Get to Know Mr. Philip!
By: Niki Skulikidis
Mr. Philip is a new staff member here at Carle Place. He is the leave replacement for Ms. Cottone, but you may know him as a substitute, which is what he was doing at first. He is also the new mock trial club advisor, where members take on a role in a court case and compete with other schools to win. His birthday is January 22 and he attended Valley Stream Central High School. He went to college at Hofstra and originally did not plan on teaching. Mr. Philip thought he was going to be a doctor. Everyone in his family worked in healthcare, he worked in a hospital for two years and went into college as a premed bio major. But, he hated it, so then he thought about his football coach from high school who took him under his wing, always looked out for him and had a really big impact on his life. His coach was who inspired his acting career. Mr. Philip wanted to impact someone like his coach impacted him, so he became a teacher. At first he wanted to be a gym or social studies teacher, as social studies was his favorite class, but he was eventually convinced to go into special education.
As a child, Mr. Philip was very energetic, so his parents would put movies on for him to sit and watch to keep him entertained and quiet. Since his parents immigrated here from India, their English skills were not strong and he did not know English very well. Through watching films, he learned English. He would spend all day watching movies but not always watching for the plot and characters. Instead, he always thought about how they filmed the scenes. His dad is a photographer and always had a camera in his hand, so Mr. Philip was always on camera, posing. In sixth grade he did a bit of theater and played Greg in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid play. This was his first real acting experience, but sadly had an athlete mindset, and did not continue acting throughout the rest of middle and high school. When he was about to graduate, his football coach, who was an actor, told him to look into acting and set him up. He was able to do some extra stuff coming out of high school going into college. Then, while at Hofstra, where they have one of the strongest film programs in the east coast, he was able to study film. He learned about the behind the scenes and being behind the camera but also about being in front. Mr. Philip worked on creating short films and He majored in psychology and in radio television and film production. His last short film and senior thesis in college was titled Red Roses. He did not want to always play his usual role of the love interest, so worked on making another short film. His newest short film is titled Watch Your Back. It is about mental health and battling anxiety and depression. There is a scene inspired by a certain very iconic scene from the movie Psycho. Mr. Philip has a very interesting acting career and was actually on many different movies and tv shows.
His favorite sport is football and his favorite team is the Giants. In high school he played football and did track. He loves to travel and has been to places in the Middle East, like Dubai, India and has been to Florida many times. He dreams of traveling to London. His favorite tv shows are Breaking Bad, Money Heist, and Stranger Things. His cousin actually lives in the town that Stranger Things was filmed in. He also loves the movie Leave to Beaver. Some of the shows/movies he has been on: Blue Bloods, Law and Order SVU, The Crowded Room, Power Book II: Ghost, American Horror Stories, Full Circle. He has ended up meeting and seeing many celebrities such as Tom Holland, Mark Ruffalo, Amanda Seyfried and Ice-T. He worked as a tour guide in college for Hofstra. As a kid he wanted to be a cop and then a cashier because he thought they were very cool. His biggest dream was to be an NFL player.
