From Poverty to Hollywood: Siren’s Ian Verdun

poverty-to-Hollywood

Ian Verdun is a talented and handsome actor best known for playing Xander McClure, a small town fisherman who gets tangled up in bizarre events surrounding a mysterious woman, in Freeform’s hit series Siren. A graduate of the California Institute of Arts and the British American Drama Academy, Verdun grew up in and out of poverty. He only attended art school by the last minute generosity of a friend who had knowledge of his situation. For years, Verdun hustled and worked several service jobs before moving to New York to pursue his entertainment career.

Verdun’s first acting job was a passion project called Life’s a Drag. It went on to win many awards in the web festival circuit, including a special award for recognition in diversity. Since then, Verdun has written and produced a number of plays himself, and has appeared in TV shows such as ABC’s Last Resort, FOX’s Lucifer and CBS’s Hawaii Five-O. He recently wrapped up production on a feature film titled Death of a Telemarketer.

OUT FRONT had the opportunity to chat more with Verdun about his role in Siren, not letting poverty stop him from achieving his dreams and his passion for storytelling.

Hi, Ian! Thank you for taking the time to chat with me. How have you been holding up in quarantine?
Oh, doing fine. I’m not terribly, terribly isolated. Just been buckling down and abiding by guidelines. I’m not one of the crazy people in California who was flocking to the beaches.

You currently star as Xander McClure in the Freeform series Siren. Can you tell us more about your character?
Absolutely. Xander, he has always been very salt to the earth. He is incredibly loyal, has a heart of gold, but sometimes ill tempered. He is an impulsive character, very committed to his friends and very protective of the people in his life. Over the course of the series, he has been through a lot of crap. Mermaid characters are just kind of running through the wringer, but Xander has been very fun to play because he has grown and matured so much. I think that has really culminated a lot in this past season.

The third season of Siren wrapped up at the end of last month. Overall, how was it received by viewers?
I think pretty well. Personally, I think it’s been our best season because we have just been able to let the characters and world go. We’re not having to spend a lot of episodes explaining what the world is. You kind of get it at this point. So, it has been nice. We have scenes with new characters and new pairings that we really didn’t have before, and it just kind of opens up the world and makes me feel so much broader. The stakes are much higher. People seem to really be down with it. They love the mermaid baby.

Related article: Cocktails and Celebrity Tea with Ross Mathews

How have you prepared for the role of Xander, and why did you want to be involved with this show?
That’s funny because I get that question a lot. Most actors are just trying to pay rent like everybody else. Unlike Jennifer Lopez or Scarlet Johansson, nobody is like coming to us and being like, would you like to be in this? So, you’re just really happy to be working. For me, I just got the audition. I was actually really distracted at the time because I was selling my own show. In the process of pitching a show I wrote called Life’s a Drag. I remember I had my first pitch meeting, and it was just kind of like an embarrassment of riches after a really long struggle. For me, I just loved the character so much even though I didn’t physically match what was on the page in the actual script of the pilot. I just went it and thought, hey, if they are buying what I am selling, then great. If not, I’m selling something else. Well, they bought it and they changed the character to kind of fit me and just went in a new direction. It was a surreal, serendipitous experience, and I couldn’t be more grateful for the entire thing. I am having so much fun.

What direction would you like to see Xander’s storyline head towards next?
Well, I love the direction that he’s heading in right now. It is something I had wanted before, just to kind of see him on the other side of that grief and start to really kind of rebuild himself. I think we’re doing that now, but the fun thing is to see how that new set of responsibilities challenge him, and how the mistakes of his past come to haunt him on his new journey. I think he does have a tendency to be very forward thinking, and even though he has learned a lot of his lessons, it is always interesting to see how the character goes further. How he continues to deal with the mistakes that have been established in what’s he has done earlier.

Do you believe in lore like mermaids and mermen, or are you a skeptic?
Hmm, I don’t know. To say that I know everything about the oceans when humanity doesn’t is kind of arrogant [laughs]. So, who’s to say what exists at the bottom. We know more about space than we do about our oceans. At the same point, I don’t know. I just don’t know. I try to stay open minded. If they don’t exist, whatever. If they do, we probably killed them as a species. The way of the Neanderthals.

Is there any other lore you believe or have an interest in?
I really love mythology. It’s something I have always gravitated to, especially Greek mythology when I was a little kid. I think there’s so much that is unexplained and so much about consciousness, space, the universe, everything is so vast, large and bigger than any of us can really comprehend. There’s so much mystery in the world, and maybe we’re not supposed to know all the answers, but they have a lot of different kinds of lore.

How did you get your start in acting, and has it always been your passion?
Definitely. It has always been a passion of mine. I have always been a storyteller. As a kid, I used to draw and make my own comic books. I was always obsessed with creating things, singing, dancing. I was always very performative and cracking jokes. It’s kind of always been who I’ve been. In regards to being an actor, I made a very conscious decision after doing a play when I was in junior high school. Like, this is what I’m doing. So, it has been a journey since then to kind of position and have the tools to be able to do it. I was very, very committed to training, going to school and making sure that I could actually, you know, act.

Also, I wasn’t born into a wealthy family, or even middle class. I was pretty poor and nobody had connections. Nobody knew writers, actors, producers or anything. I feel like there are so many actors that we talk about on a national scale that actually come from so much privilege, and that’s something that isn’t necessarily addressed. Like, it’s such a privileged industry because you have to go through so much. It Is very hard coming from poverty and actually being able to legitimately make it because you spent so many years struggling, especially if you don’t have family support. So, for me, it was a long, long, long struggle, but I was very, very, very stubborn and committed to the craft. I think that is the important takeaway.

No matter what your particular obstacles are, if you are really committed to the craft and committed to what you want and what you’re doing, you will make it happen. Regardless of how it all tends to work out. I could not have possibly imaged that Siren would happen. You just have to commit yourself to work. I definitely didn’t know how it would all happen, and I am not yet at all where I want to, so I will keep trying.

Even though you are a L.A native, you moved to New York to pursue your career. Why not just stay in L.A.?
I moved to New York after I graduated from college, and actually, the reasoning was because one of my teachers set me and a few other classmates in my graduating class with an audition for The Acting Company. I went to the audition and didn’t end up getting it, then I thought, you know, I’m young. I’m in my early 20s. If I don’t move out of L.A. and experience something else, I know I won’t act and I will end up back in L.A. I need to do it now because I’m only going to be in my early 20s once. I should have this experience, and I was really happy. It was a great experience, and when I knew that experience was time to be over, it sucked, but it was the right decision because everything turned out as it should.

Related article: Lost in Space with Aria Demaris 

Besides acting, what are some of your other passions?
As a storyteller, I love writing, producing, directing, drawing, singing, dancing – I love all of the fine and creative arts. It is where I have spent a lot of my energy and focus on throughout my entire life. I am passionate about all the arts. Telling stories and creating things is somehow holding up, interpreting and mirroring back the human experience, or at least my small, myopic experience. Being a little tiny piece of the human experience. I think we all come in here and like things we are meant to do. It’s just one thing I always knew I was meant to do.

As someone who grew up in and out of poverty, you never let that stop you from achieving your dreams. What advice would you give to those who think they cannot be successful because they are in that type of situation?
Accept the reality that it is going to be difficult. I think we all have a tendency to want to avoid that. When you are in an impoverished situation, no matter what your dream is, it tends to be difficult because being poor is hard in America. Anywhere in America is really fucking hard. So, I would say you have to have a lot of self-belief. I hope you have a very strong system of support, whether that’s a familial support or community support. I also always say take responsibility for your talent because you know your ability is only going to really be appreciated by you when nobody knows who you are. So, if you feel like what you have to offer is something that not only has value to you, but it’s something that can have value culturally, fiscally, whatever your goals are, you have to take responsibility for that and create your own opportunities. Especially in the digital world that we live in today. It’s hard, and most people just don’t care. So, you have to care. You have to care so much and you have to care about what you are doing so much that it makes others care.

What more would you like to accomplish with your platform as an openly gay actor?
Specifically for me, a big thing is I know I stand on the shoulders of so many struggles and battles that have happened since before I was born. I was born in the 80s. There is so much that I am grateful for. I am always thinking of the people that will be standing on my shoulders and what contributions I can make. For me, I think a big thing that is missing as representation has started to really change the industry and kind of start to make moves. I feel that change is still very rigid, but for me, it’s what I want to embody, and hopefully I have started that on Siren. Whatever your identity is as a person individually, you should have the freedom to be able to explore the human experience as an actor in any capacity that you can. Even though I am gay, I play a very straight, machismo heterosexual character on Siren, and I love that. As an actor, I should be able to embody straight roles and gay roles without it adversely affecting my career. Any actor should be able to do that. I think for a long time, straight white male actors have had the luxury of embodying any kind of experience they want, and then get awards thrown at them. Then when you have a gay actor embodying the gay experience, it ends up being great for the amount of time that culture is talking about that one role, but then their entire career is pigeonholed within just the gay experience. For me as an actor, I want to be able to do everything that this actor over here is doing, and I should not be limited by my own identity or racial representation if yours isn’t limited in that way. So, for me as a creator and an actor in the roles that I hopefully come about for me, the ones I take and the ones I create, I want to be able to develop that narrative. Meryl Streep it. We should all be able to transform. Everyone.

You recently wrapped up production on a feature film called Death of a Telemarketer. Can you tell us more about that?
Definitely. I would say it’s a dark comedy. I have a really small part, it’s my first film. My scenes were with Lamorne Morris who I have actually known for a couple years. So, the whole experience was kind of a full circle experience for me even though my role was quite small. Because I have known Lamorne since he started New Girl, and I was getting fired from restaurants [laughs]. I just remember being like, he’s doing it! He’s actually doing it. This was back like almost 10 years ago. Also, I was offered the role and I had taken a workshop with the casting director years ago. So, it’s like seeing the fruits of your labor, the plants begin to grow from the seeds that were planted right when you’re in the thick of struggling. For it all to come back and be like, you know, it’s all worth something. It all comes out in the wash, even though it took 10 years. I think it is an important lesson for people to learn that you might not see the rewards of it for a while, but if you keep at it, you will. They will come out.

Do you have any other upcoming projects we should be on the lookout for?
There are lots of things I’m creating. I think this whole period in time has given us all an opportunity to take stock and work on other things. For me as a writer, it’s been nice to be able to go off in a different world. I mentioned Life’s a Drag before, which is on YouTube if anybody want to look it up! It’s awesome! I am making a feature film version of it. It’s very exciting. I am also developing another television show, which is more of a dark/urban fantasy, and then another LGBTQ themed film which I don’t want to give too much information out, but it’s a great idea.

Before we wrap up, would you like to tell our readers more about Life’s a Drag?
We shot that in 2015, and it went thought festivals, but it’s about a down and out actor who basically stumbles his way into drag while trying to get out of a major financial situation. He ends up finding out a lot about himself and it explores a lot about the spectrum of male sexuality and goes into the drag world. I feel like we have hit a critical mass with drag and RuPaul’s Drag Race specifically, but I don’t think there has been a major, serious narrative. It’s all kind of been regimented into the reality world. So, it’s a fun, irreverent, emotional and funny story about identity, struggle, triumph and understanding people and yourself differently.

To stay up to date with Ian, follow him on Instagram @ianverdun.

Photos by Ryan West Photography

What's Your Reaction?
Excited
1
Happy
0
In Love
0
Not Sure
1
Silly
1
Scroll To Top