Meet Sean Liang | Actor/Producer/Director

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

Hi Sean, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
I’ve thought about this all my life. I grew up in Florida with separated parents who both worked a LOT. Most of my early childhood was spent under the watch of my Gaga (grandmother), and unless I was in the pool, I hated the outdoors because it was Florida. So I was in a lot of ways raised by the TV. I was a die hard Nickelodeon fan, especially in those Orange Years, and I always wanted to be on those sitcoms. Since a lot of Nickelodeon shows were filmed in Universal, Orlando at the time, the dream didn’t seem too impossible! It has been my goal since I’ve had goals, to be on your TV or on your local movie theater screen. As I’ve grown older, there’s no way I could imagine myself chasing any other life happily. I love story so much, it’s like my religion, and I’ve always thought that there was a healing and educational effect that story has on us. I have always wanted to play a part in moving an audience, encouraging them to think about topics that they wouldn’t otherwise think about. I also have a deep deep desire for community, and there’s almost nothing better than a campfire or stage or screen to bring people together and try out new thoughts.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
The answer to these questions vary by day, by month, by year. When lockdown happened in 2020, I had wrapped a feature film JUST 2 DAYS before all of the sets in LA got shut down. I had just had a recurring guest star role on one of my favorite TV shows ever, AMERICAN HORROR STORY: 1984, and I had also booked a few other TV gigs and even a few movies. I felt like I was finally breaking through the barriers into consistent work. And then we shut down for a year. Then we went to full time self-tapes. I was and honestly still am coping with the loss of my Mother, who was my one source of comfort and pure love. The last two years have been very frightening for my adulthood.

So today I’m extremely proud to still be in the fight, even though I may be bloody. I’m proud to have fortified my mentality better than ever so far, and I’m proud to be helping other artists create. I’ve learned what to do instead of sit around waiting for the audition that’s going to change my life. Now I’m still waiting for that audition, but in the mean time I’m creating my own stories. It took way longer than I wanted to get here, but I think I needed the time to grow.

I’m proud that my work and determination have landed me a role in a big Netflix movie that I’m very excited to shoot next month. I’m proud that in spite of so much that I’ve lost, I still have so much to be grateful for. My mama always had a resilient sense of humor and I learned from her that when you learn to laugh in the face of total tragedy, it can sometimes change the genre of the story you’re in. I don’t mean laugh at, she was not a very vengeful person, but to laugh WITH. She found a way to laugh even when she suffered so much. I think that quality is very much a part of my art.

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?
I have a soul sister best friend from my hometown who used to come and visit me, her name is Grace. She has a baby girl now and it’s hard to travel especially since 2020, but when she did we never really crammed our schedule because we just loved hanging out together laughing and singing and talking. I’ll spare you all of the cliche landmarks that EVERYONE hits when they first visit LA, because they’re all a given; GO SEE THEM, THEY’RE GREAT.

BUT, what we do that has been very special, is take a couple days and road trip. California is where I was meant to be, it reminds me of home in Florida (palm trees and beaches) but the weather is way more comfortable. It has the beach, it has mountains, it has deserts and it even has snow sometimes. We like little trips probably because we spent so much of our time in Florida in the car–it’s a holy place for us. We stayed at Big Sur in the woods for a night once. On another one of her visits we camped on the beach… almost got swept away during high tide. We also really enjoy escape rooms.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
There are way too many people I have to thank for the support that keeps me in LA today. Two of my current producing partners were featured recently and they nominated me, for which I’m truly grateful for: Nate Huntley and Sara Spadacene. My best friend Devin O’Connell is a sold rock for me in this journey, especially since college. We were acting majors at Elon together, he has recently relocated to Salt Lake City to ride out COVID with his family and is still trying to find a way back to LA, in the mean time he has been helping us produce remotely, and I owe him for almost every self tape I’ve had to make in the past three years. We are all a team trying to find our voices in story, and build a stage for ourselves–there’s many more under this umbrella, too.

I would also like to personally thank Faline England at The Imagined Life. Until I met her and Diana Castle, I did not think of myself as an artist. They have been the most influential to my mentality and craft since I moved to LA. It’s very hard to find a community and support when you’re trying to be an actor in the big city, but The Imagined Life was like finding the vocabulary to every core belief I had about the art of acting. It taught me how to take care of my mentality and it taught me how to approach my work. Mind you, they didn’t tell me how to do anything, they simply gave me the means and the tools to create an efficient and accurate process; they gave me back my confidence to reclaim my power as an artist, and I will always be grateful to Faline and Diana.

Website: imdb.me/seanliang

Instagram: @Seannifer

Twitter: @Seannifer

Facebook: Sean Liang

Youtube: www.YouTube.com/c/ArgyleGargoyleComedy

Image Credits
Rollercoaster Photo (BTS 9-1-1) Zach Galifianakis Renton Pexa, Andrew Tippie Marissa Hood, Sean McBride, David Gallegos Vanessa Marano, James Lastovic