Nash Rockett (RockettStudiosNashville)
PHOTOGRAPHER/PODCASTER
Affectionately known as Nash Rockett…G Rockett Phillips’ career path is as diverse as the menu at an ACLU picnic.
For the past 20 years, he has enjoyed success as a producer, award-winning commercial director, headshot photographer, acting coach, fight choreographer, actor, and radio morning show host.
Originally from Memphis, Rockett spent his early years entertaining folk on the radio…successes in Memphis, Jackson, San Juan, Birmingham, and Omaha.
Although he found terrorizing the local airwaves with his rapid wit and character voices a lot of fun, it just didn’t scratch that ‘creative itch’, as he explains it. After five years, he traded in his jokes and headphones for the theatre.
In the early ’80s, while most young actors found themselves waiting tables to make ends meet, G Rockett Phillips subsidized his acting career in Los Angeles by earning a reputation as a sought-after headshot artist.
Rockett is known from his array of sinister characters on a number of soap operas, including Judd Benson on “One Life To Live”, Duke Lafferty on “Guiding Light”, and Drew Perry on “Days of Our Lives”. His guest-starring roles on “Taxi”, “Knight Rider”, “Riptide”, and “Hill Street Blues” can still be seen in syndication.
Most recently he played the role of Randall P. McMurphy in the Omaha Community Playhouse’s production of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest”. For that role Rockett earned the Fonda-McGuire Award; Best Actor In A Dramatic Role. The Omaha World-Herald praised him with the Best Actor In A Dramatic Role award for his performance, as well.
An accomplished acting coach, Rockett has been teaching the Sanford Meisner method since 1988. In Los Angeles, Memphis, Phoenix, and now in Nashville.
With a martial arts and dance background, he was destined to create The Swashbuckling Workshop. A first of it’s kind theatre group, he and his partner Anthony DeLongis set the standard for stage combat expertise on the west coast. He spent eighteen months as a Guest Lecturer in the UCLA Theater Arts Department.
Working as a casting assistant for one of the largest commercial casting agencies in Los Angeles, Sheila Manning Casting…he personally conducted auditions for well over 1000 national television commercials for such elite directors as Leslie Dektor, Jeremiah Chechik, Gladiator’s Ridley Scott, Fatal Attraction’s Adrian Lyne, and Top Gun’s Tony Scott.
It was the eye and encouragement of Lyne who mentored him into commercial directing, where within two short years he earned his first of two Addy awards for his commercial work.
More recently, Rockett was a photographer for a Sports & Celebrity Lifestyle Magazine, POST USA…based in Phoenix.
Rockett Studios is a media production company specializing in YouTube development, podcasting, glamour photography, indie film projects, actors reels, and acting workshops.
Fun Facts – 4 food groups: Bacon. Ribeye. Jalapeno Sausage. Pickles. – once tried out for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team as a teenager…didn’t go well…couldn’t hit a curve! – was nominated Billboard Morning Radio Personality of the Year in 1992. – spent the late ’70s – mid-’80s acting on soap operas & episodic television. – studied voice with coloratura Margaret Riddleberger in New York. – sang on Sunday nights in the Lanie Kazan room at the Playboy Club (yeah…cheezy!) – is a boxer-briefs guy – first television gig was thug-gang-leader on One Life to Live. ..a thug with perfect Barry Manilow hair. Seriously? – taught ‘swashbuckling’ (stage combat) in the UCLA Theatre Dept in the mid-80s. – co-wrote and produced the 13-hour radio documentary Railroads Are Forever: The Johnny Cash Story! – favorite word: Farfegschtuppen – first kiss was on the corner of Quince & Hopewell, in Memphis Tn, in 3rd grade. – two favorite names are Ruby & Katy!
