairy tales set in and around our Hollywood apartment building called The Pollywoodland Stories. So if you’ve ever seen us exploring Griffith Park or roaming around, you’ve probably been a side character in a fairy tale.

Actor of the Month is a monthly collaboration between IMDbPro and Casting Society that celebrates the casting community and spotlights its members through a series of interviews between casting directors and actors about their acting journey, the casting process, and how IMDbPro helps them advance their careers.