Laura Ann Tull

Laura Ann Tull has had a love of acting since being a child. She was named after the 1945 song "Laura" by her grandfather who also called her "a little Sarah Bernhardt." As a child she was introverted and studious. She graduated with honors from high school and was also a Varsity Cross Country and Track runner. A car accident in 1997 ending her running endeavors. She won a full trustee tuition academic scholarship to McDaniel College where she graduated Alpha Psi Omega (Theater fraternity honors) and Phi Beta Kappa. Actors she knew pushed her to study seeing she had talent. She got cast in her first audition for Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" as an extra, but a cast member quit. That cast member and a friend Sierra Hurt (now a singer and musician in Pennsylvania & London) pushed the director to give her the role (not at her request). Laura was incredibly introverted, a natural healthy way or some people to be. The foundation of her training is the classics, studying the Greeks, Roman, Shakespeare, Goethe, Checkov, Ibsen and later modern American Drama, and taking a semester class on O'Neil. She was selected to perform in a new work for the incoming students called "Choices" where she played a young woman named Michelle exploring the issues of sexually transmitted diseases. She played opposite the now known magician Scott Alexander, also known as Scott Grocki. At the time Laura had never had a boyfriend. Laura also performed "Choices" at a special presentation for the Mid Atlantic College Health Association annual meeting attended by 300 health professionals representing 74 campuses. She received a note from Marlene Clements, President of the Mid Atlantic College Health Association stating her performance was "very real, vulnerable, yet able to grow and gain self worth." It has been her goal ever since to play for the real and honest. "Choices" is still performed to this day for the incoming students at McDaniel. Laura played numerous other roles in college and went on to get a Masters at American University in Performing Arts Management where she met and became friends with punk musician Kenny Inouye and studied Casting, Photography, Art Critical theory, Marketing, and took her first class in TV and Film acting. She auditioned once for a play and landed the lead. She wrote and presented papers on droit morale and First Amendment concerns for arts organizations. She also worked for the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts where she met many area musicians and entertainment lawyers, including Sonny Bono's legislative assistant Chris Katopis. Laura also completed a juris doctorate at Catholic University where her focus was communication, new media, copyright and entertainment law. She moved to California in 2002 having passed the California bar in 2000. She resigned from the California Bar in good standing having decided that the legal profession was costing her mental health and well being too much and that her natural talents lay elsewhere. Financially she felt she was wasting money for a license she could not bring herself to use. She had actually quit any desire to be in the legal field in 2002 when she became inactive and has made it clear she will not practice. In law school she interned for Court TV for a year for Marietta Lee, working for Fred Graham at the Supreme Court press room and was also an Intern for Clinton's committee on Religious Freedom, hired by Professor Robert Destro of Catholic University law school. In August of 2003 Laura was cast as a reporter, background, on the show "The Practice," starting a career on sets working as background, stand in, and acting non union. She worked full-time in the industry making roughly 20000 a year from 2003 to 2008. She also started studying at Santa Monica College wanting to get skills to work in the growing web and digital film market to support her acting career. Laura saw that the industry was moving in that direction. She has a GPA of 3.6 studying digital editing and motion graphics, film making and taking acting classes when she can't get the classes she needs or just to sharpen her skills. She loved her work on sets and wanted to maintain a good reputation to be able to network into production and acting jobs. Those who don't understand the industry can't comprehend that background is a job and many actors and film makers started with that job. Free market means you don't make someone quit at any level, especially if it's the number one export of that country. Laura wants to stress she was an actor before 2003 and she is one now and belittling people for having been background when so many do it unaware to the general public is the equivalence of a racial slur and needs to end in the industry. She became SAG eligible in 2004 but breast cancer and mastectomy in 2005 delayed her joining until 2011. Laura was also a member of AFTRA for a year but was assaulted by a staff member and they gave her the money back after trying to ask Jason George of "Gray's Anatomy" why his show took her reasons for beating breast cancer. She had to pay more to join SAG and is a legitimate member of the Union despite the Union denying her rights for two years. She landed her first SAG audition, "A.B.S" which has been in over 13 festivals and won multiple awards. She walked away from Scientology in 2004 having seen a document that stated L Ron Hubbard was happy someone had died against his religion after attending a few classes just to explore what they are about. Laura was physically violated by a Union member in 2006 who later harassed her on sets. She was tripped on a set in 2008 so bad she could not bend her legs for a week with ABC crew and then 8 months later was told to come to work to be told she is on a list by Disney at "Gray's Anatomy". She filed charges with SAG in 2012 only to have the Union have the police put her on a three day hold in a drug rehab facility when she does not do drugs. Later a smart cop informed her she is not a lawyer. Since then she has been legally fighting to get her rights back. By the time the dust settled, the new Union SAG AFTRA was formed but though she maintains her membership she has been cut off from attending events and taking classes and finds that the only production companies inviting her to events are Christian-based and that go against her First Amendment values. Laura's legal actions were dropped with the NLRB in part due to statute of limitation and within 24 hours she was harassed by emails with background from "Gray's Anatomy" and threatened on her Twitter. Her life is about acting and the Arts. Acting is what helps her stand up and say world look at me. She won't give in to bullies. She did both "A.B.S" and "Chemical 13", her first well-received shorts for nothing. And is grateful for both. Laura never completed her certificates at Santa Monica college because she lodged a complaint against Professor Carrasco and a student Carrie Finklea in January of 2017. She kept being attacked on Twitter by a stalker ever time she signed up with Carrasco's film 33 class. She believes that Carrie knows who has been attacking her on Twitter. Laura has had a stalker on Twitter from 2014 to May of 2017. The stalker started after her charges with the NLRB were dropped. She only had one class Film33 to complete the courses for a film Production certificate. She now wants to sue Santa Monica college for years of misogyny and religious bullying and discrimination. When not acting Laura loves writing poetry, taking photos, synth & alternative rock, science fiction fantasy thriller and detective books & films, Dr. Who, BBC, Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, hiking, horses, dogs, yoga, and has been a gluten free vegan since 2009. Due to a yeast allergy and an autoimmune disease she is on a strict mostly organic vegan candida free AI diet. She is an advocate for SU2C, feminism, and an end to domestic violence, rape, and bullying. Men who are feminist are Vogue to her. She has been Buddhist since 2011. She took classes at Against the Stream and also explored various forms. She practices primarily Zen and Vipassana. She trained at Against the Stream mostly with Michael Zittel, Denise Dinovi and Kevin Bortolin. For a time she sat with Brad Warner and Nina Snow with the Angel City Zen. She finds meditation through activity as proposed by the Shambhala also helpful but Shambhala was not right for her. Laura's father is a retired Customs agent and worked in the now Homeland security Customs building on Gay street in Baltimore in the 70s and 80s. In the 90s he moved to Internal affairs in Washington D.C. and then to Nogales, Arizona in 1995. Her mother was a drug dependency night nurse at Greater Baltimore Medical Center. Laura would often play FBI or nurses on set because she grew up watching the real people doing those jobs. She'd rather play a lawyer nurse or FBI than be one. Her father taught her gun safety. His love for guns however made her not want them in her personal life or home. She rejected her families religious beliefs and politics at 17. She is an advocate for gun regulations and background checks. She feels there is no need for anyone to own an AR-15.