Floral print distressed denim jacket and jeans with LV logos by Louis Vuitton
Discovery: Actor Ty Doran
INTERVIEW BY VISUAL TALES
December 2022
Talent: Ty Doran
Photographer: Asia from KolektiView
Styling: John Tan for Visual Tales
Grooming: Asia Geiger
Retouching: @retoucheryuliia
Assistant to photographer: Lana Ferly
Producer: Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez
Indigo denim jacket with a embroidered poppy, denim trouser white shirt and poppies print lace up shoes, all by Kenzo by Nigo
Vicuna color and black cashmere sweater high neck sweater and trouser, both by Zegna
Visual Tales: Hello Ty! Congrats on the success of Netflix’s hit streaming series Manifest "Season 4". You spend quite a few months living in NY filming the series. Now that you are back home in LA and have some time to reflect, what was it like living in NY and filming the series?
Ty Doran: Having been back in LA for a couple of weeks now, my time in NY is starting to feel more and more like a dream. Like a story as opposed to a lived experience. I didn’t realize how busy I was at the time and how fast that unrelenting pace made the time fly. When I moved there initially, I thought it would be a relatively lonely, overwhelming year in a new city, but the family I found there both in my personal life and at work made it anything but. Really what I miss is the sense of community and feeling like a part of a team that I think is intrinsic to both making television and living in New York City.
VT: In the streaming series, you portrayed the character Cal Stone. After season 3, your character, Cal has matured and grew to 25 (from Season 1 to 3, played by Jack Messina, who is 15). Was it a challenge for you to take on the character knowing that the public is gonna go "What happen to Cal?"?
TD: It’s a delicate balancing act to take over a character that is mentally much younger than yourself while also making your own artistic imprint. Luckily, the creative team on the show could not have been more helpful and supportive in making sure the transition was as seamless as possible. What worked best for me was trying to imagine this aged version of Cal as an adult with very little barrier between themselves and their inner child. We all have the naivety and innocence of our childhood buried under a lifetime of experiences and time, and I think playing Cal (even though he has already experienced too much for his age) was an exercise to let go of the jadedness and fear of vulnerability that comes with age.
Varsity style jacket with embroidered patches, LV logo all over print shirt/baseball cap, trouser and bag, all by Louis Vuitton
Coat and turtleneck by Officine Générale, suit by KUON; boots by Louis Vuitton
VT: For those who haven’t watch the streaming series yet, from your perspective, describe to us who Cal is.
TD: Cal is both literally and figuratively a kid forced to grow up unfairly quickly. He has spent the majority of his nascent life either contending with either a terminal cancer diagnosis or an unknowable mystical force with the fate of the world in the balance. To make matters worse, when we find him in Season 4, he has lost his mother and finds himself in a body five and a half years older than it should be. Every facet of his life has alienated him from the rest of the world. Despite that fact, Cal is one of the most gentle, caring characters I have ever gotten the chance to play, and I think that more than anything says who he is.
VT: There are 10 more episodes to come to wrap the series up "Season 4 Part 2", any hints as to how the narrative might evolve from "Season 4 part 1" of Cal?
TD: In the second half of this season, the stakes have been raised even higher for Cal. He feels this intense pressure to live up to this predestined role he is seemingly asked to play in the fate of humanity. In these last ten episodes of the series, more than ever Cal is forced to give everything he has to try and protect the people he loves. That’s all I can really say.
VT: If you have the power to have psychic connections across long distances. What period of time would you like to travel to and why?
TD: I think I would probably want to go back to Ancient Greece. The Percy Jackson books instilled a fierce romanticization of that culture in me. I also think that today all our opinions and thoughts on life and what it fundamentally means to be human at any time are based substantially on the work done by all the great thinkers of previous generations. I am so curious about what it would be like to be surrounded by the philosophers and artists at the forefront of Western culture, art, and civilization before there was such a body of work ready to be drawn upon. In my mind, the ideas were more original and radical, but this could just be Percy Jackson talking.
Turtleneck sweater and trouser, both by Wales Bonner; shoes by Armando Cabral
Varsity style jacket with embroidered patches, LV logo all over print shirt/baseball cap, trouser and bag, all by Louis Vuitton
VT: Have you ever experience a close call while traveling or any events that might be consider supernatural?
TD: Luckily, I have yet to have any truly terrifying experiences in a plane apart from being trapped in a window seat and really needing to use the bathroom.
VT: How did the love of acting came into your life? Did you always knew acting would be your profession?
TD: Acting came into my life very early through my dad. He was in the graduate acting program at UCLA when I was born, and I was with him in baby bjorn at auditions before I could even talk. I was in my first play when I was 8 (directed by my dad) and immediately fell in love. I have always loved both stories and play. The theater was the first place I found you could combine those things collaboratively. That collaboration, storytelling, and sense of play brought me more fulfillment than anything else in my life. That’s when I knew I wanted to make it my profession.
VT: Your dad, Justin is also an actor as well. What advice did he gave you before you became an actor?
TD: I mean, artistically he has taught me everything I know. I’ve had incredible teachers over the years and learned so many invaluable things by getting to work with some amazingly talented artists, but there is no one I have picked apart the craft of acting with more than my father. On the business side, both of my parents have been extremely supportive and have stood by side (sometimes literally) for my whole career and continue to this day.
Vicuna color and black cashmere sweater high neck sweater and trouser, both by Zegna
Jacket and denim jeans by Junya Watanabe; pullover sweater by Officine Générale; boots by Armando Cabral
VT: Now that the filming of the series Manifest have officially concluded. What other developing projects can we look forward from Ty Doran in 2023?
TD: We will just have to wait and see! One silver lining of being finished with Manifest is that I get to start auditioning and considering other projects. Nothing lined up yet, but honestly, I’ve just enjoyed getting the opportunity to work on bite-size scenes again and experiment with text without any real stakes.
VT: Besides acting, what are some of your outside interests that the fans of the show might not be aware of?
TD: Like I said before, my two real passions are storytelling and play. I love movies, books, video games, and even tattoos. Tattoos maybe aren’t the most obvious example of this, but, at their heart, they are physical artistic representations of both the artist that creates them and the person that wears them. Even the silliest drunk tattoos are a part of someone’s story that has been almost irrevocably woven into their physical form. I find that incredibly interesting.
VT: Unlike most young public figures, you are not super active in posting (@_tydoran_), what’s your view on social media and popular culture?
TD: On the one hand, social media has been a great way for me to stay in touch with loved ones over long distances. It’s also a really great as semi-neutral meeting place in which artists and their audiences can connect. However, I do think that it can be very dangerous, especially for young people. The more time people spend on social media, the more powerful that addictive dopamine loop of scrolling through a feed can get. The relentless comparing oneself to a curated version of another person that’s always permeated the idea of celebrity seems particularly toxic there. I just think it’s especially important to use social media healthily because it is not designed with your health in mind.
Jacket, embroidered tee shirt, trouser and boots, all by Sacai
VT: Thanks for doing this exclusive shoot with fashion for Visual Tales. You are relatively new to doing photo shoots and dressing in fashion. What’s your thought on the process and using fashion as a means of expression?
TD: I think of fashion in very much the same way as I think of tattoos. Every human being is an astoundingly complicated jumble of contradictions that even they themselves will never understand. Fashion is a creative medium by which people individually and as a group can express how they see themselves and how they want to be seen by others. A means for people to tell a version of their story visually to the world. It’s deeply personal but also meant to be shared. I can only imagine what someone who has actual knowledge and talent in fashion can tell about someone simply by what they walk into a room wearing.
VT: If you have any advice for a young aspiring actor named Ty Doran, what would tell him, knowing what you know now?
TD: Be confident in yourself. Anything else is dishonest. I still have to remind myself of that all the time. I don’t mean to be cocky or be the loudest voice in the room or even learn how to self-advocate. I just mean be confident enough in yourself to know what you want and break free from the pressure externally and internally to want anything different. Be confident enough to just be. I think that makes you a better person and therefore a better actor.
VT: Your motto in life is...
TD: Well, I just turned 25 so my life motto changes every 3 hours or so, but at the moment it would be “interrogate everything.” It’s a philosophy every actor has to employ when approaching text, but I feel it’s something we all can be striving to incorporate more into our everyday life. Taking things for granted, coasting through decisions, and living in ignorance can be seductively easy, but I think life is a lot more interesting if admittedly harder when we turn the autopilot off (proud of sneaking a plane metaphor in right there at the end).
Floral print distressed denim jacket and jeans with LV logos by Louis Vuitton
Special thanks to:
Actor Ty Doran for his time and support in doing the shoot for us while in NY; Asia Gieger and Ravel Centeno-Rodriguez at KoletiView for great photography and creative contributions; Siri Garber and Angela Mach at Platform PR for their friendship and support; Asia Geiger for great grooming; Nina Baltussen, Michael Macko and Camille Segre at Alexander McQueen; Hope Mehra and Devan Wallace at Louis Vuitton; Colleen Clifford at Lede Company; Kelsey Dresner and Miki Higasa at Kaleidoscope Consulting; Armando Cabral and Belledin at Armando Cabral; Nicolette Filo and Lyndsey Hogan at Zegna; Kaitlyn Cassady and Emma Doherty at Comme des Garçons.
Discovery!