Andrew Bowen
Encyclopedia
Andrew Bowen is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 comic actor. Bowen is known most for his appearances on the sketch comedy series MADtv
MADtv
MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...

.

Biography

Andrew Bowen was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and raised in Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

. At the age of six, after watching the movie Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...

, he announced to his parents that he wanted to be "like John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...

 when I grow up". His mother quickly enrolled him in dance class and a year later he performed as the lead in his first play, Once Upon a Rhyme. He continued studying modern jazz and ballet for eight years and was involved in local theater throughout high school.

During the summer following his high school graduation, Bowen acquired an agent in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, then moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...

. His first film role was as Kathryn Erbe's
Kathryn Erbe
Kathryn Elsbeth Erbe is an American actress known for her role as Det. Alexandra Eames in Law & Order: Criminal Intent, a spin-off of Law & Order, and death row inmate Shirley Bellinger in the HBO series Oz.-Personal life:...

 love interest in the film What About Bob?
What About Bob?
What About Bob? is a 1991 comedy film directed by Frank Oz, and starring Bill Murray and Richard Dreyfuss. Murray plays Bob Wiley, a multiphobic psychiatric patient who follows his successful and egotistical psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin on vacation...

. He received a letter from director Frank Oz
Frank Oz
Frank Oz is a British-born American film director, actor, voice actor and puppeteer who is known for creating and performing the characters Miss Piggy and Fozzie Bear in The Muppet Show, Cookie Monster, Bert and Grover in Sesame Street, and for directing films, including the 1986 Little Shop of...

 before the film's release informing him that his role had ended up on the cutting room floor
Cutting room floor
The term cutting room floor is used in the film industry as a figure of speech referring to unused footage not included in the finished film. In fact offcuts of film are retained in a special cutting room bin and numbered during the editing process in case they are required later...

. Over the next few years Bowen worked in part-time jobs, such as commercials and small roles in TV, while also taking part-time screen-writing courses at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

.

Career

In 1996, Bowen was hired to play the lead role in Fox Hunt, a live-action interactive video game from Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...

. His character, Jack Fremont, was a comedic twist on a "James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...

" type of character. His comedy made the game very popular, and it was developed as a potential TV series. Bowen's performance in the game was also noticed by executives at Warner Brothers, who signed him to a talent development deal.

While waiting for the Fox Hunt pilot
Television pilot
A "television pilot" is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell the show to a television network. At the time of its inception, the pilot is meant to be the "testing ground" to see if a series will be possibly desired and successful and therefore a test episode of an...

 to be filmed, Bowen wrote, directed, and financed a short film called Lone Defender. The film was intended as an audition for the role of Peter Parker in a Spider-Man
Spider-Man
Spider-Man is a fictional Marvel Comics superhero. The character was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and writer-artist Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Amazing Fantasy #15...

 movie that James Cameron
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron is a Canadian-American film director, film producer, screenwriter, editor, environmentalist and inventor...

 was slated to direct. The Spider-Man production encountered legal problems by the time Bowen finished Lone Defender, but the process of making it had catalyzed Bowen's desire to direct films. He quickly wrote a spec script
Spec script
A spec script, also known as a speculative screenplay, is a non-commissioned unsolicited screenplay. It is usually written by a screenwriter who hopes to have the script optioned and eventually purchased by a producer, production company, or studio....

 for a film called Along the Way and began to look for a producer for it.

Bowen eventually filmed the pilot for Fox Hunt, but the show was not picked up. Instead, he joined the cast of Fox's
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...

 MADtv
MADtv
MADtv is an American sketch comedy television series. It licensed the name and logo of Mad, but otherwise had no connection with the humor magazine outside the animated Spy vs. Spy and Don Martin cartoon shorts and images of Alfred E. Neuman that the show featured during the late 1990s. Its first...

 later that year and was quickly called one of the new talents to watch by TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...

. Despite his success, Bowen left the show after one season and, with the help of his father, raised enough money to start principal photography for Along The Way. He gained over 40 pounds to play the hulking character "Jocko" in the film. This paid off when the rough cut
Rough cut
In filmmaking, the rough cut is the second of three stages of offline editing. The rough cut is the first stage in which the film begins to resemble its final product...

 was screened for the first time and it earned a standing ovation. Scott Weinberg wrote, "Andrew Bowen (formerly of the underrated MADtv) is stunningly strong as Jocko, creating a character that on the surface seems like little more than an affable giant, yet the actor brings a fierce sense of loyalty, a goofy sense of humor, and an overall air of desperate sadness to this role. He delivers easily one of the best 'unknown' performances I’ve seen in years."

While Bowen raised the money he needed to finish his film, he continued acting, landing recurring roles on ER
ER (TV series)
ER is an American medical drama television series created by novelist Michael Crichton that aired on NBC from September 19, 1994 to April 2, 2009. It was produced by Constant c Productions and Amblin Entertainment, in association with Warner Bros. Television...

and Reno 911!
Reno 911!
Reno 911! is an American comedy television series on Comedy Central that ran from 2003 to 2009. It is a mockumentary-style parody of law enforcement documentary shows, specifically COPS, with comic actors playing the police officers. Most of the material is improvised, using a broad outline, and...

and guest roles on programs such as CSI: NY
CSI: NY
CSI: NY is an American police procedural television series that premiered on September 22, 2004, on CBS. The show follows the investigations of a team of NYPD forensic scientists and police officers as they unveil the circumstances behind mysterious and unusual deaths as well as other crimes...

, Las Vegas
Las Vegas (TV series)
Las Vegas was an American television series broadcast by NBC from September 22, 2003 to February 15, 2008. The show focuses on a team of people working at the ficticional Montecito Resort & Casino dealing with issues that arise within the working environment, ranging from valet parking and...

, JAG
JAG (TV series)
JAG is an American adventure/legal drama television show that was produced by Belisarius Productions, in association with Paramount Network Television and, for the first season only, NBC Productions...

, Charmed
Charmed
Charmed is an American television series that originally aired from October 7, 1998, until May 21, 2006, on the now defunct The WB Television Network. The series was created in 1998 by writer Constance M...

, and appeared in movies such as Ivan Reitman
Ivan Reitman
Ivan Reitman, OC is a Canadian film producer and director. He is known for the comedies he has directed and produced, especially in the 1980s and 1990s.He is the owner of The Montecito Picture Company, founded in 2000.-Early life:...

's Evolution
Evolution (film)
Evolution is a 2001 American science fiction comedy film directed by Ivan Reitman and starring David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, Seann William Scott, Julianne Moore and Ted Levine...

. He also starred in several television pilots, including Breadwinners for producers Gale Anne Hurd
Gale Anne Hurd
Gale Anne Hurd is an American film producer and screenwriter.-Early life:Hurd was born in Los Angeles, California, the daughter of Lolita and Frank E. Hurd, an investor. She grew up in Palm Springs, California and graduated from Stanford University with a B.A...

 and Steven Tao. In addition, Bowen has lent his voice to the video games Ice Age: The Meltdown, Rise of Nations
Rise of Nations
Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy computer game, developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft on May 20, 2003. The development of the game was led by veteran Brian Reynolds, of Civilization II and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Concepts taken from turn-based strategy games have been...

, Yakuza
Yakuza (video game)
Yakuza, originally released in Japan as is an action-adventure fighter video game developed and published by Sega in 2005 for the Sony PlayStation 2...

, The Matrix: Path of Neo
The Matrix: Path of Neo
The Matrix: Path of Neo is the third video game based on the Matrix series and the second developed by Shiny Entertainment. Players control the character Neo, participating in scenes from the films. It was released on October 4, 2005 in North America....

, and others.

Most recently, Bowen finished developing Super... Mann?, a comedy series in which he planned to star and was looking for a producer for his family/fantasy adventure script Rune and his action film Decision Height. He was also continuing his work on a three-episode science fiction epic called The McCalliff Equation that he had been developing since the early 2000s. He appeared in the critically acclaimed film series The Work and the Glory (Parts II and III) playing Brigham Young
Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death in 1877, he founded Salt Lake City, and he served as the first governor of the Utah...

, Big Bad Wolf
Big Bad Wolf (film)
Big Bad Wolf is a 2006 horror film about Derek Cowley, where he and his college classmates go to his stepfather's cabin to party. It won the 2007 Silver Award at WorldFest Houston in the category of Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film. The film starred Trevor Duke as Derek Cowley, and Kimberly...

for Universal Studios
Universal Studios
Universal Pictures , a subsidiary of NBCUniversal, is one of the six major movie studios....

, and the vampire film Immortally Yours, and had a small role in the Joss Whedon
Joss Whedon
Joseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...

 television series Dollhouse
Dollhouse (TV series)
Dollhouse is an American science fiction television series created by writer and director Joss Whedon under Mutant Enemy Productions. It premiered on February 13, 2009, on the Fox network and was officially cancelled on November 11, 2009. The final episode aired on January 29, 2010...

. He has completed filming pilots for Star Stories (the American version of a British comedy series), Conjurer with John Schneider
John Schneider (television actor)
John Richard Schneider III is an American actor and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of Bo Duke in the 1980s American television series The Dukes of Hazzard, and as Jonathan Kent on Smallville, a 2001 television adaptation of Superman.Alongside his acting career, Schneider performed as a...

 and Maxine Bahns
Maxine Bahns
Maxine Lee Bahns is an American actress, triathlete and model. She is best known for her role as Star in the 2000 film Cutaway.-Early life:...

, and the independent feature Butterfly Dreaming for director Rufus Sam Williams and has filmed commercials for products including Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch)#Bud Light, Circuit City, Chrysler
Chrysler
Chrysler Group LLC is a multinational automaker headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan, USA. Chrysler was first organized as the Chrysler Corporation in 1925....

, Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, and Diet Coke
Diet Coke
Diet Coke is a sugar-free soft drink produced and distributed by The Coca-Cola Company. It was first introduced in the United States on August 9, 1982, as the first new brand since 1886 to use the Coca-Cola trademark...

.

Impressions

  • Brad Pitt
    Brad Pitt
    William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...

  • Charlie Sheen
    Charlie Sheen
    Carlos Irwin Estevez , better known by his stage name Charlie Sheen, is an American film and television actor. He is the youngest son of actor Martin Sheen....

  • Christian Slater
    Christian Slater
    Christian Michael Leonard Slater is an American actor. He made his film debut with a small role in The Postman Always Rings Twice before playing a leading role in the 1985 film The Legend of Billie Jean...

  • Christopher Walken
    Christopher Walken
    Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...

  • Donny Osmond
    Donny Osmond
    Donald Clark "Donny" Osmond is an American singer, musician, actor, dancer, radio personality, and former teen idol. Osmond has also been a talk and game show host, record producer and author. In the mid 1960s, he and four of his elder brothers gained fame as the Osmond Brothers on the long...


  • Garth Brooks
    Garth Brooks
    Troyal Garth Brooks , best known as Garth Brooks, is an American country music artist who helped make country music a worldwide phenomenon. His eponymous first album was released in 1989 and peaked at number 2 in the US country album chart while climbing to number 13 on the Billboard 200 album chart...

  • James Doohan
    James Doohan
    James Montgomery "Jimmy" Doohan was a Canadian character and voice actor best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television and film series Star Trek...

  • Jason Priestly
  • Jean-Claude Van Damme
    Jean-Claude Van Damme
    Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg , professionally known as Jean-Claude Van Damme, is a Belgian martial artist and actor, best known for his martial arts action films, the most successful of which include Bloodsport , Kickboxer , Double Impact , Universal Soldier , Hard Target , Timecop ,...


  • Keanu Reeves
    Keanu Reeves
    Keanu Charles Reeves is a Canadian actor. Reeves is perhaps best known for his roles in Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Speed, Point Break and the science fiction-action trilogy The Matrix...

  • Kenneth Starr
    Kenneth Starr
    Kenneth Winston "Ken" Starr is an American lawyer and educational administrator who has also been a federal judge. He is best known for his investigation of figures during the Clinton administration....

  • Matt Damon
    Matt Damon
    Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...

  • Michael Flatley
    Michael Flatley
    Michael Ryan Flatley is an American Irish dancer, choreographer, actor, musician and occasional television presenter. He became internationally known for Irish dance shows Riverdance, Lord of the Dance, Feet of Flames, and Celtic Tiger...


  • Morey Amsterdam
    Morey Amsterdam
    Morey Amsterdam was an American television actor and comedian, best known for the role of Buddy Sorrell on The Dick Van Dyke Show in the early 1960s.-Early life:...

  • Nicolas Cage
    Nicolas Cage
    Nicolas Cage is an American actor, producer and director, having appeared in over 60 films including Raising Arizona , The Rock , Face/Off , Gone in 60 Seconds , Adaptation , National Treasure , Ghost Rider , Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans , and...

  • Scott Foley
    Scott Foley
    Scott Kellerman Foley is an American actor. He is known for roles in television shows such as The Unit and Felicity, and in films such as Scream 3...

  • Yasser Arafat
    Yasser Arafat
    Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...



Television

Year(s) Program Episode(s) Role(s) Other notes
2011 Big Time Rush
Big Time Rush
Big Time Rush is a Nickelodeon television series created by Scott Fellows about the Hollywood misadventures of four hockey players from Minnesota—Kendall, Logan, James, and Carlos, after they are selected to form a boy band. The series premiered with an hour-long pilot episode, "Big Time...

"Big Time Girl Group" Leader of adult boy band
2005 Breadwinners -- Matt Lowell TV movie/pilot
2005 CSI: NY "The Closer" Bryce Sweet
2004 Las Vegas "Degas Away with It" Eric Bates
2004 Reno 911 "Department Investigation: Part 2" Explosive Redneck
2003 Reno 911 "Jones Gets Suspended" Redneck with Nunchucks
2003 Reno 911 "Fireworks" Gas-huffing Redneck
2003 JAG "Pulse Rate" Lt. Jergenson
2003 She Spies
She Spies
She Spies is an action-adventure television show that ran from September 9, 2002 until May 17, 2004, in two seasons. The show was sold into syndication but the first four episodes premiered on the NBC network, whose syndication arm was one of the producers. Disappointing ratings during the show's...

"Message from Kassar" Wade
2003 John Doe
John Doe (TV series)
John Doe is an American science fiction drama television series that aired on Fox during the 2002–2003 TV season.-Synopsis:"I woke up in an island off the coast of Seattle. I didn't know how I got there ... or who I was. But I did seem to know everything else. There were things about me I didn't...

"Illegal Alien" Staff Sergeant
2001 Charmed "Coyote Piper" Male victim
1999–2000 ER "Be Patient"
"Family Matters"
"The Peace of Wild Things"
Andrew
1998–1999 MADtv 25 episodes Various roles
1999 Batman Beyond
Batman Beyond
Batman Beyond is an American animated television series created by Warner Bros. Animation in collaboration with DC Comics as a continuation of the Batman legacy...

"Spellbound" Rick AKA Batman of the Future (UK)
1996 Fox Hunt -- Jack Fremont Pilot
1992 Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell is an American television sitcom that aired between 1989 and 1993. The series is a retooled version of the 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which was itself later folded into the history of Saved by the Bell...

"The Senior Prom" Matt Wilson

Films

Year Title Role Other notes
2008 Conjurer
Conjurer (film)
Conjurer is a 2008 supernatural horror film directed by Clint Hutchison and written by Hutchison and David Yarbrough.-Plot:Photographer Shawn Burnett and his wife, Helen move to the country to start a new life after their child's death...

Sean Burnette
2008 Butterfly Dreaming Rob Pollack
2007 Along the Way Jackob
2006 Big Bad Wolf
Big Bad Wolf (film)
Big Bad Wolf is a 2006 horror film about Derek Cowley, where he and his college classmates go to his stepfather's cabin to party. It won the 2007 Silver Award at WorldFest Houston in the category of Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film. The film starred Trevor Duke as Derek Cowley, and Kimberly...

Scott Cowley
2006 Immortally Yours
Immortally Yours
Immortally Yours, also known as Kiss of The Vampire, is a 2007 American vampire romance film. Directed by Joe Tornatore, the film was co-produced by Frank D...

John Evans Kiss of the Vampire
2006 The Work and the Glory III: A House Divided Brigham Young
2005 The Work and the Glory II: American Zion Brigham Young
2003 Marines Guillen Direct to video
2002 American Girl
American Girl (film)
American Girl is a 2002 American film directed by Jordan Brady, starring Jena Malone, Michelle Forbes, Brad Renfro, Alicia Witt, and Erik von Detten. The film premiered on October 16, 2002 at the Austin Film Festival...

Short guard AKA Confessions of an American Girl (USA video title)
2001 Evolution Road worker
1999 The Haunting of Hell House James Farrow AKA Henry James' "The Haunting of Hell House" (USA)
AKA The Ghostly Rental (USA)
1998 Operation Jesus

Video games

  • Killzone 3
    Killzone 3
    Killzone 3 is a 2011 first-person shooter for the PlayStation 3, developed by Guerrilla Games and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the fourth installment in the Killzone series, the first game in the series to be presented in 3D and the first to include motion controls using the...

    (2011) - Sergeant Thomas 'Sev' Sevchenko
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
    Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
    is a video game produced by Konami and Kojima Productions that was released for the PlayStation Portable in 2010. Peace Walker is the fourth Metal Gear title for the PSP, although it is only the second to be considered part of the series' main canon, following Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops...

    (2010) - Soldiers / Extras
  • Lost Planet 2
    Lost Planet 2
    Lost Planet 2 is a third-person shooter video game developed and published by Capcom. The game is the sequel to Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, taking place ten years after the events of the first game, on the same fictional planet. The game was developed for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and...

    (2010) - Various
  • Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)
  • Ryû ga gotoku (2005) [AKA Yakuza (USA)]
  • The Matrix: Path of Neo
    The Matrix: Path of Neo
    The Matrix: Path of Neo is the third video game based on the Matrix series and the second developed by Shiny Entertainment. Players control the character Neo, participating in scenes from the films. It was released on October 4, 2005 in North America....

    (2005) -- Voice of Neo
  • Jade Empire
    Jade Empire
    Jade Empire is an action role-playing game developed by Canadian developer BioWare and first published in 2005 by Microsoft Game Studios as a worldwide release for the Xbox. The later, two-disc Limited Edition contained extra content...

    (2005)
  • Rise of Nations
    Rise of Nations
    Rise of Nations is a real-time strategy computer game, developed by Big Huge Games and published by Microsoft on May 20, 2003. The development of the game was led by veteran Brian Reynolds, of Civilization II and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. Concepts taken from turn-based strategy games have been...

    (2003)
  • Fox Hunt (1993) -- Voice of Jack Fremont

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK