Man of the Week - Joel Gorf

Joel Gorf

Birth name: Joel Peter Gorf

Birthdate: June 21, 1985

   From: Haywards Heath, West Sussex, England, UK

 Job: Voice-over Artist / Actor

Sexual orientation: Gay

Alright, now this week, I am going to talk about this handsome ol' chap here in this blog; Joel Gorf.

Joel grew up in Aberdeen and Hampshire. At a young age, he knew that he had a thing for men. When he came out to his family, they were very supportive. Growing up, he always had a thing for classical theatre, including the likes of Shakespear. Because of that, he went to Alton College in Hampshire to study performing arts before going to study at Cumbria Institute of the Arts in Carlisle.

After graduating in 2010, he moved to the capital city of London to learn the craft at Drama Centre London, where famous actors such as Pierce Brosnan, Emilia Clarke, and Tom Hardy went to train. During his time there, he performed in productions such as 'Filumena Marturano', 'Wolves and Sheep' and 'Antigone'.

After that, Joel has appeared in more theatre productions, including 'Twelfth Night', 'Cymbeline', and 'Three Sisters', the latter was performed in Moscow. But he is perhaps better known, theater wise, for playing the character Macbeth in the self-titled production 'Macbeth'. He performed the character across the United Kingdom and Ireland, and even performed in Germany.

Although Joel has a passion for theatre, he also provides voice over work. His deep, rich voice, which was described as "being covered by a warm duvet", got him to voice commercials for Barclays, Waitrose, Zurich, PS4 and Jaguar. He also voiced a character in the World of Warcraft video game.

And not only that, he has also does some work in front of the camera. He has appeared in a commercial for Sony Bravia and has made featured appearances in two short films; the trader's colleague in '120 Days' and Colonel Kenny in the VR film 'Seance 360'. His most recent television appearance was an armed policeman in the UK TV series 'The Royals', despite it being a very brief role. Joel was supposed to play the character Dominic in the kickstarter-funded, sci-fi show 'The Marshlands', but the role went over to someone else.

The Three Bears (Rowse Honey)

One day, in 2017, he was called by his agent to audition for what he thought was a normal commercial casting. After getting the role for the unknown commercial, he met two other actors, somehow similar in appearance to him. He then realised that this was going to be something different. And exciting. 

The end result was a commercial for Rowse Honey, the given title? "The Three Bears"! Joel portrayed the middle bear. The public response was widely positive and has become a well known commercial in the LGBT community, especially the bear community. The commercial was featured in the front cover of Stylist magazine. Because of this, the commercial won a silver medal at the Creative Circle Awards.

When he isn't performing, he likes to visit museums, cook, go swimming and watching daytime cooking programmes. He also loves listening to baroque music and playing video games. Joel is a member of the Save the Manatee Club, an organization dedicated to saving manatees.

Joel Gorf with his boyfriend Paul (left)

Joel wasn't always a muscular bear we see today. He started going to the gym at 22 years of age, and now weighing 14 stone (around 195 lbs), it's obvious that the hard work has paid off, thanks to his personal trainer, Peter Pazdro.

Joel first met his soon-to-be boyfriend, also an actor, named Paul Kendrick in drama school in 2009 (where else?). They've been dating for a while and it's safe to say that they love each other. They live together in North London, along with two pet gerbils, Wellesley and Floyd. They had another gerbil named Troy, but I'm not sure what happened to it.

Want to follow Joel? Here are the links;

Twitter
Instagram

Want to ask him a question? Ask him here;

Curious Cat