Nice to Meet You … Bren Foster
That handsome guy with the great accent that you've noticed around Salem recently? That's Bren Foster. He joined the cast in a, well, let's just call it a somewhat unusual first episode. His character, Quinn, met Chloe at the Cheatin' Heart, bought her a drink (maybe two), one thing led to another and they ended up back at his hotel room. Now, that's not so unusual. What happened next, now that's where things changed. Chloe woke up the next morning to find an envelope of cash from Quinn, in "thanks" for their evening together. He had mistaken her for a prostitute!
"He's essentially a good guy, who just does bad things!" Bren said of his character with a laugh. "I really like the way he's going with the storyline and the character that he is. I mean, obviously he starts off with buying Chloe a drink and kind of has ulterior motives, which I can't really say too much about! He has ulterior motives and that leads Chloe into a whirlwind and takes them both down a different path. He leaves her money after a one-night stand that they've had together. That's kind of the beginning of it." And we can't even imagine where it might go next!
Bren, who grew up in Sydney, Australia, has been living more or less full-time in the States, in Los Angeles, for close to two years. During that time, he shot two feature films, War Flowers and Bad to the Bone, both of which are in post-production now. In War Flowers, Bren tells us, he "played Sergeant John Ellis, who was Christina Ricci's husband. But it was a nice little role. I played a big part in the story of that film. That was a lot of fun." In Bad to the Bone, he plays "a mixed martial arts fighter. They tried to corrupt him and make him fight in illegal fights by leading him to believe that he killed someone. He didn't comply with them so they took his daughter, then it kind of turns into – have you seen Taken with Liam Neeson? He fights to get his daughter back."
During the two years that he's been living in the States, when he hasn't been working, he has traveled back and forth to Australia fairly often. He returned from a trip in December and January and "was fortunate enough to book the job on Days within about two weeks of being back. It was a good time!" And a quick audition process. "I went in there and when I did the original audition for Marnie, it was like a six page audition," Bren told us. "I did it as an American. From there I got a call from my manager and he said 'oh, Bren, you did a really good audition, but Marnie's not taking you to producers.' Then there was a pause for effect. I said, 'oh, okay.' Then he said, 'she's going to take you straight to the test!' Wow, that's cool! Then I think myself and four other guys came and we tested. I think that was on the Thursday. Then Monday morning I had a phone call from both my manager and my agent at the same time and they told me I got the job. I was over the moon."
Part of the reason he was so excited was because he was quite familiar with the show. As we noted, his mother is a big fan, and, he told us, "I used to watch the show when I was a kid and I would stay home from school. We've only had pay TV in Australia for maybe the last thirteen years. So when I was a kid and I used to stay home from high school on my supposedly sick days, I'd watch the show. We didn't have pay TV; it was kind of rare then. So I was very familiar with the show." He continued, saying that "it was good news for back home, being such a stable show that I pretty much grew up watching, as well."
When he wasn't playing hooky from school and watching the happenings in Salem, Bren spent his youth training in the martial arts. In fact, he owns a martial arts fitness center in Sydney. He's still training, in Tae Kwon Do, Thai boxing and Brazilian Jujitsu. "I've won national titles; I'm the previous world champion for the ISKA's Karate Association. So, yeah, martial arts have played a big part in my life, actually."
We wondered, however, if all that martial arts training in any way complemented his current life as an actor. Bren believes it does. "I remember even once when I was at University," he told us, "in an acting section of the class, the teacher actually stopped the whole class and she made me give them a martial arts lesson! Particularly in Asian theater, they incorporate the martial arts a lot. The Japanese and the Chinese opera, the martial arts play a big part with their actors. Even at some of the drama schools, I know they do Aikido for a whole semester their second year. And a lot of actors and acting coaches recommend the martial arts. One third of acting is movement and once you have awareness of your body, martial arts are a great way of achieving that."
Not only do the martial arts and acting complement each other, but it seems like the one sort of led into the other. His mother started him off training in the martial arts when he was six, and his interest in movies "started very, very young, with Asian cinema," he said. "I would go to the dollar shop and get ten VHS movies for ten dollars. My parents still tease me about it today! Most of the movies were Asian cinema, like the kung fu action films. I would just watch them. And they were all dubbed over and stuff like that, but I would just watch them and watch them, over and over again. It kind of led into different areas. My first ever job was as a Power Ranger in live action shows. I was only a teenager at the time. But that's kind of what started it off for me. I guess the martial arts did play a hand in igniting that interest in acting."
And while he still enjoys a martial arts movie now and again, his tastes have expanded somewhat from the ten for ten dollar films of his youth. "My favorite movie," he said, "is Legends of the Fall, with Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn and Anthony Hopkins. That's one of my favorites movies. And I really like Viggo Mortenson. He's one of my favorite actors. But my favorite roles would probably be something along the lines of Brad Pitt's character in Legends of the Fall, something that has a lot of depth. Multidimensional. One of my favorite movies is also The Champ, just because of the relationship that he has with his son. Anything that has a strong relationship tends to manifest a lot of drama, which is kind of a strong point for me at this point in my life. The type of roles that I'd be looking for now would be ones that are centered on good relationships that will result in a lot of drama. And conflict, because drama is conflict. But I think if you don't have those relationships in films, then you don't really care about them."
"I guess it's being able to live under imaginary circumstances," Bren confessed about the joy he takes in acting, "to get to do things you wouldn't be able to experience sometimes in your real life. Use things that are personal to you and kind of transfer them into a writer's work, his script, and help bring it to life. It's hard to explain, but I know when you don't do it for awhile, there's a void. You miss it. You just want to get back to it!"
We hope that there's no reason for Bren to miss acting in the near future. He and his character are fabulous additions to Salem, and we can't wait to see what happens next, especially with Quinn and Chloe, as these two will clearly heat up the screen.
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