Home-Grown Stars:
Anna Belknap '90 and Ryan Gaul '92 by Jenny Mayher
to New York to do theater and pay her dues for a couple of years until she got her first TV gig as a guest star on Law and Order in 1999.
been in the movie Identity Thief with Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, and in the third season of Showtime’s House of Lies, where he played a regular named Will.
From there she quickly moved from guest star to regular cast member on The Handler in 2003-4 for CBS, the role that took her to Hollywood, and Medical Investigation in 2004-5 for NBC. In 2005 Anna got her biggest break, getting cast as Lindsay Monroe in CBS’s CSI: New York. She was a regular on that show for eight seasons until it ended in 2013. In those eight seasons her character on the show fell in love, got married, and had a baby, a plot twist that coincided with Anna’s own real-life pregnancy with her second child, George. (The first pregnancy was covered up with a cobra bite that sent Lindsay to bed rest while Anna’s first child, Olive, was born.)
Ryan has been a busy guy in 2015. He just finished filming the movie Bastards with Owen Wilson and Ed Helms, who play brothers who set off on a journey to find their father. “I get to play a Boston native they meet along the way. I had a lot of fun with that part.” (The movie will be released in 2016.) He is also involved with a television project that is still shrouded in secrecy. “It is by the producers of Reno 911, which is one of my favorite shows, and we are shooting a full 18-episode season. It’s going to be jam-packed with hilarious actors. I’m very excited about it. I can’t tell you much more than that. Stay tuned!”
Since CSI: New York finished in 2013, Anna has had a few guest star appearances and filmed an independent movie with a friend, but “the pace of work has definitely slowed down. It has enabled me to spend more time at home with the kids,” who are now six and eight, said Anna. “I love it, but I miss working, too... As every working parent knows, balancing work and family can be tricky. Now that my kids are in school, working out of town is more difficult, so I try to stay in Los Angeles.”
Not many high schools,
especially in small Maine towns, can boast a prime-time television star among their alumni, let alone two of them. But there must have been something in the water in the early 1990s in Newcastle, because many stars were born right on Academy Hill. “It’s great how many people from Lincoln are doing well, all over the place,” said Anna Belknap ‘90, “There’s Ryan, of course (Gaul, ‘92), Kate Aldrich (‘92, an internationallyacclaimed opera singer), Brent Baldwin ‘88 is a conductor and arranger in Austin, Sam Nichols ‘90 is a composer of contemporary music, and there are more!” Ryan Gaul ‘92 recalls, “It makes me proud that so many talented people have come out of LA. It gives me a connection to our small town. I can’t help but think that something about our community fosters a liberal creativity-at least for me it did. I wonder, if I grew up in Portland or Boston, if I would have gotten lost in the mix. But living in a small community-a small pond-I could be a goofball and actually
be recognized for it.” Both Anna and Ryan are certainly recognizable; their faces are familiar to TV viewers around the world. Anna is best known as Agent Lindsay Monroe from CSI: New York, and Ryan for dozens of national commercials (for Campbell's Soup, KFC, McDonalds, and more) as well as spots on House of Lies, Modern Family, Identity Theft, among other TV shows and movies. Anna Belknap graduated from Lincoln Academy in 1990, one of a long line of Lincoln graduates. Her father, David, graduated in 1954, her grandfather, Dr. Robert Belknap, in 1908, and her great grandmother, Suni Hall, around 1876. “There are many grandparents, aunts and uncles on the Chapman side, as well,” Anna said (her father’s mother was a Chapman). Despite her deep Damariscotta roots, Anna decided to venture out of Maine to try her talents on a bigger stage. After graduating from Middlebury College in 1994, Anna got her MFA from the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco where she met her husband, Eric Siegel. She then moved
“I wonder, if I grew up in Portland or Boston, if I would have gotten lost in the mix. But living in a small community—a small pond—I could be a goofball and actually be recognized for it.” —Ryan Gaul '92 30
FALL 2015
"It is so different now than when I started out. We did a lot of waiting around for our agents to call with an audition. Now, you can create your own work—film your own web series, make your own movies with your phone. These are exciting, empowering advances. The world is incredibly receptive right now to what young people have to say!” -Anna Belknap '90 Ryan Gaul graduated from Lincoln in 1992. His parents still live in Damariscotta. Ryan went from LA to Stonehill College, where he was a theater major, and from college to Boston, where he joined the Main Company of Boston-based Improv Asylum and worked on commercials. In 2001 he moved to Los Angeles, where his improv comedy skills landed him in The Groundlings, the Los Angeles theater credited with starting the careers of comedians like Lisa Kudrow, Jon Lovitz, Phil Hartman, and Kristen Wiig. Ryan excelled with The Groundlings, and eventually landed both national commercials and television work. His highest-profile work to date has Anna Belknap in the 1990 Lincoln Academy Yearbook.
"If you have something that you love to do, it’s probably less about finding the courage to do it and more about figuring out how to make it work logistically, financially, and personally." -Ryan Gaul '92
Anna and Ryan overlapped for two years at Lincoln, where they knew each other. “I grew up with the Gaul family. I see Ryan on TV all the time!” said Anna. In fact, the two actors were both part of LA Players during high school, an experience they each recall as pivotal in their development as actors. LA Players was founded in the 1980s by the late John Grant, a teacher and counselor also credited with founding the LA advisor system. The group, which is still active today, practices improvisational skills and performs for peers, acting out scenarios involving teenagers. Nick Azzaretti taught English and theater at LA when Anna and Ryan were students, and is the current faculty advisor to the LA Players. “The magical thing about that kind of improv is that you have to respond in character to the audience, and this magical thing happens when the audience responds not to you, but to your character. I believe both Anna and Ryan built the basis of their careers in LA Players.” “LA Players was my first experience with any sort of improv,” said Ryan. “It lit that fire inside me, and I was immediately drawn to it. It was really intense. LA Players was one of the highlights of my high school years; we thought it was the coolest thing in the world. We would go and perform for these other Continued on page 34 Ryan Gaul in the 1992 Lincoln Academy Yearbook.
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