Blaise Godbe Lipman, known professionally as Blaise, is an American
filmmaker
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, castin ...
,
actor
An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...
,
political commentator
A pundit is a person who offers mass media opinion or commentary on a particular subject area (most typically politics, the social sciences, technology or sport).
Origins
The term originates from the Sanskrit term ('' '' ), meaning "knowledg ...
, and a
''Time'' Person of the Year for his social activism.
Early life
Blaise was born and raised in rural
Big Sur California to Kira Godbe, an American photographer, and Hillary Lipman, a British real estate investor and landscape designer.
On his mother's side, he is the grandson of performance artist and political activist Ed Leeper, and Liz Leeper, a founding member of the
ACLU. Blaise's paternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors, originally from Poland and Russia.
Career
A few months after moving to Hollywood, Blaise was cast as Brett Bailey on the fourth season of NBC's ''
The Office
''The Office'' is a mockumentary sitcom created by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, first made in the United Kingdom, then Germany, and subsequently the United States. It has since been remade in ten other countries.
The original series o ...
''. Blaise subsequently made a name for himself as a teen actor on TV shows ''
Weeds'', ''
CSI: NY
''CSI: NY'' (''Crime Scene Investigation: New York'', stylized as ''CSI: NY/Crime Scene Investigation'') is an American police procedural television series that ran on CBS from September 22, 2004, to February 22, 2013, for a total of nine seaso ...
'', ''
Hawaii Five-0'', as well
Disney
The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...
shows; ''
Suite Life on Deck'', and ''
Pair of Kings
''Pair of Kings'' is an American television sitcom that originally aired on the cable channel Disney XD from September 10, 2010 to February 18, 2013. It premiered September 10, 2010 on Disney Channel and September 22, 2010 on Disney XD. The si ...
''.
Blaise's film work includes acclaimed dramas ''Nobody Walks'' (
Magnolia Pictures
Magnolia Pictures is an American film distributor. It is a subsidiary of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment.
Magnolia was formed in 2001 by Bill Banowsky and Eamonn Bowles, and specializes in both foreign and independent films. Ma ...
,
Sundance 2012) and ''The Amateur'' (Tar & Feather,
Dances with Films
Dances With Films is an annual independent film festival located in Los Angeles, California and was founded by Leslee Scallon and Michael Trent.
Lineup
Taking place every year since 1998, the festival is dedicated to representing true independent ...
, 2015) for which he also served as co-producer, the lead role of Keegan Dark, in ''
The Dark Place'', an acclaimed thriller for which Blaise won a best actor award at South by SouthWest Film Festival, and the series regular role of Jared Fostmeyer on the lifetime Series ''Betrayed at 17''.
He has written and directed short films that have played and won festivals internationally including Best Film at the UK Film Festival, Best Short at the
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and sho ...
, New Directors/New Films Festival, Carmel International Film Festival, Cinema Jam,
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a perman ...
, SXSW, NewFilmmakers NY, and Big Sur International.
In 2016, Lipman was named a Film Independent Fellow, and was invited to participate in the Director's Lab, supported by The
Time Warner
Warner Media, LLC ( traded as WarnerMedia) was an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate. It was headquartered at the 30 Hudson Yards complex in New York City, United States.
It was originally established in 1972 by ...
Foundation and the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...
. Lipman is working with
James Ponsoldt
James Adam Ponsoldt (born 1978) is an American film director, actor and screenwriter. He directed the drama films ''Off the Black'' (2006) and '' Smashed'' (2012), the romantic comedy-drama '' The Spectacular Now'' (2013), and the dramas '' The En ...
on his debut feature film ''In theShadows of the Rainbow''.
He has also worked extensively with
Ryan Murphy after being selected as part of his Half Foundation in 2017. He directed on Murphy's
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.
Lipman's visual curation and installation work has been featured at the
MOMA,
MOCA in Los Angeles, and the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...
in London.
Personal life
Blaise initially was professionally known as a Blaise Embry, a surname his first agents recommended because they thought ''God'' in "Godbe" might be polarizing, and ''Lipman'' too ethnic. Blaise later returned to his given name upon becoming a filmmaker.
In October 2017 Lipman contributed to the launch of the "
Me Too" movement when he came forward publicly about abuse suffered in the industry as a young actor, offering a platform to survivors of sexual assault. Blaise was the first to give a voice to male victims of sexual assault, who have traditionally been stigmatized.
Blaise was named one of ''
Time
Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...
'' magazine's
People of the Year in 2017 for his work in the movement, alongside fellow celebrities
Taylor Swift
Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...
,
Ashley Judd
Ashley Judd (born Ashley Tyler Ciminella; April 19, 1968) is an American actress. She grew up in a family of performing artists: she is the daughter of the late country music singer Naomi Judd and the half-sister of country music singer Wynonna ...
and
Alyssa Milano
Alyssa Jayne Milano (born December 19, 1972) is an American actress. She has played Samantha Micelli in '' Who's the Boss?'', Jennifer Mancini in '' Melrose Place'', Phoebe Halliwell in ''Charmed'', Billie Cunningham in '' My Name Is Earl'', Sa ...
, as well as lesser known activists
Susan Fowler and
Adama Iwu.
References
External links
*
*
* Heimbrod, Camille (October 21, 2017)
Stranger Things' Star Finn Wolfhard Parts Ways With APA Agency, Tyler Grasham" ''
International Business Times''.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Godbe, Blaise
Living people
21st-century American male actors
Male actors from Los Angeles
American male film actors
American male television actors
1989 births
American people of British descent