As a storyboard artist for projects as vastly different as Netflix’s Disenchantment to Nickelodeon’s Rugrats, John Eddings has built a reputation among animators as someone who can make his characters and stories thrive in seemingly three-dimensional worlds. This is probably because he does something similar when he’s out of the office—except this time it’s his own embodiment of these worlds as an actor that makes these details come alive.
To hear Eddings tell it, one talent informs the other. He feels that he has peers in the storyboard community who are better visual artists, but says he makes up for lacking in that aspect of the job description through the subtle ways he zeroes in on animated characters’ gestures and expressions.
He adds that his experience as a thespian means that he has a tendency to “put in a lot more poses than most other [story] boarders would—sometimes more poses than my directors are really happy about, or at least the producers are really happy about, because I have specific acting that I want to do.” He says he wants to make sure this gets translated over when it comes to filming.
Specifically, he says he’s found that “in the thumbnail sketches, they want to see layouts and compositions and more of the background. But … the flow of my scene would be dependent on acting choices like reactions of the character, which motivate camera movements.” He says he also tends to “put acting poses in right at the beginning because I figure that’s what’s going to sell the scene.”
“…in the thumbnail sketches, they want to see layouts and compositions and more of the background. But … the flow of my scene would be dependent on acting choices like reactions of the character, which motivate camera movements.”
Conversely, Eddings’ co-stars and others involved in his side projects also benefit from his experiences at his day job. An accomplished stage actor—this fall, he appeared in a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Woodbury University—Eddings has been known to be the go-to guy when it comes to designing his productions’ promotional posters and jokes that perhaps he should add this perk to his acting resume’s special skills section. It’s also fun to watch the other actors geek out when they learn he’s worked on projects they’re fans of, like Fox’s King of the Hill and The Cleveland Show.
As to whether he likes one medium over the other, Eddings says acting is still his passion. But pragmatically speaking, “when I was a very young man, I realized that I’m not going to be able to pay bills with acting, so I fell back on the one that actually gave me a job.”
He also appreciates the flexibility that his work as a storyboard artist gives him: “One of the advantages with doing storyboards is you can usually set your own schedules. So if I have to make up time or take off early for a rehearsal or an audition, they’re usually pretty cool with it as long as I hit deadlines.”
Another benefit that animation gives him over some regular, stuffy corporate job? Loose dress codes and no personal grooming requirements.
This is handy because Eddings is frequently typecast as one part in particular: Jolly Old Saint Nicholas. Each year, Eddings will ditch his razor come September and let his beard grow out in all its curly, Norman Rockwell-esque glory. The day after Thanksgiving, he dyes it white and is then open for business as a real-beard Santa Claus. Although you won’t be able to find him at a mall, he does do office parties and corporate events. He also has a standing gig at The Magic Castle’s Sunday brunches and holiday fetes throughout December, among other events for the notoriously private club.
And while this look no doubt gets him lots of attention from children—at whom he’ll kindly wink and smile conspiratorially as they gawk—it should be known that Eddings has done less squeaky clean work as well. He played a destructive, bored Santa in a commercial campaign for thematic gifting company Loot Crate and what he describes as a “creepy Santa” for producer Rory Uphold’s parody of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.” And, because a white beard can mean other roles than just Santa, Eddings also appeared as Smee, the loyal life partner of Peter Pan’s Captain Hook, in a raunchy parody video. Airing as part of comedy platform Funny or Die, it’s entitled “Disney Couples Therapy.”
While Eddings says he has never had to animate a character that he has played—“Oh my goodness! That would be surreal” he laughs—he and his facial hair have had some tangles with his animation gigs.
“When I started out in animation, I worked in the Xerox department for [legendary animator] Don Bluth,” he says. “I would come out of the Xerox room and my beard would have all sorts of dust in it and smell of trichlorethylene.”
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