Adios, Karl Anderson!

Karl, we hardly knew ye. (courtesy of Austin School of Film)

"Karl Anderson is a big ball of passion, energy, and love for the craft and for film," is how Austin School of Film Executive Director Erica Shamaly described the ASoF mainstay-teacher-actor who earlier this week announced his amicable departure from the position of ASoF Programs Director to pursue his exploding acting career.

Anyone who's met Anderson over the years he's spent with the ever-expanding ASoF already knows that the auburn-haired, mischievously inclined, thespian-fireball (seriously, where-oh-where does this guy get his energy? He's maniac, maniac on the floorboards...) is one heck of a busy guy, having recently wrapped a lead role in ASoF alumnus Ben Foster's feature debut Strings, done his time in FOX's Prison Break, and played dead and all messed up in Dear Pillow-star Rusty Kelley's upcoming end-of-days-in-Marfa epic Shores of a Distant Sea. We won't even mention -- oh, hell, why not? – his work in videos from the likes of Kacy Crowley (Hand to Mouthville) or Bob Schneider's Blau, or his turns kicking out the jams and/or floorlamps in The Hideout's production of The Zoo Story or the New Haven-based Naked Theater's slam-it-down brain-blurrer Two Shots of Tequila. The list, as they say, goes on.

As for the whys and wherefores of his exiting the ASoF, Anderson told us he's not leaving Austin, but instead, that he "just heard every part of me say 'It's time.' I'm going to stay right here in Austin and I'm going to continue making beautiful movies. All the great ones are around me, all the beautiful and true artists, and I couldn't be happier to stay here."

Well, shoot, Karl Anderson, we couldn't be happier to have you stick around. Vaya con diablos, señor!