Photo by Creative Juices Productions, Albuquerque, N.M.

Louder Acts

With his unique facial hair, kind blue eyes, and approachable personality, Rob Louder is well known in Jones County. He and his wife, Penny have a ranch northeast of Draper, S.D., and like so many others in the area, they enjoy living on the prairie and running about 50 head of cattle. Rob is also an actor. From film to theater he has had experience doing something a little out of the ordinary from most ranchers. In 2014, while living in New Mexico, Rob and some of his motorcyclist friends went to an open casting call, “just for something to do”, and he was cast for a background scene in Blood Father. After that, he says, “I got the bug.” and he began to take acting classes. From weekend intensive workshops to private instruction, he has studied acting, voice, speech, and dialects, and auditioning.
Rob has been on television in shows like a PSA for NM ALZ.org as a patient, the co-star in Montserrat:Deceptions, and short films that include: The Doll, BearTrap and several others! He even got to do some stunt work in a made-for-tv pilot called Monsters of God in a scene where he bumps into an angry cowboy and gets thrown out of the way. You can also catch him in the background in Magnificent Seven, Ridiculous Six, The Messengers, Longmire, and The Night Shift or in a featured role in Los Lobos or Lyrics From a Bleeding Heart. As far as theater, Rob is part of the Pierre Players and performed there as Lieutenant Rooney in Arsenic and Old Lace in December 2019. 
Rob grew up on the family farm (where he now resides) and stayed with grandparents while attending school in Ft. Pierre. In 1989 he met his wife, Penny, in Aberdeen, while attending the wedding of a friend. They married and moved to New Mexico. Rob was employed as a medical technologist at a hospital blood bank and worked his way up to the head position. He switched over to the IT side of the profession and worked on the laboratory computer systems for 12 years until changes in government brought about the end of his job and an early retirement shortly before his mother passed away in 2017. Rob and Penny moved back to Draper to help out on the ranch. They have been here since. Rob tries to schedule his acting gigs and training around calving season so Penny isn’t alone on the ranch during that time. He is a volunteer firefighter with the Draper Fire Department and a member of the Draper Cemetery Board. 
If you haven’t caught Rob in action at the Pierre theater you will have a chance sometime in October. Rob says he will be in a production of Two on the Aisle-Three in the Van, a play about the daily workings of a small theater company.  He is also cast for three upcoming films that are pending filming due to the coronarivus pandemic. Two are scheduled to be shot in New Mexico and the other in Louisiana.
As for meeting famous people on movie and television sets, Rob said they are told not to speak to the actors unless they are spoken too. The reason for this is not snobbery, but professionalism - the actor is working and it would be considered a distraction to approach them. He did have interactions with Nick Nolte on the set of Graves and Adam Sandler would also come and talk to the cast on the set of The Ridiculous Six.
Rob recently did a photo shoot with Carole Altendorf of Creative Juices Productions. He was costumed as an alchemist and the photos are quite stunning - rich colors, distinctive costuming, and an air of wizardry. Carole is a photographer and her company specializes unique photographs. Creative Juices is located in Albuquerque, N.M. and does head shots for models and actors as well as families, portraits, and businesses. Carol’s photos of Rob were accepted by Fine Art magazine, BEYONDall@beyond.magazine.com on August 15 of this year.  Carole says, “The brief for Rob’s shoot was a re-creation of ‘The Alchemist’ by Cornelis Bega (Dutch, 1631/1632 - 1664).  Rob is a model in Creative Juices Productions  In the Spotlight Model Program in Albuquerque, N.M. It is a program with benefits for my model clients. They receive a personalized photo shoot and additional benefits such as being submitted to magazines for publication. As an actor already and with a remarkable mustache, I thought this  re-creation would be such a different shoot for both of us. I purchased the costume for Rob and Rob did the acting and modeling. What a joy to work with Rob.”
Rob also remarked on the differences between film and theater acting. For instance, in theater your words and actions need to be big and bold with grand gestures all while under very bright lights in your face. Also the time from first practice to the show day is only a couple of months. With film you may have to shoot the same scene numerous times at three or four different angles which could means 30 minutes of film could take 10-12 hours to create. A movie could take two to three years to complete.
When asked what life advice he would offer he said, “If you’re interested in something just go for it and don’t let anything stop you.”

The Pioneer Review

221 E. Oak Street
Philip, SD 57567
Telephone: (605) 859-2516
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