JULIE ELIZABETH KNELL is a seasoned actor and resident of Portland with over 30 years in the entertainment industry in NY, Los Angeles, Seattle and a proud Native Texan. She is an award-winning writer for her TV pilot, Till There Was You which was performed at the Lakewood Theatre in the Fertile Ground Festival 2014 which she produced and directed as well.
Julie has been busy the last few years in the Portland indie scene, cast as a lead in the comedy with a heart of gold due out 2017, Zilla & Zoe with Scalise Pics. Sharing the screen with incredible PDX talent she was honored to play the delightfully domineering Mother of the Bride, Cora. In 2016 she parlayed her comic outrageous “Mother touch” into the Smoking Mom in the upcoming comedy gaming PRESS START short directed by Nick Bremer headed for comi-cons everywhere. She finished a turn in the unique concept by LA director Katie Letien, entitled Short States, where one short is being shot in every state - Portland’s short entitled “Beatlemania”. This summer Julie was also cast as the comically irritated Travel Agent in the indie quirky feature shooting in Portland, PRETTY BROKEN directed by Brett Eichenberger.
With her 4 years of theatrical university scholarships and 2 years non-stop acting post college in the regional Texas theatres which prepped her for NY where she felt destined to be for the next 6 years. There she was vetted, through a difficult auditioning process, to be in the esteemed Master Class at The New York Actors Institute where she spent 2 years in the Acting Programs and also was chosen to be trained as a Facilitator for the challenging Leadership Program to lead the Mastery of Self- Expression Workshop. She grew enormously under the mentorship and acting instruction of Dan Fauci (renown Paramount Senior VP of Comedy Development & Exec. Producer) and Sally Fisher (World Activist & Creativity Expert.) There she had the honor of working with classmates like Lisa Bonet, Academy Award Winner - Fisher Stevens (The Cove), Tony Nominee - Patrick Breen (Next Fall), Academy Award Winner - Marisa Tomei, Ted Danson and many others. She furthered her experience with many
of her NY classmates and studied for 2 more years at Paramount with Dan while she spent another 10 years in LA.
When she moved to Seattle to get a break from LA, she was handpicked for the 5th Season of Northern Exposure tapped to be Cynthia Geary’s Stand-in & Double and hired as a Townsperson Background Player then working the whole Season which was an amazing on-set education. NExp led her to connect with some extraordinarily talented people, particularly directors like Jim Hayman, Adam Arkin, Michael Lange she still has a connection with. For the next several years Julie worked diligently on the production side of the camera in features and TV and taught acting and creativity workshops at the Seattle Actors Lab.
Her TILL script - became an award-winning comedy script as a national Semi-Finalist with SCRIPTAPALOOZA and Quarter-Finalist with NEXTV's Comedy Competition. Rave reviews from the industry in LA and a live audiences has evolved the project now to be in the hands of people like Rob Reiner, Henry Winkler and soon, Playtone.
Julie has her Masters in Neuro-Linguistics and is Founder & Master Transformational Coach & Hypnotherapist of her www.DreamwithJulie.com business where she has helped hundreds of actors both as in performance and with career goals and believes everyone deserves their dreams. Julie is excited to be with Arthouse Talent and recently booked a new LA agent as well. She is deeply honored to be partners and wife to her veteran actor husband, David Knell, with whom she working on a strong handful of development projects including a dark comedy short film they can’t wait to do in 2017.
Her number one Life Value = Passion. Her Favorite Word ... Possibility.