When They Say Action, You Deliver

“I want to always be learning something from somebody, whether it's the other actors, the directors, the stagehands, whatever, like on any day, any level, there's always a lesson to be learned. There's always something to take away from a job,” says Sam Page who earned his bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology. He had an inkling with the natural world around him, and explaining it through formulation and math drew him to the major. Princeton University gave him the foundation to apply learning strategies and knowledge he gained into a new field he was about to dive into.

In fact, Page gained an early appetite for quality television and film. “If my parents ever kicked back about me wanting to be an actor, I would say, ‘Well, it's your fault because you exposed me to all this great media,” Page says of Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere. “When they say, ‘Action,’ you deliver because in sports, when they blow the whistle, you perform,” describes Page whose acquirement in athletics helped him prepare for his acting career, adding that when he was playing sports, he could not show emotion because it was a sign of weakness so he had to counter that mindset and convey vulnerability and emotion on screen.

His big break was on the daytime soap opera, All My Children. He has had roles on Mad Men, Desperate Housewives, House of Cards, Switched at Birth, Scandal, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Gossip Girl – and has a recurring role as Richard Hunter on Freeform’s The Bold Type. As the show follows the lives of three women flourishing and supporting one another while maneuvering through the media industry, in order for this show to be successful, Page thought the studio needed to get three amazing actresses to play the leads. (Lo and behold, they did.) “I think what absolutely cemented it for me and had me really wanting to do this is the way the pilot ended. I think we shot a couple of different versions, and we did some reshoots once we got picked up to series. We were in production, and there was this idea to at least tease the audience,” he recalls. Sarah Watson, the show’s creator, is telling important and of-the-moment stories. For instance, she has stayed in front of issues in our current political climate. The Season One finale aired in the summer of 2017 right before the #MeToo movement (“It was about finding the courage to talk about that and look out into the world that is so much different now because of things like that hitting the media. But you know, our show is and was doing episodes about that already so it's not a fluff-piece show”).

On another note, Page met his wife Cassidy Boesch at a cocktail party that neither of them was planning to attend. (Boesch was taken to the party by her best friend under false circumstances.) The couple conversed the entire evening, and Page offered to give her a ride home. They happened to reside in the same neighborhood. The rest is history. They got married and have a two-year-old son and seven-month-old twin girls. Being a father has given Page a newfound perspective in all aspects of his life. He would love to see his children grow up in a society where helping people is made a priority. “American politics is in a pretty ugly place right now. I think the idea of a two-party democracy is starting to show its cracks. I think that the concept of caring about others and helping others is not lost in people that care about those kinds of things,” shares Page, who grew up in a northern suburb of Milwaukee, right on Lake Michigan, and spent a lot of time running around the bluffs looking over the lake while experiencing extreme seasons – from harsh cold winters permeated with snow to incredibly humid summers.

Writer: Dylan Worcel

Photographer: Catherine Asanov (@catherineasanov)

Stylist: Jennifer Austin

Men’s Grooming: Sara Tintari (using Baxter of California & skyn ICELAND)

Videographer: Trip Digital Radio (@tripdigitalradio)

Editor: Eiko Watanabe