Biography

Shawn Clement Nelson is an American actor and acting coach. Nelson was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He began teaching acting in New Orleans, Louisiana, in his early twenties after attending Louisiana State University and graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts in Drama. There, he was a classmate of Broadway and film stars Tom Hulce and Terrence Mann. He later moved to Houston, Texas, where he taught at Patrick Swayze's mother Patty's studio. While in Houston, he found his first major film role in Joe Dante's Piranha. He later appeared in two other Dante pictures, Innerspace and Gremlins 2.

Nelson moved to Los Angeles in 1979 and studied for a second time with film actor Donald Hotton, a student of Mira Rostova. When Hotton moved back to New York, Nelson took up the teaching and coaching mantle.