On the Record: Josh Folan

Josh Folan has done a little bit of everything. In addition to his hilarious side project, "Thanks Bro ," his very successful beer and beef jerky deliver service business, he has been in with several other interesting projects. Folan has done print modeling, he has studied at the William Esper Studios in Manhattan, he has been to the Iraqi border in Syria to shoot a film, and he just wrapped on an outback buddy comedy in the wilds of Ohio. A business school graduate with an eye on the bottom line, Josh Folan can come at you from several directions. He works against type for every mold anyone could try to cast on him. And maybe that's the point. I got a chance to sit down and talk with Folan about guy humor, his film career, his business degree, and his stride to change the world.


Josh Folan was a former financial planner from Ohio who made his mark in his own way when New York City came calling and had asked him to do some modeling. When Folan was modeling he was still living in Ohio and still working as a financial planner. He'd come to New York City and "crash on a buddy's couch" which suited him fine for a while.


Folan found modeling very empty though. "Fashion modeling is very distressing…there are a lot of people in positions of power that are exploiting those positions of power in many ways. Modeling is very superficial and its also very unfounded. That one guy modeling for Calvin Klein is making a lot of money but there aren't too many other "guys" who are making any amount of money. So there's a lot of people pursuing this thing that's not even there." The people with the problem argues Folan are those at the top. As he says, "most of the people pursuing [modeling careers] are 18 year old boys [with] a constant sea of 18 year old boys," there are bound to be those who try and seize an opportunity.


Rather than dwell too long in this sea of distress, Folan took the same path that many other models do meandered into film and television.


"I didn't think I had any interest in acting;" he said, "I was terrified of it actually."


Folan didn't have to look too far for people who wanted his look. "I came from a modeling background and [on the soaps] they like pretty oriented people who moisturize well." Some of his gigs were names such as "All My Children" and "As the World Turns."


But even that wasn't where he wanted to be. His lessening involvement in the soaps may have been as much indicative of the times as anything else or he may have just been prophetic. Soaps did have their place though as Folan allows:


"It was a job; you know working in soaps was never anything I had career goals for. It was the first big thing I did; a lot of the doors which were opened for me are connections I still have today."

So a young man, who photographs well and is comfortable in front of a camera; why not do what so many others do and go to LA?


"I came to NY for modeling. As far as print work goes I'm a little bit of an oxymoron. You know I have tattoos…not quite pretty enough for fashion work; a little too edgy for commercial work. You know, I did alright. I made some money but I can't say I was "successful" at it." Folan also expressed disdain for the culture in southern California, many times telling me his films were anti-'Hollywood.'


When I asked him if he'd ever made the transition to the stage, living in the theatre capital of the world, he recoiled.


"Word-specific stuff to me is so; it's pretentious to assume that what you've decided sitting in a room writing something is the absolute only possible way it should ever be done...it's why I don't do stage work; it's too rigid for me."


...He said, to the writer. And playwright. While the value of all words depends on your vantage point, Folan doesn't see any reason to argue over it. He just doesn't do stage work. Because so much of the work which is continually done on stage has been done over and over the same way for so many years; Folan argues; "shouldn't we try to mix it up a little bit?"


Onscreen Folan was fortunate enough to be cast in the Turkish comedy from 2010, " Ay Lav Yu " which featured American talents Steve Guttenberg and Mariel Hemingway.


Folan tells me the film was, "...shot in Turkey in Summer 2009 near the Iraqi/Syrian border [and there were] fences and snipers and minefields and military personnel [who] littered the highway along the border." They were all legitimate and within their rights to shoot a film but the unrest was real. Still Folan said "I never felt in danger," adding his hosts, "were very hospitable"


When it came to making his own movies this indie artist has had to work around what he calls "solving problems in creative ways". He said his film "All God's Creatures " was made on a budget of 20K with about 5K in post to create a film that "doesn't look anything like it cost that much; in a good way!" One of his cost saving measures involved sitting down and calling every film production university department in NY and LA and "asking them if they had any undergraduate or graduate students who wanted to work with a production company" to make their film credits. He got a girl from Columbia to design his film credits and everyone was very pleased with the end product.


Folan's latest film effort in the rural outback of Ohio may be inspired by a certain television survivalist, but he doesn't need that stars endorsement to make his film work; especially if it's going to cost him. Some may view his frugal nature as counter intuitive to the freewheeling spending of the modern film industry, but that may also be the point.


Folan says he wants to "Change the films we watch." When I asked him what's wrong with the films we watch, he said:


"What's playing at AMC ? "Captain America;" "Planet of the Apes;" Big budget summer blockbusters that everyone whines about, but then everyone goes to see." If you're going to complain about how bad film is but still support it, says Folan, you are to blame for your own unhappiness. "If you want the film industry to change," says Folan, then the audience has to take a more active and involved role in the type of film they support.


Folan and I mused on the fact that people say how much they hate commercial film but how much of the same schlock is rehashed over and over and over again. "It's a business. They look at the past and see what has worked and give audiences the same thing." If audiences want what's presented to them in the theatres to change then they have to change their behavior.


Getting back to business, Josh Folan argues his business background is more relevant for an actor than any theatre program out there. "Ultimately what you're doing is you walk into a room and you're selling yourself. Business is about acquiring things; I can't think of a better way to train yourself than that.


To reiterate, Folan's newest film does not need the support of any reality TV stars who go out into the wilderness and try to survive; (even if he is referenced in the films title). There are plenty of other reasons to check out the artist and former model known as Josh Folan . Fans of great film will have to be the judge at how successful Folan is in actually changing American cinema.


Folan also told me "keep on the lookout for my next screenwriting venture, a comedy entitled "On the Decline" that sends the business side of the sports world careening into an estrogen-dominated parallel universe where women control the dating scene with an iron fist." We'll be waiting.

Beer and beef jerky, anyone?