Meet Sam Gipple | Actor and Director

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sam Gipple and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sam, what’s one piece of conventional advice that you disagree with?
Really often I’ve heard that it’s best not to do more than one thing. With the common advice being – you cannot master two things at once. As much as it can be true, that by being a jack of all trades you are a master of none, it is not always the case.

For myself, I am an actor and director, two paths that although separate, feel very intertwined. These are two things I have to do, and without one or the other I would be severely lacking. Yet, from the outside it can seem like a lack of commitment to both career paths. The common advice being to drop one, and master the other.

I cannot begin to express the ways in which acting has benefitted my directing, and vice versa. In fact I’d go as far as saying that at least in my case, in order to master directing, it is a necessity that I am also an actor.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’m an actor and director originally from Henley-On-Thames, England. I travelled to the States in 2017 to study at The Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia, where I graduated with dual degrees in Performing Arts and Film & Television Production.

I’ve had the opportunity to respectively act in and direct quite a few different projects, one of particular value being ‘Unplugged’, a short film shot entirely in Hong Kong. Another being when I was invited to be a guest director for the ‘Savannah Film Festival Director’s Lab’ in 2019.

After graduating I signed with two talent agents, one in London and the other in the States. Last year I acted in the feature film ‘The Zombie Wedding’, earning my sag-eligibility in the process, and am continuing to audition for future opportunities.

I think that in the real world, achieving your goals is not a linear pursuit, but one with many highs and valleys. What I am learning is to appreciate the detours and the moments of instability. An example of a seeming detour would be my first professional role after graduating, on a documentary series titled ‘I Am a Killer’. For this role I travelled with the team to Missouri, interviewing prisoners convicted for committing murder. Three years on I have continued to routinely find work in non-fiction projects. This is something that would have surprised a younger me, given documentaries had never previously been in my field of interest!

As ‘detours’ go, working in documentaries has been personally formative, particularly in the study of human nature. Very often the story behind the scenes is just as exciting as the story in front of the lens. It’s fully immersive and with the right team, deeply rewarding. It also presents you with a much broader view of life and people, in both its most beautiful and most painful aspects. A duality which is now an intrinsic part of the stories I wish to tell.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Pismo Beech for surfing, and Splash Cafe for chowder!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I’d have to give credit to my first drama teacher ‘Magda Olivier’. When I first started acting at the age of sixteen, she completely took me in and showed me how wonderful acting can be. In a space quite appropriately named ‘The Shed’, she taught a class of just four of us to act with truth and power. Since then she has continued to be a resource, and has always been a source of support.

Website: www.samgipple.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sam_gipple/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-gipple-51b76b7a/