Stephen Ford

**Stephen Sean Ford** (formerly **Lunsford**; born November 25, 1989) is an American actor, writer, director and internet content producer. He played the titular character in The CW's Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight.

## Early life

Ford was born in Sacramento, California.[1] According to Ford's interview with NerdSociety, his “center of attention” mentality as a child caused his "troublemaker" reputation. To ease the situation, and to escape relentless bullying, he participated in various sports but ultimately acting and filmmaking provided an outlet for him to grown into himself. Ford's excited reputation regenerated as a means of self-expression that led to his interest in acting.

## Career

Ford began trying out his political interests as a member of Looking Ahead, a program sponsored by the Actors Fund of America. He was a member and President of the Leadership Council from 2006 until 2007.[3] Starting in 2006, Ford began acting, directing and producing his own independent videos on YouTube.[4] His content consist of parodies in which it predominantly involves blockbuster films such as Inception, Twilight, and The Hangover. Ford enjoyed moderate successes by appearing in a wide variety of teen characters from the TV show Zoey 101 to the film Bratz and Nickelodeon's Victorious.

However, in 2009, Ford landed the main role in the kids TV show Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight.[2] The show lasted for one season but gained heavy critical acclaim and a daytime Emmy.

Invested in acting in mature roles, Ford starred in the horror flick Maneater and Beneath the Darkness in which he co-starred alongside Dennis Quaid.[5] He created Rekon Media, a small production house that works with Funny or Die and Machinima.[6] The production consists of short films where Ford along with friends would feature in and submits the content to a variety of competitions. In 2012, Ford portrayed Matt Daehler on MTV's hit series Teen Wolf.[7]  Teen Wolf is a TV series lightly based on the 1985 film of the same name. Prior to joining the cast for the second season, Ford has stated his reluctance in accepting the role. His interview with Ology (website) elaborates that after seeing the promotions on Teen Wolf, Ford thought the series was a "joke". After watching a few episodes, Ford was pleased by the content and eventually appeared in the series.[8] This has been his most notable success, leading to a large social following on Twitter and Instagram.[9]

As of 2013, Ford was cast in a TV teen drama Rock Way as Nick Bradley. Rock Way is a TV project by Jordan Way which was crowdfunded on Kickstarter.[10] He has expressed his interest in appearing in sci-fi genres resulting for a petition issued online for Ford to guest star in the sci-fi drama hit Supernatural. Ford appeared in the psychological thriller film Homecoming, released on December 31, 2013.

In 2014, shortly after his stint on ABC Family's Switched at Birth, he took a hiatus from acting after working for nearly 15 years in the industry for personal reasons, all while focusing on writing scripts for future endeavors. In the summer of 2016, he started working for WB's YouTube gaming channel Machinima as a host, editor and producer for a variety of content. This led to him leading his own YouTube Channel through Machinima, Ascender, which was the focus on live action, story drive video game adaptations, starting with the series SIXERS, based off Ubisoft's Rainbow Six: Siege property. Stephen parted ways with the company, taking the Ascender channel with him, using it to rebrand his own production company.

## Philanthropy

Ford has participated and supports various charity events including Chance to Play, an event for poverty-stricken youth to participate in sports.