Giles Forum Centre for Acting and International Acting School of Paris (EICAR) alumni Samuel Arnold has been making fans across the Atlantic with his role as Julien in the Netflix series Emily in Paris.
Julien is a colleague and friend of the series’ main character Emily. Arnold describes Julien as ‘very colorful, with amazing comedic timing, judgmental, loves fashion, and is a bit of a diva as well. “It was just so freeing to be able to play a character like that, a character that can say everything that he thinks without fearing consequences, or things like that,” Arnold added.
Growing up in France, Arnold found himself drawn to art at an early age. He described how in his early years he would draw and paint as a means to express himself before moving into dance and music as other forms of artistic expression. In exploring visual and performance art, Samuel discovered the main element that connected the different forms of expression is storytelling.
“There is storytelling in everything that we do. The thing that I felt the most accomplished, in terms of storytelling, would be acting, and acting in theater, [and] in movies,” Arnold explained. He also described being an actor as fulfilling.
Prior to Emily in Paris, Arnold starred in other projects such as Platane and 2018’s National Theatre Live: Antony and Cleopatra alongside Ralph Fiennes, and provided his voice to the animated series Pandemica.
Samuel expressed that although he wasn’t in a position to be able to analyze and pick roles he said, “I was lucky to have always been offered very interesting roles in amazing projects.” The success of Emily in Paris has allowed Samuel to become more ‘picky’ with his role choices currently but he expressed he is very lucky to be able to audition for good roles thanks to help from his representation team in the United States at Agency for Performing Arts (APA) and his manager Luke.
Samuel spoke on how different the acting industry in France is compared to the United States. He pointed out that the US acting industry is bigger than France.
“I feel like people are way more open-minded as well, in terms of diversity in stories, and I feel like the American industry is kind of limitless in terms of creativity as well. So it is very exciting to be able to work in both industries,” Arnold stated. But overall he is getting the chance to live out his childhood dreams by starring in a hit Netflix series that reaches American audiences, and he also has an American movie project in the works.
Make sure to check him out in the latest season of Emily in Paris streaming on Netflix.
