Acting
Reverend Billy
Born 1950-05-25
The character of Reverend Billy was developed in the early 1990s by actor and playwright, William Talen. He grew up in small towns throughout Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. He left home at 16, moving east with Charles and Patricia Gaines, a writer and painter who encouraged him as an artist. Talen began to perform his poems and stories, hitch-hiking from Philadelphia to New York to San Francisco. His chief collaborator in developing the Reverend Billy character was the Reverend Sidney Lanier, a cousin of Tennessee Williams. Lanier was vicar of The St. Clement's in the 1960s, an Episcopal Church in Hell's Kitchen in Manhattan. In an effort to increase attendance at St. Clement's, Lanier had torn out the altar and pews, inviting actors to perform scenes from plays by Tennessee Williams and Terrence McNally, and founding founding the American Place Theater. Lanier described Talen as "more of a preacher with a gift for social prophecy than an actor." In the early 1990s, Talen moved with Lanier to New York City from the San Francisco Bay Area, branding his act as a "new kind of American preacher"
Acting credits
10.0A fascinating rap on the 20th Century movement called Culture Jamming. Pranksters and subversive artists are causing a bit of brand damage to corporate mindshare. Jammers, cultural commentators, a billboard advertiser and a constitutional lawyer take us on a wild roller coaster ride through the back streets of our mental environment. Stopping over in San Francisco, New York's Times Square, and Toronto, we catch the jamming in action with Batman-inspired Jack Napier of the Billboard Liberation Front, Disney arch-enemy Reverend Billy from the Church of Stop Shopping and Media Tigress Carly Stasko.
Culture Jam: Hijacking Commercial Culture
2001
10.0A revealing film about the vicious cycle of consumerism and the destructive power of hyper-capitalism. Can we break the grip of the system before it is too late?
You Need This
2025
A serious docu-comedy about the commercialization of Christmas. What Would Jesus Buy? follows Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they go on a cross-country mission to save Christmas from the Shopocalypse: the end of mankind from consumerism, over-consumption and the fires of eternal debt!
What Would Jesus Buy?
2007
6.5A "fictional documentary" about Joe Pace, a radio talk show host whose program, The F Word, is being shut down by the F.C.C. after racking up over a million dollars in unpaid indecency fines. ON his last day on the air, which coincides with the last day of the Republican National Convention, Joe sets off to broadcast his own one-man march through Manhattan.
The F Word
2005
5.0Reverend Billy, a.k.a. Bill Talen, is an actor/performance artist and a leading figure within the anti-globalization movement. His work combines the ideas of social and political change with the means of theater arts to counteract our media-laden culture. The film follows the Reverend's "shopping interventions/actions" into cultural dead zones such as Starbucks, Disney and the New York University construction site at Poe House.
Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping
2002
The Perfect Cappuccino is a documentary about of one woman's obsession with finding that perfect blend of espresso and milk.
The Perfect Cappuccino
2008