FUTURE

ROUX: SEAL Team, super successful, but it was confusing when CBS made the move to Paramount Plus. Explain the show, how it’s going, and where you go from here with SEAL Team.

LORMAND: You know, most of the networks nowadays are connected or owned by one another. It’s only a few companies that own all the networks, so CBS and Paramount are the same family, and they worked out a deal two seasons ago to put the show on Paramount Plus…from my understanding, SEAL Team was one of the higher-viewed shows on the CBS all-access pass.

Lormand was not always a star actor. His journey, in some ways, was typical — working in the restaurant business. In New York and Los Angeles, it’s a running joke that, when someone says they are an aspiring actor, you ask them, ‘Oh? Which restaurant do you work at?’” he joked.

ROUX: At some point, ’98, ’99, you become one of the managers at Hooters, so you’re working in the restaurant industry, which, of course, makes sense.

LORMAND: Sure! You’ve got to know your way around a restaurant if you’re even going to be an actor.

ROUX: There’s a point where you then auditioned for commercials, like, you’re on a Farm Bureau commercial. When did that go from…Hooters to, ‘I’m in this commercial. I may just change my whole life now?’”

Lafayette, La., has produced some great talent — athletes, artists, musicians, and actors. Judd Lormand, who portrays Lt. Cmrd. Eric Blacburn on “SEAL Team,” is on that list. He was born in Texas, grew up in Houston, lived in Saudi Arabia, where his father worked, and later moved to Lafayette, La., where he attended Comeaux High School and the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Lormand said his high school drama teacher Sandra LaBorde for inspiring his love of acting.

ROUX sat down with Lormand to talk about his acting journey career and his current work with “SEAL Team.” Being from Lafayette, he was happy to oblige. The first topic was SEAL Team, and its move from CBS to Paramount Plus.

LORMAND: Yeah, so, there was a period where I left Hooters to go work for Edward Jones to be an investment advisor. I got all my licenses and everything. But I remember that right before I left Hooters an old buddy of mine named Marcus Brown…and I hadn’t seen him in years, but he came in to pick up some wings to take home to his kids. This was in the early 2000 and he said, ‘I’m doing some acting.’” He and I competed against each other in drama back in the high school circuit. So, I got his number, and then went on with the Edward Jones thing, a year and a half, something like that, and one day

I just said, ‘Man, I’m going to maybe call Marcus.’” So, I got an agent in New Orleans, left my job at the investment place, which probably made my parents have a heart attack. By this point, it’s around 2006, and I kind of miscalculated a little bit, because there was work in Louisiana, but it hadn’t caught on. So, essentially, I quit this job with Edward Jones to go be an actor, but there’s only small, regional commercials. You could not make a living on it, but I got a couple of commercials, and they took me a little more seriously. My acting coach and my agent kept telling me the same thing: ‘You need to go to L.A.’ So, I went out to L.A. and stayed with a friend.”

Lormand noted, at that time, the Louisiana film industry was picking up, so he made the decision to move back to Louisiana with his wife and try the acting scene again. That was in the fall of 2009. He contacted his former Louisiana agent and began receiving a solid flow of acting jobs in movies and in TV. His first big deal was his role in The Hunger Games, in which he played one of the three peacekeepers. From there, he continued to get called for bigger acting jobs, all of which led up to his current role in “SEAL Team.” Lormand is not all acting. He has always loved wrestling and grew up watching professional wrestling on TV. He has made that interest into his modern-day hobby.

ROUX: The show has continued to be successful, and the move to Paramount Plus was a good move. Here you are in season six. Tell me, before I let you go. Your hobby is fascinating to me. But tell me about your involvement in and interest in your current hobby.

LORMAND: At many points in my younger years, I would try to start up a collection of wrestling figures, action figures, but because I moved or got married or whatever, it just never happened. My collection would grow a little and it would just be thrown aside or sold, but all of a sudden, maybe a year or so ago, I said, ‘…it’s time. Let me collect some of the wrestling figures of guys that I grew up watching.’”

And then I discovered online that there’s this world of what they call customizing figures, where you rip these things apart, and you can make anyone you want. So, my thing is, I grew up watching Midsouth Wrestling. So, I said, ‘I’m going to create every old wrestler that I grew up watching.’” So, my hobby in my spare time is painting and producing and getting all the parts together for these wrestling figures. It’s the world’s nerdiest hobby, I’m aware, but it’s therapeutic for me when I’m not traveling, and…when the kids are busy or they’re in school or whatever, I can just sit and paint and do my hobby, man.

Nerdy or not, Judd Lormand is making Lafayette proud as he continues his already-successful acting career on “SEAL Team.” The show is immensely popular and looks like it will have lots of future popularity with, we hope, many more seasons. R

“MY HOBBY IN MY SPARE TIME IS PAINTING, AND PRODUCING, AND GETTING ALL THE PARTS TOGETHER FOR THESE WRESTLING FIGURES. IT’S THE WORLD’S NERDIEST HOBBY, I’M AWARE.”

– JUDD LORMAND