Actress Lauren Gordon Gets Busy
- Written by Tom Estey
Lauren S. Gordon’s burgeoning career as an actor over the past few years is not only proof positive that with a lot of hard work and a bit of serendipity, dreams can indeed come true – but also that it’s never too late to push those long set aside aspirations in motion.
For the Philadelphia bred and based Lauren, all it took was the right sign. In 2017, she spotted a notice on Casting Networks calling for extras on Barry Levinson’s HBO film Paterno, starring Al Pacino. While on the set at MetLife stadium as one of 300 background actors during a game scene, photos were taken of the extras five at a time for an undisclosed purpose. The Oscar winning director chose her and only three others for an upgraded speaking role. Lauren played a wealthy Nittany Club donor’s wife who shook hands with the actor portraying disgraced Penn State coach Jerry Sandusky.
The single line in that movie made her eligible for SAG membership, and she’s been on an amazing trajectory since then, playing a wide range of roles which showcase her powerful presence and diversity as a performer. While on the set, she met a fellow Philly actor who recommended she contact and study under the guidance of master on-camera acting coach John Pallotta in NYC and Philadelphia. While studying under him, she was introduced to top New York casting director Donna McKenna.
These contacts have helped Lauren score roles as a CIA special agent (“The Report”) and nurse (“5th Borough”), and led to parts on the hit Showtime show “Ray Donovan” and two short films (“Killing Spree” and “Titillated.” More recently, she played the wife and mother (deceased in the present) of main characters in the film “Bad Education,” starring Hugh Jackman and Emmy and Oscar winning actress Allison Janney.
Through McKenna, she connected with former NYPD officer and celebrity bodyguard turned actor-writer-director Steve Stanulis, who cast her as a casting director in his soon to be released indie film “The Hinsdale House.” He was so impressed with her performance that he gave her an extra scene – and told her she was so natural that he thought she had been acting for years. Stanulis also cast Lauren as the mom of the title character in his upcoming “Chronicle of a Serial Killer.”
All of these breakthroughs would have been unimaginable to Lauren earlier in her adult life, when she abandoned her creative instincts and chose a straight and narrow path. After getting her B.A. in communications at the University of Pittsburgh, she followed in the tradition of her attorney father and sister and earn her law degree (at the top of her class) from Widener (now Delaware) Law School. Passing the bar exam on the first try in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, she went on to become a successful attorney in Philadelphia, working for several firms and handling catastrophic medical malpractice and domestic relations cases.
Lauren continued practicing for a time after she married her husband Len Cohen, an established attorney she met while still in law school. When she started having children, she ultimately felt that being a mom was her top priority and she gave up her law practice to raise Alec (now 22, a senior at Franklin and Marshall College), her daughter Davi (19, a sophomore at the University of Maryland) and Eli (14, a freshman in high school).
“I liked the fact that I was able to accomplish important things like helping remove children from abusive homes and to more loving, nurturing environments,” Lauren says, “but ultimately, I realized that at heart, I was not a suit and office person. I really loved being a stay-at home mom for all the years that made practical sense. Pursuing acting was always in the back of my head but there was no time to devote to that for many years, especially when the kids were little.”
Still, every chance she had, Lauren would frequent the theatre in Philly and New York, at least living out her dreams vicariously through others. While in NY on business, she would spend her free time frequenting her favorite theatre, the 13th Street Rep and go to the movies. To find spiritual balance in her life, as her children got older, she also became a certified Bikram and Baron Baptiste Power Yoga instructor, and went on to teach yoga for several years on the main line of Philadelphia, the area where she lives.
With more and more free time on her hands, she gave acting an initial go, signing with the Philadelphia based agency MMA and booking local and regional commercials for everything from car dealerships to beauty creams. This motivated her to sign up with Casting Networks, which booked her on “Paterno” and set her current life path in motion.
“I feel stimulated and excited every time I walk onto a set and have had the opportunity to meet more amazing people over the last two years than I had met in the previous 20,” Lauren says. “Acting comes very naturally to me and I can morph pretty easily into what the casting agents and directors want me to be. It’s exciting having the opportunity to be a completely different person every day and create a fresh persona to bring another person’s reality to life onscreen. I don’t know how it happens, I just draw all of my life experiences and just form into that person.”
Aside from her family and her daily yoga practice which keeps her centered and present in every moment, Lauren’s other great passion is her three rescue dogs – a year and a half old German Shepherd mix named Wentz (named after the Eagles quarterback), a nine month old mix (korgi, rottweiler, German Shepherd, border collie) named Kobe (after basketball legend and Philly native Kobe Bryant) and husky/lab mix Skye, named for her blue eyes.
