We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Will Haza a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Will , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
Resilience is a lot like a muscle, it takes consistent intentional training to build it. Like physical fitness, you have to have a healthy mindset as the foundation for your practice, and this means focusing on your own overall wellness and keeping a clear connection in your mind as to why you want to pursue your goals in the first place. Keeping this in mind helps to overcome even the most difficult experiences. It also helps to love what you do more than you love doing anything else in the world. That love has to be strong enough to withstand criticism, hard financial times, hard situations with personal relationships, and even self doubt. I was taught these values by my parents, so I can at least partially attribute my resilience to them and the lessons that they taught me.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I was born in Washington DC to Cuban parents, Elia and Guillermo Haza, and began telling stories almost immediately after that. I had a hard time fitting in socially, but I found that humor was a way for me to be my true self and connect with others. My taste in offbeat humor was thoroughly nourished through a regular diet of Ren and Stimpy, and a slew of other television programs, as well as, weekly trips to the movies with my family, usually to see the latest film from my favorite actors like Robin Williams & Jim Carrey.
While on a family vacation in 1990, we visited Nickelodeon Studios in Orlando Florida and I was picked out of the crowd to be a part of the show where I got slimed in front of an enormous audience on the studio tour. Everyone pointed and laughed at me, and it was at that moment that I decided that I wanted to spend my life entertaining audiences. I began taking afterschool drama classes through the Bethesda Academy of Performing Arts. At age 16, I was accepted into the theater program at the Idyllwild Arts Academy in southern California, where I completed my high school education and began seriously training to be a professional actor.
The Drama program at the Catholic University of America brought me back to the Washington, DC area in 2001. While continuing to perform in stage plays, I also honed my writing skills through my university’s playwriting classes, and as a stand-up comedian in the comedy clubs of Washington, DC and New York City. I also studied improvisation at the Upright Citizen’s Brigade theater in New York and at the Washington Improv Theater in Washington, DC. In 2004, I represented the Catholic University of America as a finalist in the DC’s Funniest College competition and performed at Washington, DC’s legendary Improv Comedy Club.
After graduating from Catholic University of America, I created a YouTube channel to showcase my own comedic shorts and puppet videos. During that time I wrote an original comedic play parodying the life and art of Edgar Allan Poe through the medium of puppet theatre, which was awarded funding from the Maryland State Arts Council. It was produced as the featured show of the 2009 Artscape Arts Festival and was performed to a sold out crowd.
I then spent several years working as an actor, playing a number of diverse characters in theater, film, and television productions, earning my SAG eligibility, and most notably starring in several Sprint Cellular commercials, as well as, the lead role as Richard Kessler in the dramatic independent feature film Roulette.
In 2011 I relocated to Los Angeles California in pursuit of taking my career to the next level. Essentially I was starting from scratch, struggling to find my place in this new ecosystem. Immediately I jumped into scene study classes in Burbank with notable acting coach Robert D’Avanzo, focusing on real “blood and guts” acting. During this time I would work 2 to 3 day jobs at a time and also go on auditions. Despite my Hollywood hustle and my best efforts I still struggled to find my tribe. I would put myself out there like a kid on the playground looking for play pals but found myself feeling like Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer being left out of all the reindeer games.
In 2015, I decided I needed to find a way to create performance opportunities for myself, so I began taking Sketch Comedy classes at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater in Los Angeles. I became part of an indie sketch team, Elefante Elegante, and we produced digital sketches and performed at venues throughout Los Angeles. I then became a regular part of the Sunday Sketch show at iO west, the Almost Late Show at the Second City theater in Los Angeles, and eventually as a regular guest artist on an internet themed sketch show titled Shitpost at the Pack Theater.
During that time I had also invested myself heavily in taking classes for voiceover, knowing that would be a great way to utilize my character work in forging a career in animation. I studied with voiceover coaches such as: Steve Staley, Scott Holst, Sara Cravens, Richard Horvitz, Bob Bergen, and Donna Grillo. Soon after getting my professional voice over demos completed I began auditioning for productions, booking a few commercials and even landing a starring role in an animated pilot titled The King of the Worlds. I did several other animated shorts before landing a lead role as Slate on Mattel’s animated preschool series Cave Club! Fun fact: I also did creature vocals for many of the prehistoric creatures on that show. Cave Club began production at the beginning of 2020, so as the world shut down for Covid, we kept the show going by working from our own home vocal booths. I continued to work on voiceover projects from home up until early 2022 when I completed a dark animated short about the apocalypse titled: It Dawns the Longest Night.
I suddenly found myself without a job and longing to create something original that I could really use to display my performance skills in a meaningful way. One night inspiration came like a bolt of lightning and I started writing a screenplay for a feature film about an off-beat Florida man and his fish-out-of-water story, Alligator Bundy. I spent two weeks sitting at that desk writing for pretty much every waking hour and laughing hysterically at what I was creating. Essentially a parody of the classic romantic comedy Crocodile Dundee, but giving it a modern twist. Instead of laughing at a foreigner for how different he was and relishing in jokes founded in misogyny and homophobia, Bundy’s story presents him as a seemingly problematic character on the surface, but in reality he is the most lovable and open minded person imaginable.
I wanted to get the movie made, but with relatively little experience in producing things outside of my own sketch comedy, I began passing the script around to anyone I knew in town that had real professional experience, seeking some sort of direction on what to do next. After reading my screenplay, notable casting director and vocal coach Donna Grillo told me,
“you have to find a way to get this in front of someone in development… maybe produce some sort of proof of concept.”
That’s when I decided to create the social media channels for Alligator Bundy, so that I could showcase some of the wacky humor and show the world what a fun and dynamic character he is and to demonstrate that he is worthy of having his story told. In a little more than a year, the Alligator Bundy social channels have amassed a following of over 100k and produced multiple viral videos. And here we are, still hustling and creating content regularly, while auditioning, and looking for ways to make the dream a reality. It never stops being exciting, I’m still on the same adventure, seeking my tribe and our pot of gold. There’s nothing else I would rather be doing than entertaining people. The fact that I’m out here making it a reality is always exciting and special to me, so I wake up grateful to be here and hopeful that I will find like minded collaborators in the industry.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1.) If you want to be an actor: STUDY. Take acting classes and really learn the craft. Invest in your education as an actor and always be learning at every stage of your career. Never think you’re too good to learn something new. It looks effortless, but that’s the trick. It takes a lot of work to make things look so easy.
2.) Don’t just study acting, you should love learning about all sorts of things and be a well rounded person with hobbies. Believe it or not those interests will eventually find their way into your acting work. For example: I have always loved science, in particular I love reptiles and have kept them as pets since I was a kid. I had an iguana and a python growing up and I handled my first alligator in 4th grade. This seemed completely unrelated to my work in the arts until I created Alligator Bundy, and all of a sudden that knowledge became essential to me convincingly Portraying a gator wrangler. Characters are supposed to be real people with real lives, so having a wide range of knowledge can help inform your performance.
3.) learn to take care of yourself. This is a career with a lot of ups and downs, and those down times can seem devastating. It can make you feel worthless and like you have no place in the world, but it can also be an opportunity to find yourself. Going back to your first question about resilience: resilience is essential in pursuing a career as an actor. Keep balance in your life, try to create a network of supportive people around you, and try to keep things in perspective especially when things get tough.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I am absolutely looking for like-minded creative professional filmmakers and actors to collaborate with, and in particular I am currently looking for talent managers and agents that see the value in my work and want to have a solid working relationship. Since moving to Los Angeles, I’ve had a number of agents and managers- but it’s a lot like finding the right romantic partner- it needs to be a good match for both parties. I am not looking for someone who “throws spaghetti at the wall to see what will stick.” I want to work with people who understand what I have to offer, that aren’t afraid to take calculated creative risks, and want to form mutually beneficial relationships where we create unique and meaningful work while also making a buck or two. People who are not afraid to try to break the mold, and that want to create work that will turn heads and stay with audiences long after the images have faded from the screen. If you are the type of individual I am describing, please feel free to reach out to me by email at either:
willhaza@gmail.com
Or
NickAlligatorBundy@gmail.com
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.willhaza.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alligatorbundy
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@alligatorbundy
- SoundCloud: https://m.soundcloud.com/will-haza
- Other: My main social media is my Alligator Bundy TikTok channel: https://www.tiktok.com/@alligatorbundy
Image Credits
Will Haza headshot (non-Alligator Bundy) by Stasi Photography Alligator Bundy headshot by Carli Lind All other photos copyright Will Haza 2023
