ABOUT CHRIS

EXPERIENCE

Most recently, Chris Coppola has worked with Nicholas Winding Refn on a new Amazon series Too Old To Die Young, due out in the fall of 2018. He had a four-episode arc on the critically acclaimed Showtime series Ray Donovan playing Larry. Also recently he was in Amazon’s Good Girls Revolt, Shot starring Noah Wyle, and the crazy movie Garlic & Gunpowder in 2017. Chris also has been busy making TV appearances on Agent Carter, The Middle, a new series called Hitting the Breaks, and Rizzoli & Isles. Chris is fortunate to have worked in over 30 films, including blockbusters such as The Polar Express, Beowulf, and last summer’s hit Diary of a Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul.  He can also be seen in such indie hits as Visioneers, Postal, Shadow.

Chris has worked with incredible directors including Oscar-winner Robert Zemeckis, Sam Raimi (Spider-Man), and John Wells (The West Wing, August: Osage County), and he has had the distinct privilege of acting opposite Tom Hanks, Anthony Hopkins, Al Pacino, John Malkovich, Robin Wright, Jason Segel, Zach Galaifianakis, and many others.

Chris co-hosted his own show on VH1 (Red Light Green Light) and has been the face of several successful ad campaigns, appearing in over 95 national commercials. All the while, he has performed in a steady dose of theatre in Los Angeles. He was in the play Bouncers at The Lost Studio, where he and the cast received a Dramalogue nomination for Best Ensemble. He taught and directed with Les Enfant Magique, a children’s theatre, troupe for 10 years. In 2017, he directed Pizza Man at Theatre 68. 

EDUCATION

Chris fell in love with acting at CSULB and really started studying acting and honing his craft at The Lost Studio under teacher Cinda Jackson for 20 years. There, he studied acting in an intensive four days a week program that included two days of scene study and two days of improv/movement/voice. He studied the method, worked on the Meisner technique, worked on classical theatre, as well as dance and movement. 

Every summer at the Studio, they worked on a month-long Shakespeare workshop that culminated in a weekend of performances. Chris participated in 15 summers of Shakespeare.

Chris taught at the children’s theatre, Les Enfant Magique. Some genres covered over 10 years included Commedia Del Arte (Italian clowning), Shakespeare, and Indian Sanskrit drama along with traditional Indian dance, Irish poetry, and an original play using Pablo Neruda poems and imagery from Pablo Picasso's Guernica.

He also studied at Groundlings for three sessions to understand improve from a sketch comedy point of view. 

Chris incorporates all of these methods into his coaching.