Declan Michael Laird

Declan Michael Laird was born in Greenock, Scotland. A keen footballer, he left school at 15 to pursue a professional career and signed with Greenock Morton F.C. Eight minutes into a cup tie between Greenock Morton and Hearts, Laird tore his anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, effectively ending his professional footballing career.^[2]

After exploring the possibility of taking up coaching as a career, Laird turned his attention to acting. In 2008, he was introduced to an acting agency by longterm friend Jim Sweeney and landed the role of Sean in the Scottish soap opera River City and went on to appear in a number of episodes before departing in 2011.^[3] The following year he starred in the critically acclaimed short film, The Lost Purse in which Laird played the leading role of The Kid.^[4][5] The film, which told the story a young deaf man, was well received and earned Laird a Best Acting accolade at the Write Camera Action event in Glasgow in 2012.^[6]

In 2011, whilst on holiday in Los Angeles, Laird was convinced by his father to take part in an acting workshop hosted by the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Initially hesitant to take part, Laird was eventually bribed $50 by his father and despite having no previous acting training, the staff were so impressed by his performance that they offered Laird a fully funded scholarship for the young actor to study in America.^[7][8] In 2014, he landed the role of Colin in the American online drama Camp Abercorn.^[9] The series, which premiered in September 2014, was crowd funded online and was endorsed by former Star Trek actor George Takei.^[10][11][12]

In May 2016, it was announced on the Stella Adler alumni website that Laird had been cast as Joe in The Ice Cream Truck.^[13] In June, Camp Abercorn received its first major screening in America playing at the 2016 edition of SeriesFest.^[14] Laird also appeared in two BuzzFeed videos where he took on the challenge of taste testing pumpkin spice lattes from 5 popular coffee chains,^[15] and starred alongside Carmen Electra promoting Dollar Shave Club blades and products.^[16]

In 2017, Laird featured in the Amazon Prime Production of Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands: War Within The Cartel playing the role of CIA Analyst Ryan Williams. 2017 saw Laird star in the horror comedy film The Ice Cream Truck.^[17] In September, Laird completed filming on the feature comedy film Hot Air starring Steve Coogan and Taylor Russell. The Frank Coraci directed film was released in theaters in 2018.^[18] 2018 also saw Laird complete filming for the TV series Big Dogs, which premiered on the streaming service Tubi in 2019. The show did not get renewed for a second season.

In 2018, Laird completed filming for the thriller Green Rush, which was produced by UFC hall of famer Urijah Faber. Laird played the role of Caleb Hayes and also is credited as being a co-producer on the movie. The film was distributed by Lionsgate in 2019 via VOD.

In 2021, Laird completed filming for Beautiful Disaster which stars Dylan Sprouse and Virginia Gardner. Laird played the role of Taylor Maddox. The movie was directed by Roger Kumble and shot on location in Bulgaria. The movie was released worldwide in theaters via Fathom Events in April 2023. Upon release of the film, it was also announced that Laird had completed filming for the sequel, Beautiful Wedding, on location in the Dominican Republic in November 2022. The film was released theatrically in January 2024.

In 2023, Laird appeared on Better Human Better Dog with Cesar Milan to help his German Shepherd rescue dog, Rocky. Laird and his girlfriend, Starsi Howell, appeared in season 3 episode 9 of the National Geographic series. The episode aired in March 2023.

In 2013, he was listed as one of the top 50 Glaswegian Tweeters on Twitter by the Herald newspaper in Scotland.^[19]