Set Life: Actor and director Anthony J. James dreams, creates and chooses his own adventure

ArtsATL’s Set Life series focuses on local creatives who work in Atlanta’s film and television industry. We’ll talk to those who work on both sides of the camera and explore their struggles and successes in navigating Georgia’s volatile film and TV scene.

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Anthony J. James did not grow up surrounded by filmmakers and artists. But he met them in his dreams at night.

“We lived on a hog farm outside a small town — DeLand, Florida,” the Atlanta-based filmmaker says about his roots. His father was a carpenter, as were many of the men on his dad’s side of the family, and James was his firstborn. His mom, in looking back, was somewhat of an empath and able to see and feel James’ aspirations to travel beyond the family’s small-town locale in the center of the Sunshine State.

By age 9, a recurrent dream began to take hold most nights.

“There was traveling and talking with lots of people, and it was like I was in a movie,” he remembers. “So in time, I told my mom I wanted to be an actor.”

When she asked the inevitable, “What are you going to do as a backup?” James said, “I’m going to direct movies.” And when she said it didn’t really work like that in their world, she also said that nothing was truly beyond reach. (He lost his mom during the COVID pandemic, and he keeps her words close to his heart. At age 7, he lost a brother in an accident and recently lost another brother by suicide.)

“My mom believed that if you set your mind to it, anything is possible,” he says.

Living out her conviction, James’ parents enrolled him in community theater as a child. Then, five years into the community theater program, someone outside their local sphere took note of the teen actor.

“An agent saw me in a play and asked to sign me, and that got me into commercials,” James says. “And from there I got into some movies and local television programs.”

Christian films, to start, followed by horror. “All very bad movies,” says James. “But I was a part of the first movies you’d see in Redbox [DVD and Blu-ray rental kiosks] and even Amazon Prime.”

By the time he turned 19, he snagged a role in a French-Haitian web-series soap opera, La Fleur de Mai, for several years, living in Orlando and South Florida, where episodes were produced. Modeling jobs followed for underwear company Bonds in Australia, Hollister/Abercrombie in California and various fashion shows from 2009 to 2012.

In between jobs in front of the camera, James fell back on the family carpentry trade and took a traveling gig selling Vitamix blenders at trade shows.

“A lot of people aren’t comfortable with that unpredictable path; it’s a funny thing,” James muses. “Choose your own adventure.” So, true to that mantra, he kept following his vision and exploring where the road led.

When anyone asked James to take on an acting or modeling project along the way, his answer was always the same: “Yes.”

He recalls, “At one point, I was doing a TV show pilot for NBC, and they flew me out to LA. I don’t even know how all these things have happened, because it happens when I’m really busy and I don’t have time, and I just say, ‘Yes, let’s go.’ You just stick with your goal, because it doesn’t work out when you quit.”

By 2015, James relocated to Atlanta and immersed himself in its film and television production scene and collaborative creative community. And, in 2012, he started a production company, East Hollywood Pictures, and began producing his own projects and those of his friends.

“This allows me and my friends to work together — I’ve got this writer over here and this director over here and another actress over here, and we’ve come together and started making our own thing,” James describes.

In 2017, MGM Studios joined James’ production journey and brought him on board as an associate producer for Bad Trip, a film that was eventually sold to Netflix.

Today, not quitting has led James deeper into his childhood dream of being a director. And he pitched his independent film The Living Tree at Marché du Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025 in Cannes, France.

Alongside a writing partner, James had a hand in screenwriting the film, whose story line, fittingly, came to him in a dream.

“The Living Tree is based on a nightmare I had about eight years ago, and it was recurring for over a year,” he describes. “In the dream, a newlywed couple gets locked inside their honeymoon suite and tortured.”

In the screenplay, he and his writing partner, Brey Noelle, refined the plot line in this direction: a travel influencer couple gets locked inside their tree house suite in Costa Rica … no spoilers to be given.

James both stars in and directs the 105-minute feature film, and his writing partner/actress plays opposite him. The production filmed in four countries — Costa Rica, France, Iceland, and the United States, in New York City, Washington State and Atlanta — to capture the couple’s world from the angle of their online content.

“So we had the opportunity to pitch it at Cannes Film Festival, and we’ve pitched it here in Atlanta, and I even pitched it to Netflix,” James says. At this stage, one offer has come through, but not a tempting one.

Like most independent films today, The Living Tree was shot on a very tight budget — less than $100,000. Its timing is good; the audience for indie film has grown significantly since the writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023 and 2024, respectively, and the genre continues to expand, finding distribution on streaming platforms, on public platforms such as YouTube and in traditional theaters.

James’ goal is to release the film in theaters by following a formula that has helped other independent filmmakers get their films into mainstream theaters.

“We’ve picked up a distributor, and they’re pitching it to a bunch of streamers. And right now we’re gathering signatures to get it shown first at art houses, and, when it does well, it can move on to AMC, Regal, Alamo, etc.,” he describes. “We need 300 signatures within 100 miles of a city to get it shown. And we’re getting close here in Atlanta.”

Following the aforementioned formula, James is collecting the names of interested parties on a Google spreadsheet to take to cinemas this summer.

“This is basically what was done at Creators Camp, another production company out of Austin [Texas] for their movie, Two Sleepy People,” he adds.

While James and his team work on and wait for distribution, he’s focusing on another creative venture — opening a small photo studio in Buckhead, as well as preparing to produce a podcast, Backstage After Hours, on the side.

When asked about his busy and varied plateful of projects, James says, “There are certain things I prefer to do for a living, and then there are things that I just like to do.”

While he waits and works on his next adventure, James keeps his dreams kindled.

“I think we’re all conduits for energy, and we’re all receivers,” he says, thinking of his mom and brothers. “I’m open spiritually and mentally, and I feel like I’m being sent ideas and inspiration constantly.”

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Carol Badaracco Padgett is an Atlanta-based freelance writer who focuses on film and television, the automotive industry, architectural design and collaborative storytelling projects.