Banging a Bucket on the Subway Earned Him More Than a Hat Full of Change Sarah Cristobal
Moving to his own beat has certainly proven serendipitous for actor Ryan Donowho, who was toiling away as a bucket drummer on a New York City street when he was discovered by a casting agent looking for someone to fill out a pair of Levi's 501s in an ad campaign. "I was playing subways for a long time, then I started playing in Times Square and eventually formed a rock group with a bunch of different kids," says the 24-year-old Texas-born Williamsburg, Brooklynite, who stars alongside Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, and Emile Hirsch in screenwriter Dan Harris's released directorial debut, Imaginary Heroes.
Having played a brief but pivotal role as a doomed teen in last summer’s A Home at the End of the World, Donowho has already begun to attract attention for his performance in Imaginary Heroes as a drug-gobbling, sexually confused boy living next door to a family wracked as much by a suicide as by the torrent of long-hidden secrets that death unfurls. "It's pretty intense," says Donowho. "I love really quirky, abnormal parts."
Though his acting career is blooming, Donowho isn't about to leave music behind. In addition to contributing to the Imaginary Heroes score and wrapping up a debut album with Pagoda, his band with actor Michael Pitt, he is also producing a record for rapper Scavone, whom Donowho describes as an "Italian guy from the city."
As for Donowho's film future, he'll play the lead in an indie movie called The Favor and star opposite Marcia Gay Harden in the forthcoming In From the Night. "I hope to stay fairly under the radar," he says. "I just want to do work that I can be proud of and make people feel something profound."
