It's finally here! As part of my final year at DePaul University for Acting, I was tasked with making a short showcase as a culmination of all my on-camera work. This project was quite the test in vulnerability. It is my first step forward in my acting career, and I wanted to make sure it was perfect.

Choosing the material was of course the first step. I had some wonderful help from my peers, who gave me vital insights on my type of roles over the past 4 years. I dabbled in some scenes from BoJack Horseman and The Studio before finally settling on a piece near and dear to my heart from my sophomore year: Mind Hunters. Besides having an obsession with the show when it first came out, I have discovered I have a rare knack for the unsettling characterization of serial killers and super villains. (I've tried not to read too much into it; but if you have it, flaunt it I suppose.) It was nice to revisit something long familiar, and my classmates had delighted in the chilling progression of the scene. To this day, my cohort still quotes the iconic "Pizza? You guys!" whenever the food makes its way into a conversation. A sign that the switch is a distilled capsule of my own unique flair.

The rehearsal process was rigorous, despite having very limited time with my professor Marika Englehardt to work one-on-one. How do you capture the passionate throws of a narcissist while holding onto the mystic secrecy that a serial killer relishes? I had to go all the way back to the source. No, not just the chilling performance of Cameron Britton in the original series, but Ed Kemper's own interview from 1991. It took a certain degree of separation to comb through. My task was not to imitate the demeanor of this homicidal person, but the characterize it in a format that would make for good television. The first thing you'll notice is the degree of showmanship that Ed utilizes. He knows the public would sensationalize his stories. I had to contain the performance in a mode that would not be appealing, instead invoking a calm, threatening aura. Yet, I also noticed that where Cameron Britton delivers it as distant and almost otherworldly, I wanted to play true to the emotional peaks and valleys that Ed displayed in real life. This is where I discovered the haunting pleasures of retelling the story of a murder. For no-one would go so far as to kill someone without knowing inside that it was the justified thing to do. Ed Kemper's hatred, isolation, and ultimately satisfaction were my tools to reaching him. He described himself on camera as someone who "didn't think," and so I dove hard into the feeling of every moment. He was known to "use abstracts," and so I relished the grand ideology lying right in the text. Truly it was a precarious character that I don't think many others can do justice to, and for that I am proud.

I hope you enjoy this small dissection of my work. You can find the video right now on my Demos page right here at ciaransapelli.com. More is soon to come.