Paso Robles High School grad cast in major motion picture

Posted: 9:24 pm, September 25, 2014 by Reporter Heather Young

A still of Seth Adams from one of the films in which he has been a cast member.

A still of Seth Adams from one of his films.

Seth Adams joins the cast of ‘Equals’

Seth Adams, a 1995 graduate of Paso Robles High School, has been added to the cast of “Equals,” a new movie starring Kristen Stewart, Nicholas Hoult, Guy Pearce and Jacki Weaver, directed by Drake Doremus and written by Nathan Parker.

The film, to be released in 2015, is set in a world where there is no greed, no poverty, no violence and no emotion, but a new disease is threatening everyone. The disease is SOS, or Switched-On-Syndrome, which activates depression, sensitivity, fear and love. Once a person is overtaken, they are sent away and never seen again. Adams plays a person who ensures that once someone is overtaken by SOS, they are never heard from again.

Seth Adams

While Adams cannot say much more about the plot, he did say that he is a huge fan of the sci-fi genre and is “immensely happy to be even a small part of this film.” He said the film is expected to be out in September 2015 and is being filmed in the United States and Japan. The UK’s Daily Mail recently covered the upcoming movie and compared it to George Orwell’s book 1984.

Adams, now 37, moved to Paso Robles in 1992 to live with his father, Bruce Adams. Right after graduating from high school, Seth spent the summer attending the Academy of Art in San Francisco concentrating in illustration before returning to Paso Robles to live for another year. He then moved to SLO and attended Cuesta College.

“I spent nearly every waking hour dreaming of telling stories as a comic book artist,” Adams said. “I worked at the local Kmart my senior year, saving a fund that my parents promised to match to afford a summer program concentrating in illustration… with hopes of developing a portfolio strong enough to work for any of the comic book studios.”

While attending Cuesta he auditioned for a local production of “A Few Good Men” in which Adams had the opportunity to play the lead. After that he said he “was hooked, and never stopped.” It wasn’t his first foray into acting, however, having taken drama at Paso Robles High School with drama teachers Glen Smeltzer and John Lambie. After “A Few Good Men,” he played Nick in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf” at SLO Little Theatre, which was directed by Marjorie Bowman, the late wife of Lambie.

Seth Adams, pictured at left, shown with one of his drawings in high school.

“Her belief in me, coupled with John Lambie’s belief kind [of] gave me the confidence to carry on,” Adams said. “My plan A as a comic book artist fell by the wayside, Marvel filed for bankruptcy in 1997, the comic industry as it existed then collapsed, and my skill set wasn’t high enough at the time to really survive that downsizing. I still illustrate, just semi-professionally.”

He credits the many people he met in SLO with taking care with him at that time with his acting career, or what developed from that time.

“While I was involved with [Centerpoint Theater Group] and working at a restaurant [in SLO] the location manager for a film called ‘Murder By Numbers’ starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Gosling came in to have lunch while I was working,” Adams said. “A big film fan, I had researched the project heavily and had an engaged conversation with that location manager, who then asked if I could work with her for the duration of the four-week shoot. … Being a location assistant meant I was on set before the crew brought trailers to the clean up afterward. It also meant I spent weeks with the cast. The then 20-year-old Ryan Gosling … very generously engaged in tons of conversation about the nature of his job. He was instrumental in talking me into moving to L.A., not having seen my work, just recognizing my burgeoning passion and interest.”

Adams currently resides in Singapore for the time being while he works there, but is generally based out of L.A.