Vernon W. Campbell, tough or tender
You’ve seen Vernon W. Campbell as good cops, bad cops, ornery inmates, bouncers, all sorts of tough guys. He’s actually a fine gentleman, helps a bunch of local performers navigate show business, and keeps busy himself as a working actor with SAG, AFTRA and Actors’ Equity affiliations. Andy Garcia’s “City Island,” which opened in mid-March, has Vernon’s latest big screen appearance, and he’s been seen in “Mercy,” the TV hospital drama. One of the great Oscar underdogs, Mickey Rourke’s “The Wrestler,” has him playing the bouncer at the strip joint where Marisa Tomei dances. HBO’s “Oz” is also on Vernon’s resume. This winter he said he could use some new headshots, so I told him to show me his faces and we did a shoot the afternoon before he got on a plane to Hollywood to make the networking rounds of the Oscar night parties. I pushed him a bit to give me more of his range, and here’s the result. I asked if he’d ever consider playing a happy mailman or a kiddie show character. “Of course,” Vern smiled. “I even want to play Shakespeare before I’m through, just nobody’s asked me yet.”
John,
Another smashing photoshoot! You’ve captured him so perfectly, I feel I know him already. Just fabulous!
Susan
Thanks, Susan. One of my goals as a headshot photographer is to give actors tools to chip away at typecasting — if they choose to do so. So besides the “hard cop” face, and the standard headshot, I wanted Vern to have some warm, suave, even cuckoo, faces for when he goes for those kinds of parts. I hope the casting agents like the shots as much as Vern and his friends do.
John