Alan Loayza starred in Gilmore Girls as Colin McCrae of the Life & Death Brigade. Since promoting his work in the Role Playing-based web series, GOLD, I’ve exchanged a few emails with Alan about his recent projects and his experience on Gilmore Girls.
Alan has a diverse creative background, including acting, music and photography. Most recently, Alan was in Paris doing a photo shoot that you can currently find featured at the top of his website. He also worked with Tanc Sade & Nick Holmes on the Two Straws short. His web series, GOLD, has now aired 5 episodes (see them here) with the Season 1 finale to air on June 26, 2009. Alan Loayza can be also be found online at twitter.com/alanloayza.
crushable.com: How did you get involved in the GOLD web series?
Alan Loayza: GOLD came about from David Nett who has a theatre company that I did a play with. The company is called Lucid by Proxy and I got involved through some old college buddies from CalArts. One day David said ,"I’m making a web series about D&D gamers and I want you to play the head of the British team." I didn’t know countries had D&D teams but the Lucid people always make great original work so I knew this wouldn’t be any different.
crushable.com: Could you describe your character on GOLD and how he evolves in the series?
Alan Loayza: Oliver Crane is a megalomaniacal self-proclaimed leader of his team. His only goal in life is to defeat the Americans at any costs using his fame and psychological tactics to set the Americans off. The funniest part about Oliver’s past is that he was the star of an old BBC show where he solved crimes with the ghost of J.R.R. Tolkien. This is one for the fantasy geeks through and through. The thing with Oliver that is a running theme with the show is that he’s not on his game as we are to believe he used to be, and that’s GOLD in a nutshell. An ensemble of characters loosing their grip of what they used to have going for them.
crushable.com: How long do you expect the series to last, and where do you see it going?
Alan Loayza: Well the series just got picked up by Blip.Tv so they are going to distribute it in different places like iTunes, network-enabled Sony TVs, Verizon Fios and all these new strange devices for broadcasting. So it looks like we have at least another season or two coming. I have no idea where it goes. I try not to ask too much about things my character doesn’t need to know because then it makes the viewing that much more surprising for me. I already know too much about films and TV shows’ inner workings that it’s hard for me to watch something objectively. I want to lose myself in the story.
crushable.com: Good point! What other projects have you been involved in since the end of Gilmore Girls?
Alan Loayza: Lots of Photography! Started shooting some editorial work and mainly want to focus on Fashion in terms of photography. I have been producing smaller projects of my own including a pilot I wrote and directed a promo for. I co-wrote it with an actress named Lauryn Nicole and we cast several friends and newcomers like Annalyne McCord who now stars on 90210. We pitched it around which was fun being on that side. We had some close calls from the networks but nothing came from it. Now that GOLD is getting a little roll, and a Web Series I acted in for Tanc Sade (Two Straws ), there seems to be an interest, so I’m developing it into a web series first. The working title is Beautiful and the promo is on my website [see Film/TV].
crushable.com: How did you get involved with Gilmore Girls?
Alan Loayza: I met with Jami Rudofsky and Mara Casey right around the time I did a pilot with Jared Padalecki. It was what they call a ‘general meeting,’ and it went great, I love those girls. I then read for every male/potential Rory boyfriend role they had for the following 3 years. I auditioned so much, Amy knew me by my first name, which was hilarious like, ‘Give me a role already, Palladino!’ Finally I came in for Colin with a chip on my shoulder, which was perfect for his pompous demeanor. It’s funny how it all works out in the end.
crushable.com: Funny also that Tanc and Nick also came in auditioning for Rory-boyfriend roles before landing in the Life & Death Brigade! Do you have a favorite moment from working on Gilmore Girls?
Alan Loayza: 1 moment? I have a few. Table reads with the cast rocked, especially since we didn’t have many scenes with Lauren [Graham] and she’s amazing (huge crush). Making Alexis [Bledel] laugh about the dumbest crap because we had been on for 16 hours and our marbles were way gone. I loved being on location in that 100 degree SUV when we kidnapped Rory. The Quentin Tarintino party was so fun. The milk maid scene was great because I actually had a love interest and, typical Colin, he could care less about her 5 minutes later. Yelling at Alexis, then wrestling Matt [Czuchry] was pretty awesome too, I won’t lie.
crushable.com: There’s a huge community online who are fans of Colin & Finn, that’s for sure!
Alan Loayza: Yeah, they were fun characters.
crushable.com: How / when did you become involved with photography? How do you balance this with your acting / other film pursuits?
Alan Loayza: Photography came out of necessity; of not wanting to wait tables when I first started out. I have always wanted to direct and I have always viewed the world keeping a camera angle or lens in mind. So, when I had my first headshots taken, I thought that it wasn’t brain surgery and started shooting my actor friends. It grew into meeting a Ford Model one day and shooting her and so on.
I really love photography and the balance just comes in between doing everything else. I always will make the time to do a shoot, especially in Fashion, because it’s such a different artistic set of principles than what I am used to. I’m always scared going into a shoot because so much of it is new and unknown to me, but I know that’s why I’m doing it, to break molds and constantly learn.
crushable.com: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Alan Loayza: Directing and running a production company. I really have a mind set of the type of work I want to develop and direct. I’m also going to rap. Yes, rap. It’s in the works but nothing more can be said. 
crushable.com: We’ll look forward to seeing that, then 
Lightning Round with Alan Loayza
- Favorite food: Sushi
- Last book you read: I read scripts. Michael Clayton.
- Your ideal role on tv or in a movie: Hamlet modernized like Romeo + Juliet. Or anything Tobey, Hayden, or Topher won’t do
- Something most people would be surprised to know about you: I actually can dance and am a Hip-Hop lyricist, despite my pale complexion.
- Worst travel experience: Bribing cops in Mexico with $40 and my little Spanish skills to let my friend go while both of us are sitting in the back seat of their car.
Thanks so much to Alan for taking the time for this interview! Don’t forget to check out Alan’s website, his web series, and follow him on twitter!
