https://youtu.be/zMPAqhrKlc8

Dennis Hurley is an actor, advocate, and albino. He has been living with albinism since birth and has spoken about his experiences in the media. Dennis will be participating at the upcoming N.O.A.H. conference July in Orlando, Florida. In this Situation Positive podcast interview, Dennis talks about about his life with albinism and how it's affected his ability to find work in the entertainment industry.

Below is the transcript of our interview. You can also click on the video above to watch the interview, or listen on one of our podcast channels by scrolling to the bottom of the page.

Dennis Hurley Interview

[00:00:00] Matt: You may know him from sitcoms, like Superstore,

[00:00:10] Dennis: Rats gave birth in nacho cheese. Cooked themselves to death. Yeah.

[00:00:22] Matt: Or, Justin Timberlake's can't fight the feeling video. We have actor and comedian, Dennis Hurley on our show, Dennis, welcome to the show.

[00:00:47] Dennis: Thank you, Matt. It's great to be back. It's been about five years. I'm so glad to be back on your podcast.

[00:00:54] Matt: Yeah. You know, and since then we've launched the new podcast Situation Positive. And we're excited that you could join us on this journey. I know you wanted to be here today to talk about a conference you're attending, is that correct?

[00:01:09] Dennis: Yes. Yes. This would be my fourth conference with NOAH. NOAH's the national organization for albinism and hypopigmentation, they're a non-for-profit charity. And their goal is to spread awareness and help people with this specific condition of albinism gain information and also fellowship within the community.

[00:01:38] Matt: I think community is important that sense of fellowship, that sense of knowing that you're not going through it alone is so important. You know, not to get back to Justin Timberlake, but is NOAH going to make you dress like a happy grocery store guy and dance?

[00:01:57] Dennis: I, I think they need to do something different. Cause the last conference was at after we spoke last, it was 2018 and it was in Kansas City, Kansas, and yeah, Matt, you probably seen the video of me dancing with the kids on stage at the hotel in Kansas. But you know, it's, it's, it's been a while since maybe they'll have me do it again, but. They might try to one-up it. I don't know. We'll see.

[00:02:25] Matt: So where is the gathering this year?

[00:02:28] Dennis: The gathering kind of ironically is in Orlando, Florida. You know, w because a bunch of people with very pale skin, it's, you don't think of Florida being the place to go, but, but, you know, Disney World is there and a kid kids love Disney. So yeah, it's going to be mid-July. At a hotel in Orlando and I'm looking forward to it.

[00:02:57] Matt: And are we doing any special performances this year at the conference.

[00:03:01] Dennis: Oh, that's, that's interesting because as you mentioned, the last conference in 2018 the 2020 conference was obviously online because of COVID, but in 2018, I ran a workshop for kids doing improv.

I don't really teach that much, but I was happy to teach the kids some just basic you know, improv games back then. And as you said, I did the Timberlake video at the beginning to open the conference or we re-danced to it this year. It's going to be a little different. There are still going to be lots of fun activities for kids, but they want to expand it.

You know, adults with, with albinism too. So we're, we're actually doing a comedy night and they've hired a local improv team and I'm going to open the show by doing about 10, 15 minutes of stand up, so.

[00:03:47] Matt: Oh, wow. That's awesome.

[00:03:49] Dennis: Yeah, I'm excited because I'm a little rusty because of COVID. I haven't been able to go out and do stand-up, like in Boston. Or back in the day in Los Angeles. So, but I'm sure I'll groove right back into it.