Biography
Ray was born in San Leandro, California on Valentines Day, 1972 to Rodney Hopper, an ironworker and Roxanne Bartlett, an artist. Young Ray spent his childhood on the move, and by the time he was 17 had attended 7 different schools. Ray joined the Air Force in 1990 and after graduating the Military Police Academy, was stationed primarily in the Middle East during the Persian Gulf War. In 1999 he graduated with honors from Eastern Washington University, where he served as the Greek Council Vice President and President of the Teachers Honor society. Since 2002 he has worked as a commercial/industrial electrician, Foreman and Project Manager. In addition to military law enforcement and the electrical trades, Ray has also been an EMT/Firefighter, teacher, coach and Red Cross volunteer; each experience helping him portray a variety of different characters. In 2016, an acting friend encouraged Ray to audition for an agent to represent him as an actor/model. A few days after he signed that contract, he successfully auditioned for the lead in the feature length dramatic comedy, Chased, where he played Afghanistan combat veteran, Sheriff Bill Hastings, produced and directed by Bruce Troxell. Since then Ray has starred in over a dozen short films, commercials for Amazon Prime and Mercury Insurance as well as roles in the series Capitol Murder, feature films Forbidden Power, Hooked, Friday The 13th Vengeance, His Name Was Jason, Big Trouble In Seattle, The Barn part II, Paper Tigers, and upcoming features They Came from Havamal, Red Swan and the highly anticipated Snow Falls. A novel trilogy, written by Julia Valenti and Ray hopper. Ray was the aggressive antagonist, "Rook" in One Way Or Another, a true story produced and directed by Rich Phelps; a film that was accepted into the Kentucky Film Festival, the Destiny City Film Festival and the Hollywood Short Film Festival, HollyShorts. Aside from acting and writing, Ray enjoys bodybuilding, restoring vintage automobiles and motorcycles. Ray is also the co-owner of Valentine Productions LLC, located in Philadelphia.
