Julian Berlin is one of those kinds of people the entertainment industry calls a Quintuple Threat: she’s an actress, a concert violinist, a dancer, comedienne and writer who knows her way around the circuitous Hollywood route to success.
Only 26 years old, this young entertainer has already amassed an impressive career resume in modeling and dancing, starring in soap operas, big screen films, sitcoms, TV dramas and performed as a concert symphonic violinist for 3 years in the St. Cloud Symphony. Oh, did we mention she is also a meticulous business woman and fluent in both Spanish and French?
Julian has now set her sights on teaching young students with aspirations of acting while continuing her successful acting and musical career. Our Linda Craddock sat down with Julian and had a wonderful time talking with her. We hope you enjoy this chat with Julian as much as Linda did.
Linda Craddock, Emilio D’alise and our entire international news team wish to extend warm wishes for a happy and wonderful holiday season to all our fans of Slice of SciFi.
Linda Craddock (SoSF): Hello Julian and welcome to Slice of SciFi. How are you today?
Julian Berlin (JB): Well, and thank you for having me.
SoSF: Are you working on a project currently?
(JB): Right now I’m going to be working on a film called “Space Plane”, it’s a comedy and as far as stuff coming out, the sci-fi film called “Ghost Voyage” with Antonio Sabato, Jr. I also have a comedy series coming out in March called “Unhitched”, the Farrelly Brothers’ new project with Rashida Jones and Craig Bierko and I have a thriller coming out, and it’s called “Thy Kingdom Come”, in fact, I will be leaving for Barcelona later today to go do some work over there so that’s pretty much what’s gong on right now.
SoSF: You mentioned “Ghost Voyager”. Talk about that project and your role.
JB: My role… my goodness! Well [it’s] a sci-fi flick, and a lot of fun. Kind of like a mystery throughout the film. There’s a group of us that all of a sudden wind up in the same place and we have no idea how we got there or what’s going on. It’s kind of like the mystery of [it] all [is] in trying to figure out exactly what’s happening on this ship that we’re on and my role in it is the role of “Jessica” and I love her, I had so much fun playing her. She’s sort of a Hollywood starlet and always in everybody’s business. [And,] one of the other people that is on the ship is a producer and he becomes the object of my affection throughout the whole thing and our roles are actually very funny and, I really enjoyed playing her because it was so much fun and I love comedy and it’s great when you can put those elements of comedy inside some of the suspense that comes with sci-fi so, it was really a lot of fun for me.
SoSF: You mentioned “Thy Kingdom Come”, and you have appeared in horror projects like “The Dark Room” and “Scarred”, just to name two. What is it about horror films that you find so appealing?
JB: You know it’s just imagination. Every part of acting is always fascinating to me but the one thing about the horror and the thriller [genre] is imagination. You get to go to work and play all day and be like a little kid, creating these scenarios that are happening and it’s so much fun to do that especially as an adult [and] especially in a horror film like “Kingdom Come,” for instance where I had the lead in that film where you usually have some of those roles in these thrillers that you get really challenged in these life and death situations and it’s so much fun for me as an actor to have the opportunity to go to those crazy, emotional high stakes kind of places where you’re fighting for your life and when you’re done, it’s like “yeah man that was awesome!”
SoSF: You get a call from your agent telling you about upcoming projects, particularly the horror sci-fi genre…. Is there anything in particular producers look for during an audition process that draws an actor to that particular genre?
JB: You mean what the producers look for from an actor? I think, honestly, it’s the commitment to the scenario or situation. Usually in sci-fi or horror you get the scene that’s a climax moment where you’re about to be killed or essential to some crazy sci-fi thing and I think it’s definitely the commitment from the actor to make those scenes real. To go there in your mind and in your work as an actor to make those situations as real as possible because if you have someone that’s faking it, or doesn’t believe it or not quite vested in their work, you can tell [it in] their acting and I think that’s what definitely draws in an audience so they get to go along for that ride, whether it’s a thriller or a sci-fi story and live through that kind of magic and experience that terror… if the actor is truly there in that scene and it’s real to them. When the actor’s terrified, the audience is terrified.
SoSF: You’ve have worked a couple of film projects while also appearing in a number of TV series. Did it present a huge challenge for you to juggle your schedule?
JB: (Laughter) I don’t know what the deal is but when I start to work on projects, I book like two at a time. It’s very funny how the career can be kind of strange. You won’t work for three months and then all of a sudden you book two in a row and it’s like wow, schedule conflict, it’s so funny. It’s happened to me a couple of times. I was doing this film, then I was doing “The Dark Room” which is a thriller and I had booked them literally inside the same week. All of a sudden everybody’s on the phone with each other. Usually the project that was booked first has first position. Usually you step back as the actor and let your agent/manager and the producers talk between themselves and figure the schedule out for you and what you need to do as the actor is do your craft, study your script and show up where you’re supposed to show up and let everybody else deal with it. It can definitely prove a little challenging but if you just stay focused and let everybody do their job and you do yours everything works out well.
SoSF: Any particular film project that stands out in your mind as perhaps a favorite or very challenging?
JB: Wow, I would definitely say the thriller film “Thy Kingdom Come” was a challenge for me. We were down in Argentina filming that project and [like I said], it was a thriller and I was the lead in the film and we would shoot into the night until about 4 or 5 in the morning. You have your schedule, even your environment uprooted to move down to another location for a good month and a half and definitely flip your time schedule around and it’s very challenging to work at such an intense level for so long, especially 6 days out of a week which we were shooting trying to wrap the film in a conscious amount of time. (laughter).
I would go to work until about 4 or 5 in the morning, then I would go back to my hotel room and they were doing construction next door to my hotel room (laughter) and oh, my goodness I would say can I please get some sleep, please. So the physical stress of shooting and just the role itself was very challenging and very rewarding. It was a difficult film but I also found it was one that I grew the most from and I definitely proved to myself the kind of actor that I am and that was rewarding as well.
SoSF: The TV series “Watch Over Me”, you appeared in 12 episodes as Marie Hughes. Tell us about that experience.
JB: Maria was fun. She was a strong woman, a really strong woman from a wealthy background and definitely had the ideal marriage with everything perfect, sort of like the silver spoon life and all of a sudden it just came crashing down… I find out my husband’s having an affair with his secretary, of all people, and (laughter) it was a fun roller coaster to go on and especially with her strengths. She wasn’t a victim fighting to get her husband back she was ready to rake him across the coals and take him for all that he was worth. Basically what my family had provided for him. It was really fun to play such a strong character, such a sexy character. Then when I get crossed by my husband, to really deal with the emotional side of that but keep the strength of who she was. It was just a great role to play. It was really lovely.
SoSF: Is there a huge difference between filming a soap like “Days of our Lives” and your work in I guess you would call it a regular drama TV series?
JB: Yes, there definitely is. First of all [for] a regular drama series, you have a little more time to shoot an episode, like an entire, almost two weeks to shoot an episode. Whereas, [in] a soap opera, you have one day so you don’t have as much time to rehearse and to create the moment, really develop moments in the scene when you do a soap opera because you are on set, you are blocking through a scene and you get a take, maybe two takes and you’re moving on to the next scene. Soap operas are, although sometimes you have to kind of overact it, truly are some of the most talented actors. You just have to be committed on the spot. Usually there’s not a second take, especially when I was working with “Days of Our Lives” and I had a few scenes with Allison Sweeney. She can cry at the drop of a hat, and it was so impressive to me, I’m like “oh, my God” (laughter), it’s like a light switch, on/off, she’s so good at it. So I really have a lot of respect for what they do every day in a soap opera.
SoSF: Now there’s got to be one or two fun times you can think of while working in the comedy “Just for Kicks” TV series?
JB: (Laughter) Yeah, oh, for sure. I remember the first episode in that, oh my gosh it was so funny, where half the cast was in college and part of the cast was still in high school and everybody had a zit that day. It was so funny because everybody had like these gnarly little nasty blemishes and zits put on their face because it was about the fact that everybody gets them and everyone’s walking around with these zits on their face and we all felt ridiculous and that was like the first episode I shot for them so the first time I was on camera, I had this big old zit on my forehead. It was quite funny (laughter).
SoSF: Is there any particular genre you enjoy over another?
JB: I just love comedy. I would love to do a sitcom. I have so much fun working on “Scrubs” with Zach Braff. What an amazing talent he is. He is fearless with his work and I just aspire to be as fearless as he is because through that you might have some moments when your work just flops, the joke will flop but when you take those risks you find those moments in which it turns genius and that is exactly what Zach is and I had a great time working on that and would love to do a sitcom. I just enjoy it so much to go to work everyday and just laugh and be silly.
SoSF: What would be your ideal role and what actor and actress would you dream of working with?
JB: Well, there’s so many, but the first would be Johnny Depp. I have always enjoyed his work. He is so immersed in what he does. He creates these ingenious characters. He’s just so creative and so fascinating, same with Daniel Day Lewis. I just find his work to be so impeccable, so specific, so committed. It’s just amazing how every time you see him on the screen it’s like a completely different person. He just immerses himself and there’s really no identity as to he is from one character to the next, completely evolved. Also Cate Blanchett an amazing actress, I just love her. I am so excited to see her film about the musician “I’m not There”. She is just fantastic especially when I saw her in “The Aviator.” She did such a great job. I mean what a challenge to take on to play Katharine Hepburn and everyone knows you’re going to be completely under a microscope and have the courage to do that and she did it so well. I find actors that were trained who are from England and Australia are just so right on and its so inspiring to watch them because their work is so specific and it comes right down to making choices and being so specific and other actors see that it is such an inspiration to be so committed to your work and be as creative and specific as possible.
SoSF: Let’s talk a little about Julie off camera. You are an amazing talent.
JB: Aw, thank you.
SoSF: You are violinist and can play anything from Beethoven to Hendrix.
JB: I can, yeah.
SoSF: Wow. On a bet with your hairstylist you entered the Teen USA competition at seventeen and took the crown…
JB: I did, I did! (laughter)
SoSF: Amazing. You played with the St. Cloud Symphony for 3 years and modeled while starting your acting career. You are definitely no stranger to performing, and you speak French and Spanish. Tell us about the transition from your musical performances to modeling and then acting.
JB: Well, I started when I was little. I started playing the violin when I was 8 years old which was kind of late in the violin world but I’ve always loved it. I’ve had an affinity for it every since I was a young, young child. I just picked it up and started playing in the school system and continued playing and it evolved into playing in college but I almost didn’t play in college. I was looking for the audition for the Symphony and of course when you’re in college you’re just overwhelmed with everything and I couldn’t find the room in which to audition for the orchestra there and so I walked out of the building and I was like, OK forget it I won’t play anymore, it’s no big deal. I took two steps out of the building, I stopped and I said no and I turned around and went back in and I am so glad that I did because those years, especially studying in college were incredible. My ability to play excelled by 120%. I was just playing classically in school and in college I had some great symphonic teachers with a little bit of blue grass and swing and jazz and rock and roll and once you can let go when you play the instrument then you really have a freedom of expression and you’re not just reading music… you’re really creating in the moment and it’s so wonderful to have that freedom and that talent.
I play today with some other actors, Johnny Sneed who’s on “Unhitched” and a bunch of musicians and we all get together and just play. The violin has been just a way to share music with other people, just an interaction in a way that I would probably never talk to half the people I play with because I don’t really have anything else in common with them but this. It’s a doorway to meeting people and creating fantastic art.
Also while I was growing up, I studied dancing while I was young and I love to dance. I started dancing professionally when I was 10 and did a lot of performing and touring. We did a lot of Vaudeville style shows. I really wanted to bring a great upbringing on stage and that translated into doing classical theatre. I was in an art school for a while doing productions and when I was about 15 I started modeling in North Dakota and then I went to Minneapolis, Minnesota and did some modeling there and when I was in college I met my managers. Some of the management was in Minneapolis and the other part of it was in Los Angeles so soon after I started college I went out to Los Angeles with representation and started working on some series and some sitcoms and it’s a lot of fun and it’s just evolved. Who knows what tomorrow brings.
SoSF: You have seen so much of the world and have quite an impressive resume. What would you like to accomplish within the next 5 years?
JB: I definitely want to continue with my acting career but I also write and I would really love to bring to completion a couple of scripts that I have written that I have some green lights on and I am really about continuing with my own personal creation and expression as an artists through different mediums, film making and also continuing my expression as an artist through my music and even painting. Also there’s a lot I want to give back to my fellow artists. I would like to go back and teach in my home town over the summer, some workshops for students there, the performing arts school and teach and I have that program in the works and I have some books that I would like to complete on how to deal with the business in Hollywood because it’s interesting when you come out here you have these aspirations and these dreams about what you want to do as an actor and its interesting how sometimes the art that we do conflicts with the business side so what Hollywood is and it’s hard to grasp sometimes when you’re an artists and want to create you don’t understand why you didn’t get the job and in essence it has nothing to do with the fact that you’re brilliant. You’re brilliant in the room but just not the right person for the job. They wanted this, they wanted that, somebody shorter.
Unfortunately some of the great artists — even Sean Penn said some of the greatest actors you will never know their name because sometimes those two things don’t always match up. I definitely think there are things actors can do to make those moments of opportunity happen for them [but] I [also] think sometimes their artistic side doesn’t match up with the business side of the brain and I’d like to share all of the things I’ve been able to do. I have a very good business side of me that I love and I’d love to share that with other artists because I think everybody deserves the opportunity and encouragement to express their art and I think all they need is a little extra boost of inspiration and there are different ways to make it happen and I would love to share that with them.
SoSF: We will keep an eye out for these future works of Ms. Julie Berlin. Thank you fortaking the time for this interview it was an absolute pleasure speaking with you.
JB: My pleasure Linda, and thank you.
“Thy Kingdom Come” (Theatrical release – 2008) and “Ghost Voyage” (SCI FI Channel Jan. 26, 2008) — are both currently in post-production.