Jared Van Doorn

Jared Van Doorn co-stars as a smart ass reality show cameraman in the found-footage mockumentary Alien Valley. He also portrays Spencer, the depressed lothario in And Now for the Tricky Part, which transforms Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" into a modern day gangster film. In Lost in L.A., a successful web series about a group of struggling actors (created by Australian actress Sascha Raeburn), he portrays fast-talking talent agent Jeffrey Collins. A native of Denver, Colorado, and a product of Dutch and Sicilian ancestry, Van Doorn graduated from Heritage High School in Littleton, Colorado, where he was a rapper and music producer. Moving to Seattle after graduation, he was about to study music business at the Seattle Art Institute when the program was abruptly canceled. Rather than move back home, Van Doorn started a photography company instead. He also attended community college where he took his first acting classes. Entering his mid-20s, he was very much inspired by the success of actor Robert Downey Jr. who turned his life around with the Iron Man films. "There was something about him being triumphant in that movie that struck a cord," Van Doorn explains. "In my mind, I was getting into acting late, and yet here is a guy who is older, has a hit movie, and he's coming back. The whole thing inspired me." It was then that Van Doorn realized that producing someone else's music, or taking someone else's picture wasn't satisfying his creative desire. He thus turned to acting full time, and has found that fulfillment.