Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Actor, Podcaster, and Improv Guy: Jarrett Lennon Kaufman
0 Plays2 seconds ago
Known by his stage name, Jarrett Lennon has appeared in beloved shows like Cheers and Freaks & Geeks, as well as the haunting Short Cuts. We talk about improv, acting, and what it's like when you succeed without trying as a kid. How ADHD can actually help you accomplish things, and why acting can be a coping tool for autism. Jarett debunks a few rumors of Hollywood dicketry, and helps parse the importance of community vs isolation. We also talk stage parents, prodigies, fakeness, rejections--and why people really ought to remember their passwords.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to The Mentally Oddcast, where we talk with creatives about neurodivergence, trauma, addiction, and all the other things that impact and inform our art. Our goal is to show everyone that no matter what you're going through, you are not alone and you can make art about it.
00:00:24
Speaker
Music
00:00:34
Speaker
You are listening to the Mentally
Host Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:36
Speaker
Oddcast. My name is Wednesday, leave Friday, and we are brought to you by Sometimes Hilarious Horror Magazine. Do find us on Ko-fi, that's ko-fi slash sometimes hilarious horror.
Guest Introduction: Jarrett Lennon-Kaufman
00:00:49
Speaker
This week, we are speaking with Jarrett Lennon-Kaufman, who is an improviser, an actor, and an IT manager who lives in Los Angeles. He is the co-creator, executive producer, editor, and sometimes host of the Super Legit Podcast.
00:01:08
Speaker
His acting credits include Freaks and Geeks, Gilmore Girls, Cheers, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Robert Altman film Shortcuts, which I love.
Exploring Horror Films and Acting
00:01:19
Speaker
These days, he can be found performing monthly on stage in North Hollywood at the Super Legit Spectacular. Wow. Welcome, Jarrett. Thanks for being here. oh thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
00:01:32
Speaker
Right on. Well, we always start by asking guests to tell us about the first horror movie that they remember seeing. So I will be fascinated to hear yours. Oh, I bet. And I'm fascinated to to come up with the answer. i Recall on these types of things is always tricky for me, which I bet we'll talk about later. um And it's also funny because I bet my answer is going to be really unusual just because of my background. There's a very good chance that the first horror film I saw was something I was in.
00:02:02
Speaker
Because I was, you know, growing up, I started acting very young. And also my mother was like very protective of violence and things like that. And so there's a very good chance she kept me away from any horror movies for a while. ah And so it's very likely that probably I'm guessing the movie Highway to Hell.
00:02:21
Speaker
which was a somewhat comedic, if not full on comedic horror film with a ton of cameos, was the the first horror film I would have watched. um It wasn't a good movie, even though it was supposed to be. it was ah it was written by Brian Helglund, who went on to do L.A. Confidential and like a lot of major stuff. um But it it literally I'm i'm not kidding. It it it was It fell apart so badly that by the time it was released, it was I think it was unrated. No one would put it in the theater. We literally had to go to what turned out to be a porn theater in Los Angeles to be able to see it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, the the guy at the theater was really side-eyeing this like six or seven-year-old kid coming into his establishment, but he knew it wasn't. the movie so it's like all right come on in now if i could make your answer all about me for a moment please do um i've been asking guests this question since i think late in season one and this is the first time someone has named a movie that i have not seen and i don't think i was even familiar with this its existence It's pretty incredible because it has it has a combination of people who weren't quite someone yet. like this This had Chad Lowe back when only his big brother Rob was known.
00:03:39
Speaker
It had Christy Swanson. This would be pre-Buffy the Vampire Slayer. ah And then also had like Patrick Bergen who was a big deal British actor who went on to some major things. And had tons of cameos like Stiller and Mira were in it along with their son, Ben. um had all of these like comedians and in in cameo roles that had like Gilbert Gottfried playing Hitler.
00:04:03
Speaker
um it was the craziest thing. i mean it should have been brilliant. And it was the script was, but the producers just kind of screwed it up as they went. And then, yeah, it was it was sad. But it's available for streaming online. And it's probably worth seeing to some degree. it was It was fun. wow yeah yeah that is amazing but yeah around that same time i also did uh uh dean arcoons's servants of twilight but that was even harder to see it took years to eventually find that on cinemax so i know that wasn't the first one i saw wow okay so so right so you're an actor yes and uh you uh
00:04:45
Speaker
You are AUDHD, so that's autism with ADHD.
Neurodivergence: ADHD and Autism Diagnosis
00:04:50
Speaker
Now, I'm fascinated by that because it seems like that's something that is...
00:04:58
Speaker
would would make it much more difficult to do the things that actors need to do. Things like staying focused, hitting your marks, memorizing things. um So I want to get right into that. So when were you initially diagnosed with ADHD?
00:05:11
Speaker
That was, I think, right about 10 years ago, maybe slightly over 10 years ago. So well into my adulthood. I was in my 30s at that point. um So yeah, very late, very late for me.
00:05:23
Speaker
yeah Okay. And so you had that diagnosis. Did you also find out about the autism then? or did that No, that was that was much more recent. So the the the ADHD thing, as I said, yeah, about about ten a little over 10 years ago, ah autism was this year.
00:05:39
Speaker
Yeah, or beginning of this year. so Yeah, I just found out about my own as well, and I was a little taken aback by it. um Yeah. So... So you were old enough to have a ah informed opinion on whether or not your diagnosis was accurate, um unlike kids who just kind of have to go with what they're told. Yes, yes. No, absolutely. I mean, in both cases, it was it was ah the ability to self-reflect. I mean, on the ADHD side, that one was probably, i guess, the most the most surprising or shocking just because it it really did come out of nowhere for me to even consider it. In that in that case,
00:06:18
Speaker
I had plenty of people online, friends, memes, you name it, with all sorts of references to ADHD behavior. And ah just it's a repeat thing I hear with other people, too. In every case, it was like, oh, love that's silly because we all do that.
00:06:35
Speaker
You know, whatever it is that you're seeing the joke about, it's like, well, I do that. That's not just an ADHD thing. And I think it just, it was a slow build of me. And I don't know what the tipping point was, but of me realizing, wait, if I do all of those things and all of these people are saying that's ADHD, is it, is it, is it possible?
00:06:55
Speaker
Um, and and plus with the various problems I was having in life with, with focus and memory and, and, uh, executive function and everything. Yeah. Whatever it was, was the tipping point where was like, okay, uh, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna see someone about this and and check this out. And, and so I went through the, went through the process with my, um,
00:07:17
Speaker
my my I think I was with Kaiser at the time and like their mental health program, not the best in the world, but this part of it actually went very smoothly and was really well handled. um And I remember going through the all the forms, because they put a bunch of us in a room, and you have to fill out all these forms and answer all these questions. And it's like pages and pages. And I was laughing at it, because like, is this the test, whether I can even finish this? um and then And at some point, they came in and explained, OK, we're going to take all of these from you and and review them. and then we're going to bring you in one by one. And just just so you're clear, we won't diagnose you here on the spot. That's going to come later. Your your yeah psychiatrist is going to reach out to you and review the results with you. We're just going to go over things and explain what the process is. And then when they brought me into the room, they were like, yeah, we don't only have to bother with all that. You're off the chart. Yeah. And they showed me the chart and literally like you know it's like an audio waveform just capping out and flattening at the top. I was like, okay, yep, yep, this all this is all starting to make sense.
00:08:16
Speaker
ah So I think the the autism one was interesting just because much more recent. I had ah i have a very good friend who went through this this whole thing recently. on their side and was was really blindsided by it. They they had a traumatic event. and And the way they handled the event started and giving them some questions. And their their partner finally was like, you realize you're autistic, right?
00:08:40
Speaker
And they're like, well, what do you mean? So they so they they then you know built ah many spreadsheets full of all of the facts and information and history and so on of it and all of their research and everything is like, well, that's kind of evidence too. um But yeah, anyway, they they shared all of that with me and their whole journey and their whole shocking results. And I went through it and I went through some of the the online self-tests that they had verified were actually well well considered online by so by psychiatrists. And yeah,
00:09:10
Speaker
I did those and like they were all pretty pretty conclusively high numbers. was like okay um I'm starting to track some patterns here and so then I finally did a uh had myself a professionally evaluated and yeah level one. um You asked a question though and look at that I actually remember the question you asked. about how it affects ah you know acting and
Acting as a Coping Mechanism
00:09:35
Speaker
performing. um And i think I think what helps with that is I've been an actor since I was the age of four.
00:09:43
Speaker
So it was formative for me. um Doing the work I do, memorizing dialogue, performing, knowing exactly what I'm supposed to do ah was all there from very early on from the beginning.
00:09:56
Speaker
And also since I enjoy it, I assume my hyper focus kicks in. um it becomes strategic. It becomes, again, it's it's what I love doing. And so it kicks in the brain that's like, no, I need to very carefully know exactly what I'm doing. And then I think also the ah rejection sensitivity that we often deal with, that also kicks in because the last thing I want to do is disappoint anyone, um which is incredibly difficult to succeed at. But if it's something like that where I'm already good at it and everything else, it becomes like that hyper – again, the hyper focus and the hyper obsession of I need to get this right and I need to be the least difficult person on this set.
00:10:43
Speaker
Right. It's okay if there are problems, but I never want to be the one causing the problem. Yeah. As long as I didn't cause it. And that was ah that was a thing for a long time was like i was I was famously the only one who definitely knew all of my lines. I mean, there there are definitely some some you some funny moments in history with ah with lines being forgotten and very – we might get to that later actually. But yeah, like I was always the guy who knew his stuff and whether I was six years old or or hopefully now still.
00:11:18
Speaker
Cool. I wonder, um one of the things that I talk about a lot with creators on the show is that Once they get an accurate diagnosis, sometimes they amend or or pivot in how they do their work. yeah um Like when I was diagnosed, I realized why I was having such difficulty with long form work.
00:11:43
Speaker
And I largely pivoted to short stories and novellas. Now I'm aware that you are making a pivot like you do a lot more improv. Yes. Which involves less memorization, um less, you know, finicky things and more using the force to to present a performance. um do Do you think those things are connected for you? I absolutely do. And yes, I think think the ADHD, of the two diagnoses, the ADHD one was the biggest impact to me because it
00:12:14
Speaker
it It explained so many behaviors and so many ways preferred to handle things. I mean, all of the ah the reliance on deadlines to get anything done, the reliance on external pressure, ah the the The fact that, I mean, I spent all that time convinced that I didn't know how to do improv because I i i knew people in improv. i knew I knew improvisers who were incredibly talented at it. And I spent like the first 30 years of my life going, man, i i wish i could was I wish I had those skills, but I don't. Completely oblivious to the fact that improv was actually how I solved everything.
ADHD and Improv Skills
00:12:51
Speaker
Like I was never the person to prepare
00:12:54
Speaker
um because I wasn't capable of it. I was the person who could wing it and wing it incredibly well to the point where most people thought I was prepared. And so when I did get into improv, which was right around the time of the diagnosis, I think it was shortly after it, I did initially...
00:13:12
Speaker
strongly believe that the ADHD was going to make improv incredibly difficult for me. And what I quickly found was a everybody I met had it. And, and B while yes, some, some of it is, some of it absolutely gets in the way of skills. I wish I had an improv.
00:13:31
Speaker
Other parts of it are, you know, uh, I hesitate always with using the the superpower analogy because people do like to to frame ADHD as a superpower. And I'll never take that away from anybody who wants to turn into a positive for them. But I also hesitate to use it because I also feel like it can kind of ah um it it can kind of counter somebody who is is struggling and and wants to acknowledge their struggle. like We all talk about, oh, it's a superpower. It's like, okay, but but that person having trouble and having pain with it is valid too. ah but
00:14:05
Speaker
Parts of improv absolutely benefit from my brain you know bouncing off of eight eight walls and connecting dots that other people aren't connecting off of what I heard. And so combining those things where the hyper focus makes it so like I'm playing chess on stage, where i'm I'm tracking the conversation, I'm tracking the details, and my nitpicky nature, like that that part of me that gets distracted by the thing somebody said that was wrong,
00:14:33
Speaker
Well, it turns out in real life where I have to tamp that down and not correct people, on stage, it's the most fun thing because you get to notice the mistakes and then correct them in real time and justify them. And the best improv is built out of mistakes.
00:14:50
Speaker
And so if if I'm the one getting distracted by the mistake, that's actually oftentimes valuable. I'm the one going, hold on, I heard you say that one weird thing. And half the audience also heard the one weird thing.
Audience Interaction in Improv
00:15:02
Speaker
And so now that I'm building off the one weird thing, the audience is so happy because they they got they had their own minds reinforced of, yes, I did hear that thing. You're right. And now we're going to go down this crazy tangent off of the one weird thing that everybody else would have ignored.
00:15:18
Speaker
um So that that for me is a big part of where it's super fun is is the the squirrels. All those squirrel moments are powerful in improv. Which, I mean, you hear a lot of actors talk about why, like, that's one of the reasons that they prefer stage acting to film. And then why so many huge actors go back to the stage because of the immediacy and the ephemerality and just, yeah, that that idea that you can make a little change because, I mean, i'm I'm a theater person, so I've gone to shows where you see the same show as an audience member. You see it three nights in a row, and it's different every time. Yeah. Every time... you're so glad that you went again to see that other nuance, especially when it's, you know, something like Shakespeare, where you know the work well and you know that the people who are performing it are super, super into it. So when you when you're doing improv, like thematically, what what goes on there? Is there like a huge variance or are there certain notes that you want to hit every time? Like I know very little about
00:16:23
Speaker
Sure. No, that's a great question. and And there's a lot of range to it because I think there's you know there's a great a quote from one of my my improv teachers. And it's not even it's not even his own quote. hes He borrowed it from someone else. So since I can't remember who it's attributed to, I'll leave the attribution out. But it was ah the worst thing that ever happened to improv was putting the word comedy after it.
00:16:49
Speaker
um ah And and it's it is it's funny because that's you know that's an oversimplification. Improv comedy is what most people expect and love, and it's it's the funniness of it, and it's the absurdity of it, and it's the laughter and
Themes in Improv: Comedy and Drama
00:17:01
Speaker
so on. But you can absolutely do dramatic improv, and some of it is incredible. And also...
00:17:09
Speaker
Good improv, at least in my opinion, is so often just rooted in truth and honesty and and real human, recognizable human nature. And so that's when I think people are the most engaged is when the characters on stage, even if they're aliens or lobsters or robots or, you know, a dinosaur traveling into the future or like whatever absurd thing might come up.
00:17:32
Speaker
It's when you recognize yourself or your brother or your mother or your next door neighbor in that character. It's like, okay, as absurd as this is, i know who i know i know that person and I recognize their behavior as something that makes sense to me. And now I'm connected and engaged with it, which I think that that is something it shares with a lot of good written narrative work is I'm the least engaged when I have i can't comprehend the motivations of the characters. But when they're making... yeah the The truth inside the lie. That's what Stephen King calls it. Nice. Nice. Yes. Well, well yes. Absolutely. I gotta look into that guy. He sounds smart. Yeah. Yeah, he's written couple of things. Really? like Oh, gosh. More than one, yeah. Oh, wow. oh The overachiever there. He's he's yeah' a real up-and-comer, that one. um
00:18:25
Speaker
But yeah yeah, I think i think that's that's core to it, is finding the humanity in it. And so you can absolutely, thematically, you can go over the place. I mean, there's obviously, you can get it some really dark humor where you're you're hitting really sensitive issues. Obviously, politics is huge in it, and you're you're going to land there whether or not you want to. Sometimes you land there very lightly, and it's just that little nod to the audience of whatever is going on right now. Sometimes you're going into deep political analogy because that's just that's where you are, not to mention it's therapy for us. like When we're performing on stage or in the podcast,
00:19:00
Speaker
this is how we get our thoughts and feelings and emotions out. And sometimes, and frequently that's going to be whatever is, is hurting us in that moment, which is going to be something big in the world. So yeah, but it's all over the place. As I said, you know, Comedy is probably what we're aiming for most. And yeah, when you talk about beats you're aiming for, there's quote unquote rules in improv.
00:19:25
Speaker
ah The first one being there are no rules in improv, but but you absolutely get taught things early on that then once you're good at, you can throw those away. But a lot of those little things are, are they're useful useful tools to follow to help you have a successful show.
00:19:42
Speaker
since so that you can get good enough good enough at performing that you can then ignore those rules and still have a successful show because it's really hard to get on stage if you know you're gonna suck and you hate sucking at it sure sure now now as an improv guy i have to ask you kind of a weird question this was not on our list um now the the movie ted 2 is has two scenes that I think are some of the most brilliant comedic scenes ever. One is the the F. Scott Fitzgerald scene, but the other one is the comedy club where people are are yelling things out. Are you familiar with the scene that I'm i'm referring to? Unfortunately, I'm not, but but I can feel out where you're going here. So let's let's see.
00:20:28
Speaker
Well, it's it's ah the the two main characters. So Marky Mark and and Ted the bear. Yeah. And they're at the improv show and what is fun to them is to yell out the most depressing things they can think of. So with in the timeframe, you know, like we need a place, 9-11, you know, or or no, no, give us a different place. And they yelled, the offices of Charlie Hebdo. and Yeah. So then the like the improv people were just horrified and disgusted. So you you must get a lot of wise asses and they are not all well-intentioned.
00:21:06
Speaker
How do you deal with that? I mean, it it is a very common it is of such a common joke that the most obvious answer you always get when you ask for a suggestion is dildo. Yeah. And you'll hear this in like at any improviser. Famous people like Amy Poehler will make that like will reference that everyone references that because it's just the thing. Also, for some for some reason, pineapple. That's just an incredibly common answer.
00:21:30
Speaker
So there's there's a few tricks. I mean, for one thing, oftentimes when you're asking for a suggestion from the audience, you will intentionally burn some of the things you don't want to hear because you'll say something like, you know, we want a suggestion, you know, like dildo or pineapple. So yeah that's one thing is like you'll throw out something you don't want to hear from them. So they immediately know it's not it. Sometimes it's, oh, that was mine. Right, exactly. Sometimes you'll aim for something a lot more interesting. Like um my first team that i was on for three and a half years, we did over 250 shows. We asked for um we asked for a song lyric.
00:22:05
Speaker
um and And you'd be surprised how often we didn't get repeats. They occasionally happen. But we even used to put together ah playlists online of all of the songs that we got suggestions for from the audience, which was fun. ah But you'll absolutely get people who are determined to to be jerks about it. and say something dumb.
00:22:23
Speaker
And different people have different philosophies. I think ah one philosophy is you always take the suggestion, whatever it is. And sometimes you get to cleverly turn it back on that person. you can You can take jabs at them in the scene by making comments about, you know hey you know maybe so some character wants to be the center of attention and is says you know the most you know ah the rudest things possible. And now you build a character out of that audience member. And everyone around them knows what it is. That person might even know what it is. But at that point, it's like, OK, we're all being playful with one another. um And then another another tactic, which some people dislike, but I think it's perfectly reasonable from a ah self-preservation standpoint, is you can you can reject a suggestion. You absolutely can. And I have heard some some people reject them, usually in a funny, playful way where the rest of the audience is with them and laughs at it and is like, yeah, we all agree that was a terrible suggestion. Does anyone have a a suggestion that doesn't suck? Right, right. they could absolutely do that, yes. Or someone could say, I heard and something completely different and people laugh at that or whatever it is. So there's definitely tactics there and you'll get you'll get bad audience members. But if you've got...
00:23:35
Speaker
If you've got know a good supportive team on stage, they'll get around it and they'll they'll end up weaving that into what they do masterfully, which I've seen so many times. And it's so much fun to watch and a bad experience turned into a good one.
00:23:51
Speaker
Now, something like that must be impacted by ah having of an increased understanding of your diagnosis. Like, I would imagine that after shows, anytime you have to have those kinds of interactions, if they get unpleasant, if you find yourself having to maneuver, you know, in in a particular way, that you're going to go over that in your head a lot. So how does that break down for you?
00:24:18
Speaker
Yes, obsessing over the show afterwards is a time-honored tradition in improv to the point where like there there there's advice given out in the community. I think one of the best things I ever heard is you're only allowed to discuss your show for no longer than the length of the show.
00:24:36
Speaker
ah So like it it used to be this classic thing where you have this note session afterwards, you get together in the alley next to the theater, and then you tear tear yourselves apart for all the mistakes you made and all of the things your team could have done better and blah, blah, blah. And the whole time the whole time you're standing there grumbling about how bad your show was, there's people walking past you and tapping you on the shoulder and saying, hey, great show. And we're all like, oh, thank you so much. And then we go back to beating ourselves up over how bad the show was. um But yeah, that's that's one thing is like, okay, we had a 20-minute set. We can talk about this for 20 minutes. And then we're never allowed to think about it again. Obviously, it doesn't really work that way. I still think about my class shows from 10 years ago and the things I could have done better.
00:25:16
Speaker
But those do also fuel the decisions I make going forward. And I'm much better at now at just letting it go because... I know I'll have another show in a month or a week or whatever, and that one will be better or it'll be worse and I'll forget it too.
00:25:34
Speaker
um i mean, half the time I get off the stage and I don't remember what happened on it other than the audience laughed a lot and I had a great time. Well, that's just it. I mean, the expectation between like what the performers do and what the audience expects are so disparate because you are going to judge success as the distance between what you were trying to do and what you actually did.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yes, yes. an audience member has no idea what you were trying to do. Their objective was to laugh. And if they've done that, then it's a success for them. And that's where the audience is so valuable for me. and And I used to get this back in the days with sitcoms too, is like the live audience is fuel for me. And I'll perform in ways that I never did in any rehearsal ah when I'm getting the reactions because they drive... They steer me in real time. And that happens on stage all the time where I can say a thing that was a throwaway thing that did not matter to me. It meant nothing. It was it was a comment that I will forget two seconds after I say it, except the audience pops on it.
00:26:42
Speaker
And now I know I found something they like and care about. And so I had no idea until that moment that that line, that the the words coming out of my mouth were meaningful. And now suddenly I know, oh, I can build something off of this. And maybe it's early in the scene, and now ah my character's entire point of view is built off of that one line I said that got the reaction. And then that snowballs and...
00:27:07
Speaker
You get all of these new new characters and scenes and ideas and locations and everything built purely off of the fact that the audience liked a thing I didn't expect them to like.
00:27:20
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. That's huge. It is. It really, really is. So they're, mean, that that's the thing is they're part of it. Like the, and that's the beauty. and You talked about theater. It comes up there too, but yeah, the audience is a cast member in a way. And it's really, really powerful.
00:27:40
Speaker
Wow. Wow.
00:27:43
Speaker
Wow, that's blowing my mind. i need just a minute with that. um Because I actually, i want very much to explore like the connection between your late in life diagnosis and how that's impacting your career. um I wonder, like, I personally, i have a lot of bitterness about not having been diagnosed earlier. Yeah. Because I struggled a lot and was very much, like, judged and blamed for, like, you know, not trying hard enough. Or, oh, you're so smart. Why isn't this working for you? Yeah.
00:28:18
Speaker
has Is that your experience as well? I mean, it seems like if you're a child actor, you feel success that adults don't achieve at an early
Impact of Being a Gifted Child Actor
00:28:27
Speaker
age. I don't know how that that plays into it. ah Yes, you do. And it it creates the same dynamic that I'm sure you've heard a lot with ah with people with ADHD and neurotypical in general, which is we tend to be the gifted kids.
00:28:41
Speaker
And the gifted kids are the most likely to turn out to grow up to be having all of these challenges as adults because um we we weren't used to having to work for it the same way other people do.
00:28:55
Speaker
And so for me, it's the same thing is i grew up acting. And getting all these compliments about, oh, what a great actor I was and how natural I was and, bla bla you know, ah you know don't don't take acting classes because it'll ruin your natural delivery. Like, you you you know, you do all that. And so all of that gets in your head of, oh, I'm just really good at things.
00:29:19
Speaker
And none of those things I had to work to be good at because it's just where I started, which for being a four-year-old, I was much better than any typical four-year-old at acting. But that doesn't necessarily translate upward into being that good as an adult. Being a child prodigy oftentimes levels you off as you become an adult to being just as good as any adult who worked for it.
00:29:46
Speaker
And on top of that, all of the other people were working for it. And I didn't have to because work just came to me. You know, when you're an actor, you have an agent who's bringing you auditions. You're going out on the audition. You're getting callbacks. You're eventually getting the job. You're doing the job. And you're waiting for the next job to be handed to you on a silver platter. I mean, it's, it's yeah you know, I'm exaggerating that because, of course, the reality is most actors aren't working at all. It's like, There's no silver platter. There isn't even a paper plate. um But that's, you know, my career was relatively good for my entire childhood because I was, i you know, I was at that level of doing well enough that people liked my work and I was getting it easily.
00:30:32
Speaker
But as i as I hit transition age um into adulthood, that's probably the time I should have been putting work in like my peers were. That's the time I should have been studying the craft. That's the time I probably should have been creating my own things, searching out opportunities of my own. I mean, again, tons of people who are successful who literally don't do any of that. I know there's you know so many of those found off the street kind of things, but a lot of the people I respect were putting in all of the work. And I i didn't know how to do that. I never had to do that. I didn't have to be
00:31:10
Speaker
searching and fighting for it. And so um i think that is the very first place that I can now look back historically and go, my lack of a diagnosis and my lack of understanding of my limitations hurt me here. Because I stopped acting professionally 2005.
00:31:30
Speaker
in two thousand five um Work had dried up a lot. I was no longer or qualifying for for health insurance through Screen Actors Guild on a regular basis. it would Yeah, yeah i had I had never lapsed in my life. And in that year or the year before, was the first time i i hadn't worked enough to qualify. And it would come in fits and spurts. Like I'd get it back for three months and it was gone again. And I had a had a baby and I was married to someone else at that time. And it was, I had responsibilities and the work wasn't there. And I had to i had to to pivot away from it. But on top of that, i i know i was not,
00:32:14
Speaker
doing what I was supposed to be doing. I didn't get new headshots when I should have gotten new headshots to represent who I was at that time. I had my agent at the time sent me the con, you know, my renewed contract ah with them to sign. And it sat on my table for, I can't tell you how long, because it sat there long enough for them to send me a replacement one.
00:32:39
Speaker
Oh, wow. And that also sat there. And i I didn't sign it. And of course, then eventually I didn't have an agent anymore. And that I had no clue what was going on in my head that would keep me from doing as something as simple as opening a manila envelope and going through 10 pages and signing five signatures and, you know,
00:33:04
Speaker
10 initials and putting it back in and mailing it out. But that seemed so overwhelmingly difficult to me. And now I know what executive function is. And now I know why that's hard. And now I know things like do it now and other coping mechanisms I have to just get things done while my brain lets me and reminders and all these other tricks. But I didn't have that then. So I just...
00:33:32
Speaker
Floundered and then questioned who I was as a person and and how deserving I was of anything. Wow. Yeah. if If I may, um I would like to ask about ah your parents role in your childhood acting career.
00:33:51
Speaker
Much has been said about stage parents and the varying degrees of meddlesomeness and even abuse. I mean, we we know stories, you know, Danny Bonaduce and Wil Wheaton and and people like that. And some have come through that beautifully. and And I certainly don't want to imply anything about your parents. I know nothing about them. But...
00:34:13
Speaker
Um, so yeah, I was essentially raised just by my mother. My father was loosely in the picture, but, um, um, and he's, he's long, long since passed away. but he, he was, uh, he was an every other weekend dad. Um, know, there's, there's some complicated history to what, what my parentage situation was that I'm, I'm, I'm not going to get into depth on. Um, but I was, I was raised by my mother. Um, and, uh, she made a very big deal out of the fact that she definitely didn't want to be a stage mother.
00:34:43
Speaker
Um, And to, to, I think to, to some degree, to a heavy degree, i don't think she was a typical stage mother by any stretch. um I, you know, she was fairly protective of me. There's definitely a lot of situations that i successfully evaded and avoided where I know people I worked with at the time went down the, the dark paths. You know, most are are doing great now, but they absolutely went through like the drugs and alcohol and all sorts of scary things. And, she very carefully steered me away and around all of that. So i i'm I'm grateful for that in retrospect. It definitely made some things harder though, because I definitely didn't have a lot of the connections and bonding that other actors were having at the time with one another.
00:35:28
Speaker
Some of which, honestly helped their careers, but also, you know, gave them like really good human connections with other people in it too. um So it was, you know, it was a double-edged sword there, but she definitely avoided a lot of the the dangers. It was tricky. My, you I, I, I strongly, now that I understand everything about this, I strongly believe ah that, that she has probably some of the same undiagnosed issues I have. And so it it definitely made some places harder. There were definitely times where feathers were ruffled in my career by by her reactions to things that I think lost me opportunities or work and so on. like you know
00:36:08
Speaker
But there were definitely challenges there, but I would say overall when it came to the career, you know i I didn't suffer um any of the types of horror stories you you hear about all the time now, and I'm pretty grateful for for getting through that unscathed.
00:36:27
Speaker
Wow, yeah. Sounds like, my goodness. Because, yeah, I mean, I was reading your IMDb biography, and it does kind of look like...
00:36:39
Speaker
Your mom, I don't want to say she was resistive to it necessarily, but it seems like it it took a lot of people, including Ed Asner, which, oh my God, that blows my mind. yeah um so I have a couple of questions about that. like First of all, it sounds like you grew up around Hollywood people.
00:36:56
Speaker
So how did how did that come to pass? Yeah, I mean, in that case, my mother was working on a a charity project for, i think I think it was called Africa Tomorrow was the name of it. You know, she used to tell the story a lot. So I pick up the details second or third hand. But she was working on a charity project that Ed Asner was also involved in. So she in that case, she knew him through that. And in general, I just I had a very outgoing personality. I was definitely raised to have a good vocabulary and enunciated fairly well for a kid of my age. And so ah to hear her tell that I had a lot of people basically on a regular basis saying he should be an actor. And at least the way the way she always told us like, no, I don't want to do that to him. I don't want to put him in the limelight. And she had been in the music industry before that. So she definitely had a sense of how bad things can be. ah
00:37:50
Speaker
And I had also had, I had had ah pneumonia and I had i had ah been diagnosed with a growth disorder, which we had heavy ah heavy medical bills built around that and so on. And it finally, it was it was like, it was his encouragement of saying, listen, he gets some work and it'll pay for his medical bills. Just that alone's worth it. And I think that was probably that that's supposedly was the like the the moment that it kind of clicked of, OK, I guess we'll try it.
00:38:19
Speaker
And so I I'm not sure how she necessarily found an agent in those days. There were far fewer of them and far fewer of me. So it was easier. But she, you know, we we met with an agent. They're like, oh, you know, cute kids, you know good personality, whatever. We'll send them out on an audition.
00:38:35
Speaker
And it was for a commercial for my first Transformers, which were like the, you know, the kindergarten version of Transformers
Early Success in Acting
00:38:42
Speaker
toys. And I booked the i booked the commercial. And they're like, oh, well, good, good. That's great. But, you know, beginners left. Let's try something else. And so then they sent me on an audition for a miniseries that filmed in New York. It was called Nutcracker about like ah a Mormon, I think it was a Mormon wife who had her husband killed or something like that. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. It was this big deal thing at the time. And I booked that job too and flew to New York to film that. So like my very first two auditions.
00:39:12
Speaker
I booked out of the gate. And so there was clearly something there. And so it just kind of, it steamrolled from there. And I, you know, like I grew a good reputation with people and, and, you know, casting directors knew me, producers knew me and, and it just kept building from there until it, yeah.
00:39:29
Speaker
That's scary, though, because because the thing is, as ah a person who who tells stories, when you hear something like that, like somebody tried something new and there was a success and then there was another success. There was so much success as a as a viewer or a reader. You know, you feel like you're getting set up.
00:39:46
Speaker
Yes. eighty five with this side This ain't going to go right. All right. Yeah. you And you're just waiting for the thing to happen. The other two, you know. Yeah. yeah I would think that might be ah less as a kid, you know, you'd feel that a little less, but maybe not though, because sensitive kids, man.
00:40:06
Speaker
Yeah. add I definitely, i definitely didn't have that sense. It just, it was all so, it was also normal and just the way my life was structured. And, and so it, it,
00:40:16
Speaker
it's not perspective I had to even question it, which I guess is is a good thing. You know, it's certainly one of the, one the only times in my life I was, I was truly confident in anything. And it wasn't like a, it wasn't a false confidence or anything. It's just, i I, I was good at something and I knew I was good at it. And people regularly also told me I was good at it. And um I can't take compliments for anything now, but at the time i guess they all so sank in because I really didn't question my skills.
00:40:48
Speaker
Okay. All right. So I looked through your IMDb because I was really hoping that you had done something that I would remember. And you did. Yay! well, everybody watched Cheers. Of course. was worse a great fan of of Cheers. And because I was raised by conservatives who did not especially value reading and education, i was very drawn to the whole, like, Frasier and Lilith thing. I didn't... Like as ah as a teenager, I didn't necessarily understand that they were also sort of poking fun at the people that they were. Sure. Because Kelsey Grammer was just so funny. And, and you know, that that like dry wit that was articulate. And I'd find myself like looking up French words to see like what he was actually joking about. Yes. um And so you you were on Cheers. and Yes. And you played Carla's son. Mm-hmm.
00:41:39
Speaker
Whose dad was like a snooty academic who knew Frasier and Lilith. And that was like ah a two or three episode arc, right? Yeah. so I did three episodes that spread out across several seasons. So they they basically brought me back a couple different times. The the original, the origination of that is that, yeah, my my my mother, Carla, had an affair with Dr. Bennett Ludlow, a psychologist who... I believe was someone who was not, not only just a friend, but maybe even someone that Frazier specifically looked up to.
00:42:11
Speaker
um And that was a, that was a one-off situation that happened, I think in the first season of the show. And it was somebody's brilliant idea because Carla famously had eight kids.
00:42:24
Speaker
And so someone so you know, six seasons in, five, six seasons in was like, well, maybe something happened there that we could look into. And so they wrote this character, Ludlow, named after, obviously, the father, who was her her genius kid. like She had all these kids with all sorts of problems, like in and out of jail and juvenile hall and everything. was like, what if she had to deal with the awkwardness of her being like this wise, cracking, street smart kind of person How does she raise a ah genius who loves opera? um Right. And so that was that was the character. But what what was what was fun with that one was i auditioned for that. And i the audition went so well. i i I don't remember why. I don't remember the producer asked me to tell them a joke or if I i wanted to tell them a joke or whatever. But I told a joke in the audition and the producer literally fell off of his chair laughing. And I was six at the time. i assume like it wasn't even good ah an amazing joke, but I imagine my delivery coming from a six-year-old, just that that alone must be hilarious. And so, yeah, he he loved it. I booked the job. And the Friday before... i'm sorry. I'm just thinking of the funniest thing. Did the joke end with...
00:43:42
Speaker
the aristocrats Oh, that really would have gotten one. No. If I remember correctly, and this I think I remember what what joke it was, which just, it again, this just kid kid humor, but it was what's black and white and black and white and black and white and black and white.
00:44:03
Speaker
a nun falling down the stairs. You know, I, I kind of thought that's what you were going to say. Yep. Yep. Yep. But that, that just caught him by surprise coming out of this, this six year old in front of him. And I was like, that's all it took. um So yeah. So the week before we were supposed to film, cause sitcoms are filmed over a five day period. Sometimes it straddles the weekend, whatever. But normally the process is day one. You have a table read where everybody just gets around, um reads their, their lines. And then they, start doing rewrites off of how well that went. And then over the course of the week, it's slowly rehearsed on stage as the sets are are built and and figured out. And they keep tweaking it until finally the last day is is is shoot day where you do have a dress rehearsal and then you film in front the live audience. And so the week before we were supposed to go in and we get a call from my agent going, ah sort of bad news, they need to delay filming your episode. um Originally, my character was supposed to be the the B plot of the episode. And they had enjoyed my read so much that they decided to rewrite the episode to make it the A plot of the episode. Neat. Yeah, it was that like, again, there's an example of why as a kid, I never had to question putting effort in because it was all happening to me.
00:45:20
Speaker
So yeah, another another thing there was like, oh, you know, I'm I'm I'm good enough at this that people are just handing me opportunities, no effort on my part other than like doing the job well.
00:45:34
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. So, and, and, and speaking to doing the job, well, actually that was one where somewhere on a blooper reel in on a German blooper show, cause I had to to sign off on permission on this was a take of,
00:45:47
Speaker
On shoot night, ah Kelsey Grammer has this big speech he delivers to me where he's telling me how I you know i can't let them diminish my inner fires, you know over, over, you dealing standing up to bullies and whatnot. And he's got this really nice speech, and we're filming it, and he gets halfway through the speech, and he he forgets the line, which happens to everybody. And I proceeded to to give him the rest of his line.
00:46:12
Speaker
no way. And of course the audience erupts over it it's it. It was, you know, and I had no perspective on just how insane that was that that i I did that, but but he handled it well. every yeah Well, I was going to say, cause you know, there, there's a lot of things people say about Kelsey Grammer's behavior. honor and i do i I can say my personal experience with him on that set was nothing but, but kindness. And he was, he was great to work with. So I will not take away anyone else's experiences, but my own were quite positive.
00:46:44
Speaker
Do you have a sense when you're sitting in a room and like B.B. New Earth is there or or Ted Danson or, you know, I mean, do you have a sense of that you're or I mean, you know, Ed Esner, you know him as a kid. Yeah, I mean, so does that occur to you how huge those people are? It's a mix because frequently, no, that set was a little more complicated because I was I was i was i watched Cheers on a weekly basis. I know I was only six, so obviously I didn't fully grasp everything. But Cheers was a show we always watched.
00:47:14
Speaker
So I did go in recognizing these people and knowing who they were. So that was kind of a big deal, but it very quickly just became people I was working with. But I'd also frequently work with or meet people who I had no idea who they were. even That even happened on that set on, I think, the...
00:47:31
Speaker
the third episode I did um at some point during rehearsal, I walked out and Kirstie Alley was supposed to be sitting at the table, but instead she was sitting on some guy's lap. And that guy was some, somebody named like a,
00:47:46
Speaker
John Travolta or something. I don't know. I had no idea who it was. I just knew there's some guy sitting in this chair and she's in his lap. I'm like, okay. It's like, so it was frequently a case of, I worked with people who I only knew they were a big deal. Cause people told me they were a big deal.
00:48:03
Speaker
Well, Kirstie Alley had fantastic taste in men. god She was married. She was married to Parker Stevenson, man. Yes. Yes. The hot hearty boy. Contrary to what you might've heard. Yeah.
00:48:16
Speaker
o so So you were also in Shortcuts, and I love that movie.
Working with Robert Altman
00:48:22
Speaker
And it occurs to me just now, you weren't the kid who gets hit by a car, were you? no. Oh, thank goodness. Thankfully for multiple reasons, including the fact that that kid didn't get much screen time. Yeah, he sure didn't. No, yes. Yeah, that kid had like four lines. Yeah. um But that movie is insane. And like when that movie came out, I actually had been doing pro phone sex for a little while. So because that was a plot point in the film, I had some some feelings about it. Because I'm gonna just go ahead and and drop a couple of spoilers. Yeah.
00:48:55
Speaker
That movie has a bunch of different stories that are woven together. And one of them has Jennifer Jason Leigh as a mom and also a phone sex operator. And it is driving her husband insane. And he is, in fact, a serial killer. And that's is it it's Chris Penn, isn't it?
00:49:13
Speaker
That's correct yeah. I forgot that that was the relationship. But but yes, that is Chris Penn. Yes. Yeah. And then there's also ah a story where like Lily Tomlin hits a boy with her car and she wants to take him to the hospital and he's like, no, no, I'll just go home. And that is doesn't go well either because then there's the whole thing with the birthday cake.
00:49:33
Speaker
Right. Where the boy is, yeah. See shortcuts. if If y'all have not seen Altman's shortcuts, oh my God, it's insane. Even with those spoilers. It's an incredible film that ah to this day, directors use as as one of their influences in filmmaking um because it it absolutely...
00:49:51
Speaker
it It changed expectations in countless ways. And it was an incredible it was an incredible filmmaking process because Robert Altman was a director unlike any other director. And this is another example of when i I talk about how I spent my whole career thinking I couldn't do improv, ah which is absurd because i was in this Robert Altman film and ah i was not allowed to read the script for the film.
00:50:19
Speaker
I would think not. My goodness, that is well not a family film. and Not by my mother, by him. And the reason wasn't that he had concerns about the content, but it was because he did not want the script to affect my performance.
00:50:33
Speaker
okay He wanted me to show up in a scene and be me and be a real child of, I think I was i would have been 10 or 11 when that was. Yeah, I would have been 10 because it came out in 92, I believe, or maybe 93. Anyway, 10 or 11 years old.
00:50:51
Speaker
He wanted me to be a real, believable 10 or 11 year old kid who would react to things that were happening around me and said to me with sure an understanding of where the scenes expected to end up and and and so on. But other than that, ah no planned dialogue.
00:51:09
Speaker
um which isn't massively different from what he had going on for all the other actors because he only hired people he could trust to improvise and ad lib and be natural. And then as a director, his absolute favorite thing was to intentionally fuck with his actors and make them uncomfortable and Not in an awful way, not in a dickish way. And I want to make that that clear. But to put them in a position- Oh, no, that's an old school theater concept. Yeah, yeah, you know yeah. But yeah there's certainly- That's Stanislavski, man. We've also all worked with directors who do that and are like, God, I hate that guy, but it gets great work out of me. Everyone loved Robert Altman and he got great work out of them. But he would purposefully create situations where at the last moment, the actors no longer know what what's going on and what's expected of them. I went to his memorial service years ago and everybody had a story like that. I mean, I think it was, it was Matt, uh, Malcolm McDowell talked about, um,
00:52:06
Speaker
He did a ah play, um a movie of his about about the ballet. And he is, he's their their their coach. And like the first day on stage, they're on like one of the famous music halls.
00:52:19
Speaker
And, you know, they get him set up on stage and he doesn't know what scene he's filming. No one's told him what scene he's filming. All he has is all these ballet dancers around him and and they're they're setting lighting and everything. And Robert walks up to him and says, when I call action, I want you to inspire them.
00:52:37
Speaker
and then just walks off and calls action. He hired people who he could trust to do that. And even if that went poorly, well, then I guess it's a character who handled it poorly.
00:52:49
Speaker
but he would react in real time to whatever was happening and craft a story out of it. And so that script for shortcuts was a loose framework. I mean, he and in Frank Barheit put a ton of work into it and it was lovely, but it's not the film that he actually made. He just used it as a starting point to then make whatever he found in the moment and then edit it together into into the the beauty he ended up with.
00:53:13
Speaker
But yeah, it was it was based off of, I believe, seven short stories. that he then fleshed out and made it so that all of the stories interconnected with one another. So like you talk about the kid getting hit by the car. Well, the kid is the kid of another family that's in that that that movie. And then that family might, you know, but their their grandmother is one of the other characters and their grandmother's ex is one of the other characters. And so everybody's interconnected in ways, but it's still seven separate stories, but all being spread out through this entire three hour and nine minute film.
00:53:43
Speaker
Yeah, because, I mean, you think of it as being like an anthology, but it it just isn't because everything is so interconnected. Yeah, and it's very Los Angeles. It's it's constantly, constantly yeah if people frequently consider Los Angeles to be one of the characters in the film, um it's it's very personal to to the area. Yeah.
00:54:01
Speaker
That makes sense. Yeah. See, now I got to watch it again because it's been while. Me It's very long time for me too. Yeah. It's one of those movies like Happiness where you see it and it impacts you so much that you don't need to see it for, you know, 15 or more years. Like, no, no, I'm good. I'm good with that. Yeah. I'm burned out for a minute.
00:54:25
Speaker
So do you think that you could nutshell the thing in your career that you're most proud of so far? Oh my gosh. um I know that's, that's a huge question to just drop on you. Cause that, that was not on your list. Yes. No, that is, that is a great question. And that's, that's hard for a few reasons. And I think,
00:54:47
Speaker
I'm almost going to give a little bit of a cop-out answer in that. And it's it's a little bit of a, I don't know, um maybe a little bit of hopefulness. um I kind of like to hope that it hasn't happened yet.
00:55:02
Speaker
Um, and, and again, I, that seems like such a cop out, but part of that is because I'm, I'm incredibly enamored with, ah now, especially because i I didn't grow up with this cause I was in it. And so it was hard to see it from the inside out, but now I'm incredibly enamored with the filmmaking process to the point where I've reached a point where when I watch a film,
00:55:24
Speaker
i I get weepy during films, not because something sad happened in the film or not because, you know, happy tears or whatever. I mean, all of those happened too.
00:55:37
Speaker
But I now get weepy watching a film that was well made. And i'm I'm so incredibly aware of the work that went into it and the how hard it is to ever get it complete. And you know you know you're coming from writing standpoint. Writers are my superheroes. I'm i'm so in love with with writers. And i always, people people would refer to me as a creator, as an actor. And it's like I was confused by that. I was like, no, the writer created it. I'm just i'm i'm i'm of an action figure. um
00:56:13
Speaker
there's more to it now as I've evolved as an actor and I watch other actors and I realize how much of a a proper amalgam it is. But that starting point of the writer, i I'm so in love with that. I now fully grasp what...
00:56:28
Speaker
what incredible work directors do or don't do. I can stop see a movie that doesn't work and I can recognize where, where it was the the director that was probably responsible for some of the decisions that didn't work, which is why I'm so happy when it does work. I love good editing. I now track editing like I never could before. And I'm so impressed by well done editing and how it changes It can change everything. And score and and and and casting. Casting is an incredible skill that gets overlooked because people just look at the cast and they don't realize what went into putting them together. And you can you can take quote-unquote bad script, and I don't even want to say that, but like ah a script that's nothing special. You read it and go, okay, this this has the base components necessary. Right.
00:57:13
Speaker
but you cast the right people in those roles and all of the chemistry and performance comes out and the dialogue suddenly sings that, that on the, on the page just sat there and you get the right director to put the right moments and the right tone and the right feel with the right cinematography. And then you edit the pacing. So it's just sharp and and clean. And suddenly you have something incredible. And so that to me,
00:57:39
Speaker
is where I am right now, where it's the first time I'm at a point in my life where I'm watching all of this and tracking it all. And I'm starting to get back in. I have, i have a theatrical agent again for the first time in 20 years. I've got a voiceover agent now too. I'm going on on auditions and I'm also now, you know,
00:57:58
Speaker
with creating my own podcast and other things that I do. And I'm on a creator side too. And I'm seeing the bigger picture. And I'm really excited about potentially at some point being involved in something where I can see from the ground up where it's heading. And I can feel like I am a part of creating a result that I'm incredibly proud of. And so as much as I've been parts of amazing things like shortcuts, like Freaks and Geeks, one of one of the greatest, ah failed shows of all time. um All these things i am incredibly proud of, but I also think they were someone else's creation. And I'm hoping at some point I'm going to be a part of something where I feel like I was a bigger part of its result.
00:58:41
Speaker
Okay. That is huge. Yeah, I'm putting a lot on myself there. You really are. Well, you also hit on something that I think is is worth discussing, and that is that when you watch you know movies and TV, when you intake that media, you don't really get to experience it on a visceral level anymore because you're noticing things like, like I just watched The Long Walk, which is a movie that I'd been very much looking forward to I was told it was the greatest Stephen King adaptation of all time. and
00:59:15
Speaker
But while I'm watching it, I am also thinking about the casting decisions. And, oh, look, they got this during Magic Hour. And the way the shots are set up. And why in the hell they would choose Mark Hamill for that role? and Right. you know but But I get taken out of the movie so much because I'm thinking of those aspects of it. And that is why, like personally...
00:59:39
Speaker
I never learned to play an instrument with any proficiency. I don't read music very well. I just know the basics because I wanted there to be one of the humanities that I can still experience viscerally without ripping it all apart in my head and looking at all the different facets of it.
00:59:58
Speaker
Do you have one of those? Is it is it writing? That's interesting. um Oh, gosh. I don't know. i think... and I love the idea of avoiding something because you don't want the mystery lost. um You know, the like, you know, the how the sausage is made thought process. ah I don't think I have that because I think I'm still like jealous of all of that. Generally speaking, when I see those skills, envious is a nicer word. But ah because, again, i'm I just I'm enthralled by people who have these skills. Music is definitely one of those that I love and I don't have, although I'm I've just started recently learning the guitar thanks to ah a dear friend of mine. I will name a name because he's he he's ah my co-executive producer the podcast and a good friend, Josh Spence. He bought me a guitar. Actually, he bought me two guitars. Yeah. He gives people guitars. he's what he just He loves guitars so much. and it's just It's a running joke of ours of giving out guitars. But I'm learning that for the first time in my life because it was one of those those things behind the veil. um i i do kind of like knowing how the sausage is made. um So I don't think that's in my way. But...
01:01:10
Speaker
but Yeah, I think I veered a little bit off of your your your question there. No, I don't think there's anything. i i i think it more comes down to knowing where my limits are and knowing what there's no reason for me to pursue and could just happily let someone else handle. um And that's mostly writing. I've definitely, I've delved into a little bit of creative writing on the side and, you know, I've got a buried pseudonym out there somewhere that I've had some fun with. But it's definitely not one of my, ah it's not something that i i am incredibly skilled at or driven enough to to fix the gap on, at least right now. But i have i've got a I've got a screenplay or two that I've been kicking around and I'm working on finding the right people to work on it with. So maybe, maybe one day.
01:02:01
Speaker
Right on. um Now, when we talked earlier, you indicated a willingness to discuss a time when you felt in legitimate fear for
Health Scares and Personal Reflections
01:02:11
Speaker
your life. And there's a reason that we ask this question, and we never drop this on people. We always get permission for this because you might not want to think about that on a nice sunny day. Sure.
01:02:22
Speaker
Or a pleasant fall evening like tonight. um But you indicated that you do have something you want to say about this, so we would like to hear it. Yeah, yeah. it's you know i i I think I'm privileged enough to have not had one of the like the the truly unambiguous examples of this that that so many people have gone through and can really speak to. I can say much more recently, I'm i'm in i'm in my 40s now, and ah I'm definitely becoming vastly more aware of every single thing that's going wrong in my my aging body. um and And, you know, I've got history with my my father definitely died from complications from a heart attack. My grandmother on my mother's side also had like multiple heart attacks and bypasses and so on.
01:03:12
Speaker
um And i recently on a couple different occasions have had scenarios and one was more dramatic than than most where I was getting like serious, serious chest pains, like really sharp electrical pains and they were coming and going constantly.
01:03:28
Speaker
and it was it was It was some of the most scared I've been in a while. And I mostly kept that to you know myself emotionally because yeah I have to process that way. or at least that's how I process. Maybe it's not how I have to. um But...
01:03:46
Speaker
I eventually went through like multiple um CT scans and whatnot, and everything everything eventually checked out fine. like Nobody has an answer for anything of being wrong. But yeah those those moments for me were absolutely where I was convinced that something was about to legitimately happen, and this could be it.
01:04:09
Speaker
this could absolutely be it. And I i know people I've, you know, I used to have a ah friend who like his, his wife just found him um dead on the kitchen floor one morning, um a cardiac incident of of some sort. And like, all of those things are in the back of my head, especially since there's some of it in my family. um So it's nothing incredibly precise. It's not one of those, you know, the moment where you see the car coming at you or any of those things that are clear, But it was just that that moment where I felt intensely mortal and like I could see the equivalent of the car coming at me. And it scared the hell out of me. you know And i've got I've got kids. I've got a wife. They all, for some reason, still like me. um yeah And i I'm a pretty damn fond of them. and it it just it was a scary moment of like, oh, this this could be it.
01:05:02
Speaker
and i'm So what what happens as a result of that? are you Do you get your affairs in order? Do you think about paperwork? Because I'll tell you, I had heart surgery earlier this year, yeah which is something that doctors considered very minor, the kind the kind of surgery it was. But when you tell me that some random man is going to be stabbing around in my heart, like I don't let main men play with my heart like that anymore. I'm too old for it. Right.
01:05:29
Speaker
So, um but i i was, and you could probably argue that this was melodramatic, but I called all my best friends. I made sure that everyone that I wanted to know, like that I had something to say to them about our, you know, i made all the like, just so you know, I've always loved you for this, this and that. ah You know, I had people come out and visit me whenever possible. i got, you know, I wanted to make sure to check in with my favorite people and you know get the will together and the creative will so somebody gets control over all my IP just in case that turns out to be important. um
01:06:05
Speaker
So yeah, I sort of combated those feelings with like planning and preparedness. like What did you do? um Oh, that's a great question. um Definitely some wallowing. um Definitely did some of that. um But outside of that, i mean i I definitely started thinking about what are the impacts? How are things going to work for people? um Trying to make sure that i i I could work through the ways that the people in my life would be safe. I'm pretty sure I...
01:06:33
Speaker
ah checked dependencies on life insurance and things like that. um But yeah, I don't think I did. i don't think I did much more than that other than um just try to work through my life and cope in that time period. And I, you know, maybe there'd be more if there was something more clear and precise. But while I wouldn't say i was, I went into like a a panic mode or anything, I definitely do think I was, I was numbed by the situation more than I was driven into action, which isn't, isn't the best, to hu the best response, both to your question and to the situation. ah
01:07:15
Speaker
But yeah, I think, but I'm going to be, that that's my honest reality. I'd i'd love to give you ah an example of the 10-point plan I put together for everybody and alllthough with all the problems I solved in that time period. But no, it wasn't there. It was mostly just a lot of um fear and and and and doubt. And I imagine um it certainly was the the backward gazing at the the the the all of the usual mistakes that keep you up at 1 AM in the morning. But sure yeah, and it's in more stark reality.
01:07:48
Speaker
Well, you know, the purpose of the question isn't so much to provide actionable advice for people. I hope not, not for me. But it is about sharing perspectives because one of the things that I think we do much better as a society now, even though we still have a ways to go, is that honesty about our experiences and what we go through.
01:08:12
Speaker
You know, when women started talking to each other and saying like, hey, your husband beats you too. Yeah, he does. I don't really like that. You know, and yeah and just that little bit of of thing that that snowballs. Right. So when we all talk about our...
01:08:29
Speaker
situations, our fears, our, our ah you know, our our shortcomings, the way that we express regret and what we do about it. Like all those things are so important because this show is small. I don't have a huge listening audience.
01:08:44
Speaker
I hear from somebody at least weekly about something that was said that helped them understand something about themselves or help them feel less bad about something or, i mean, but, but that's the point. That's, why we get people in here to talk about these things.
01:09:00
Speaker
Not just because we want to explore, you know, the the creativity neurodivergence connection, but the whole idea of like, you have this thing going on, you might not even have known about it until you were a full ass adult. And now you got to figure out what to do with that. That's the kind of thing that could make a person feel completely alone and misunderstood. yeah And yet there are all these people of disparate experiences that have had these things happen, or they know someone who has, or they, you know, that sharing and of information is so helpful, especially now that, I mean, we're living in a country that's being taken over by fascists.
01:09:42
Speaker
And one of their main points is to shut everybody up. So yeah I'm not particularly athletic. I'm not rich. But one power that I do have is the power to not shut up.
01:09:55
Speaker
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Isolation is, is one of the the best tools the the enemy has, so who whoever the enemy may be at any one moment, but it's absolutely the more isolated people feel the less, the less ah powerful they are.
01:10:09
Speaker
um And also i think feeling alone in whatever your, your feelings are, whatever your pain is, whatever your emotions are, whatever, whatever, And it doesn't even have to be anything that major. I mean, I'll i'll i'll give the example because I talked about this with the ah learning guitar. ah You know, i'm taking I'm using various online methods. And um one, I went through a few different things. I went through an app that ah just wasn't quite getting me there. It wasn't getting me... um What I needed. i went through a couple different ones and I landed on on one guy online, you know, and I'll i'll say the name because I feel like, ah again, this is like this is something that's wonderful for me. And it's a public figure to Justin Guitar. um that That's what he goes by. So if anyone's learning guitar, I'll talk through why this works so well for me. The early stuff is like, okay, i had an app that could listen to me playing and recognize whether I played the right notes and show me a board and had some videos that would explain the chords and so on. But like, I was having various problems with it you know, the finger pain was really rough rough and I had to ask people about that and get reassured and like the position of my hand and and how much trouble I was having changing chords and like all these things were really difficult. And my my mental...
01:11:25
Speaker
ah snap, especially with ADHD and just the massive number of hobbies that we start and then put down is I'm not good at this. Therefore, I shouldn't do this. um It's just ah partially because if I'm not good at it, I'm not enjoying it. It's not fun to suck at something um most of the time. um But on top of that, it's a case of maybe I'm wasting my time because I'm clearly bad at this. um Maybe I wouldn't will never be good at this.
01:11:52
Speaker
And it wasn't until I landed on his ah course where he was laying out right away, instantly, all of the problems that I was going to have at that stage in the course. And he talked about the finger pain and he talked about how long that would last. And he talked about how how the hardest thing at that moment was going to be getting the chord changes right. And like he was ahead of me on all of the problems I was having and telling me right off the bat, your problems are valid and real and normal. And everybody has this problem at this point.
01:12:25
Speaker
And it immediately, it gave me permission to be bad at that moment. It made me permission, it gave me permission to know this thing that I'm not doing well about, that's normal for the stage I'm at. That honesty and that openness and that sharing of the experience is vital to me to feel like I'm where I need to be. And so I'm i'm with you 100% on that idea of the more we share of the difficulties we're facing and the more people know, oh, you're having that too, the less they feel alien and alone and wrong and abnormal for it.
01:13:02
Speaker
And the more the easier it is to get past it because it's like, okay, this is just a part of life. It's not just me. Right. And it lays this foundation because once you have that, then that's when you start sharing the information and coming up with like actionable solutions to problems that you're all facing together. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
01:13:25
Speaker
Right on. Well, yeah, i think I think we are in agreement here. Good. Well, it's funny because we actually met on threads because you were talking about, you were expressing frustration that you do customer service in IT t and people don't know their damn passwords.
Password Management Challenges
01:13:44
Speaker
And when I saw that, I was like, well, yeah, I mean, it's like phone numbers. We used to know phone numbers and now we don't have to. I couldn't tell you my husband's phone number if my life depended on it. I just don't know.
01:13:56
Speaker
so yeah The only reason I have my wife's phone number memorized is it's because the one we use for all of the grocery store rewards programs. Right. So you have to know it. Yeah. so So why is it a problem to not know your passwords?
01:14:11
Speaker
I mean... that there's My computer saves them. They're they're just saved. If they can see my face, they tell me my password. Where I started from on this is that's fine. if Not only is that fine, it's good. Having a password manager as opposed to memorizing all of your passwords gives you the opportunity to have actually secure passwords because most of the time, if you can remember it, it's probably not that secure. ah There's a big asterisk on that because there's ways to make memorable passwords that are secure. But for the most part, you're supposed to have a different password for every single website. And that's impossible if you don't make them easy unless you have a password manager. So completely 100% support having a password manager in cybersecurity. We all agree that is the right thing to do. But you do have to know some password.
01:15:01
Speaker
ah For instance, you definitely have to know the password to the password manager. Otherwise, you're really screwed. And then the other one, and and even then I say this, you don't necessarily have to have this memorized, but you do have to have it somewhere, is you have to have the password to your whatever your main account is. and And in most of these cases, the main account is whatever account drives the device that you use everything for. So if you're on Windows and you're logged in with a Microsoft account, then it's the password to the Microsoft account that that your Windows is running off of. If you're on Windows,
01:15:37
Speaker
any Apple device whatsoever, it's your Apple ID. and everything, especially Apple, is is very known for everything being tied together and cohesive. Well, that that what used to be called an iTunes account, the Apple ID, that account ties all of your stuff together. And all of your apps are purchased through it. And you're syncing to iCloud and everything like that is on it. I'm personally a mixture of a Windows user and an Android user. So Google is my main account. And my my Google account is used for everything. And I have it. It's how I you know sign into a ton of sites is I hit that sign in with Google button. Everything, all my email flows through it and my Android phone is connected to it and all of that. And if I change devices, if I have to do something major that relates to my accounts, if I have to set up a new one, so on and so forth, I'm going to need that password at some point.
01:16:28
Speaker
um what What stuns me is how many people don't have, and I use the shorthand of don't know that password, but what I mean by that is don't have any idea where that password would be.
01:16:40
Speaker
It's not merely that they don't have it memorized, but it's like, I don't even know what that password is. I set up that device ah two years ago. I don't know what that password is. And and my reaction that is, well, did you have it saved somewhere? Like a password manager or even gulp a post-it note?
01:16:57
Speaker
And it it's stunning to me how many people are just deer in the headlights at that moment. And they do not know, they don't have any way of knowing what the password is and they'll They'll go through the password reset process on it. And I see people who have to go through their password reset process like every month or so for a major, major account like this. And that to me is just mentally stunning because for me, it's like that password is the the most important one.
01:17:27
Speaker
And whether, again, whether I have it memorized or I have it saved somewhere safe, I have to be able to get to that password. Well, and honestly, when I have to know a password and I'm trying to remember what it is, what would help me is to know what the requirements are for the password. Like, did you make me put a number in this? Did I have to put a special character? Did I have to put more than one? Because all of that will help. Sure. Because, I mean, yeah, I'm not going to forget my mother's middle name or maiden name, but right I still, you know.
01:18:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Because because I'm bad with it. But at the same time, I could tell you the phone number that my family had when I was a kid. Sure. Same. My third grade phone number. Those things are stuck there forever. Yeah.
01:18:13
Speaker
So it is a weird thing.
Privacy Concerns Online
01:18:15
Speaker
It's weird because internet security is weird. Yeah. Like if you apply for a job, you are giving people information that can let them steal your identity. My PayPal got hacked while I was looking for a job because, you know, and it was very annoying because I had to give them, like I didn't give them my password, but I had to give them, you know, my social and my, you know, various informations that you give an employer.
01:18:41
Speaker
Except that I'm disabled and I do work from home jobs and so you know I'm giving this information to like a company in Switzerland that may or may not, you know, like maybe these people are on the level, maybe they're just a Bratva gang. I have no idea. There's no way to know.
01:19:01
Speaker
But if you need to work, then you've got to take those chances. It's insane to me how much of our lives, you know, this is a very American-centric, but how much of our lives are tied to a single, unchanging nine-digit code that we're assigned at birth.
01:19:14
Speaker
And you can do so, and it's like, there's no security. It's literally just, it's nine numbers. And we give them out out of necessity, but also we're supposed to protect them. And if someone has them and they get out there, then, you know, you're just screwed. It's like, this this is an incredibly archaic system that we're still using.
01:19:35
Speaker
And by the way, it's ah it's illegal to laminate your card. So, you know. Yes, that's right. Don't let anything happen to it. Yes. Ugh.
The 'Super Legit Podcast' Format
01:19:46
Speaker
Okay. So you have something called the super legit podcast and I need to know everything about it. Go. All right. So it is, it is an improv comedy podcast. Um, biweekly we're just coming out of a hiatus this year as we go back into production on it after our our third season and it is it's built out of a combination of a desperate desire to have some some talented people that we all worked together with on a stage show back when the world shut down for the pandemic ah together doing something and we'd wanted to do a podcast forever so we put together a way for us to still see each other every week online and perform together. Um, and now, and now that the world is, is but opened up again, that we can physically be in in space together. We also have a stage show version of, of what we do, but, uh, The format is is fairly simple. I ask I or whoever we have hosting that week because recently I gave up the solo hosting duties and now we trade out hosting. But the host asks one big question at the top of it.
01:20:51
Speaker
um Sometimes it's deeply philosophical. something Sometimes it's it's like something fun and frivolous like, you know, what candy bar would you be or be something silly. But usually it's like something designed to get a personal life story out people. What kind of question is that? Wouldn't everyone be a whatchamacallit? That's the greatest candy bar ever.
01:21:07
Speaker
Perfect answer. Yes. You want to do it like pre 1986 before they put in that caramel on the top when it was just the the peanut butter crunchy. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. I only know. I only know the post ah the post version of it. Oh, okay. See, this is like the tallow, the beef tallow and McDonald's French fries situation all over again. But yeah, so we ask a big question that's designed to get, you know, get personal stories out of people. And then, you know, whoever's feeling at that moment will we we'll answer that question. We have guests, maybe it's the guest first, maybe it's a member of our team. And then there's, you know, there's conversation and banter and and questions and like, we're all friends. So it's it's, It's personal, but these are all very funny people too. So it's it's it's entertaining. And then and the moment any of us is feeling it and and has something that theyve there're there' that's tickling the back of their brain, we'll cut into an improvised scene.
01:22:00
Speaker
And just just right there on the spot, we'll start a fully improvised scene that maybe it's it segues off into multiple scenes, a run of scenes and so on. And then when it hits its proper moment, we...
01:22:13
Speaker
end those we call legit and we're out of the scenes and we're just back to the conversation uh and then meanwhile i'm i'm editing the show um to give all of those scenes uh a fully produced feel so uh we're doing you know ambiance maybe some some music um some sound effects and i'll do some foley work for them sometimes and just make it sound like a fully produced uh um you know radio play almost um And and then we just we put that together. It's it's highly edited to like make it sound like we're all physically in a room together, even if though we're doing it all over the internet.
01:22:47
Speaker
And it's about an hour long each show. And it's it's it's incredibly fun. And talk about therapy. This is absolutely for us. it's our social hour um it's our our opportunity to get things off of our chests and and open up about ourselves and like we've been doing this for several years now and while while we occasionally get repeat stories it's amazing how many new things we constantly learn about our friends um it's it's it's incredibly engaging and you and i'll talk to people in real life who listen to the show and like i just met one this week was like it's it's He's like, i I know you personally and you've never met me. It's like, yep, there's that parasocial relationship i we have with podcasters. It's yeah crazy. But yeah, it's it's a beautiful show. I think we're about but somewhere around 150 episodes into it. And it's just, it's fun. And we don't have advertisers on it. we Well, now let me correct that. We definitely have an advertisement every week and it's totally a real product and not completely improvised and silly. Yeah.
01:23:48
Speaker
Okay. um See, I love that. And I actually think that when we look at the history of comedy, some of the best comedy that we've ever had was made by a group of friends who decided to dick around and make some comedy. 100%. mean, you know, Monty Python, yeah The Young Ones. Yeah. ah you know uh kids in the hall i think were were a little more cast they weren't necessarily a ragtag group of friends but like yeah yeah but yeah uh you know look at uh well even like judd apatow and those guys that get together to do like anchorman and for and they they all have improv background i mean you know David Koechner from Anchorman's performed with us at our our stage shows. He's on an improv team that that we've we've we've had play with us many times. He's such a dick on The Office. Oh, my God. and and And I will assure you in the real life, the totally cool person. Very, very not that character. But he's so good at those characters. He's exceptional at it. So like these people all came from improv backgrounds and and that's it shows in what they do because they can trust one another in the moment to just fully live in it. And they might have a brilliant script, but then they'll also go now. What else can we say and do and build off of? And some of the most iconic lines you'll ever hear in films were the the ad lib ones.
01:25:09
Speaker
Now, telling me that Koechner is a really good guy makes me wonder. No, I have a theory that a lot of actors, not all, because I'm sure it's not universal, but that they're better at playing people that are the opposite of them themselves. Like yeah like James Gandolfini was renowned as being just a cuddly teddy bear type. It was just warm and wonderful to everyone.
01:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, you will have- You hate him as Tony Soprano so goddamn much. Especially when it comes to just utter jerks, like the the the the people you love to hate. More often than not, that's the nicest person in real life. It's just incredibly Because if they're not like that, they're they're better able to see that and to see how that comes together. yeah you know That's why everybody that's why like most good comedians do such a good Trump.
01:26:02
Speaker
Because it's so easy. Actually, you don't even have to be a good person to see how ridiculous Trump is. Right. To hone in on like, yeah, see, there's the the rampant insecurity and how that morphs into the bravado. And, you know, yeah, it's very easy to find those quirks to to play off of. I mean, impersonation is is its own set of skills that I barely have. I you know i did Gilbert Gottfried on my show back in the day and things like that. um You know, R.I.P. But um for the most part, it's not a skill I've i've got. and I'm impressed with it. But there's also certain people is like, oh, you can easily, you know, I i certainly can parody Trump easily in text because we all know what he he he writes like. And it's it's it's so off not as well as Gavin Newsom's team. Oh, my goodness. They are nailing it. don't even think that highly of Gavin Newsom, but I write right. Right. I will take i will take the win where I can get it.
Supporting Child Actors
01:27:00
Speaker
Okay, so you're a dad. I am, You have a couple of kids. um So would you support them if they wanted to act professionally? Would you be into that, or would you try to steer them away? um I mean, i would want, I definitely would want to make sure they have a realistic expectation of the what it's like, the work that's put in, make sure they understand all of the ways they can be taken advantage of and and ah make sure that they have the self-worth and self-esteem that they need and and understand how easy it is to get chewed up in the industry. um But sure, i would I would support them if I... if i um
01:27:39
Speaker
I don't know. I'm throwing a qualifier on there, but I don't want to throw a qualifier on them. If that's what they want to do, then yes, I will support them. I just would also want to make sure that they have every understanding of ah what it takes to do that and make sure that they're going in informed. But I also, you know, I know, especially when it comes to kit to to yeah raising children, it's like they have to experience something for themselves to know to know for for themselves what the pitfalls are. There's only so much you can tell a person. before they have to experience it to believe it.
01:28:17
Speaker
So, yeah. That's really interesting because Bill Mooney says pretty much the same things. Yeah. You know, because he has a daughter and and she acted for a little while. Turned out she wasn't really into it and he noticed that, you know, it was time to go to an audition or a rehearsal and she wanted to play baseball or hang out with her friends or whatever. So, yeah. and And I love that because, again, child actors...
01:28:41
Speaker
A lot of them that you hear about had a real rough time of it, and some of that was them not being protected by people. There's predators out there that people didn't even know they were supposed to be watching for.
01:28:52
Speaker
So it's it's great that that is something that people in the industry recognize and are are doing better about it for the most part. Like, you don't you don't hear as much about, you know, like, Brooke Shields mom-style moms. that I mean, there are there are more protections and regulations in place than there used to be. but you know that's well not just the Krugin laws, but, like...
01:29:18
Speaker
more because I mean I learned about the Coogan laws because I was an Adams family fan yes yes you learn for those reasons but there's there are more people looking out I mean there's definitely there's you you still always hear the stories about it and there's still unfortunately there's no end of of women speaking out about the experiences that the awful experiences they've had that are still recent um but at least we're being As we talked about earlier, open about these things, and there's more and more empowerment for people to just outright say what's going on. ah But it's hard because for the most part, you can only do that if you're successful enough that people will listen to you and not just immediately kill your career. so Even the kids are speaking out. like I know Finn Wolfhard dropped some, I don't want to bring up any other names, but he did definitely stand up to shenanigans and yeah was, like you you mentioned, famous enough that that didn't hurt him.
01:30:18
Speaker
Right. And that's the thing is, yeah, you have to get there, which sucks. You absolutely have the risk of running through all of the awfulness. And only if you reach the successful stage where your career can survive calling people out, do you get that privilege to so. Which is such a drag, man, because you work so hard for this career and then you get there and it's like, well, guess what? Now you have a responsibility to involve yourself in anything like this. Once you know about it.
01:30:47
Speaker
Yeah. You know, that's, that's yeah rough, man. yeah and No, it is. It is. ah It is constantly for many people, a battle of, uh, uh, or even just self-respect of going, okay, i gotta i gotta I got to deal with this until I reach the point where I don't have to. And in fairness, that's unfortunately the case in a ton of workplaces and work environments and and jobs where people have to put up with dangers and and disrespect and all sorts of ways they're exploited. So it's not unique to this industry. It's just it's one that's kind of famous for how bad it can be.
01:31:24
Speaker
hu Well, and it's it's more extreme. Yes. You know, like the money is more extreme, the events and the the coverage and everything. It's all just amplified. The risk reward structure is is way bigger. Absolutely. Sure, sure. Well, that's the thing. Like.
01:31:40
Speaker
I did all kind of jackass-y things when I was a kid, but there was no internet and most people weren't filming me. So right there are no records of that. But like I would think being an adult who used to be a child star, particularly if you get recognized, like I mean, when's the last time Scott Baio was in a good mood? He's not because everyone calls him Chachi and he fucking hates it.
01:32:01
Speaker
Yes. Yes. I mean, it turns out he's a flaming asshole, so that doesn't matter. But like if he was a good person, that would be terrible. Yeah. oh No, I mean, we see that. And it's it's it always sucks when someone gets trapped in the one the one role. ah And, you you know, and some people handle it well. yeah When I saw um mom my kid and I saw ah Peter Pan Goes Wrong.
01:32:23
Speaker
And it was ah it was Neil Patrick Harris as the as the narrator, um who is spectacular. um I love him. He was great in that. I love him in general. um I guessed it on Doogie Howser when I was a kid, but I didn't get to work with him on it. ah ah Well, like he walks out on stage at the very beginning of it and someone in the audience shouts out, Doogie! was like, oh God, are we still doing this? He has had so many countless iconic roles since then. And this is still what we're doing. It's like, you will not let him move on in his life.
01:32:56
Speaker
Yeah, it's like Darius Rucker syndrome. Right, right. Hey, Hootie. Yes, exactly. But yeah at least he actually has done incredibly well for himself and he can let that roll off his back.
01:33:08
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, I can't, I can't even imagine what that, like, because, you know, i have little things about my life that make me stick out like a sore thumb. And as a kid, I was just like, yes, I realize my name is stupid. Can we please move on? Right.
01:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, my my my internet handle, which is old since I was you know a teenager and for dumb reasons, is TurboFool. yeah It's a dumb name and I hold on to it because it's literally the name I have everywhere on the internet. So I can't really move on from it because it's just it's there. And there will always be somebody in some argument who thinks it's a brilliant trump card of theirs to call out my name and go, yeah, see, you know. your name is accurate or something like that. like And i i I have no problem blocking those people now. Not, and I've said, I've even posted about this, not so much because I'm insulted or offended. Like i I don't care, but it's such lazy humor.
01:34:04
Speaker
And that offends me. Lazy humor offends me. yeah No, no, I'm with you. I'm with you. And because, you know, I get a lot of MAGA boys that I talk to and the first thing that they want to say when they want to insult me is that I'm not pretty or I'm too fat. Which like, A, I got over those kinds of insults when I was in seventh grade. But also, i mean, it's like, dude...
01:34:30
Speaker
you're a rape apologist. I don't want you to find me attractive. Please do not find me attractive. This this is not a thing that, that the like, I don't know what you think you're denying me, but it isn't anything I want. I do not exist for your gaze. Yeah, yeah.
01:34:46
Speaker
For sure. So, so you mentioned earlier, we we talked about what you're most proud of and you had said maybe it hasn't happened yet. So let's, let's ah talk about that
Returning to Acting and Finding Fulfillment
01:34:58
Speaker
just a little. So what, what is your end game? Like, what would you, what, what's the top of the mountain for you?
01:35:03
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, at this point, um so I'm, I'm, I'm actively auditioning for things again for the first time of after a 20 year break, which is absurd. um Like I can't and also it's absurd because I cannot fathom that I existed long enough to have had a career that I had and then also have 20 years of not doing that career after it. Right. right Yeah. Yeah. That math doesn't math. um So ah part part of what happened when i I started getting back in is I had this 10 years of improv experience, which completely it did completely change my outlook on performing and what what I was capable of and what I wanted to do and what I was enjoying.
01:35:42
Speaker
And one of the coolest things going back in is like, you know, I work full time and I have a job that that thankfully pays my bills and I'm i'm i'm safe. Like the the most exciting thing I feel like I can say about a job is it it makes me feel safe.
01:35:57
Speaker
um But it's great because the last time I was acting professionally, ah acting was my job and it wasn't safe. like As we discussed, it was not successfully regularly paying my bills and I had to supplement that. and It was scary. So now doing auditions again, i get to go in with a completely different attitude, which is i get a script and I get to do a a self tape and I get to do it more for fun.
01:36:24
Speaker
um I get to build a character that I enjoy playing And I get to go perform once on my own little miniature camera stage. Obviously could record it several times and pick the best one, but I get to do that one performance. And in a way I get to go, this is for me.
01:36:41
Speaker
um Instead of the like the heavy strategizing that I might use to do on like, what do they want? And what do they want from me? And how do I optimize this for exactly what's going to get me this job? Because God, I need this job. Now it can be like,
01:36:57
Speaker
what's what's the version of this that leaves me feeling like I entertained myself? And i've I've got a good friend who who frequently helps me as as my reader. So they'll read the other side of the the script behind the camera for me. um Very talented person. And then it's super fun because I get to do this with a friend. I get to perform with them in that moment. So it's a group thing and I get their feedback in the moment and I get ideas off of them and I get the reactions. ah And so that was the biggest thing I wanted when I started doing these again was I wanted to enjoy the process instead of have have it be stressful.
01:37:33
Speaker
And so far, I'm I'm ah I'm being successful in that i'm I am having fun. I had one recently that I read for was like, I actually did put work into it because I was i was kind of excited by the opportunity and yeah I can't say details about it. um But like that was one where he's like, oh, I did research. like I watched the director's reel and I looked up their other work and I looked up the reference points and other things like that. it's like, OK. Now I know what they want. And luckily it happened to be something that was exciting to me to try to do.
01:38:02
Speaker
um So that's that's that's step one for me is I want to have fun this time. um Step two is I want to do something that ah when I see it and when I see other people see it, I can have that same sense of awe from the other side of it where I go, yeah, we created something.
01:38:25
Speaker
And it's pretty damn good. um And I don't know what that's going to look like and if I'm going to get there, but I want to get there. And I you know i did say earlier that yeah I have a little some screenplay ideas I'm kicking around. So maybe I'll eventually succeed at putting those together. And maybe it'll be something I create myself.
01:38:45
Speaker
I don't even have to necessarily act in it. At this point, creating things is beautiful to me. And sometimes creating things that I see other brilliant people put together and perform. And I just know that I was a part of that. That's plenty for me.
01:39:00
Speaker
But one way or the other, i want ah my my goal, regardless of my whether my career stays with IT, which is, again, sustaining me, or am am i able to pivot back in, is i want to I want to create something that I can answer your earlier question about and say that's the thing that I'm most proud of.
01:39:22
Speaker
Okay, cool. Yeah, that makes so much sense. So much sense.
Facing Rejection in Creative Fields
01:39:27
Speaker
Because, you know, it's it's a weird thing in the creative arts because it can be difficult to parse...
01:39:34
Speaker
Like when you get turned down for things, it's like, did I get turned down for something? Did I get rejected because I'm not good because I'm not what was needed at the moment? Yes. Like, know, we run the magazine and there are stories that are really freaking good, but they're not right for us. They're not right for our audience. Or we have something similar in the issue, so we don't want to have something that's like that. But then you have to tell someone no. yeah And I always want to take the time to say, I'm not telling you this isn't good. I'm telling you this is not. Like when I say this doesn't meet our needs at the present time, I'm not saying that to be, you know, a businessy asshole. I'm saying it because honestly, even though this is great, it's not what we need right now. And yeah I want to always impress that on people.
01:40:25
Speaker
I think one of the things that always helped me is when I would eventually see the TV show or movie or whatever it is that I'd auditioned for and I'd see who they cast and whoever they cast was completely different from what I did.
01:40:38
Speaker
That that was definitely the the the moment where was like, cool, they wanted something else. I gave them what I had. Yeah, they wanted something completely different. And that's fine. It it would only sting if it was someone who was like, that's that's that's the same thing I gave them. what What was the difference? And then I could get nitpicky. But I can't tell you how many times I'd see the result and go, oh, wow, there's a wild card that came out of nowhere. I i can't blame them for that choice. It's like, you know, it might have been something i I loved and thought I was perfect for. And there's there are a bunch of times where I knew i was informed that I was their second choice for something. And then I'd see their first choice. I was go, yeah, yep.
01:41:15
Speaker
I didn't do that. And that is that is more compelling. I got you.
Authenticity in Professional Networking
01:41:19
Speaker
See, that's interesting because acting, and that hadn't occurred to me, is one of those things where if you don't get a job, you still may know who got the job that you wanted. Yeah. And sometimes it's someone you literally know, too. Well, I got invited to do a panel because I had written review. This is when Breaking Bad was going on.
01:41:39
Speaker
And I wrote an article about why I hate Skylar White. Okay, sure. And, and so I got a call from ah a major outlet, you know, but i won't say but it was a major one and they said come be on the panel and I was like, Oh my god, that sounds amazing. I'm so excited to be on this panel. And then like an hour before, they were like, Well, you know, we we decided not to use you someone else became available and I was like, Oh, god damn it.
01:42:05
Speaker
Yeah. Who became of that? You know, who who did they replace me with? Right. And I i go listen to the round table and it was Anna Gunn. Anna Gunn had become available. Oh, wow. So they bumped me for the actress who played Skylar White instead of who is Jack Spratt. Nobody. And that's the thing is I was like, oh, well, if it was another movie reviewer that I hated, then that wouldn't have been good. but But I can see why the choice was more relevant. Perfect sense.
01:42:32
Speaker
Yeah, those are absolutely the times that it happens. I mean, I can't count how many times I read for something and then they cast an incredibly famous person in the role instead. It's like, well, okay. I can definitely see why you did that. Although also, I feel like you knew you wanted to do that anyway. Why did you waste my time? Well, I don't even know who Haley Joel Osment is. So whatever, man. He and i used to have the same agent. Ugh.
01:42:54
Speaker
for wow really yes yep yep that's wild but yeah yeah no i mean there were there were countless times where it was like i i read for uh austin pat one of the austin powers movies and then they cast uh uh uh oh you could have been scott evil oh god no that would have been amazing yes they cast fred savage instead it's like you that's fred savage why did i go to this audition Like, I wouldn't have bothered coming if I'd known Frank Savage was going to be here. Why i waste my time?
01:43:26
Speaker
So we're actually getting to the end of our time, and I want to make sure that we covered everything that you wanted to talk about. Did we miss anything that was important to you that you wanted to say? ah Not that I remember. No, I think we well we covered a lot of great ground, I think. Yes. yeah Agreed.
01:43:44
Speaker
All right, cool. I do also like to give guests an opportunity to ask me a question if they have one. So if you do, now is the time. Yeah, it's so it's it's a vague one, but like it it just crossed my mind. You're an incredibly open person. Were you always this way? Or if not, was there was there an inciting incident or whatever that was your moment of going, I'm i'm going to stop hiding things and I'm going to wear everything on my sleeve?
01:44:09
Speaker
um You know, I grew up in an abusive household, both physically and and emotionally. My mom is untreated, manic depressive, and and probably also autistic, i would I would have to think. But um I was a performative kid.
01:44:26
Speaker
And I'm sure that it was a cry for help. I always wanted to be funny. I wanted to prove to people that I was witty and smart, like even from like kindergarten. And I was also the little performance kid that they would, you know, I watched an appalling amount of TV so I could recite commercials and stuff. I was that kid.
01:44:44
Speaker
But I think... Because of the way that I was raised by by like conservative types who had a lot of, like, you know, cross your legs, don't sit Indian style because, you know, slot, you know, all all that kind of crazy stuff that, and and I guess now because of the autism, I realize that I get super, super angry about things being fake.
01:45:10
Speaker
I can't stand yes lies, deceit, gaslighting. So that is where my openness comes from. i would rather talk to the most obnoxious, mean-spirited even. if someone is really sincerely honest, I would rather hear that than coddling bullshit.
01:45:29
Speaker
ah i i love that you I love that complaint because it it is one I have too. And it's also a place where I feel like it's it's probably a place that's hurt me in my career is the failure to network properly, which includes all the bullshitting.
01:45:45
Speaker
Well, it doesn't occur to me that people are going to lie if they're being kind to me. So I forget to consider that. Oh, see, that's that's interesting. And I i think I think I'm a mixture there. But like I am. And maybe it's because I grew up in an industry full of people who, you know, I think i think it's overblown when everyone complains that cal Los Angeles is fake and the movie industry is fake. A lot of these people are incredibly genuine, but there is also a ton of fakery in it. And so I think it's one reason like I distrust compliments and I distrust all of these ways that people blow smoke up each other's butts. um and And it also, therefore, is what makes me really reticent to talk to people that I respect or admire or compliment them or whatever because I'm terrified as of coming across as fake. I'm terrified that they're going to think that I hang out with them or I'm talking to them because of who they are or what their influences are or whatever. And so I just don't. Instead, I don't talk to them or I don't hang out with them or whatever it is. And it's and I recognize what a problem that is because other people talk to them and hang out with them and they don't have a problem with that. And some of those people compliment them and all of those people know that that person is whomever. It's like I overthink it, but it is it it it does bother me so much when people um are using one another that I avoid it to the point of probably holding myself back.
01:47:16
Speaker
Yeah, that that makes a lot of sense. That's that's highly relatable. Yeah. Well, my dude, it is time for the Mad Lib. Are you ready for this? I hope so. Let's see if I remember all of my word methods and types. There's the test. Well, you know, you'll probably, an improv guy, I imagine you'll have an easier time with this. I think writers often get very flummoxed because they feel a lot of pressure to pick interesting words. Watch me with it instantly. With a background in improv, I think, yeah, that'll be little different. Let's have some fun. Let's see.
01:47:48
Speaker
Well, this is fun. The first one is a celebrity. So I need you to give me a celebrity. A celebrity. Kieran Knightley. And thanks for making me spell Knightley. I'm just going to guess. I thought about that instantly. It's like, good luck. I think it starts with caddy. place.
01:48:06
Speaker
ah Amherst. Yeah, Amherst. All right. An adjective. Actually, I'm going to need one, two, three, four...
01:48:17
Speaker
Adjectives. Okay. um Slippery. um Warm. um Uncomfortable. That's an adjective, right?
01:48:30
Speaker
Yes. Yes. You said one more? Yep, one more. um Classic.
01:48:40
Speaker
All right. And we need a part of the body. Tibia. And a verb. Let's go with scoot.
01:48:55
Speaker
All right. I need another verb.
01:48:59
Speaker
Shimmy. And it looks like I missed an adjective, so I need one more. Oh, okay. All right. um Quirky. Quirky. And I need, so a person in room, so that's always the guest.
01:49:15
Speaker
So we have that. And I need a singular noun. Singular noun, okay. Let's go Vaz. Ming Vaz.
01:49:28
Speaker
And when it's Ming, you have to pronounce it vase, not vase. You sure do. All right. And then put the little short A symbol there. um i need plural nouns. I need one, two, three of them.
01:49:41
Speaker
OK. Let's go caterpillars, um Tamagotchi, which I think is also plural, and um
01:49:54
Speaker
wine bottles.
01:49:58
Speaker
Okay, I need another place. and Okay. ah Ice cream parlor. And then another part of the body. ah Let's go belly button. so It's always a fun one.
01:50:16
Speaker
Okay, so this is from the sports section of the Medlib book. And this is called Three Cheers for the Underdog. I'm excited. Few people gave... Few people gave Keira Knightley High School any chance of advancing the Amherst Championships because of all the obstacles they face through this slippery season.
01:50:39
Speaker
Their best hitter broke his tibia in the first week. Their star catcher quit the team in order to scoot in the school's stage projection school stage production of Romeo and
01:50:54
Speaker
and a question Classic, well I must add. Well, at least it's not Adam and Steve. On top of that, a warm flood ruined the school's practice field, forcing the team to shimmy inside the Ming Vos for three weeks.
01:51:11
Speaker
But with uncomfortable ah uncomfortable work and determination, these young caterpillars found a way to win the quirky regional playoff and bring home a classic trophy.
01:51:23
Speaker
How does Coach Wetness think they'll do in the state championship against the ice cream parlor Tamagotchis next week? Or Tamagotchi. I don't know. i think I think you're right. I think it is still singular. i think so, yes.
01:51:36
Speaker
Oh, we'll give them a run for their wine bottles, that's for sure. This team has a lot of belly button. yeah Oh, that's that's a catch that's a new catchphrase. This team has a lot of belly button.
01:51:51
Speaker
I'm going to have to remember that one. Irreverent. So, Jarrett, I am so glad that you could be here to do this. I love when it's a guest that I don't know very well personally, and then we just totally hit it off and have a great conversation. Me too. That's that's like so fun for me. Oh, yes.
01:52:10
Speaker
So we want to remind all of our listeners that we'll be back next week and that the best way to support the podcast is to support the the magazine. So you can do that at coffee. That's KO hyphen F I, where we are sometimes hilarious horror.
01:52:26
Speaker
And once again, thanks to Jarrett for being here and we will see everybody week.