Panels and Workshops

Chandler Carlton Riggs is best known for his regular role as Carl Grimes on the AMC horror-drama television series The Walking Dead (based on the comic book series of the same name) from 2010 to 2018. For his work on the series, Chandler won three Saturn Awards from five nominations and a Young Artist Award from three nominations.

Chandler has appeared in the films Get Low (2009), Mercy (2014), Keep Watching (2017), Only (2019), and Inherit the Viper (2019). In late 2017, Chandler started releasing electronic music under his stage name, Eclipse. In early 2019, he began recurring on the ABC drama series A Million Little Things.

Chandler began acting at age four. His early work included stage productions of The Wizard of Oz, where he played a Munchkin in his theater debut, and Oklahoma with Theater of the Stars at Atlanta's Fox Theatre. At age five, he starred in the indie horror film Jesus H. Zombie. At age nine in 2009, he was cast in his first two feature film roles in Get Low as Tom and in the television film The Wronged Man as seven-year-old Ryan Gregory. The latter film, which aired on Lifetime in 2010, saw Chandler acting opposite Julia Ormond as her son.

Chandler’s most recent project is the Dramedy Breakup Season, which will be screened immediately after his presentation at the Cobb International Theater.

George Pierre is a casting director in Atlanta known for Ride Along, Night School, Saints & Sinners, and Coming 2 America. among others. He began his career in the industry as a production assistant, but quickly realized this wasn’t the direction he wanted to go because he liked being creative. He had a conversation with good friend Angi Bones, who suggested casting.

The two of them worked together on several projects together before he got a call from well-known Atlanta Producer Will Packer at Rainforest Films, who asked George to cast No Good Deed, which stars Taraji P. Henson and Idris Elba.

Typically, productions will have an L.A. casting director and a regional casting director, but Will took a chance on George and gave him the entire film to cast. It released theatrically and ended up being No.1 for two weeks. That’s when George realized that casting was the right direction for him.

Chad Darnell is a casting director in Atlanta Georgia,

He started in the industry as an extra. He was working as a stand-in on the show I’ll Fly Away when, one day he was called to work by accident - the actor he was standing in for wasn't working - so they sent him to the extras casting office to help make phone calls. The rest was history - he began working with Cynthia Stillwell in the extras casting office, and soon assisted on her other projects, such as The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and Now and Then.

After graduating from Georgia State University, he went to work in the non-fiction series and specials department for Turner Broadcasting, then spent two years working with submissions and development - including building cast lists for the celebrity hosts for our projects.

He left Turner to go back into casting with Cynthia Stillwell to work on the HBO mini-series Miss Evers’ Boys and The Gingerbread Man.

In 2000, he moved to Los Angeles and a few months later was approached by Central Casting to work on Sam Raimi's Spiderman (having worked with him on The Gift in Savannah, Ga). That experience led to him being hired on other projects by producers and assistant directors he had worked with in Georgia, including Scary Movie 2, Alias and Crossing Jordan. After six years at Central Casting (and almost 75 television shows and feature films), he left casting to pursue screenwriting.

He had a "block" against principal casting for many years, thinking he wasn’t experienced enough to "tell an actor what to do," (which he would come to realize is the exact opposite of what casting and directing is). With years of training as an actor under his belt, he knew how to communicate with actors and had the “eye for casting” thanks to his time with Cynthia, he was still reluctant to jump into principal casting, out of fear that "HE" would be one of the nightmare casting stories all actors share.

In 2013, he moved back to Georgia again went to work with Cynthia on Selma - eventually breaking out on his own to work as one of the location casting directors on Magic Mike XXL and casting background all up and down the east coast. He was hired as the location casting director on Permanent and Imperium in Virigina and in 2016, moved to Savannah, GA to help grow the film market there - working as the location casting director and extras casting director on over 20 feature films and television series. He continues to cast for projects throughout the southeast, especially in the Atlanta area.

Chase Paris is an Emmy Award-winning casting director with Feldstein/Paris Casting. He got his start in Atlanta in 2007 as a theatrical agent, then moved into casting - working on over 140 projects, including Atlanta, Ozark and Stranger Things.

He is an eight-time Emmy Nominee and won his Prime Time Emmy in 2017 for the hit series Stranger Things.

Jesse Malinowski is an American film and TV actor. At the age of 17, he moved to New York City where he attended a specialty on-camera acting conservatory. After that, Malinowski appeared in several television and film projects.

Through his career, Malinowski has appeared in films like Scare Zone, American Reunion, and Missionary, and Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (with Robert Catrini). He also appeared in the TV film Anna Nicole, alongside Agnes Bruckner.

Aside of films, Malinowski has appeared in TV shows like Devious Maids (with Tom Irwin), NCIS: New Orleans, and One Mississippi. He also appeared in an episode of Game of Silence, which was directed by Peter Weller and featured Conor O'Farrell. Malinowski also had a recurring role in the 2012 show Exposure.

Malinowski is also the founder and CEO of Get Scene, an Atlanta-based acting school.

In 2016, he wrote the book Turning Rejection Into Success: Creating an Actor's Positive Mindset.

Zele Avradopoulos is originally from Columbus Ohio -born and raised and a former Buckeye. Coming from a 1st generation Greek immigrant family, she values hard-work, pragmatism, integrity and fellow artists. She was 5 years old, dancing ballet at the Ohio Theatre. when she felt the synergy of the audience and the artist. Intuitively, she knew then she was a performer. Many adventures (living in Greece & the UK), detours (living in Boston), careers (teaching, marketing and even a professional organizer) and decades later, Zele is now a working actor in Atlanta with over 50 TV/Film credits and she can be seen on HBO, Netflix, Hulu, CBS, NBC and FOX in different shades of bossy pants and momma bears. She is now repped in NY, LA, SE & NE as well as internationally in the EU and UK. 

These detours and adventures are the seeds that brought Actor Empower Hour in fruition. Through working on sets and meeting fellow creatives, she realized what came naturally to her, her pragmatism and attention to details, are a special skill set many creatives did not have. As a former teacher at international schools in Athens, she prepared students for British and US universities. As a Marketing Manager, she manages annual print budgets of up to $500K, understands ROI, SEO and the worlds of Google & Bing. With over 13 years of experience of the different ways to sell and package products, Zele knows how to hone in on and accentuate what makes each artist unique. As a sole-proprietor, she understands how important professional relationships and networking are in building and sustaining one's business. Combining 30+ years in business-related fields with over 20+ years as an artist, her clients receive personalized coaching in creating their marketing materials for all types of different engagements. 

FOR PROSEPECTIVE CLIENTS

Talent Agents will be meeting with prospective clients - bring your resume and headshot and ‘pitch” yourself. It’s a good way to get some face time with an agent with the goal of getting picked up for representation.

Brian Beegle is one of the most experienced commercial casting directors in the country - having cast over 2000 projects in the past 15 year as a casting director.

He began his career in the industry as a child actor - working as an actor from the age of 8 all the way through college. When he finished UGA he moved to LA and lived there for 3 years acting but working up to 5 jobs simultaneously trying to ‘make it’ in Hollywood.

He moved back to Atlanta in 2006 and booked a great role in the movie We Are Marshall where he played the starting running back #33 Lucas Booth. He also became the lead singer in a cover band and did around 350 shows around the southeast - playing everything from Elvis to Dr. Dre to Peter Gabriel.

He was hired as an assistant at Stilwell Casting, the south’s leading commercial casting director at the time, and was lucky enough to study under Melissa Mcbride (who would go on to play Carol on the Walking Dead) for two years.

He took over casting in 2009 and when the pandemic hit in 2020, he started his own company - Brian Beegle Casting. He now casts all over the country - Commercials, Music Videos, Films, Industrials, etc. He does it all and loves it!