Biography

Kevin McCorkle is a faculty member at the USC School of Dramatic Arts. He has been acting professionally since 1982. Starting in Atlanta, where he worked onstage with Frank Whittow’s Academy Theater in Atlanta in films Six Pack with Kenny Rogers, For Us The Living: The Medgar Evers Story, and in commercials. He quickly made the move in 1983 to New York and began working in the world of Soaps, which included a brief stint as a bad boy motorcycle racer and onscreen boyfriend to Academy Award winner Marisa Tomei when she was a contract player on As The World Turns. It was in New York where a prolific commercial career began.

In 1985, McCorkle came to Los Angeles for pilot season and never turned back. The siren’s song of Hollywood hooked him and he had everything he owned shipped from New York to his new home of Los Angeles. The commercial world was his bread and butter for the first few years. The consistent commercial work set up the financial foundation and freed up the time for him to focus on stage, film and television study and work. In the early ’90s, he studied with Eric Morris, Peggy Feury and Bill Traylor. Later, he learned from Kate McGregor-Stewart and Cameron Thor (a protegé of Roy London).

In the late ’90s, McCorkle’s career went from slow, steady growth to a robust career leading into the new millenium, balanced by consistent work in national network commercials, supporting roles in major studio films, leading roles in independent films, recurring roles and guest stars in network television shows, long running soap characters, and leading roles onstage in Hollywood and North Hollywood theatre productions. Highlights include spokesperson for Bob Evans restaurants for four years; Tiger Wood’s TV commercial caddy for 10 years; Gil Sherman, a recurring character on the network show Cold Case; Tommy Cage, Anthony Michael Hall’s brother, in Out of Bounds; working on The Island for seven months as part of Djimon Hounsou’s elite squad; Weston Tate in Curse of the Starving Class at The Open Fist Theatre; Abbot in Untethered at The Mountain View Mausoleum; and Tal in Sovereign Body at The Road Theatre.

Teaching at USC since 2006, McCorkle utilizes his evolving experience in the ever-challenging world of a professional actor to create and craft a class that teaches students how to approach auditioning and working in the world of commercials. That work, those experiences shared in class transcends the commercial acting challenge, however, and prepares the student for other on camera applications in film, television and new media. He also ensures that students are prepared with a strategic approach to their careers empowering them beyond the cliché of waiting for the phone to ring and teaching them to measurably move their commercial (and overall acting career forward).