Actor / Director Profile

From the beginning of his career, Chad Willett's roles have spanned the ages and the earth. They have brought him to 15th-century France to fight alongside legends, flown him to the moon and back and left him stranded in the frozen mountains of South America.In his first American film Alive, Willett starred alongside Ethan Hawke. This true story of a group of brave young people fighting to survive after their plane crashes in the mountains of Chile was directed by Frank Marshall and produced by Kathleen Kennedy. In the critically acclaimed CBS miniseries, Joan of Arc, Willett co-starred with Leelee Sobieski. The stellar cast included such legendary actors as Peter O'Toole, Shirley Maclaine, Peter Strauss and Jacqueline Bissett. Chad had direct access to NASA when he starred as a shuttle mission specialist on the television series The Cape.Willett is a native of British Columbia, where he was trained in Meisner and Stanislavski acting techniques and starred for four seasons in the award winning Canadian series Madison. Eventually, film and television work brought him to Los Angeles and New York where he has continued to play diverse characters such as the hippie head shop owner opposite Vincent D'Onofrio in the independent feature film Steal this Movie. The Locket, a CBS event movie had him caring for an aging lady in a nursing home played by Academy Award winner Vanessa Redgrave. He chased monsters throughout New York in hopes of breaking the big story as lead reporter Tucker Burns in the SciFi Channel series, The Chronicle. He also took on the challenge of telling the true story of a New York stockbroker turned cattle rancher in Nothing Too Good For a Cowboy for director Kari Skogland. Willett recently appeared in back to back projects, Life on NBC and House M.D. on FOX with Hugh Laurie! Chad's most recent completed works are both in post production, the feature film comedy, For Christ's Sake starring Will Sasso, and Cole. Cole which was directed by Carl Bessai, is a hard hitting small town drama where Chad plays the town's redneck antagonist.Willett's latest stage work was in the Pulitzer Award-winning play Proof, written by David Auburn at The Cleveland Playhouse and As Bees in Honey Drown, by Douglas Carter Beane at the Pasadena Playhouse.