I've had the honor of working with:
Robert DeNiro, Meryl Streep, Edward Norton, Joaquin Phoenix, Willem Dafoe, Amanda Seyfried, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Schumer, Bruce Willis, Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonah Hill, Russel Crowe, Jeff Daniels, Alec Baldwin, Mark Ruffalo, Sam Rockwell, Richard Gere, Liev Schreiber, Parker Posey, Michael Caine, Elliot Page, Miles Teller, Zac Efron, Gabriel Byrne, Colin Farrel, Lucy Liu, Catherine Keener, Matt Damon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Courtney Cox, Candice Bergen, Patrick Dempsey, Molly Shannon, Vin Diesel, Ted Danson, John Turturro, Robert Duval, Michael Douglas and many more.
About Josh - from Josh
Yea, it’s me, Josh, writing this. So, here’s how I see it… My pops, Abraham Pais, was a Holocaust survivor who became a theoretical physicist who then worked with Albert Einstein for 11 years. My mom, Lila Atwill, was a bohemian painter and poet.
My dad’s work was all about advancing an understanding of our world and universe from the perspective of the atom. My mom was all about inspiring the creative force in herself and others.
It makes sense that I would be the founder of something called Committed Impulse, which involves creating from the energetic (atomic) truth in the body.
My dad with Einstein
As an actor, I’ve worked in over a hundred and fifty movies and TV shows.
I recently starred as the lead in A24’s FUNNY PAGES produced by the Safdie Brothers, which premiered at Cannes 2022. And wanna see me play myself? Check me out as Josh Pais in Nicole Holofcener’s YOU HURT MY FEELINGS (A24) and Jason Woliner’s Peacock series, PAUL T GOLDMAN. Next up, I'm writing a book for Penguin Random House about being Creatively Invincible, entitled: LOSE YOUR MIND. Release date: September 2025.
And, yea, I played Raphael in the original live action Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. If ya want my full jam, click here.
To this day, everything I learn on movie sets I share in Committed Impulse class as well as in the Online Program.
I grew up in New York City’s infamous East Village (7th Street between Avenues C and D) in a turbulent area that was known as Alphabet City. My childhood occurred when the hippie movement, and revolution, was in full bloom. To give me solace from the intensity surrounding our home, my mother introduced me to yoga when I was 6 years old. I have been practicing steadily ever since, including completing a yoga teacher training with Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman.
It was in my childhood living room that I started acting. Many weekends our apartment converted into a performance art space.
40 or so people would crowd into our apartment to watch and participate. The environment was creative, often drug induced, and ultimately, safe and filled with spontaneity. Beautifully, there was no pressure to do it right. Just create.
Fast forward. I’m at Syracuse University studying acting and directing.
The training at the time was based on Stanislavsky’s sense memory work. I sat in a chair and remembered “terrible” things that had happened to me (i.e. My dog was stolen when I was seven.) I was able to generate some body sensations that felt intense. And back then, I was all about being intense. But connecting these sense memories within a scene always felt disjointed to me. I felt I had to leave the scene and do my work so I could be in the scene. It didn’t make sense to a simple guy like me.
Then, a new teacher arrived. Her name was Polly and she had just come back from working in Poland with a director named Jerzy Grotowski.
One morning she introduced us to a physically engaging exercise called The Cat (No, it’s not about pretending to be a kitty) that required us to push our bodies beyond where we thought we could go. I discovered a level of aliveness and a sense of being truly present that I had never before experienced. I break down this exercise in the CI Online Training Program.
Later that day, in my scene study class, I noticed that I was more spontaneous and creative than I had ever been.
I didn’t have to conjure up sense memories to do the scene. Everything I needed was somehow right there. I was able to live in the scene. Didn’t have to delve into my past. I didn’t have to lug around my well thought out analysis, or “as if's.” Something had awakened within me. In a very real way, doing The Cat in that studio was the beginning of a lifelong passion for creating in the present moment.
That was the beginning of Committed Impulse.
After college, I sought out theatre companies with a strong physical component in their approach. I worked with members of Joe Chaikin’s Open Theatre and Shuji Terayama’s Avante-Garde Theatre of Tokyo. Trained with Tadashi Suzuki and his company and worked extensively with Gabrielle Roth (to name a few of my guides and mentors). I was on a quest to find a way to bring all of this physical aliveness to my work as an actor.
Then, I became a member of the Circle Rep Lab Company. Circle Rep was a hot Off-Broadway theatre company that did stellar work. The Lab Company provided a place where actors, directors, and designers could rehearse and put up plays in the black box theatre at Spring Street and 6th Avenue, in NYC.
It was there that I started directing. I put a group of twelve actors together and began experimenting for a 14 month period.
I wanted the actors to be fully alive, very tuned in to one another, and completely spontaneous.
Much of what unfolded during that exploration has evolved into the core training of Committed Impulse. During that 14 month period, I periodically offered public viewings of the exercises and work I was developing. Quickly I got requests to train other theatre companies and then to teach at NYU. I explained that I wasn’t a teacher. Nonetheless, the requests didn’t stop. I stopped saying no and unearthed a deep passion for teaching.
Even after my acting career started taking off, I didn’t want to stop teaching.
Frankly, it’s one of the best ways to learn and to keep growing. I have been fortunate to work consistently in movies and television throughout my career, and I owe everything to the principles I have picked up, and uncovered, along the way.
To this day, everything I learn on movie sets I share in Committed Impulse class as well as in the Online Program.
Sometimes it almost feels that I act in movies and TV so I can share the knowledge with the CI community.
I owe great thanks to the countless movies stars and journeymen I have had the opportunity to play opposite. They have been my teachers.
I continue to be blown away by the talent of the tens of thousands of performers, entrepreneurs, and artists I have worked with in Committed Impulse. I am thrilled to see them thrive on television, in film, theatre, boardrooms, art studios, classrooms, courtrooms, Ted talks; and maybe my greatest joy is how present they’ve become in their day to day life.
I live in New York City, Sag Harbor, Upstate NY, and Venice, California.
