In his column “The Stanford Scene,” Paolo Reitz ’27 interviews Stanford filmmakers, actors and organizations on their recent projects and big events within the film scene on campus. 

West Mulholland ’27 stars in “Presence,” the latest psychological horror film from director Steven Soderbergh, distributed by Neon and released in January of this year. During his time at Stanford, Mulholland has already worked on various other movies, including a role in David Slade’s “Dark Harvest” (2023). 

Starring impressive names like Lucy Liu, “Presence” follows a family that slowly realizes they are not alone in their new house — and must grapple with the terrifying consequences. Mulholland plays Ryan, a popular high school athlete and the boyfriend of lead character Chloe.

As he continues pursuing a film and media studies degree, Mulholland hopes to utilize his acting experience as a foundation to work with directors and eventually direct his own projects.

The Daily spoke to Mulholland about his experience as a student-actor and his future plans. 

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

The Stanford Daily (TSD): [“Presence”] released this January, but presumably you were working on it long before then?

West Mulholland (WM): It was actually one of the quickest shoots I’ve done. I filmed this in the three weeks leading up to my frosh year at Stanford, and actually missed the first three days of New Student Orientation. It turned into a big thing with Stanford because they [initially] wanted me to take a gap year while classes hadn’t even started yet. Thankfully, they were very gracious and allowed me to make up the days via Canvas.

It was a great experience meeting all the cast and crew and working with Steven Sodorbergh over the three weeks, and then flying straight back to school for my first day of classes. It was, in total, an 11-day shoot that we shot chronologically, which was a huge help because it allowed me to develop my character as we worked.

TSD: How has your experience been being a student while also being an actor?

WM: It’s a lot. When my agent sends me three self tapes during midterm season while I have a bunch of projects, it does suck. The way I see it though is it’s my work — like another seven unit class within itself. I always make sure to have time in the week to allocate towards reading a script or even watching movies to get [a sense] of characters. I’m not perfect at making sure it all happens every day, but I’m learning to find the balance between the two. At the end of the day, it’s still incredibly rewarding.

I have to take off a lot of time to work on films throughout the year. Recently, I took a leave of absence over fall quarter to work on two films. One was with director Angelo Pizzo and it’s a film about his childhood and the pressure he faced from his family to become a great concert pianist. I play the role of the best friend that gets him to break free from his family’s influence. A throughline with a lot of my characters is that they are hurt, damaged individuals that let the burdens of life make them almost villains.

TSD: Do you think that working on characters with trauma has helped you overcome challenges within yourself?

WM: Well, it makes me really reflect and be grateful for all the love and support I have in my own life. Tapping into the mindset of these characters and developing them shows that the world is a really hard place and a lot of people come from places of disadvantage. But, they also put themselves in those situations and that’s why they become these monsters. It’s very eye-opening because you feel bad for what they go through, but I don’t because of the choices they make.

TSD: How do you think acting will play a role in your future?

WM: I’ve had a running joke with my family that I’m hoping to graduate with my little sister — she’s three years younger than me. So if I can graduate by 2030 with all the projects I’m doing, it would be the most incredible thing. I hope acting puts me into the industry even further so that I can pursue film production and directing in the future. I want to do something more than just acting. Working on these projects now sets me up to work on bigger films in the future, and I meet super cool production teams that I can continue to work with in the future.

“Presence” is  available to stream  on Amazon Prime Video, YouTube Premium, and Apple TV+.