I’m not a Hollywood actor. I never have been.
My name is Dan Quaile. You might know me as Casper King — and there’s a story behind that name I’ll get to in a minute.
I was born in Anchorage, Alaska and spent my childhood moving. California. Then rural Minnesota. Byron. Preston. Leroy. Spring Valley. I was half Filipino growing up in small towns where I was usually the only non-white kid in the room. You learn quickly how to read people, adapt, fit in, and disappear when you need to. Looking back, I was developing the exact instincts that make a good actor — I just didn’t know it yet.
The first time I became someone else.
The summer after my junior year of high school, my teacher recommended me for something unusual. The Minnesota Historical Society needed people to work at Forestville — a living history museum in southeastern Minnesota. I was an introvert. I almost said no.
I spent that entire summer as Frank Kelly, a resident of historic Forestville, dressed in period clothing from the late 1800s, answering questions from visitors who walked through as if the year was still 1899. Nobody broke character. You didn’t explain the museum — you lived in it.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that was my first real acting experience. An introvert learning to inhabit someone else completely, in front of strangers, all day long. Something about it made sense to me in a way I couldn’t explain.
I moved to the Twin Cities in 2001. By 2005 I was taking community acting classes — beginner, intermediate, advanced — and submitting my first résumé to agencies. It was thin. One of my early credits was a student film where I drove 45 minutes to hold hands with a girl and walk into a grocery store as an extra. I gave myself the character name “Boyfriend.”
But I kept showing up.
What I’ve built since then:
Over the last 20 years I’ve worked on 100+ independent films, booked a national Amazon commercial through self-submission on Actors Access, and appeared on national television multiple times — including the History Channel series MonsterQuest, the Discovery Channel’s Fatal Encounters, America Unearthed, and others. I’ve been part of national reenactment productions more times than I can count, reaching audiences across the country while living and working out of Minneapolis.
I co-produced a Christmas film that reached over 8 million streams on Tubi. It’s also available on Amazon Prime.
I’ve worked with agencies across Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Montana and South Dakota. I’ve booked commercials for companies like 3M, Best Buy, Target, Mediacom and Minn Kota. I’ve done it all while living in Minneapolis — never moving to LA, never waiting for Hollywood to come find me.
About the name.
Casper King is my son’s name. He’s 12 years old and severely autistic and nonverbal. He is one of the best humans I know. I wanted to carry his name with me into every room I walk into professionally.
My real last name is Quaile — spelled with an I, not a Y. If you’ve ever tried to Google “Dan Quaile” you already know the problem. It autocorrects. Every time. To someone else entirely.
The stage name became official after an audition at Paramount that I’ll tell you about in detail on my YouTube channel. That story is also how IndieFilmActor.com was born.
Why I built this.
I spent 20 years figuring out things that nobody told me — how agencies actually work, what casting directors are really looking for, how to book work outside your home market, how to treat acting like a business without losing the love of the craft.
Most of that knowledge doesn’t exist in any acting class. It lives in the experience of people who actually did the work.
IndieFilmActor.com is where I share mine.
If you’re serious about building a real acting career — not a fantasy, not a hobby, but an actual sustainable career — start with the free Working Actor Blueprint below. It’s everything I wish I’d known when I started.