Nick Pugliese’s creative spirit shines in ‘School Spirits’

BNS: In so many of your scenes, you’re acting with characters who can’t see you since you’re technically a ghost. How do you navigate that as an actor?
NP: Logistically, it can be difficult. If we're doing a walking scene, there will be hallways filled with students, and I have to walk down the hall and not look like I’m trying to avoid running into people. Similarly, they have to look like they are not trying to run into me.

In season one, we had a whole scene where there are basketball players playing around us, throwing hoops. I remember we had to walk through it and not flinch.

BNS: How did acting find you?
NP: I've been told from my family that apparently at the age of 2 or 3, I started telling people that I wanted to be a “singer man.” I wanted to perform. I wanted to entertain. 

There's this children's park in Oakland called Fairyland. They have a children's repertory theater there. I auditioned and sang “Frosty the Snowman.” I was like, “This song really shows off my vocals.”

I was performing every weekend at Fairyland for eight months, then I went into community theater. When I went to college, I studied theater, and then it was the auditioning process after that. Now, we're here at School Spirits. 

BNS: You're also a writer. What types of stories and worlds are you drawn to?
NP: During COVID-19, I couldn’t get an audition, I was not on a show, I was not working. I asked myself, “What would you want to act in?” I then sat down with my friend Danielle Kay, and we wrote Thank You For Being Here. That was the first thing I've ever written. 

We improvised these scenes. We came up with the idea of these two characters and their relationship, and that she was waiting for pregnancy test results.

I also like to focus on queer stories, and I think my biracial identity also has a big part in that. I feel like I exist on multiple planes.

The whole “we contain multitudes” thing is true. I think Charley is a good example of that. He's the happy friend, but he has this devastating backstory, and both can exist and be true. And so I like focusing on queer characters that are living through real experiences.

BNS: What did your mixed identity look like for you and your family growing up?
NP: I'm really close with the Japanese side of my family—my mom’s side—and I always have been. 

As I got older, I noticed there were moments where I started internalizing some anti-Japanese racism in myself. I wanted people to just think that I was white. I had a potential manager once who said, “You're never going to get called in for Japanese roles because you're too white. You need to change your last name to Katani”—my mom’s maiden name—“so that you get called in for Japanese roles, because you're not going to get called in based on the way you look.”

That really stuck with me, but it's something I love about myself now—being able to exist in these two worlds. I try to bring that to every character.

BNS: What advice would you give to other mixed kids in the industry or trying to break into the industry while grappling with their identity?
NP: Being mixed is a superpower. It gives you multiple perspectives and makes you multifaceted. You get to be a mosaic and a mirage of a multitude of different identities or types of people—which is, as actors and as creatives, what we hope and strive to be able to do. Flaunt it. Don't push against it, because it's so easy to try to silence one of them.

BNS: What can we expect from both Charley in season two, and what can we expect from you as an artist?
NP: You can expect some soul searching and some romance from Charley. 

I just did a web series with some of my friends called Barden and Sarah Start A Pandemic. It’s about two Zillennial corporate employees who decide they don't want to go to work anymore, so they try to start another pandemic to get out of it.

I've also got a couple of things with the cast of School Spirits that I'm planning to release on YouTube.

And hopefully, we do a third season of School Spirits. 

BNS: I binged the whole first season and the first three episodes of season two in two days. Congratulations to all of you for creating such a gripping show. It's so addicting.
NP: It gets even crazier. I promise.