It’s a familiar scene: A couple is sitting in a doctor’s office awaiting some test results for their unborn child. Unfortunately, the results are not positive. Their daughter has a catastrophic brain abnormality, their doctor says. If she does survive the birthing process, she’ll only live for a few hours, during which she will suffer constant seizures before ultimately asphyxiating. They’ll need to make a decision on termination. Although the doctor says he wishes he could tell them what to do, he says there’s only one person who can make the choice for them, a man known simply as “Greg.”

“Greg?” the confused mother asks, as tears stream down her face.

“Who the [bleep] is Greg?” the father chimes in angrily.

The camera then pans to a photo of Texas Governor Greg Abbott that is hanging on the wall of the room. The doctor pushes the photo aside, revealing a red phone—a direct line to the Greg in question. After a brief and chipper convo with the governor, the doctor turns to the couple and says, “Yeah, that’s going to be a no.”

“Best of luck to you,” he adds, before cheerfully exiting the room. The couple looks at each other in confusion and fear.

Although this video is fictitious, elements of it have played out in examination rooms throughout the country since the repeal of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Texas now bans abortions at all stages of pregnancy. Titled “Whose Choice,” this political ad from Mothers Against Greg Abbott, a political group founded in 2021 with the goal of ousting the governor, has garnered millions of views online and has likely sparked many spirited dinner table conversations since it was released in 2022.

And while Houstonians have likely seen the ad on their social media feeds or on TV, they may be unaware that Joe Grisaffi, the actor who stars as the doctor, is based right here in Houston. His journey from independent film actor, director, and writer to viral harbinger of bad news is full of many twists and turns.

You could say that Grisaffi, a born and raised Houstonian, was destined from birth to go into show business. His grandfather was the original manager of Louis Armstrong, a gig he had to give up right before Armstrong made it big when his wife made him choose between a life on the road or his family. He chose his family, thus gifting Houston with Grisaffi all these years later.

The actor, who grew up in Sharpstown, says he remembers always being interested in storytelling. He gravitated toward writing assignments in elementary school and got his degree in radio, television, and film at the University of Houston. Grisaffi took an acting class during his college years, and found himself doing a bit of community theater. Post-college, he briefly interned at an advertising agency before deciding to get into filmmaking.

“When you’re trying to do that full-time, of course, you’ve got to supplement that with all kinds of part-time jobs and temporary work when you’re getting started,” he says, noting that he did whatever side jobs he could find to make ends meet, including holding signs on the side of the road.

He eventually found his rhythm, and he’s appeared in a slew of independent films over the past three decades, with a small role every now and then in a major blockbuster like Scream: Legacy (as the voice of a 911 operator) or television show like Stranger Things (army medical examiner).

He’s also tried his hand at writing and directing through the years. His 2019 short film Joe Returns a Video, which he wrote and stars in, has an 8.6 rating on IMDB, which is no small feat. Shot in Houston, the humorous, 12-minute film, tells the story of a man who tries to return a video rental, a Steven Seagal film, that is overdue by 10,592 days—nearly three decades.

“I hadn’t written in a while, and I was just trying to find something quirky and silly to write, something like, Dude, Where’s My Car or White Castle,” Grisaffi says of the short. “This idea popped into my mind: What if I had a videotape that I forgot to return? You know, from back in the ’80s. And then I tried to return it.”

Although Grisaffi very much enjoys working on projects like this, his main source of income is as a casting director. He founded Southwest Casting in Houston in 2000, and he’s cast commercials for Subaru, American Express, and Conn’s as well as for movies and television shows. His big break, he says, was an Astrodome segment in Friday Night Lights, in which he had to maintain a group of nearly 700 extras a day for two weeks.

“The money is good there,” Grisaffi says. “As much as I want to pursue an acting career 100 percent of the time and directing, casting just really pays the bills.”

It’s through his casting company that Grisaffi landed his role in those viral Mothers Against Greg Abbott ads. The ads were shot in Houston and directed by local actor and director Chelsea Aldrich, who has known Grisaffi for at least 15 years. When Aldrich hired Grisaffi to do the casting for the project, Grisaffi asked if he could also audition.

“While she was collecting auditions from other actors, I auditioned, and I sent in a video just like anyone else did. And she cast me,” he says. “It happened to be something that I happen to also believe in and support, which helped. I think some actors shied away from it because it was political.”

Aldrich says the goal of the ads was to make people feel deep emotion, whether that’s through laughter or tears. If you can make people feel both all within 60 seconds, she says, then you have a good chance at communicating something to them that might otherwise have been tuned out.

“I’m a big fan of dark humor, and I’m a big fan of taking people kind of on a roller coaster of emotions in order to get the point across,” Aldrich says.

In another Mothers Against Greg Abbott ad, titled “No Choice,” the doctor (Grisaffi) is going over ultrasound results with someone who is just out of view. The baby is healthy, he tells her, but since it’s her first pregnancy, he suggests that she take advantage of some parenting classes. He also tells her to prepare for the possibility of a C-section and for long term health issues. The baby looks great, though, he says, before offering some congratulations. After the doctor leaves the room, the camera pans to the mother, who appears to be of elementary or middle school age.

Nancy Thompson, the founder of Mothers Against Greg Abbott, says that the impact of the simultaneously sad and funny videos has been much larger than one would think.

“Our ads fought back in an interesting and new way for politics,” Thompson says. “Across the United States, we really kind of helped, through our ads, to give permission to other democratic organizations to fight back and to say, We don’t have to do soft ads anymore. We can be as sarcastic and as funny as we want to be. It makes people stop and think.”

When the ads first came out, Grisaffi says that some of his friends told him to get ready for “the crazies” to come after him. While he’s read some angry comments online, he says he’s yet to see any direct attacks on himself.

“Nobody’s come to stalk or threaten me,” he says.

That’s all set to change with his next project, however. The actor is starting work on a low-budget Houston horror-comedy, directed by one of his friends, that’s inspired by ghost bikes. The film will tell the story of a local cyclist who is threatened by a vehicle while biking around town, then goes on a motorist-killing spree on a souped-up bike.

“The bike is crazy,” Grisaffi says, noting that it’s covered in spikes. “He can just pull a handle from the handlebar and it’s a knife.”

Sounds like this slasher could use a doctor in its cast, should Grisaffi want to return to his star role.