Todd Long

Todd Long is an American actor, director, and screenwriter best known for "Trusting Chloe" (2021), a multiple award-winning comedy short about a surfing-obsessed, middle-age rock star and his ardent Latina wife who scramble to rein in their misbehaving teenager and their wacky love life. Raised in Vicksburg, Mississippi by parents Ted and Emily Long, he was trained as an actor by Barbara Sizemore at Warren Central High School, Denise Halbach with the Lendon Players, and at the University of Southern Mississippi by Bob Funk, Larry Mullican, and R.B. Hill. After winning multiple collegiate acting awards and an Irene Ryan (national acting award) nomination for his portrayal of Roy in "Lone Star", Long acted in summer stock with Southern Arena Theatre before beginning a three-year stint as Theater Director at Warren Central High School and acting in productions with the Vicksburg Theatre Guild. With songwriting partner Charles Bradford, Long founded Mission 66, a rock and roll band that toured the American deep south in the early 1990s and recorded half a planned concept album, "Last Train Out of Babylon", which was eventually released as an EP in 2016 and which featured a music video ("Ten Thousand Fans"). In the mid-1990s, Long turned to graduate school in philosophy, earning M.A. degrees from the University of Southern Mississippi, University of Wales Swansea, and University of Rochester, where he was awarded the Ph.D. in 2003. After a year on a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Notre Dame, he was hired as an Assistant Professor in philosophy at California Polytechnic State University, where he contributed internationally in the areas of epistemology, philosophy of religion, and moral responsibility and was subsequently promoted to Associate Professor (2009) and Professor (2014). In 2016, his daughter (the actress Sophie Rhiannon Long) convinced him to perform with her in "Willy Wonka: The Musical" (Kelrik Productions), which reignited his passion for the creative performing arts. After acting in several college films with Cal Poly, Long wrote (with the assistance of his daughter) the original screenplay of the comedy film "Trusting Chloe" in 2018 and subsequently produced, directed, and starred in the film, which garnered numerous film competition and film festival awards in 2021 and featured a new Mission 66 song, "A New Direction". He lives on California's central coast in Arroyo Grande with his wife Sigrid Morrison Long and their two children Sophie Rhiannon Long and Dylan Reed Long.