Michael A. Goorjian

Michael A Goorjian born February 4 1971 San Francisco is an American filmmaker writer and actor Goorjian won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or Special for his role as David Goodson in the television film Davids Mother 1994 He is also known for his role as Justin Neve Campbells love interest on the series Party of Five 19942000 as well as Heroin Bob in the film SLC Punk 1998 and its sequel Punks Dead 2016 As a director Goorjian achieved recognition for his first major independent film Illusion 2004 which he wrote directed and starred in alongside Hollywood legend Kirk Douglas Goorjian was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area His father Peter is Armenian with his paternal grandparents being survivors of the Armenian genocide his mother Sarah is of ScottishAmerican descent Goorjian grew up in Oakland California and attended Bishop ODowd High School which had a strong drama program At the age of 14 he decided to audition for a local theatre company thinking it was a cool way to skip class after successfully landing the lead role in a notsocool play called Computer Crazy Goorjian soon found out that the rest of the cast were all senior citizens and that he would have to perform the play at his own junior high school Despite this seemingly rather humiliating experience Goorjian stuck with acting eventually training at UCLAs School of Theatre Film and Television Goorjians first big Hollywood break came as a dancer when in 1992 he was cast as Skittery in the Disney film Newsies starring Christian Bale and Robert Duvall What followed were roles in numerous subsequent films including Chaplin with Robert Downey Jr Forever Young with Mel Gibson the Oscarnominated Leaving Las Vegas Hard Rain with Morgan Freeman and Christian Slater SLC Punk with Devon Sawa The Invisibles with Portia de Rossi Broken with Heather Graham and Conversations with God Goorjian made his first real foray into directing with the mockdocumentary Oakland Underground a comedy about an underground occult music scene in Oakland CA From there Goorjian made Illusion with Kirk Douglas which was released theatrically in 2006 after racking up over a dozen festival awards including Best Screenplay at The Hamptons International Film Festival Best Feature at the Lake Tahoe International Film Festival and The Audience Award at the Sonoma International Film Festival With Illusion Goorjian was critically lauded for his ability to blend great filmmaking with philosophical depth Soon after Illusion Goorjian began collaborating with the publishing company Hay House to produce and direct a number of films including the documentary You Can Heal Your Life 2007 starring metaphysical author and teacher Louise L Hay and The Shift starring author Dr Wayne Dyer along with Michael DeLuise and Portia de Rossi His most recent work with Hay House is an original film anthology called Tales of Everyday Magic which explores meaningful philosophical ideas through intimate characterdriven stories