Christian Bulich is an actor and producer, known for ’64 Koufax (2018), The Last One (2017), and To Feel Human II (2017). A few years ago we had the opportunity to talk to Christian about his projects and the Importance of artist development. With great pleasure, we had the opportunity to catch up again to discuss his career, and the state of the industry, particularly during the Covid pandemic.
Thank you for agreeing to catch up with Occhi Magazine. We’ve had the pleasure of covering your career over the last couple of years. Firstly, for readers who are unfamiliar with you and your work, how did you get into acting?
First of all, thank you for having me back again. It’s always a pleasure working with you and I’m excited to be part of another Occhi Magazine release.
Talking about how I got into acting always makes me smile. I was somewhat forced into taking acting classes in elementary school back in Germany and I hated it. I literally dreaded the days I had to see my acting teacher. Looking back I’m sure I hated it so much just because it made me feel so uncomfortable. Performing in front of others, having so many eyes observing you, and having conversations about emotions and feelings was something I didn’t really enjoy doing.
With time, I found myself drawn more and more to the art of acting. Especially the idea of analyzing characters, finding subtext in the words they were saying, and disappearing in their skin whenever I had the chance to perform was something I fell in love with. Acting became almost therapeutical in a sense. It helped me escape reality and live somebody else’s crazy life for a moment which was the most exciting feeling for me. And to this day it didn’t change a bit.
Your Master’s Degree in Acting from New York Film Academy is coupled with a bachelor’s degree in General Management. How much has academic study in acting and management prepared you or guided your career, particularly in light of the Covid Pandemic?
I realized at an early age that becoming an actor won’t be the easiest career path. Especially when it came to financial aspects I knew that I needed a long-term plan. I decided to study General Management at the European Business School and after obtaining my Bachelor’s degree I worked several office jobs to save up money before I moved to Los Angeles.
Overall, I’m happy that I chose a field of study related to economics for my Bachelor’s degree. Because at the end of the day being an actor basically means you’re an entrepreneur. You’re your own business, your own boss. This means knowing how to run and manage a business can be very useful.
Skills like financial planning and marketing for example are definitely something I developed throughout my time at EBS. These tools are crucial for my career as an actor. It helps me promote myself and deal with people on a professional level.
But first and foremost, my General Management studies taught me how to deal with pressure, how to stay level-headed, and find solutions to any situation. Pursuing an acting career is a constant up and down and being able to figure things out on the fly can be very essential. Especially during a time like the Covid pandemic.
When we last interviewed you, we asked about roles you would like to play in your career. A few years on, what do you look for now when considering a role or project?
To be honest, nothing really changed since our last interview regarding the roles I’d like to play. There’s no specific thing I look for when it comes to choosing projects or roles. As long as the characters and scripts are interesting and have some depth to it, I’m all in.
On top of that, I don’t think I’m currently in a position where I could really pick and choose my work. Whenever I achieve that luxury my perception might change but as of now I’m just happy to be on set and work any day I can.
With that being said, of course, I don’t just take on any project that gets thrown at me. You always have to have a certain standard even if you’re still just an aspiring actor in Hollywood. I have to thank my agents for doing a great job taking care of me in that regard and filtering out projects that would not be the best choice for me and my career.
To date, is there a particular experience that has either shaped or changed your perspective on acting? If so, what was the lesson learned?
That’s a difficult question because choosing just one specific experience is almost impossible for me personally. There are so many instances where my perspective shifted from loving the art of acting more than ever before to sometimes questioning myself and the film industry I’m in and asking myself if that is actually the way I want to go in life. But at the end of the day, no matter the experience I always find myself grabbing onto the beauty of this art and realizing over and over again how much I love it.
If I had to choose one specific moment though I would choose the very first theater play I was in. Because going on stage especially for the very first time you literally change your perspective on acting every ten seconds. Waiting backstage for the show to being, you go from “I’m so excited I can’t wait” to “ WTF am I doing here I want to go home and cry” in a matter of seconds. But I remember specifically how amazing it felt after the first show was over, the lights came back on and I was able to see all the different emotions in the audience. I can’t really explain why but this moment was just magical. This feeling gets me excited every time I have the privilege to perform on stage.
Several actors we’ve interviewed over the years have established careers behind the camera, producing and directing as prolifically as acting. Is this something you’ll explore?
Yes, definitely! Especially the writing process is something that excites me a lot. In the last few years, I was able to act in a couple of projects that I have also written and produced myself. And this year I directed my very first short film, which was a great experience. I think I just love the overall process of creating stories. Film or stage. There’s something special about coming up with a story you want to tell and then you start putting all the pieces together until the idea becomes reality. Seeing your idea taking shape from being just words to actually a visual representation on screen or stage is a unique experience. I chose the word “unique” because sometimes the result is not what you have envisioned and you ask yourself what in the world went wrong. But it is still a unique experience either way.
The industry has been under scrutiny, particularly over the last couple of years. Various campaigns have hit the headlines, encouraging a greater variety of films, a wider representation of society, and support for more independent productions. From your experience, is the industry changing?
The industry has already changed in my opinion and it will keep changing. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen more movies providing diversity, focusing on more diverse topics and ethnicities. I think it’s a very important time for the film industry. Diversity and representation do not only attract a bigger audience but also show us that everyone deserves to tell their stories.
This movement opened up many opportunities for independent productions, which for me personally is a blessing. I’m a big fan of indie movies and it is refreshing to see their overall success in the industry. The combination of diverse stories and the love indie filmmakers put into their projects result in very special and uniquely personal movie experiences.
The only thing that sometimes bothers me however is that some movies nowadays feel like they need to include diversity just for the success factor. As I mentioned above, diversity attracts a bigger audience and as a result, this important movement is sometimes being used for marketing purposes to achieve higher box office numbers. When you watch these types of movies everything just feels forced and that’s not what this movement should be about. Yes, including diversity in movies is important but forcing stories just to get labeled as a diverse project is not the right way to go in my opinion. At the end of the day, creating stories that actually focus on diverse topics is more powerful and represents this movement in the way it deserves to be.
Please tell us more about your most recent project.
I was lucky enough to finish shooting a project right before the pandemic hit. Like literally one day before the world turned into what it is now.
The title of this project is Eight Count. It focuses on Elizabeth and her husband Danny, a boxer on a losing streak. It shows the struggles that relationships have to go through in the fighting business. Boxing has always been a big part of my life and telling a boxing story was something that has been on my mind for a very long time. But every time I would start writing it would always feel like I’m retelling the Rocky movies which was something I was trying to avoid. Something was just missing.
But then in 2018 after rewatching the fight between Miguel Cotto and Canelo I noticed a small moment after the fight in Cotto’s locker room. He just lost the fight and he was sitting on a chair with his head down. His wife was kneeling in front of him wiping the blood coming from his mouth. She was trying to hold back her tears but at the same time, she didn’t show any weakness. She seemed to be his rock. His one constant in his life that he could always rely on. It was a very emotional moment. And even though it was a very short moment that was covered on tv it just stuck with me. And that became my inspiration for Eight Count. I wanted to show the boxing business from the wife’s perspective. What it means to be in a relationship with a fighter. To show how strong those women are and that it’s not just the fighter in the ring who feels the pain but the people around him as well.
So I wrote a draft and approached my friend Joe Basile who liked the story and we decided to collaborate on this short film. Joe wrote a wonderful script based on the initial idea I had in mind and he also directed the piece. It was a great experience working with him. He knew exactly what the project meant to me, especially playing Danny. Joe did an amazing job establishing not only the right mood on set but also having the right touch directing the film.
Eight Count is currently being screened at several film festivals around the world and we hope to find potential investors for the feature film version of our story.
What other projects are in the pipeline?
My team and I are currently working on a project called Scoped. During quarantine, I felt the urge to be creative again, so I reached out to a couple of friends who felt the same way and we decided to use this time at home creating something that we could shoot right when we were allowed to be outside again. We thought it might be a good idea to produce a little YouTube series since none of us have done it before.
Scoped is a five-episode web series and it follows three secret service agents who find themselves being targeted by the company they work for after discovering the truth behind their mission. The first episode is currently in post-production and we aim to shoot the second one very soon.
In addition to that, I just finished writing a feature film script which I’m very excited about. The story is a rather unconventional romance inspired by movies like Blue Valentine, Revolutionary Road, and the Before trilogy. I wanted to create a very unique way of exploring the different stages a long-term relationship goes through and I think my team and I were able to create something very intriguing.
The process of making feature films is of course way more complex than short films but I’m very confident we can find investors and start pre-production by the end of this year. I can’t wait to tell you more about it, maybe in another Occhi Magazine collaboration shortly. Thanks again for allowing me to catch up with you guys. Keep up your amazing work.
Where can our readers find out more about you?
Website: www.christianbulich.com (currently under construction)
Instagram: @unclechriz
Photo by Robert Kazandjian
Main image Eight Count (Christian Bulich & Roxanne Morrison)
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