Geoffrey Cantor is an actor who’s recent works include roles in the films Public Enemies, Man on a Ledge, and When in Rome, along with roles in video games including Alan Wake and Grand Theft Auto V and television shows including Law and Order: Special Victim’s Unit and Law and Order: Criminal Intent.  He has a much lengthier history of roles, though, including roles in advertisements and in theater.  He previously worked as a social worker, and is currently involved with a number of charitable organizations.  I spoke with him for nearly an hour in a café at Baruch College and got to explore his perspective on the arts in New York City, his art and his experience as an artist.  Here are some of the highlights of that conversation:

Jeremy (me):  How are you involved in the arts in New York City?

Geoffrey:  Well, I would say that my primary art form is acting, and I’ve been acting in New York City for the last 18-19 years.  It has expanded somewhat to include teaching acting, I’ve also been doing some directing, and recently I’m working with a not for profit creating some media content for them as a director… well, director, executive producer, edit supervisor, art director – but essentially the director.  I’ve expanded a little bit because I’ve found that being creative and doing something meaningful is a great combo.

Jeremy:  Is it central to New York City?  The organization you’re involved in?

Geoffrey:  Yeah, actually the organization I’m involved in, it’s an international organization, primarily an American organization – they have pieces all over, but their offices are here in New York.  My agent is here in New York.  My manager is actually in California now, because my agent has an office out there, and there’s a whole thing that’s going on in the acting world where if you’re what’s called a local hire – and this is true of both coasts – if you’re a local hire, it’s easier to get work, and my manager represents that I am a local hire in California.  With the three airports here in New York, I can hop on a plane and get myself out there relatively inexpensively if the job is big enough.  But all of my auditions are here in New York.

Jeremy:  Have you found many differences between the West Coast and New York in terms of the industry?

Geoffrey:  Oh yeah, that’s a great question.  I mean there’s a huge difference.  As an actor, one might say one is foolish to be stuck in New York City.  I believe, however, because this is where I’m from, this is where my family is, that I have certain “groundedness” here that I would not have out there.  I don’t think that’s unique to me, I think that New York is not a one-industry town.  It’s a BIG city where people do MANY things and there are MANY careers that people have and there are artists of all sorts.  LA is really a one-industry town, so the artists are actors, primarily, or directors or writers.  There’s much more dance here, there’s… clearly there’s museums and stuff.  The arts scene is strong here – the visual arts scene/graphic arts scene is very, very vibrant here in New York.  I think that an artistic environment feeds all of the arts, whereas in California, there’s not as much theater – the theater there is a bunch of movie stars doing theater.  Some of them are very good actors, but you don’t have the culture of theater that you have in New York.  You don’t have as many festivals as you have in New York, you don’t have off-Broadway… There’s Juliard, there’s NYU, Columbia has now a drama program, a film program, so there’s much more happening here in terms of the growth of the artist.  But also you have access, and you’re impacted by people who are outside of the arts.  So I think it creates a more well-rounded person who is living in the world, as opposed to someone who is living in the cocoon of the business of show, which is different from the art of acting.

Jeremy:  So, there’s more room for growth?

Geoffrey:  I think financially, it might be more difficult here.  Eventually, you’re going to have to act wherever the acting work is.  They put films all over the country, all over the world.  I think that there is something healthier about living here than there is about living there.  I think it’s a healthier environment for the average actor.

Jeremy: I would have never known that.  That’s a very interesting perspective to me.

Geoffrey:  I’m shooting [an episode of] Special Victim’s Unit right now, and a woman who was in 30 Something [who I work with] – remember that show 30 Something?

Jeremy:  I don’t think so.

Geoffrey:  It’s probably before your time but your professor will know.  She and her husband were both from New Jersey and moved to California when she had this show.  It’s a huge show.  She did it for three years.  They moved back, because there is a sense of being a person who is an actor as opposed to being stuck in the industry where EVERY conversation you have, every waitress, every bartender… everybody is involved in the same business.  And that’s an unhealthy sort of… I’d say incestuous, it’s like inbreeding – it’s social inbreeding.  That’s my take on it.  I don’t think many people disagree with that, but that’s my take on it.  That said, I do know at some point I may have to go to California!  Because if I get a TV show, most of them film out there.  If I get a big movie, most of them film out of there.

Jeremy:  Would you say it’s more competitive out there?

Geoffrey:  It’s different… a different competitive.  I don’t think it’s more or less competitive.  You have the same amount of people vying for jobs.  Some of us are vying for all the same jobs – I’m vying for jobs at LA from here.  It’s just you don’t have other influences – here, when I’m walking down the street and I see someone, they’re not necessarily an actor, a writer or a director.  They could be an accountant or a doctor or a lawyer or a graphic designer or a student.  You don’t walk around in LA – you drive everywhere, you drive an hour everywhere and so you’re stuck in your car, you’re stuck in your apartment, you’re stuck in your house… everybody walks in New York.  So, just by experiencing something outside of that, it’s a healthier way to live.  Outside input positively influences the artist.  I think that one could make that point about anybody.

Jeremy:  I totally agree.

Geoffrey:  But I can only speak as an artist.  So, I find ideas, and perspective, and knowledge from watching and sensing behavior by being out in the world.  It’s a social art form, right?  The social world of New York is diverse and full.  The social world of California is much smaller, in terms of the types of people and the types of jobs people have – and in terms of the actual interactions people have on a day-to-day basis.  If you’re auditioning, and you’re driving to every audition, you’re landing at your audition, you’re going to your audition, getting back in your car, you’re not having a conversation even with another actor, at Starbucks or on the street – you’re not bumping into people, you’re not interacting in the same way.  It’s an unhealthy… environment.  It’s certainly a smaller universe, and I think that that wouldn’t help me.

Jeremy:  I absolutely see that.  As a student, taking varieties of courses, getting different perspectives of all different sorts of subject matters, that’s helped me overall as a person, as a student, in relating to other subjects as well.  So I can totally see how that relates to you as an artist.

Geoffrey:  Well, I also think, as an actor, I’m really a student.  I always advise young actors to take a liberal arts education, because you need to bring something to bear on your work.  Via art, which is your intuitive ability to interpret something, you have a set of skills that you learn by going to drama school, which I did, because there are certain things you need to learn how to do.  You can have the soul of an artist and you can have great intuition, but you also need this certain skillset to apply – how to use your voice, how to articulate, how to do accents – and going to drama school helps, just like going to graduate school for dance.  A conservatory environment is very important, I think, for an actor.  I had to go after I already had a structure… because I had to be mature enough to apply those skills.  I had to be smart enough to take information I had learned as a liberal arts student to apply these artistic skills that I had learned and that my intuition was sort of moving me to do.  So, if you look at living in the world as sort of a liberal arts campus, New York is the best liberal arts campus there is!

Jeremy:  Absolutely.

Geoffrey:  It’s like going to extra credit.  You’re constantly getting influence, and that generates that broader sense and understanding and perspective of the world that you need to be, I think, any artist.

[This was only a small selection from our full conversation.  I intend to edit and post the full interview either to my personal Eportfolio or to the class blog, or both, possibly with some or all of the audio.]

Geoffrey and I proving that the interview actually happened:

… And Geoffrey in a challenging scene in which he had to remain completely still as a dead person: