inmate profile: Michael Welch

With 2012 Ice Age now on DVD (and hopefully in your hot little hands), it's time to turn the Committed spotlight towards the studio's next production, Born Bad. Now, I should elaborate: Born Bad won't be on DVD until November, and technically the studio's next DVD release is Barely Legal at the end of July (and don't worry, I'll get to that), but Born Bad gets its world premiere on the Lifetime network on July 11th at 9 p.m., marking the studio's first appearance on Television for Women, and also marking the first time I will have watched the network non-ironically. This is a big, talented cast helmed by writer/director Jared Cohn, and I'm going to get to all of them, including an exclusive interview w/ Cohn himself, but today I thought we'd start with the film's lead, the man playing the man who was presumably born bad, one hell of an actor and one hell of a coup for The Asylum, one Michael Welch.

Welch is no newcomer to the film industry. Beginning his career at age 10 - his first role was as "Young Niles" on an episode of Frasier; too awesome - Welch has appeared in 20+ films and has had guest spots or starring roles on a plethora of TV shoes, most notably "Joan of Arcadia" - that "girl-can-talk-to-god-oh-wait-maybe-it's-lyme-disease" show with the exquisite Mary Steenburgen and the delightful Amber Tamblyn - on which he played younger brother "Luke" for the show's two seasons. 

And, of course, it should be noted that the dude has a significant role - "Mike Newton" -  in the world's largest film franchise at the moment, the Twilight thing. 

But for me - having not seen a lot of his two notable works - it's Welch's other films that made him a standout to me, including The United States of Leland, Day of the Dead and, most so, the incredible, wonderful, amazing and criminally-unseen horror-thriller from Johnathan Levine, director of The Wackness and upcoming 50/50: All The Boys Love Mandy Lane.

All the Boys Love Mandy Lane is just badass-filmmaking, rife with talent -  Welch, Amber Heard, Anson Mount - but for some reason or another, in the five years since it was made, the film has yet to get an American DVD release, only getting its second US screening last year at Comic-Con (the first was four years ago at SXSW). I myself obtained a copy of the film from a friend who received it in a wholly unethical and despicable way, and I gotta tell you, Michael Welch, for all his good-guy reputation, plays one hell of a psycho. He was GREAT in this, like, iconic great - calmly chilling, confidently cruel, viciously subtle and savagely focused. 

Bottom line: if Born Bad is Welch's return to playing that kind of nuanced madman, we are in for a real fucking treat. And he's just one facet of a well-built creative machine...keeping coming back to Committed all next week for more on the cast and crew of Born Bad, premiering Monday, July 11th, at 9p.m. EST/PST, only in the Lifetime Network