Jordan Lee Cohen?
Hi.
Hi there.
What is your name.
My name is Jordan Lee Cohen?
What is your hometown?
My hometown is Medfield, Massachusetts.
And where did you go to school?
I went to school at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts which is in North Adams, Massachusetts. I was a psychology major with minors in Theatre and Sociology. Um, I discovered theatre pretty late, I was a sophomore and I took a random Shakespeare class because I wanted to. And when the teacher asked me why I was there, well she said, "Why are you here?" and I said "I want to be. I want to be here." And the kid in the back of the class saw that and said "Hey, you should be in our production of Taming." And I had the time of my life, and that's what I've been doing since.
So you're, you graduated in what year?
I graduated in 2013. And I spent the last year working for my alma mater as an admissions counselor.
How was that?
It was, it was enlightening. I learned that, I learned that having a void of theatre in my life made me realize that I needed it. So, having...it was a great job. I made money. I was, I supported myself. I was very happy to do that, being one of four kids, having all my siblings in college. Um, that being said I learned that comfort doesn't necessarily make you comfortable. Com, comf, comfort makes, comfort is good, you know, you can put food on the table, you can go out with your friends, do what you want, but you aren't doing what you need. Then something's gotta change.
So I knew something had to change, when I didn't have theatre in my life, and I knew that I felt it physically, mentally, psychologically, and I'll do anything, I'll do anything to stick with it for the rest of my life.
That's great.
Yeah.
Are you gonna, are you going to stay in Boston?
I am. I, I, I...to be honest I'm like frightened of New York City. And I'm not even interested in going to LA because I'm not, not that I'm not interested in Film and Television, I'm interested more in the stage. And obviously, New York's a great city for that, but really big cities scare me, and I don't think I'm ready for that. I don't think I want to do that.
Um, talking to the Boston liaison and talking with these Boston based actors and being here right now has reaffirmed my belief that I could do what I wanna do in Boston.
So, do you think Shakespeare...who's your favorite playwright? Is it Shakespeare?
Hmm...um. I'm really interested in classical work, because I like, my challenge for myself is to make classical work relevant. My goal is to have an audience member who's not, who's not associated with any classical work or training or acting...is to bring that forward. Because the things that really interest me are the things that are timeless.
So, do I like modern work? Yeah. It's interesting. And I think, but the thing I like about modern work is thinking "Will this make sense in 20 years? Will this still apply to people?"
Like Doctor Faustus. That play really interests me.
You should look at Miss Julie. It's not very uppity.
That's why I like House of Cards. House of Cards is so Shakespearean, it's disgusting.
I've never seen it.
Oh my gosh you have to watch it. Kevin Spacey is so cheeky. It's a show that breaks the wall. He's always monologuing and talking to the audience. Always. He's sitting there and he's looking at the camera and he says "This guy. This guy's a fool. This is what I'm gonna do to him." It's so Iago, it's so Richard.
And his wife is just as powerful. Just as sneaky. So Lady M it's disgusting. It is. It is gold.
Alright, so you love Shakespeare, what is your favorite Shakespeare play?
Um, my favorite Shakespeare play ever is probably Othello. Um, mostly because my dream role would be to play Iago. Um, I love that, I think, I think the play has so many dimensions and is just super interesting, because talk about a piece that was way ahead of it's time. Talk about something that's not only way ahead of it's time, but is timeless. Those issues still exist.
And my favorite line in the whole play is, you know, "Where kindness and beauty alack, your son is far more fair than black." That's so interesting and I imagine people in Shakespeare's day were like, "What are you saying?"
And that's probably my favorite play from an actor's standpoint, because I want to do that someday.
So what characters have you been working on here?
Um, so I have, I have a couple of things that I've been working on. My Trinculo speech, my Bottom speech, um, I have a lot of comic things I work on and I tend to gravitate more toward audience interaction, fool work. And that's me, I think that's who I am, and the cheekiness that I have about me.
I'm working on getting into more dramatic work, that work that speaks to me on a different level. So I'm working on a Claudio Measure for Measure speech. And it's probably my biggest struggle because there are times I feel that I absolutely nail it and there are times when I feel like I'm reading words off a page.
Making a skeleton key on getting into the monologue is what I'm trying to do.
And then I'm really excited to be working on the Shylock speech. And not necessarily as something I'd use but something in my back pocket. My first introduction to Shakespeare was being made fun of for having a Jewish last name in high school, and then having a project with Merchant and having everyone call me Shylock. So they went from calling me Jew to Shylock because they thought it was hilarious.
And so I was asked to do a monologue for class, and I chose that.
How does this relate to you? A lot of people look for monologues and they say, you know, "What's your type? What do you look like?" How can you fit your look to what's going on in a scene? Whereas for me, something really personal like that is important to me right now.
Can we hear some words.
The hardest thing about this is we don't confront death until it's in our faces. How do I feel that I'm on the edge of death. Which we are. We never know what's gonna happen. And we face the little deaths and the big deaths, the real deaths, every day.
It's almost funny, I'm my biggest obstacle. I am working against myself because I don't want to think about death.
Favorite piece of advice?
So whenever I go to a show, or whenever I go to a talkback, I ask every actor the same question. And I say, "What was the moment, or how did you know that you wanted to be an actor?" And the best piece of advice that I've gotten is something I keep with me all the time, is that well, you can't want it. You have to need it. It has to flow through you like blood. What you do with your life or whatever you want to do, that thing has to be a physical need for you.
In that year away from theatre, I found out that without it, my body and my mind were not healthy. If you don't need it, do something else. You have to need it.
Your favorite experience here so far?
The voice work with Paul because I've never felt more connected. I, before this program, I didn't consider myself an artist, I considered myself an actor who lives in an artistic world. But I really am an artist.
Paul's made me feel like I can be an artist and not feel ashamed to be called an artist, and I don't need any qualifications on a resume to say that.
My problem is that I'm never in the moment and Paul cracked that open for me.
A specific moment.
Just listening to other peoples' voice pictures and listening and experiencing that, I've never felt more in the moment.
Do you listen or do you wait for your turn to speak. And honestly, before this program I was waiting for my turn to speak more often than I was listening. And now I feel like I'm really listening.
Don't act, be an actor. But don't act.
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