Actor ✧ Director ✧ Writer
Born in Pontiac, Michigan on January 17th, 1995, Elijah Noble El is an actor, writer, poet, and director. Inspired by Jim Carrey as a child, before becoming an actor El first wanted to become a comedian. His first appearance onstage was in elementary where he played The Wind in a school play, but he began acting in earnest when at 16 he took drama class in high school, portraying one half of a gay couple whose child goes missing in his first ever scene study. At eighteen he saw a production of Romeo and Juliet at Stratford Festival in Canada, which further inspired him to act. He would go on to be taught master classes by Stratford actors during his collegiate theatrical career. During this time, he performed in black box theaters, the esteemed Wharton Center, and even street theatre at eighteen. When he was nineteen he was among part of the cast selected to perform a segment of the award-winning play The 60/50 Project for the 8th annual Mayors’ Ramadan Unity Dinner in Downtown Lansing held by the former mayor of Lansing, Virgil Berner. The annual dinner was established to celebrate diversity in the mid-Michigan region. He was also among those invited to a Michigan State University College of Arts and Letters ceremony dinner to accept the Excellence in Diversity Award for the play.
One particular appearance was in February 2015 in the tragedy Macbeth. He played a small part as a soldier but garnered praise from his fellow actors for being one of the only ones to realistically display fatigue, weariness, and pain. El appreciated the vagueness of the character as it afforded him free reign in creating the character from the ground up, and considers this another high watermark, along with playing Polo from A Hatful of Rain and Brick from Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in scene studies later that year.
His collegiate crowning achievement came in 2016 when he co-directed a Second Stage student production of Patrick Marber’s erotically-charged play, Closer, which became one of the most successful student productions in the theatre department, turning a profit and eliciting rave word of mouth from audiences. During a preview show for department donors, they described their admiration for the “edginess” of the production, as they deemed many mainstage productions too safe.
The success of Closer allowed El to pen his own original full-length play titled Remember Me, which opened November 3rd, 2016 at Michigan State University.
That same year he wrote, directed, and starred in the experimental student short film Dog-Faced Honey, a romance drama about the dissolution of a relationship due to drug addiction. A breakdown of the title comes from the beauty of love and acceptance contrasted with the ugliness of separation and addiction, and takes its name from a titular poem written by El. The film garnered numerous award nominations, including a nomination for Best Actor at the Top Indie Film Awards, where it won the Best Message award.
He went on to have a small role in the feature length psychological thriller, Stay with Me, playing the role of Remy, a small town drifter at a pool hall. Stay with Me premiered at the Traverse City Film Festival July 2017 at the Old Town Playhouse.
In August of 2017 he was cast as the chaotic freedom fighter Tergis in TK2 Films’ upcoming sci-fi series Electron Blade, marking his first professional acting role.
Also in 2017 El entered his 2015 short film screenplay Baby’s Breath into festivals. Detailing the struggles of an estranged couple forced to deal with their demons after a miscarriage caused by their drug addictions, Baby’s Breath won numerous awards and praise. Positive coverage from the Austin Film Festival read, “This script has a lot of potential to take the emotional resonance it already possesses to the next level. The characters are rich in their respective arcs and easy to empathize with. The dialogue is snappy, romantic, and at times, heartbreaking (...) This script feels much like a cathartic journey, with a story that is compelling and execution that is promising.” Baby’s Breath won the Gold Award for Best Short Film Script at the NYC Indie Film Awards, the Silver Award for Best Short Film Screenplay at the Los Angeles Mindfield Film Festival, was nominated for the Jury Prize for Best Short Script at the Top Indie Film Awards, and was a semi-finalist at The Golden Script Competition in 2018, a competition which featured other scripts such as actor Shia Labeouf’s Honey Boy, albeit in a separate category.
El was next cast to star in the upcoming crime drama Honour Among Thieves in June 2018, playing the role of misguided thief, Gabriel. Production lasted three months ending in mid-October.
In October of 2019 he was invited to assist with a pre-production readthrough of Jeff Kapp’s crime thriller, Locker 42, reading the role of Jack.
In May of 2020 El started production on the erotic drama short film, Goodnight and Goodbye, playing Nico, a troubled sex addict who, in his third session with his therapist, attempts to get to the root of his isolating self-destruction. Principal photography began on May 6, 2020. The film stars El’s Electron Blade co-star Callie Bussell as Nico’s girlfriend, Bonnie, and Rodriguez Jennings as therapist Dr. Frederick. Goodnight and Goodbye was filmed on the Panasonic GH4 and Filmic Pro.
Entering into the festival circuit November 2020, Goodnight and Goodbye won the award for Best Drama Screenplay at the Top Shorts film festival. It was a finalist for Best Short Script at the Independent Shorts Awards, a finalist at the Just 4 Shorts competition, won Honorable Mention for Best Short Screenplay at the Festigious International Film Festival, and was part of the official selection at the Venice Short Film Awards and the Chicago Indie Film Awards. Internationally, Goodnight and Goodbye was a nominee for Best Script at Montreal Independent Film Festival, its last festival of 2020. The festival tour continued in 2021, where Goodnight and Goodbye was honored as a semifinalist in the screenplay competition at the Academy Award-qualifying Atlanta Film Festival, placing it in the top 10% of 2,385 total submissions. Due to its success at Festigious, Lonely Wolf: London International Film Festival invited Goodnight and Goodbye to compete, where it landed as a semi-finalist. In April, Callie Bussell won Honorable Mention for Best Actress at the Top Shorts Film Festival. In May, El and Bussell were awarded the Silver Award for Best Duo at the Best Actor Awards in New York.
In June, Goodnight and Goodbye was given an Honorable Mention from the LA Underground Film Forum for its “unique contribution” to cinema. Goodnight and Goodbye had its world premiere at the Regina International Film Festival on August 11, 2021 in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, competing for Best International Short.
Goodnight and Goodbye was featured in UK Film Review and in Indie Shorts Magazine, garnering three stars out of five from both publications. Emily Davison of UK Film Review said, “Both Bussell and El have received awards for their performances, with Best Duo and Best Actress for Callie, which is impressive given the fact that they do not share any audible dialogue in the film.” (…) “Goodnight and Goodbye presents a compelling introspective character study which explores male mental health effectively.” Goodnight and Goodbye was also positively reviewed by One Film Fan and BitPix News.
Goodnight and Goodbye was selected to be a part of the Royal Starr Film Festival in Royal Oak, Michigan on July 8, 2021. It had its US premiere at the Royal Starr Film Festival September 11 at Emagine Theater, where it was nominated for Best Michigan Short Film.
On August 1, El won the award for Best Actor at the New Wave Short Film Festival in Munich, Germany.
On September 26, Goodnight and Goodbye screened at the Lebanese International Film Festival in Beirut, Lebanon at Station Beirut.
In September Goodnight and Goodbye was invited to screen at the New York Tri-State International Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Actress. The film was also selected to screen at the Paris Lift-Off Film Festival in October.
Goodnight and Goodbye was nominated for six awards at FILMHAUS Berlin; Best Drama/Romance Short, Best Experimental, Best Zero-Budget Short, Best Cinematography, Best Short Screenplay, and Best Lead Actor.
In March 2022 Goodnight and Goodbye was invited to screen at the Japan International Film Festival from May 4-8, where El won the award for Best Actor.
In April 2022 Goodnight and Goodbye was officially selected for the Toronto International Women Film Festival.
Goodnight and Goodbye was selected to screen at the TCL Chinese 6 Theatre May 25 as part of the Hollyshorts Monthly Screenings Series.
In June the film was an official selection at the Berlin International Art Film Festival.
Goodnight and Goodbye found distribution through Four by Three Productions, founded by Chase Crawford, a 2021 Forbes Next 1000 inductee. Four By Three released Goodnight and Goodbye on Youtube on June 30, 2022, garnering thousands of viewers.
On October 1, 2022, Goodnight and Goodbye screened at the famed Cinema Museum in London, England, for Exploding Cinema.
By 2021, both Honour Among Thieves and Goodnight and Goodbye were on the festival circuit simultaneously. Honour Among Thieves premiered at the Malibu Film Festival March 20, 2022, and won Best Black and White Film at Moscow Gold Awards. It was also positively reviewed by Master of Cinema. Honour Among Thieves was selected as a semi-finalist for Best Crime/Action film at the 2022 Lonely Wolf Film Festival.
In April 2021 El was cast in the indie drama I Heard You Looking as disillusioned worker Fred, a man who wishes he spent more time with his family, and in Kitchen Talk, a short film directed by Andres Guerrero, playing Windy, a philosophizing drug dealer having a heart to heart with a lost girl named Danni in his apartment. Both projects are forthcoming.
In October 2020 he received advice from Matthew Lillard on what Lillard had learned about in his years in the industry on humbleness and the importance of having a support system willing to push, challenge and embolden you.
In the beginning of November 2020 El was chosen for the role of conspiracy theorist Johnny in a virtual reading of the May Your House Be Safe from Tigers. The production premiered December, 2020 and was held for charity.
His first major Hollywood film audition was in 2017 for the HBO feature film Native Son, and found it an exhilarating, valuable experience.
In 2015 El’s best friend Meggie Royer founded the literary magazine Persephone’s Daughters, and asked El to be a poetry reader for the magazine. In 2016 El founded a film division for Persephone’s Daughters called Girls Don’t Cry, widening the creative medium in which survivors can express themselves and share their stories. Through Girls Don’t Cry and Persephone’s Daughters, Royer and El have donated thousands of dollars to organizations such as RAINN and JoyFul Heart Foundation, The Monument Quilt, NNEDV, Women of the World, and Black Women’s Health Imperative. Most recently, Girls Don’t Cry selected the short film Engagement by Elizabeth Davis for the inaugural Virtual Reading and Art Showcase event hosted by Persephone’s Daughters for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. El and Meggie are currently in the works of creating a Persephone’s Daughters podcast and on creating a film club.
