Be ready for anything. Four words an actor must live by.  

John R. Howley ’21 has had major roles in a horror film and a six-part television series about an American farming family, roles about as different as is possible. John returned to campus on Wednesday, December 10, spending the afternoon in the Norris Ely Orchard Theater leading a workshop. And, as it turned out, the Loomis Chaffee actors were ready for anything, from improv games such as the Onion, which demands that actors think on their feet; to breaking down monologues. Off to the side of the stage stood Theater Director David McCamish, and John and David had a little friendly banter along the way.  

The film Bleeding was recently mentioned in The New York Times as one of the “best genre movies of 2025” in the horror category. John plays Eric. The promo for the films reads: “Set in an alternate timeline haunted by a devastating drug crisis, Bleeding follows Eric and Sean — teenage cousins trapped in a small town where escape seems impossible and survival means navigating treacherous relationships and a predatory system. On the run from a vicious dealer, they break into an empty house and find a sleeping girl locked inside.”  

Now that’s enough to give you nightmares.  

“I never had dreams about it,” John said in an interview before the acting workshop began, “but I would say doing such dramatic material all day does change your mood for the period of time filming. I remember the caterer the first day, and we’re all getting along and hanging out on the set and having a great time. About a week into shooting she said, ‘Everyone has been in such a bad mood.’ I didn't realize it until she said it to us, that we had all been changed by the material. ... We were all exhibiting the exhaustion of our characters.” 

The exhaustion came from not only the content, but also time spent on the set. Bleeding was filmed in about two weeks in 2023. There were many long days — up to 16 hours. All that time together, John said, led to a close set: “So even though we had to do a very stressful film under stressful conditions, it was a joyful experience.” 

The site “Just For Movie Freaks” wrote of his performance: “John R. Howley, as Eric, anchors the film with a raw and convincing portrayal of a teenager weighed down by grief and desperation. When the story reaches its intense climax, Howley truly unleashes, delivering a performance that sticks.”   

Those words, of course, are what an actor yearns to hear in a tough industry, one that John describes as “extended periods of whiplash.” 

“Sometimes you’re filming and you're on set 12 hours a day and you're with people you have never been before, in a place you’re never been before, being someone you’ve never been before,” he said. “It's like you're becoming a new person. ... After that’s done and you wrap filming, they ship you back to [where you came from].” 

In John’s case, that is New York City, where he resides. “And you’re trying to get another job,” he said. “There’s also whiplash between intense validations – Bleeding has done really well lately — and then there is radio silence, not hearing anything from auditions. So it is generally a game of whiplash, and what I have had to find, being an actor, especially in New York, a city that makes your best days better and your worst days worse,  are other aspects of your life for fulfillment so you are not as tied up emotionally or personally in the ups and downs of the industry.” 

Yet there is no other place he would rather to be. He graduated from Columbia University in May of this year with a bachelor’s degree in drama/theater arts. Living in the city, he said, is wonderful. “Going there for college was always a no-brainer for me, and now living there post-grad on my own, I still walk around Washington Square Park, I walk around 42nd Street, and I walk around Brooklyn, and I get excited, and I get goosebumps that I get to live in New York City.” 

Goosebumps, the kind driven by fear, is exactly what many viewers of Bleeding might have felt.  Goosebumps of another kind, more emotional, might be what people feel when they watch the six-part series Perfect Sundays, filmed this summer, not long after John graduated. The series is expected to be released in the summer of 2026, and the website perfectsundaystv.com bills it as a drama about “family, farming, faith, and community ... Set in the heart of rural America, this series makes universal the story of one farm family who knows they must keep trying despite it all. Now, they just have to agree on how.” 

John called the experience amazing. 

“We were filming and doing preproduction for three months on a farm in rural Pennsylvania,” he said. “So I really got to integrate myself into the Pennsylvania farming community. This was about investigating a community and finding the best way to portray American dairy farmers, and then shooting.” 

For a few weeks before filming began, John spent time with a seventh-generation farming family, the Worthingtons. “I was living and working with the Worthington family, so I was milking cows at 6 a.m. and at 7 p.m., helping out with tractor usage and crops. I was not very good at the beginning and wouldn't say I am great now, but I got to spend time watching them do their thing. They were incredibly generous in showing me how a farmer operates, what you have to do to keep up a farm. They became friends — they’re getting a Christmas card this year.” 

John said he developed his passion for theater at Loomis Chaffee. Theater became his social life, where he made many friends, he said. “The program here under Mr. McCamish and the faculty in general is very rigorous in terms of both acting but also script analysis,” John said. “When I came to Loomis, I really learned that acting was in and of itself an academic craft, or could be — you have to do work on script analysis, study different techniques and performances. That's why when I went to college, I chose a program that was less focused on conservatory acting and more of an emphasis in theater studies.” 

“Being at Loomis and discovering that acting is both something you do and something that you study is what got me excited about becoming an actor,” he continued. “I wanted that intellectual stimulation, and I got it here at Loomis. Also, fundamentally, because Loomis does so much Shakespeare, I got excited about Shakespeare acting and that level of text.” 

These days John finds fulfillment not only in acting, but also in the Irish language. He is founder and president of Gaeltacht Inc., which organizes pop-up Irish-language conversation groups across New York City. He also is the house manager for the Irish Arts Center in the city. John, fascinated by his family’s Irish history and wanting to learn a second language, did so while at Columbia, which had a language exchange program with New York University.  

John appeared in many performances at Loomis Chaffee, among them playing Grandma in The Addams Family and Lord Farquaad in Shrek the Musical. He said that Loomis Chaffee prepared him for an acting career in ways he didn’t understand until later. 

“I became able to think critically in personal and academic situations and learned a lot of the acting craft,” he said. “I didn’t understand how important my education at the NEO and Loomis was until I got to college and started entering the industry. And I realized I had a certain toolbox ready for me to take into new situations that gave me a leg up.” 

John hoped to convey a message to the current students gracing the stage of the NEO and to all who attended the workshop. 

“Acting as an industry and career seems scary, and it is scary a lot of the time, but it also is an approachable industry,” he said in the interview. “There are ways to find success out there, and if you are coming from the education we get at Loomis and are fortunate enough to get, you are equipped to have a shot at your dream. ... You have a great foundation and will learn more going forward. It is something that is attainable and not just fanciful.”