Vertical dramas – those short-form, mobile-first series consisting of multiple episodes lasting one to three minutes – are increasingly big business. Variety calls vertical drama “a global juggernaut racing toward $26 billion in annual revenues by 2030.” With that explosive growth emerges the first crop of leading vertical actors helping elevate the medium to new heights.
Anyone working to become an actor should keep tabs on the rising medium. Even if it’s not your end goal as a performer, acting in a vertical drama or two could line your pockets along the way.
We’ve taken a look at the careers of actors working with DramaBox, ReelShort, and other vertical drama studios to uncover how they’ve made such an impression in this emerging market.
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1. Joseph Purcell
Known for:
- His Nerd (CandyJar)
- Private Lessons (CandyJar)
- Rooming With the Devil (CandyJar)
Australian-born Joseph Purcell (son of Prison Break’s Dominic Purcell) started acting in microdramas in February 2025 and quickly made a name for himself through multiple castings in CandyJar productions.
Originally submitting for a supporting role, Purcell snagged the lead. “I had just heard of verticals, hadn’t even really seen them, and I did it,” he told Variety. “I have been working with the same company ever since.”
Purcell partly credits adapting to vertical’s tight turnarounds for his success. “If you’re lucky, you get a week, a couple days to prepare, and you’re just doing the best you can with what you have.”
2. Teig Sadhana
Known for:
- Code of the Heiress (GoodShort)
- Hurt Me, Love Me (DramaBox)
- After Awakening: Siblings Strike Back (GoodShort)
An Australian-English actor who attended the Stella Adler Studio of Acting in New York and has since written and directed short films including A Lonely Harvest and Claymates, Teig Sadhana is also a breakout vertical star.
“As an actor, you must be fast and intelligent, and with verticals moving so quickly, this demand is even higher in making vertical movies,” Sadhana, whose multiple vertical drama credits demonstrate his ability to match their lightning pace, told writer Engjell Hasula.
3. Nic Westaway
Known for:
- The CEO’s Wife Stole Her Life (ReelShort)
- The Divorced Navy Queen Awakens (JoyReels)
- The Double Life of Mr. President (Sparkland Pictures)
Nic Westaway, a former star of Australia’s Home and Away, has flourished after transitioning to the vertical drama scene and totally embraced the varied roles the new medium provides.
“In Australia, I played one character for nearly four years, nearly 400 episodes,” Westaway told the Hollywood Reporter. “But in the last nine months I’ve got to play 14 different characters in 14 different crazy verticals.”
He’s also written a few vertical dramas of his own.
4. Talia Wynzel
Known for:
- Come Back for You (DramaBox)
- The End of the Fxxxing Housewife (DreameShort)
- The Lady Boss Is Done Pretending (GoodShort)
Talia Wynzel took to verticals immediately after landing her first role. “I have never looked back,” she told one fan site. “I’ve been working on verticals ever since!” And the roles she’s played have provided plenty of drama. In character, she has “attempted murder more than once…poured a drink on someone, gotten many drinks poured on me, done a whole scene with a shower head (yes, running) being held over my head…[and] been a home-wrecker way too many times.”
On-set excitement aside, Wynzel stresses the discipline involved in shooting verticals: “Us as actors have to memorize a whole feature-length film worth of dialogue, and get it down almost perfect in about seven or eight days.” Episodes last only one to three minutes, but the cast often film around 100 of them. “It’s not easy to do,” Wynzel says.
5. Shayli Reagan
Known for:
- Lawyer Up, My Heiress (ShortMax)
- Homeless to Billionaire’s Wife (Sea Star Productions)
- The Beauty & the Billionaire (Sea Star Productions)
California-born and London-based Shayli Reagan is well known for her villainous roles in UK vertical dramas.
“You find a happy medium,” she said during a recent interview. “Obviously in these stories, the stakes are extremely high. There’s a lot of screaming, there’s a lot of crying, there’s a lot of this, there’s a lot of that. And how can I still make it grounded in some sort of reality that makes me feel good as an actor?”
6. Jasmine Kheen
Known for:
- Pride & Prejudice (Onset Octopus)
- Duke and the Homeless Stable Girl (ReelShort)
- Obsessed With Being His Prey (GoodShort)
London-based Jasmine Kheen boasts a BA Hons in screen acting from Met Film School and skills ranging from martial arts to dance. She’s also found her feet in the world of vertical drama by fully incorporating its dramatic style and subject matter into her performance.
“I self-taped for a couple of them, and I don’t think I was quite getting the essence. I never heard anything,” Kheen says. “Then I got to one tape, and I was like, ‘OK, you know what? I’m just going to go all out.… I’m going to go full-on Twilight, Gossip Girl.’ And I ended up booking it.”
Both Reagan and Kheen’s experiences suggest being able to deliver high drama in an audition is worth keeping in mind next time you notice a vertical drama casting call.
7. Taye Diggs
Known for:
Unique on this list, Taye Diggs is an actor already widely known and respected for work in Hollywood movies and network television. Now he’s making headlines as star and executive producer of a new vertical drama from CandyJar titled Off Limits & All Mine.
“Diggs may be the first A-lister to appear in a project like this,” Selome Hailu writes for Variety. “CandyJar hopes that involvement from someone like Diggs…will add sheen to the format as a whole.”It’s hoped his star power will boost the medium’s diversity. The series will reportedly feature an all-Black cast, with CandyJar aiming to “prove that Black-led romantic dramas belong at the centre of the microdrama boom, not at its margins.”
Embrace the drama…
Verticals are about excitement and intrigue. As an actor, your performance should reflect those extreme stakes and heightened emotions – sometimes going from zero to 100.
“It’s an acting exercise almost, and you have to push yourself to the limit,” Kheen says. “In acting classes…sometimes you do it the most dramatic way you can, and then you scale it back. But here, you get to just let loose and have fun with it.”
…but don’t always go big
Living up to the drama doesn’t necessarily mean always shouting and overacting. Given how vertical filming can focus right in on your face, subtler touches may convey equally strong emotions.
“It is quite big and it is quite melodramatic, but you have microphones and you can say things quietly,” says actor Richard Cambridge. “It can be very intimate, and I think that’s part of the power of it.”
Reagan expresses similar thoughts. “Sometimes it’s more powerful to watch someone not cry, or sit and just see that bit of welling start happening,” she says.
Keep pace
“We really value how you can keep up the pacing that we’ve been working on,” says ReelShort creative producer Annine Zhang. “Ten pages per day is not an easy thing to do.”
It’s a sentiment you’ll notice echoed time and again by everyone involved in vertical drama. For actors, it means you must be able to turn up ready to go. Unlike traditional TV shows and films, verticals may have time for only one or two takes. Actors simply can’t afford not to get it right the first time around.
Understand the space
“In vertical, everything is compartmentalised into a doorway,” says vertical drama legend John Henry Richardson.
It takes getting used to. Richardson talks of learning “to nail your feet to the floor, lock your feet, and just do your thing” since the vertical frame makes even the smallest horizontal movement distracting and brings so much focus to your face.
Cambridge similarly underlines the impact of tightened physical space.
“I’m having a conversation [with a co-star] and I could pretty much lick his ear,” he remembers. “Very uncomfortable, very unnatural – but onscreen it doesn’t feel like that. Everything’s more intimate.… Don’t be worried about the proximity, the closeness.”
