{"id":34139,"date":"2014-11-04T12:47:21","date_gmt":"2014-11-04T16:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=34139"},"modified":"2022-09-29T12:39:23","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T16:39:23","slug":"acting-natural","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2014\/11\/04\/acting-natural\/","title":{"rendered":"Acting natural"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Jason<\/a>

After performing on the stage and in movies and on TV, Jason Kaufman teaches acting to students hoping for careers on Broadway and in Hollywood.<\/p><\/div>\n

When he was growing up in Cleveland, he and his father would go to the movies together every Friday night. He saw Marlon Brando in \u201cOn the Waterfront\u201d when he was only 6 and took in \u201cThe Al Jolson Story\u201d seven times.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, Jason Kaufman\u2019s love affair with acting took off like a rocket when he bet a friend he could land a part in a community theater production and did. Since then, he has been \u201ckilled\u201d by Dexter in the popular television series \u201cDexter,\u201d had parts in \u201cWithout a Trace\u201d and \u201cCSI: Miami\u201d and played a hot dog-eating New York City cop in the 2005 movie \u201cFantastic Four.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Kaufman is an assistant professor of acting in the Department of Theatre, Dance and Motion Pictures<\/a> at Wright State University, where he is sharing his acting and filmmaking experience with students hoping for careers on Broadway and in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to get the students prepared professionally so they are their own corporation, their own company,\u201d Kaufman said. \u201cThey need to understand their brand, know who they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaufman was attracted to Wright State because the university offers a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to teach students who were serious, who were dedicating four years of their life to the craft of it, knowing they are going to go out and try to use it,\u201d he said. \u201cTo be successful, students must be motivated and driven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wright State is engaged in a $150 million fundraising campaign that promises to further elevate the school\u2019s prominence by expanding scholarships, attracting more top-flight faculty and supporting construction of state-of-the-art facilities.<\/p>\n

Led by Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks and Amanda Wright Lane, great grandniece of university namesakes Wilbur and Orville Wright, more than $107 million has been raised so far. rise.shine.wright.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Kaufman teaches everything from acting for the camera and acting technique to the business side of the career, such as how to build a resume and find an agent. He would like his students to make a movie at Wright State they can submit to film festivals after graduation and refer to in job interviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have something to talk about, people are willing to listen,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd there is no better training than working.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kaufman comes from a family of achievers. His father is an attorney, his mother an accomplished realtor and his brother a wildly successful real estate agent who sold his first house at the age of 15 and has since posted more than $1 billion in sales.<\/p>\n

When Kaufman was working on his anthropology degree at Miami University in 1991, he studied abroad in China and got a job at a Beijing television station correcting the grammar of the English translation of the news that scrolled at the bottom of the screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always a hustler, and you need that in the entertainment business,\u201d he said. \u201cI was always looking for new experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then the entertainment business came calling when Kaufman landed several small parts in the \u201cThe Boys Next Door,\u201d a play at the Oxford (Ohio) Community Theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy knees were shaking on the stage. I was petrified,\u201d he recalled. \u201cBut the sense of community I found I absolutely adored.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six months later Kaufman found himself in New York City studying acting \u2014 reading every book on it he could find \u2014 and sleeping on a buddy\u2019s couch.<\/p>\n

\u201cI devoured the craft of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He studied at the Lee Strasburg Theater Institute, posed for magazine ads, did commercials for Ford, Time Warner and other companies and got parts in small plays. At age 28, he got into the Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University, which enabled him to study in Russia. (He remembers touching the curtain on the stage of the Moscow Art Theater, where Chekhov wrote his plays.)<\/p>\n

In 2005, Kaufman returned to New York City, where he was cast in \u201cThe Cherry Orchard\u201d at the Williamstown Theater Festival. It was there that he acted alongside such stars as Jessica Chastain, who later was nominated for an Academy Award for her leading role in the military thriller \u201cZero Dark Thirty.\u201d<\/p>\n

At age 31, Kaufman moved to Los Angeles, where he began landing parts in television and movies, including \u201cDexter,\u201d \u201cMedium\u201d and \u201cThe Unit.\u201d<\/p>\n

In \u201cFantastic Four,\u201d he was cast as a New York City policeman critical of the superheroes\u2019 crime-fighting efforts. However, the scene did not make the final cut.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was such a great scene too,\u201d said Kaufman. \u201cThe whole time I\u2019m eating hot dogs. I had to eat like 35 hot dogs in the middle of Madison Square Park in New York because you have to do so many takes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout his acting career, Kaufman\u2019s colleagues would come to him for advice.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always teaching,\u201d he said. \u201cEven when I first started, people were asking me for help because I just devoured the craft. I made myself sit down and understand it because it was the hardest thing I ever tried to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Kaufman went to Shenandoah University in Virginia as a guest artist to teach students how to do television commercials, he realized that academia was the place for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved being around the students; I hadn\u2019t felt that creative energy for a long time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In August, he joined the faculty in the\u00a0Wright State’s College of Liberal Arts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a lot for me to learn here, which I\u2019m excited about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After performing on the stage and in movies and TV, Jason Kaufman teaches acting to students hoping for careers on Broadway and in Hollywood. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":34142,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2037,2023,711,4859,725,747,715],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-arts-scene","category-faculty","category-faculty-staff","category-fine-and-performing-arts","category-home-news-sidebar","category-liberal-arts","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34139"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130520,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34139\/revisions\/130520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}