Have you ever wondered what it’s like to work in Hollywood? Just ask Justin Dobies ’08. Justin’s career began after acting in theater productions while attending Yale. He worked professionally in a classical theater in New York City for a couple of years. Then, after coming home to Minnesota, he booked a supporting role in the indie movie “Dear White People,” which went on to the Sundance Film Festival and nationwide in theaters. It was landing that role which launched his career in Hollywood where he connected with agents, managers, and other professionals. After that, he booked his first lead roles in independent movies and also landed supporting roles in TV series like Comedy Central’s “Broad City” and Netflix’s “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.”

But getting there wasn’t easy. Justin spent most of his twenties working as an actor, typically booking a couple commercials a year, and then occasionally acting in TV and film productions. He auditioned for roles and often made it to the final rounds for big projects that then went to somebody else. He muses, “One of the best descriptions I’ve heard of the reality of being an actor is preparing for an opportunity that may never come.”

Justin isn’t just an actor. He had already been involved in stunt work and leaned into it when the pandemic happened and it became clear that the only movies in production were big budget blockbusters. He notes that it’s been fun getting to train and perform as a stuntman and learning about the specifics of helping run a stunt department. In 2021, he worked on the “Obi-Wan Kenobi” series for Disney+, where he played a new kind of Stormtrooper called a Purge Trooper, as well as a very tiny Jedi Knight fighting alongside his brother, Jackson Dobies ’10, in a very wide shot in the Jedi Temple.

More recently, Justin worked as both a stunt performer and the stunt department office coordinator handling things like scheduling, budgeting, and hiring for the DC superhero movie “Blue Beetle” which hit theaters in August.