Who was that kid drumming in front of Brooklyn Slice the other week? His name is Jack Brunault, a junior filmmaking major at Hofstra University. From the small town of Norton, Massachusetts, Brunault’s passion for music, acting and filmmaking makes him stand out from the typical Hofstra student.

Ever since Jack watched “The Mask” when he was a young kid, he developed a desire to act. At 4 years old, Brunault thought Jim Carrey had to pay money to be able to act in the movie, so when his parents told him the opposite was true, he realized what his dream was.

Brunault is currently a member of the Screen Actors Guild and has acted in dozens of projects throughout his lifetime. He has been chased down by a vampire, had the lead role in a children’s Christmas movie, stole a single mom’s shoes as a child-mob boss and perhaps his favorite role was playing the son of a not-so-great father in an emotionally heavy short film. He may seem like a goofy, not-so-serious student, but when it comes to acting, Brunault consistently brings out his full range of emotions and gives a performance that he knows he’ll be proud of.

“Acting is understanding. [It is] understanding who your character is, understanding what would and wouldn’t work in a scene. Sometimes, you gotta be a little crybaby,” Brunault said.
Hofstra is Brunault’s break from acting to make connections, earn a filmmaking degree and spend time learning how to tackle his other passions: screenwriting and directing.
Brunault hones his craft of filmmaking through his screenwriting classes and appreciation of film. He’s working on multiple projects as of right now, but has decided not to disclose them until he has perfected them.

Brunault names John Cassavetes and Wim Wenders as his biggest directorial influences. One of his favorite movies, “A Woman Under the Influence” by Cassavetes starring Gena Rowlands, highlights an unflinching look at humanity. Brunault coins Rowlands’ portrayal of mental illness as something so uncomfortable to watch because it feels too real, and that feeling makes her performance incredible. Brunault sees impactful movies like this as a guideline for how (and how not) to develop his own projects in the future.

“I feel I’m in the best shape of my life this semester, mentally and physically. That makes it so hard to write a script. The only times I can write a great script is during winter break, or any cold, isolated point of time in my life. Otherwise, just forget it,” Brunault said.

Brunault’s passion for music takes the form of drumming, which he will practice for one to two hours every day. He’ll work on his right foot technique, practice fills or just end up jamming out for extraordinarily long.

This summer, Brunault started drumming full albums during his practices. If you’ve ever seen a YouTube video of some random kid covering an entire album for a whole hour without stopping, that’s what Brunault does – except he’ll never let you see it.

“I don’t like watching any artistic performance of myself. Acting, drumming, writing, whatever it may be – I’m my worst critic,” Brunault said.

For a drummer as dedicated to perfection as Brunault, he quotes My Bloody Valentine’s album “Loveless” as his biggest inspiration. He calls “Soon” from the album his favorite drum beat of all time.

“Sometimes, when I’m drumming ‘Soon’ in my album run – and the album ends with that song – I’ll just keeping playing that beat for two minutes in silence, because it’s just perfect,” Brunault said.

You may never see Brunault’s emotional, heart-wrenching movie about a depressed addict being haunted by his girlfriend, but he won’t mind. You may never see him acting in his short film about two guys arguing over a fantasy-land bar that doesn’t exist, but he doesn’t care. You may never hear his two hour psychedelic-jazz spoken word album under his alias “J. Brew,” but he still won’t care. As Brunault himself says: “I don’t want to be known … I make art because I love it.”