Miles Doleac

Miles Christopher Doleac is an American film and television actor, director, writer and producer. Along with his film career, he is also a singer, songwriter, theater actor, author, and professor. He has had acting roles in several films and television shows since 2011 including Treme, Sleepy Hollow, American Horror Story, Salem, Complications, Roots, and several episodes of the CW's Containment. He also has acting roles in the recent films The Magnificent Seven and Don't Kill It.

Miles Doleac is the founder of Historia films, the production company which produced The Historian (2014), The Hollow (2016), and Demons, due out in fall 2017.^[1] He was the writer, director, producer and an actor in all three films.

Doleac holds a PhD in Ancient history from Tulane University. He is an assistant professor of classics at the University of Southern Mississippi. He has published a book on Alexander the Great.

Early life and academic career

Doleac was born and raised in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. He attended Hattiesburg High School. While there, he was cast in a performance of Tennessee Williams' A Street Car Named Desire. He attended the University of North Carolina School of Arts and graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drama. He went on to attend University of Southern Mississippi, graduating with a Master of Arts degree in History.^[2] In the early 2000s, Doleac moved to California to pursue an acting career; he was unsuccessful and instead chose to further pursue his academic career.^[3]

In 2005, he moved to New Orleans to study as a graduate fellow at the Murphy Insititute, part of Tulane University. While working on his doctorate he was also a visiting student at Goethe-Institute in Munich (summer 2007), American School of Classical Studies-Athens (summer 2008), and American Academy in Rome (summer 2009).^[4] He earned a PhD in Ancient History from the School of Liberal Arts.^[5] He completed his dissertation on Pope Gregory I and his role "in developing permanent ecclesiastical institutions under the authority of the Bishop of Rome to feed and serve the poor."^[6]

Doleac is currently an assistant professor of classics, while also teaching film courses in the School of Mass Communications and Journalism in University of Southern Mississppi.^[7] In 2014, he published a book about Alexander the Great titled In the Footsteps of Alexander: The King Who Conquered the Ancient World.^[8]

Film and television career

In July 2012, Doleac founded Historia Films, an independent production company.^[9] Between 2011 and 2014, he had small starring roles in several films such as Storm War See Girl Run and Mighty Fine.^[10][11] He has had guest appearances in several TV series, including: Treme, Breakout Kings, and Sleepy Hollow.^[12][13][14] Doleac directed a 30-second commercial for a Hattiesburg dog park's entry into PetSafe’s Bark for Your Park contest in 2014, which won $25,000 for the building of a dog park in Doleac's hometown of Hattiesburg, MS. The commercial featured Hattiesburg's own Brett Favre.^[15]

The Historian (2014) was the first feature-length film from Historia Films.^[3] It first premiered May 20 New York City's SoHo International Film Festival.^[16] It was also featured in the Los Angeles's Dances With Films 17.^[17][18] On July 11, the film had the honor of opening the Long Island International Film Expo in Bellmore, New York. On October 20, it was featured at the Gulfport Sun and Sand Film Festival. It opened theatrically in limited release in New York, Los Angeles, and Doleac's home state of Mississippi, where it was shown in Hattiesburg and D'Iberville starting on November 7.^[19]

The Historian garnered mixed receptions from the few critics that reviewed it.^[20] Ben Kenigsberg of The New York Times stated, "Despite low production values, The Historian [...] sustains curiosity over what [...] is a long running time."^[21] Serena Donadoni of The Village Voice derides Doleac as "a filmmaker [who] can't reconcile all his story lines."^[22]

Also 2014, Doleac became the executive director of FestivalSouth Film Expo at the Grand 18 theater in Hattiesburg.^[5][19] He was asked to join the team organizing the festival by Mike Lopinto, FestivalSouth's artistic director. Doleac was tasked with organizing the festival line-up and acquiring celebrity guests to fill the festival's panels. The festival features, but is not limited to, films that have either been filmed in Mississippi or made by Mississippians.^[19]

In 2014 and 2015, Doleac appeared in two episodes of FX's American Horror Story.^[23][24] In 2015, he had guest appearance roles in Banshee, Salem, and Complications.^[25][26][27] He also appeared in The Astronaut Wives Club and the film Vacation.^[28][29] In May 2015, he starred in a production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Jesus Christ Superstar. Interestingly, he swapped between the roles of Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot with co-star Joseph VanZandt throughout the four days of performances.^[30]

In June 2015, Doleac began filming The Hollow with executive producer Lisa Bruce.^[31][32] The Hollow is a mystery thriller about FBI agents investigating a Mississippi triple homicide which included the daughter of a US congressman.^[3][33] Much of the filming was done in Doleac's hometown and other towns around the Pine Belt in Mississippi.^[34][35] The movie stars: James Callis, Christiane Seidel, Jeff Fahey, William Sadler, William Forsythe, and Doleac himself, who also produced, wrote and directed it.^[36][34][37] Doleac played a local sheriff's deputy with very questionable morals.^[38]

In February 2016, The Hollow was acquired by Uncork’d Entertainment for distribution.^[39] It was released in select theaters and video on demand on October 7, 2016.^[34][40] Doleac won best actor for The Hollow at the 2016 Long Island International Film Expo.^[41]

The film received mixed reviews from critics. In particular, Noel Murray of Los Angeles Times said the "While the dialogue is colorful and the acting strong, this is ultimately a 90-minute neo-noir stretched unnecessarily past two hours." Expressing a more positive opinion, Sherilyn Connelly of SF Weekly stated that "Miles Doleac's The Hollow is a fun little genre potboiler that gets it right."^[42] That same year he directed and starred in a production of Kander and Ebb's Cabaret (as 'the Emcee').^[43]

Since 2015, Doleac had roles in Underground, Game of Silence, Roots, and The Magnificent Seven among others.^[42][44] He had a recurring role in The CW limited series Containment, appearing in five out of the thirteen episodes.^[45][46][47] He also appears in horror thriller Don't Kill It, released in August 2016.^[48][49] In 2017, he shot a lead role in Active Entertainment's Mississippi River Sharks and appears in an episode of AMC's Halt and Catch Fire. In Spring 2017, Doleac took to the stage again, playing the role of 'King Arthur' in Lerner and Loewe's Camelot, in two different productions (with Hattiesburg Civic Light Opera and the Natchez Festival of Music).^[50]

Filmography

Miles Doleac had his first film role as a stand in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003. He did not appear in major feature film or TV series until 2011. He has worked as actor, director, producer or writer in the following:^[51]

Actor

References

External links

• Historia Films