Being a blond, blue-eyed and athletic guy from Bakersfield, or as he likes to call it "the Mid-West of California," means you have to keep resisting those offers to cast you in yet another handsome hero role. So thinks actor, Shakespeare buff and stage combat specialist Justin Gordon, who figures he’s done more than his fair share of juvenile leads, from Valentine in TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA to Prince Charming in INTO THE WOODS.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA Pacific Repertory Theatre

All a valuable part of the training, Justin admitted over coffee at the Crossroads Shopping Center. "But these days I’m intentionally seeking out roles that have - well, if not a downright dark side, at least something more challenging than the Boy Next Door." He’s finding the challenge he seeks in William Nicholson’s THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW, now in rehearsal at Pacific Rep under the direction of Dan Gotch. It’s a three-character play, with Justin, Maryann Schaupp-Rousseau and Jack Stauffer - "about the way a person can simply walk away from a marriage. . . I play Jamie, the son of divorcing parents. There are a lot of underlying and personal issues - issues that are alluded to but never discussed. The audience will need to discover what they are."

It started for Justin in his early schooldays in Bakersfield. "I was always a bit of a jock - soccer and baseball. When I was about twelve I saw an ad. A local community theatre wanted people to audition for BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. All my family were involved in the arts in some way - and I’d seen one play, THE FANTASTICKS. My uncle was the piano accompanist, and I’d really enjoyed the show. So I figured BEAUTY AND THE BEAST might be fun - and I got the role of the Prince, AND in a funny twist, I'll be appearing as the Beast this time in PacRep's DISNEY'S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST this summer." (A character, come to think of it, who moves in the opposite direction from Justin’s present one by starting out dark and complicated and morphing into the boy next door).

MY FAIR LADY TheatreFest Cal State, Bakersfield

It was a high school production of THE TEMPEST that decisively hooked Justin on theatre - and more specifically on Shakespeare. He might have looked right for the love-struck Sebastian, but he was cast as the bestial Caliban - "and it was the most fun I’d ever had." After more high school drama work, he landed the role of Rolph in a Bakersfield Equity theatre’s production of THE SOUND OF MUSIC. It was his first paid acting job - but also the scene of his most embarrassing moment on stage. "It was the final scene, when Rolph is looking for the Trapp family in the abbey with this flashlight and a pistol. I’d came on before I realized I was scanning the set and the audience with the flashlight, but I hadn’t drawn the gun. Well, in grabbing for it, I broke the holster. The gun went sliding across the stage. I couldn’t look down. I needed to keep focused on that search, so I twisted my body around and stretched out my leg to kick the pistol back to where I could pick it up - and I split my trousers. There I was, in front of 600 people, dramatically scanning the abbey and the auditorium in a pair of split-open pants.. Not a really big triumphant evening."

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Pacific Repertory Theatre

At Cal State, Bakersfield, Justin was one of the original members of a Shakespeare acting troupe called "illusions of grandeur." He joined them after their second production as Claudio in MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING. Still at the university, he attended the American College Theatre Festival in Las Vegas in February 2000. "It was one of those cattle-call auditions where maybe fifteen or twenty companies watch you, and you may get an offer. Mine came from Pacific Rep - so that summer I did Lysander in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, Valentine in TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA and a kind of a Fool character in a Commedia del Arte style VOLPONE."

During a two-year break from the university, Justin worked at a theatre in Ashland, Oregon in a production of INTO THE WOODS as Cinderella's Prince and did his second summer season with Pacific Rep, playing Tony in WEST SIDE STORY and Bolingbroke in RICHARD II. Returning to receive his BA in Theatre Studies and English at Bakersfield, he responded to a flier offering apprenticeships in acting/directing at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. When four months had passed with no response from England, he was preparing to go job hunting in Los Angeles when an email popped up on the monitor, outlining a detailed six months’ itinerary in London. "I contacted the Globe representative in New York and said, ‘I didn’t know I was in!’ He said, 'Didn’t you get the letter?’ I said, ‘No, only the email with this whole itinerary.’"

EDWARD III Pacific Repertory Theatre

ROZENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD MPC Theatre Company photo by Gary Bolen

Asked to describe the Globe experience, Justin calls it "draining, trying and very creative. . . You are working with such top notch people - and the British training doesn’t relax for one second. They are not your friend till the end of the course. I worked under several people, including Jane Lapotaire. We called her ‘The Ice Queen' - but not to her face. She was cruel but brilliant, and I owe her a lot, but it was tough. It should be added that I loved every minute. She truly taught that all your answers lie in the text of the play. I also studied with Anthony Hopkins' voice coach, Stuart Pierce, who really helped me focus on a more natural voice, not the stereotypical Guilgudisms people associate with Shakespearean acting."

THE GLASS MENAGERIE MPC Theatre Company photo by Gary Bolen

Exhausted from the Globe experience, Justin came to visit a friend on the Monterey Peninsula and received a call out of the blue from Peter DeBono asking if he wanted to do Jim, the Gentleman Caller, in MPC’s production of THE GLASS MENAGERIE. "I took it. I’d never done Tennessee Williams except in workshop scenes, and I loved the role. Everyone wants to play Tom, but with Jim there’s so much that is under the surface. Tom tells you everything, but with Jim you have to dig it out. "Then Steven Moorer phoned and said, ‘So, you’re back on the Peninsula. How about doing some more Shakespeare?’"

That magic name was more than enough for Justin. He played Clarence in last season’s Royal Blood series at PacRep and did the fight choreography for the festival. From there he moved directly on to the challenging job of eight separate, intermeshing roles (Irish film extra, English movie director, female American movie star, to name three) in STONES IN HIS POCKET. "I’d seen it in London and had no idea how it would go in the round, but I think it was marvelous. You can’t do tricks at close quarters. You’re totally exposed in a small circular playing space. It all has to be real or the audience will see that you’re not really there in the moment." The play’s conflict - between the drives and mores of some Irish extras and bit players and the big-ego exercises of their Hollywood film-maker employers - was already somewhat familiar territory to Justin. Prior to STONES he had a major supporting role in the film "What's Bugging Seth?" which just won first place at the Fargo and San Fernando International Film Festivals. And a few seasons back, he was cast in a Mel Gibson movie called WE WERE SOLDIERS, filmed at Fort Hunter Liggett. "It was a good experience, watching the use and the abuse of power on a big-budget Hollywood set . . . I played a French officer - and my whole role ended up on the cutting room floor. Actually, if you look very carefully you can see me throw a grenade, but that’s it. Another funny anecdote - Mel made fun of my haircut. He called me a 'space monkey' because of the buzzcut they gave me for the film."

"What's Bugging Seth?"

Justin's two favorite roles to date are Scoop in a Cal State Bakersfield production of THE HEIDI CHRONICLES and Edgar in KING LEAR at the Spotlight Theatre, Los Angeles. "I’ve never felt more connected to a role than I did as Edgar. I felt I was in sync with what was happening, body, mind and spirit. When you feel that, you’ve probably got some kind of real theatre happening. You don’t need excessive capital to produce vibrant, gutsy and pure theatre. You don’t need smoke and mirrors, or hydraulic sets or flashy costumes. . . What you need is drive, hard work and time - time to rehearse, time to create, time to explore the text and most importantly, yourself and members of the company. Not so you can show off. Not so you can demand or expect results or reaction from the audience due to your individual efforts - but so you can form a true team, a real union with everybody in the company and crew. . . And above all, you simply must tell the truth."

THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER MPC Theatre Company photo by Gary Bolen