Meet Richard Ellis, the New York-born actor starring in Netflix’s latest supernatural offering, “I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS”

Photos Lenne Chai

The show is based on the Charles Forsman graphic novel of the same name and if you’re a fan of The End of the F***ing World and Stranger Things, you’re in luck - the new series comes from the teams behind both shows.

We only have a teaser clip, although what we do have is some very cool first look images of the show, which have definitely continued with the 70's and 80's era feel of the creators' previous shows. The pictures alone make us want to raid vintage shops for plaid shirts, corduroy and all things mustard. Which is absolutely not a bad thing.

I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS tells the story of Sydney, a teenage girl who has to deal with all the issues people usually do at her age, from high school drama to family life to sexuality. But things get a bit more complicated when she’s forced to face an issue most people her age don’t have to face - dealing with the strange superpowers that start to awaken within her.

All seven 30-minute episodes of I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS is launching on Netflix on the 26th of February.

We are catching up with Richard Ellis, who plays Brad Lewis, on the phone from his LA pad.

ALLY FERRARO – Are you in LA? Are you born in LA?

RICHARD ELLIS – No, I was born in a suburb of New York, and then I moved to a small town in Connecticut when I was 13. I’ve been in LA for 3 and a half years now.

ALLY FERRARO – How do you find it?

RICHARD ELLIS – I love it. It took a little bit to get used to. I found a really great group of friends and I am very comfortable here now.

ALLY FERRARO – Did you decide to become an actor when you went to LA? Or was it back home?

RICHARD ELLIS – So basically, I went to school at the University of Connecticut. I was a kinesiology major which is the prerequisite to be a physical therapist. One day, I had an anatomy class and I just couldn’t do it anymore. I literally walked out of the class, called my mom, and was like, “Hey, I think I want to drop out of school and be an actor.” And she was like “What?” Because I never acted in my life. So she was like “Why don’t you try a class and see if you like it?” The next semester I took an intro to acting class and I fell in love with it and decided to give it a shot.

ALLY FERRARO – Did something inspire you on this creative road?

RICHARD ELLIS – Yes, I grew up as a musician and can play four instruments. Music was my first love, for sure. That was what I had thought, that “I want to be a singer” and then I grew up, I did a couple of bands in high school I enjoyed it, but, you know, like most people from where I was born, it was not a feasible thing to do something in entertainment. So I just decided that I was going to do what everyone else was doing, go to school and get a degree. Quite honestly, it was when I watched “Wolf of Wall Street” and Leonardo DiCaprio I was like, “That’s what I have to be doing!”. I don’t know what it was about that movie in particular, because my mom was a big movie lover, so I grew up watching a lot of the classics as a kid which a lot of my peers weren’t doing. It was always kind of engraved in me, I always knew a lot of movie references and would watch a lot of shows. My mom was always making me pay attention to what was going on in the story. But I think I had to kind of find out who I was first before I dove into it, if that makes any sense.

ALLY FERRARO – Yes, so that you can become somebody else.

RICHARD ELLIS – Exactly. I am a firm believer that it is impossible to play somebody else if you don’t know yourself.

ALLY FERRARO – You are so right, and this is the thing, you are so talented and so successful at such a young age. This is why I think the majority of the actors become really good when they are older, because they have more experience and know themselves better.

RICHARD ELLIS – And that’s the thing, seeing the long game. Fingers crossed, I don’t want to be just a flash in the pan. I want to learn from everyone around me and from the people that I admire. I want to work with the people that I’ve idolized since I was a kid. We'll see, you never know. This journey and the unpredictability of it is kind of what keeps me going. I love being uncertain. When you overcome things that aren’t a guarantee it’s satisfying at a very different level.

ALLY FERRARO – How do you usually prepare for a role?

RICHARD ELLIS – I have a great acting teacher, Deborah Aquila, and her whole thing is just “know the script, know the scene inside and out.” What are people saying about your character? What is your character saying about themselves? What’s the time and place? What’re the circumstances? When you have those kind of guidelines in place, when you get to the words, you have an understanding of their view of the world. The thing is you are serving the greater story. It’s not about you, it’s about the story. So, if your character is not likeable, you have to be ok with that, you can’t judge that because you are serving the story.

ALLY FERRARO – Did Jonathan go through the whole thing with you or did you just go out for the part and hope that you got it?  

RICHARD ELLIS – Oh Jonathan is amazing! He is awesome! A lot of it is really out of your hands. I had auditions that went great, but I just wasn’t the guy. So much goes into it, it's not just your talent, it’s your whole essence. It’s what you look like, it’s your charisma, being the right physical match, having the right essence to the story, it has to be this perfect storm of a great performance. So with this, Jonathan and the producers, from what I understand, captured the essence of who they were. Everybody just fit the mold so perfectly. And I hope that’s what shows because it was such a joy to be around everybody and I am very grateful that we got along so well. I hang out with everybody from the cast all the time now.

ALLY FERRARO – For how long were you shooting?

RICHARD ELLIS – Around two months. It was quite a quick shoot.

ALLY FERRARO – 6 am call days? Is it intense?

RICHARD ELLIS – I would say Sophia, the lead, she had to be everywhere, so I commend her for that. I was sporadically, a couple of hours here and there or I would fly back to LA for a week or two, but the people that were there, the crew, the director, the lead, they were really putting their all in and I commend them because it gets exhausting.

ALLY FERRARO – Do you like to film on location and do you have any spare time to spend there when you’re not working?

RICHARD ELLIS – Yes, I like shooting on location, personally. It gives you a reason to explore areas you might not otherwise go to. Like, I can’t think of a situation where I would end up in Pittsburgh on vacation. But then spending time there and getting to see the history of the city, it was a really cool experience. Pittsburgh reminded me of home in Connecticut.

ALLY FERRARO – Are there any actors you would really like to play with? 

RICHARD ELLIS – There are a couple. Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Bradley Cooper, Matthew McConaughey, Pacino, I could go on and on...Michael Shannon, Jon Hamm I really them love too.

ALLY FERRARO – What are you now looking forward to artistically and personally? 

RICHARD ELLIS – Music is something I want to look into. My brother and I write songs together. He is back in Connecticut, but every time I go home we write and write. We are very close and he is great. I kind of want to do it all, I want to do music, I want to produce, I want to do everything I love. It's important to me to be part of the creative process and to see something through. It’s already such a privilege to do the acting, but to have people know my story is one of my long term goals for sure. 

ALLY FERRARO – Last, but not least, your favorite french fries? 

RICHARD ELLIS – Would have to be from Mel’s Diner on Sunset Plaza. Oh, they are so good.