INTERVIEW: Dan Ellis
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Theater without a doubt. Film is a one time thing and the days are often much longer but you have multiple takes if you need to and it’s the crew on set not 400+ people all watching you. In theater you rehearse a lot but even with all the rehearsals you might still mess up and if you do screw up on stage, you have to keep going, do your best to make it look like it was supposed to happen and pray that your cast mates can I love doing theater because I love the instant gratification you get when you perform and really push an emotion. You can feel the energy from the audience and when they get into it you feed off that energy. What’s your favorite horror movie? What do you find annoying in a woman? What role past or present if any would be considered your dream job? Do you have a day job or do you just act? What actor out there annoys the hell out of you? Sure there are but it’s not for lack of talent. Most the actors/actresses I don’t care for are the ones that seem to have taken their opportunities for granted. It’s just like having a boss that never had to do the grunt work or has just forgotten what it was like to be at the bottom of the ladder trying to make it all work. The thing that most of these people forget is that everyone on set talks to everyone else who in turn tells their friends and so on and so on and so on…. The stuff you over hear in wardrobe or make-up would just make your jaw drop. I think the captain of the first ship I was on summed it up best, he said "Dan, remember one thing. The toes you step on today, might belong to the ass you have to kiss tomorrow". Now when he told me that I thought he was nuts but the older I got, the more it made perfect sense and I have tried my best to stick to it. I guess it’s just a new spin on the "Golden Rule". You’re into Martial Arts. What type and level are you at? I haven’t been in a while but I was taking Tae Kwon Do. I managed to get my green belt and that’s about as far as it went. My schedule just got too crazy, the girls were born, bought a house that need some TLC and acting so something had to give.
![]() Are you a health freak or a junk food eater? Were you also in the navy? What did you train for? I was an "Operations specialist". I ran the radars, so I was responsible for contact/target data gathering, if they were friendly or not, course and speed, how close they would get to our ship and when. I also did navigation, radio telephone communication and I was the ships Intel photographer so if there was a bad guy out with us I had to take a crap load of pictures for the boys back at base. The space we worked in was the "Brain" of the ship and when the shit hit the fan it got real busy in there. Notable encounters: I was in the Philippines when Mt Pinatubo erupted, Desert storm, Saw a news helicopter crash right next to us in Okinawa, had a friend drown while we were in port (came back drunk and fell in walking up to the ship) crossed the equator (proud shellback!) and our ship ran aground. Funny thing is I joined the Navy to get away from trouble. Life’s funny like that some times. |

You have done stage and film acting. Which one do you think is harder?