Actor, writer and filmmaker Joseph Culp recently completed the feature film Hunger (2001/I), an adaptation of Nobel laureate Knut Hamsun's masterpiece "Hunger", written and directed by María Giese (I)' . Culp co-produced and stars as Charlie Pontus, a lonely screenwriter living on the brink of physical and spiritual starvation in Los Angeles. In work-in-progress screenings at San Francisco Indie Fest the film received "Pick of the Pack" from the San Francisco Examiner, saying, "Joseph Culp's agreeable performance makes this one a champion!" SF Indie Fest wrote, "Joseph Culp's exquisitely naked performance and writer/director Giese ragged, guerrilla-video style add immeasurably to the bracing austerity of the film charging it with all the primitive beauty of an ancient Russian icon painting."Born in Los Angeles, the son of actor Robert Culp, Joseph began acting in school plays at the age of nine. He later trained as an actor in both New York and Los Angeles under various teachers, including Herbert Berghof, Uta Hagen, Arthur Sherman, Kenneth MacMillan and John Lehne. Film credits include starring roles in Alan J. Pakula's _Dream Lover (1986/I)_, Monte Hellman's Iguana (1988), _Arrival, The (1990)_, the lead in the action thriller Assault on Dome 4 (1996) (TV) and Robert Moreland's comedy "Indian Love Story" with Téa Leoni. Culp also starred as the original Doctor Doom in the first film version of Marvel Comics' _Fantastic Four, The (1994/II)_. He co-starred with Laurie Metcalf in The Secret Life of Houses (1994) on PBS, and for director María Novaro' (Danzón (1991)) in her tale of Mexican border life, Jardín del Edén, El (1994), which screened at the Sundance, Montreal and Seattle film festivals. He co-starred with John Savage in the sci-fi film Firestorm (1995) and was featured in HBO's Full Eclipse (1993) (TV), Ron Howard's Apollo 13 (1995), Mario Van Peebles' How to Get the Man's Foot Outta Your Ass (2003) and Panther (1995) and the western Los Locos (1997). He appeared with Mia Kirshner, Jean-Hugues Anglade and Connie Nielsen in the noir-thriller Dark Summer (2000) directed by Gregory Marquette and recently starred opposite Ray Wise and Sonya Smith in the sci-fi comedy _Cyxork 7 (2005)_. He is currently producing and starring in the romantic comedy "Death of Aquatic Girl", a live action/animation feature to hit festivals later this year. His many television appearances include "ER" (1994), "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" (1993), "Highway to Heaven" (1984) and movies for TV such as Project: Tin Men (1990) (TV), Blue Bayou (1990) (TV) and A Doctor's Story (1984) (TV).He is set to produce and co-star in his screenplay, "Justice", a darkly comedic tale about an ambitious "Reality-TV" cameraman descending into the lives of small-town cops. As a screenwriter Joseph has authored several screenplays, including "In the Time of the Fool" an epic about the 1960s, "Jackers", a high-concept action piece about carjacking and media, and "Mother Nature", a New Age pregnancy-comedy. He is currently prepping to direct and star later this year in a co-written project, "In the Time of No Father", calling it a tale of the "wounded male psyche" set in Mexico.In addition to working in film and television, Joseph has continued a commitment to the theater. In 2004 he starred in the New York stage premiere of "Foul Shots" by Raymond J. Barry. Theatre credits include "Summer and Smoke" directed by the late Kenneth MacMillan; opposite Ron Leibman in "Children of Darkness" at The Actor's Studio, and "A Wilder Evening - Six Short Works by Thornton Wilder" which he produced and directed and in which he performed. He received a Drama Logue award for his performance as a rebel Irish coal miner in Jason Miller's "Nobody Hears a Broken Drum" in Los Angeles.Joseph is the founder of the Los Angeles-based "Walking Theatre Group/Workshop" where he performs as an actor, writer and director as well as conducting ongoing research in the training and practice of the "Walking-In-Your-Shoes TM" transpersonal technique and its use in creative process. He co-founded this body/mind technique which combines aspects of intuitive movement, spontaneous empathy and "shamanism". He acted and directed his own adaptations of two short stories by Franz Kafka, "The Judgment" and "In the Penal Colony", which he performed with the Walking Theatre Group. He directed an evening with the Walking Theatre Group - "Welcome to the Great Beyond" where the audience participated in a public demonstration and exploration of the "Walking-In-Your-Shoes" transpersonal process. He is currently working on a book about the "Walking" technique for use in related workshops and groups. He lives in Santa Monica, California with his wife Lauren and their two children, Jackson and Sedona.
