YOUR INTERVIEW SAY INTERVIEW W Paul: Thanks to First Contact Conventions I am sitting here with Ryan Kelley. Pleasure to meet you. Ryan: The pleasure’s all mine P: You got started at a young age. Commercials at the age of 2? R: Yeah, so I have 14 brothers and sisters, so it started as a way to give my parents a head start on helping us pay for college, and it bit my parents in the butt because I didn’t go to college. *laughs* P: And you did your first movie in the first grade. R: I did. Roommates I think. P: What was that experience like? R: So it’s sort of that thing when you’re bought up into acting and you’ve been doing it your whole life you don’t really know any different so it wasn’t... it was fun, it was magical and I had a blast doing it, but as a kid it was just something I did, just on a bigger level than doing commercials or smaller television. P: You did a lot of guest spots in a lot of different shows, big shows! R: Yeah. P: Smallville, Boston Legal, Cold Case, and one of my favourites, Early Edition. Do any of those stand out for you? R: Every show you do, every guest spot I’ve done is interesting. It’s interesting because you see a whole different show. Every show is like a different machine. Smallville stands out to be the most because I was 16 and that was the first time in my life I realised I looked around at other young actors who were younger than me at the time and they were doing it for a living. Up to that point it had just been my parents... not pushing me, but helping me along and telling me ‘you have to be here, you made a commitment’, and that was the first time where I really realised I could do this for the rest of my life. I like this! This is fun! I want to do this! That was the first time it became a reality. P: And it took you on to some lead roles, and some varying different roles. We have Prayers for Bobby, which is a heavy movie. R: Yes P: That is a very heavy movie. What was the experience like filming that? R: So Prayers for Bobby is one of those films that comes around once in a blue moon that truly changes lives. I mean, all television does in a sense. Teen Wolf, it makes people escape from their reality. It’s why I love being an actor. It’s what brings me the most joy, movies and television, but there are certain films that have a higher power or a higher purpose, and I was lucky enough to be a part of Prayers for Bobby. Man, I hope to God I experience something else like that, but if I don’t then that means I was just blessed to have that. It was not a lot of fun to film, because it was extremely dark and depressing. It was a true story, as you know, so I was in a head space that was not a lot of fun. I’m extremely proud of my work, but it wasn’t, for instance, like showing up for Ben 10 where I’m running around as a super hero. It was definitely dark and it was rough, but once it’s said and done and I didn’t have to film it anymore I had moms and dads and daughters and sons coming up to me and saying it changed their lives. P: I was going to ask, what was the feedback from the LGBTQI community. R: Incredible. It was at times overwhelming, because you’d have parents coming up to you bawling, telling you that because of your film I look at my son differently. That’s a lot of power, and being able to be even a part of that... I didn’t write the script, I was just the actor, so being a part of that was such a blessing... such a blessing. P: And as you mentioned before you go to playing Ben 10, a superhero. A cartoon superhero. What was that like? R: Man, that was just fun. That was
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