Brian Lally

Brian started acting at a young age. His father interrupted that calling when he announced: "I will have no child actors in this family."

And so it was.

Since his father was a successful actor and had worked with many child actors, he may have known what he was talking about. Something gigantic was missing from Brian’s life. While bartending, a customer noticed: "You would make a great actor!" That customer was a working actor himself. Off Brian went to pursue his dream.

His first teacher was David Cox. Together, they built a theater on Magnolia Blvd that would become The Alliance Repertory Company for 20 years. There, Brian performed his first plays. If he didn’t get cast in the main production, he understudied in every — single — show. Brian also ran lights and sound, swept up, attended meetings and did everything he could do to learn the ins-and-outs of theater.

When his teacher left town, Brian was off again, looking for a new home. He found Playhouse West School and Repertory Company. Under the tutelage of Robert Carnegie, Jeff Goldblum, Glenn Vincent and Tony Savant, Brian really started to work hard. In the beginning years, the LOLAS founder was in a play EVERY weekend for seven years, then, a play one weekend a month for the three years after. It was soon after this that Robert Carnegie sent Brian a letter asking him if he would like to train as a teacher. They had been looking for a new teacher and his name kept coming up from other staff members.

It was during the hundreds of hours of training and teaching that Brian worked with Ashley Judd, Scott Caan, James Franco, Mark Pellegrino, Eric Edwards, Michael Trevino, Jim Parrack, Heather Morris, and Henry Barrial. He worked with them and watched them blossom.

Brian also realized he had outgrown the constraints of working at someone else’s school.

Time to move on. 

Brian sensed he needed to take a different direction with teaching. The more he taught, the more he acted, the more he realized every student was different. He discovered acting isn’t an assembly line approach where every student has to fit into the technique. It's the individual who is important and what they bring to acting. He learned to draw from themselves and their own experiences, and bring that out in them through the masterful Meisner Technique.

So, on a dark mountaintop 40 miles outside of Jackson, Mississippi, while filming “As I Lay Dying,” Brian approached his close friend James Franco and asked: "Why don't we open our own school?"

Franco’s eyes grew wide and he excitedly answered: "I NEED A COMMITMENT FROM YOU!"

Brian shot back: “YOU GOT IT!”

Thus laying the foundation for what would be Studio 4. As the co-founder and head teacher at Studio 4, Brian Lally wrote the curriculum and taught the first wave of students by himself. During the first year at the helm of Studio 4, Brian took a 3-month hiatus to take one of the leads in an Off Broadway show The Long Shrift presented by The Rattlestick Playwrights Theater in Manhattans West Village. After glowing reviews, Brian returned to teaching and more acting.

Brian left Studio 4 this year. He opened LOLAS (The Lally Or Lally Acting School) with his son Kyle. It’s been a joy every day. He begins each class with new students by telling them: "I'm your biggest fan."

Brian will not yell at new students for not knowing how to act. Rather, he will fix all problems as they arise.

But, you BETTER not show up to class unprepared.

“That’s the actor’s job — your job.” said Lally. “It’s exactly like being on a set: You must show up early and ready to work or this isn't the place for you.”

Brian is bringing the tried and true 80-year-old Meisner Technique into the present and enjoying every minute of it!

Four of Brian's 150 acting credits