User:Papawazo/Joseph Booton (actor)

Joseph Booton (born 1987) is an English actor best known for his roles in the feature films MILF and The Newest Pledge. He has resided in both England and The United States and is a graduate of Royal Holloway, University of London.

Early life
Booton was born at Harold Wood Hospital in the London Borough of Havering. He lived in Upminster until the age of 5, when his family moved to the town of Redhill, Surrey. Booton attended Wray Common Primary School where his teacher advised his mother that they thought her son had a natural talent for acting. Being a quiet and reflective child at home, his mother replied that they must be mistaking her son for another child.

At the age of 11, Booton attended St. Bede's School appearing in many of the school productions, including playing the role of Mr. Toad in Alan Bennett's stage adaptation of  Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows. For this production Booton wore the same costume worn by actor Griff Rhys Jones in the National Theatre's 1990 production of the same name. During his time at school, Booton and a fellow classmate wrote, directed and starred in their own two-man comedy show, which was performed for an audience of 400 and raised over £1,500 for a local charity.

After leaving college Booton went on to study Drama & Theatre Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London where he was a part of the numerous productions that took place there, including playing Cheswick in Dale Wasserman's stage adaptation of Ken Kasey's One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest and Mosca in  Ben Jonson's Volpone; an open air production in the 19th Century Founder's Building. During this time Booton also performed in a production of George Colman the Younger's The Law Of Java; a play set in British colonial ruled Java, Indonesia. It was the first re-staging of the play for 180 years and was attended to by the then Indonesian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Dr. Raden Mohammad Marty Muliana Natalegawa In 2009 Booton moved to Los Angeles to complete a diploma course in Acting for Film. In addition Booton spent some time developing his improvisation skills with ACME Comedy Theatre, making an appearance in their weekly Theatre Sports shows.

Career
After completing his diploma course in Los Angeles, Booton was granted a work permit for one year and continued to live in the United States. Initially he begun doing Extra work on several major television shows and was cast in a small role in the American Film Institute short film Thule, which went on to win an award at the 2009 GI Film Festival. His first major appearance then came in the form of a guest star role on an episode of the Discovery Channel's TV series Worst-Case Scenario. Booton then went on to appear in his first feature film role as the lead antagonist in the comedy feature film The Newest Pledge released by Lions Gate Entertainment and directed by Jason Michael Brescia. Booton originally auditioned for one of the supporting characters that was then later cut by Brescia from the script. Instead Booton was offered the leading role of Rico Larsen and earned his first role in a feature film and his first leading role in a feature film at the same time. Booton then went on to appear in his second lead role in the cult-comedy film MILF. Upon his return to England, Booton made his commercial début in an advertising promotion for the The Guardian and The Observer national newspapers. He also filmed a lead role in a pilot episode for a new television comedy entitled Gradulthood, based on the struggles graduates face in securing employment in a post-recession market place. The pilot was mentioned in the London Evening Standard newspaper as part of a wider discussion on young people's struggle to secure employment following the 2008 global recession.