Brandon Hardesty

Personal life

Brandon Hardesty was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the youngest child in the family. Hardesty's mother collected silly hats and placed a suit of armor in the dining room "just for fun"; his father wrote jingles in addition to teaching music and directing the church choir. Hardesty's parents described him as sweet-natured, funny, and introverted. His parents withdrew him from his small Christian elementary school in second grade, fearing that the attending was too rigid for their son. Instead, he was home-schooled until middle school.

While at Baltimore Lutheran School, a teacher convinced Hardesty into acting in the school's theater productions, though he was too self-conscious to allow his family to attend his performances. He practiced his social skills while working as a cashier at Weis Markets, a nearby grocery store where he worked on weekends and after school.

In college, Hardesty majored in film, while making YouTube videos on the side. After attracting attention with his video, Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make III, a producer, Edwin Marshall, expressed interest in professionally representing Hardesty. The same video got national attention from a popular Geico commercial in 2007 and 2008. In late 2007, Hardesty auditioned for a role in the film Bart Got a Room. Shortly thereafter, Beverly Strong of Strong Management took over as Hardesty's manager, and represents him to this day, along with Nic De Armendi of JLA Talent. Hardesty no longer resides in Los Angeles. He currently resides in Baltimore, Maryland where he is pursuing a degree in early childhood education.

YouTube

On YouTube, Hardesty goes by the username "ArtieTSMITW," which is an abbreviation for "Artie: The Strongest Man in the World," a character from one of his favorite childhood shows, The Adventures of Pete and Pete. His most popular videos are his Re-enactment videos, in which he chooses a movie scene, and re-enacts it, playing all the characters. One of his most popular and strikingly real performances is the drill instructor from Full Metal Jacket, originally portrayed by R. Lee Ermey. Another popular series is Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make, in which he demonstrates the strange faces and noises he can make. He has parodied the Internet sensation 2 Girls 1 Cup with "1 guy 1 lunchable".

To date, Hardesty has had seven of his videos featured on the front page of YouTube: his reenactment of a scene from The Princess Bride, his reenactment of a scene from Uncle Buck, a video dubbed "Three Impressions" which features three of Hardesty's celebrity impersonations, his "Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make III" video, which has had over 7.2 million views, a video entitled "The 30-Second Video," a video called "Request a Reenactment for YouTube Live," and a video called "Movies on YouTube? Huzzah!"

In April 2007, Geico Auto Insurance used "Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make III" in their television commercial. After a portion of the video plays, apparently on a computer screen, a narrator says, "There may be better ways to spend 15 minutes online." Hardesty's Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make video was parodied in the MTV sketch show Human Giant. In the sketch, Aziz Ansari portrayed a character who made a similar funny faces video like Hardesty's.

In November 2008, Hardesty participated in YouTube's first live show: YouTube Live. He asked his fans to request a scene for him to reenact, promising that the #1 most requested scene would air on YouTube Live. It ended up being a popular scene from The Dark Knight, and received over 150,000 views on YouTube in the first week. Hardesty was also interviewed briefly by fellow YouTuber, William Sledd.

In May 2014, Hardesty started a second YouTube channel, No Small Parts, a documentary web series about character actors in the entertainment industry. As of October 2015, the channel has 241,000 video views. Some of the actors covered in the series include: Warwick Davis, Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Kiel, Crispin Glover and Pete Postlethwaite amongst others.

Acting career

In September 2007, upon seeing Hardesty's YouTube videos, a producer of the film Bart Got a Room e-mailed Hardesty expressing interest in casting him for a supporting role. Hardesty auditioned, got the part, and spent three weeks in Florida for the shoot. After the film Hardesty continued to audition for films and TV shows eventually landing a lead role in American Pie Presents: The Book of Love, as well as a supporting role in the film Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, both filmed in 2009.

From 2009 to 2012, Hardesty was cast as a lead in a CBS pilot entitled Living On A Prayer, but it was not picked up by the network. He was cast as a lead in a short film "Ham Sandwich," directed by David Green. In 2013 Hardesty has been cast in roles in the film Seven Minutes as well as The Scorpion King 4: Quest for Power, the fourth installment in the Mummy film franchise.