Interview with Make-Up Artist-Hair Stylist Rey Medrano (Taylor Sheridan Crime Shows, Harold and Kumar 2, Love and Death, Cruel Summer)

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[00:00:57] This is not the first time. We've always had many different filmmakers of different calibers on here and we always try to just give everyone a voice. We got the one, the only Ray Medrano. You've been on several Texas productions, many David Lurie productions. His credits include Taylor Sheridan's 1883. And I'm just like, yeah, everyone's seen a lot of your work. Lake George. They have, you know, what's the chosen?

[00:01:23] The chosen 1883, 23, Yellowstone, Landman, Lioness, J, the leftovers. I listen, it's kind of weird. It's weird. It's weird to think about. I was talking to my partner the other day because, well, when Landman was premiering there, season two just premiered.

[00:01:45] Not too many months ago. And we were in, you know, West Hollywood and like my partner was like, hey, that's your billboard. And because like we as makeup artists typically like when we work on shows and they do press and EPK, it's called, you know, the electronic press kit. But we're also with our actors, we get them into character or if the production companies want or the studios want them to be normal.

[00:02:13] Right. We normally groom them, get a camera ready. And but I've just been working at such a pace that I don't really take a minute to stop and acknowledge that it's that well reviewed or that much. You know, it's not that it's watched that much. And yeah. So anyway, he was just like, hey, there's your billboard. And I'm like my bill. Oh, wait. Oh, yeah, I did. I did do makeup on that. And it's crazy.

[00:02:39] It's wild that so many people around the world have seen what I do. And yet I'm just like that small little Texas boy, you know, like deep down inside. I'm from, you know, North Texas. So. All right. Nice. Has it ever been a little frustrating, though, sometimes because like you always have credits, you'll always have, you know, great people recommending you is like, hey, here's a guy for the last minute.

[00:03:07] Here's our hairstylist. Get him on, you know, first thing. But is it sometimes frustrating when it's like, OK, someone went over and redid this? You know, sometimes you're going to share the credit, but other times like I was just additional. So therefore, because they only credit like one or two people, I don't always get the on screen credit. Yes and no. I feel like when you're a day player, right, or like you're additional or something like that.

[00:03:36] But you already kind of go into the you know that you're just there like as a backup. And so you're not the department head. You're not the key. You're not the effects are you like you're just there. You're one of the five additional ones. And and that's totally cool because that's what we know what we're going into. I think the weird the weirdness that I've seen is that there are some people that like to fluff their resume. And I'm not going to say you shouldn't. Right.

[00:04:05] There are people that will like they'll work one day on a show and then post the hell out of the trailer or whatever on Instagram or Facebook. Like, yeah, we're there for the whole time. I feel like that's a little bit disrespectful to our team. You know, it's like I'm a thousand percent with you. I'm a five thousand percent because a you know, it's one thing to fluff. It's another thing to complete bogus, you know, and like I I'm with you. I was on a Killeen film shoot.

[00:04:36] Long Road Home was in Iraq war invasion. Yeah, no, I remember that. And I was there and I was seeing all these extras, huge egos. And they were saying stunts. I'm like, you did not do stunts. You drove around in a Humvee. You did not get blown up. Don't don't don't do bullshit like that. But that's the etiquette. You know, that's the etiquette that kind of comes with what we do. I just and that's why I say I get it. I get it. You know what? You're thirsty.

[00:05:06] You're hungry. You're an artist. You want the credits. You want to be validated. You want someone to see you and say, I want to hire you because you've done this. The truth is, though, is that a lot of situations I've seen is when these people have bluffed their credits and then they get hired. They're suddenly incapable of doing the job they were hired for. Mm hmm.

[00:05:35] Is when. If we ask you, can you do a wig? Can you do a wig wrap? Do you know how to lay a beard by hand? Do you know how to glue down lace? Do you know how to clean lace? Do you know how to like all of these things? And you would be shocked at how many people would jump at it to say yes, have the opportunity and they don't really have the experience that we need. And then we're stuck in the awkward position of like, oh, shit. Like, how do I how do I let you go?

[00:06:04] You know, or, you know, and fortunately, I feel like I'm a little bit different than a lot of the department heads I've worked under that I can sense it. And I'm like, here's what I think you should do. And I can just educate them right away so that they can fix what the problem is and not stick out like a sore thumb. Right. Not everybody in my position has that grace, but. You know, it's very cutthroat out there.

[00:06:30] And yeah, I mean, just going back to like fluffing your credits, I get the eagerness. I get why you want to do it, but really just stay focused on the now and like appreciate the experience. And there's no shame in being a day player like I get called all the time. I used to key on the chosen another calling. They called me to like day play the other day. And it's season seven. I was there from the beginning. I wasn't offended that they called me. I was flattered. I'm like, good. We still have a good rapport.

[00:06:59] You know, I'm happy to show up. And you remembered me. Totally. I've done a good job. You know, yeah, there's no shame in day playing. There's no shame in background. There's no shame there, you know. Alan, have you done any productions outside of the Austin and Dallas area where you're like, oh, I've been dying to go back there and do a few other productions there? It was a fun. You know, I mean, working in California is always a treat.

[00:07:28] It's great weather, man. The weather is, you know, you're not you're not dealing with. And I will say as a Texas native and also living out in L.A. and then back and forth and stuff like you have just there's a reason why Hollywood and California became like the epicenter for filming, because you can cheat almost every bit of that state for anywhere in the world. And you don't have the storm outside of Oklahoma, right? You don't have the storms and the tornadoes to rip everything away and cancel a day of filming.

[00:08:00] So, I mean, filming in California is always a treat. I've filmed in Mexico, South America. I have yet to film across the pond. I almost got a gig in the UK for an Amazon film as a personal makeup artist to an actor. And it didn't work out, but I was really looking forward to it.

[00:08:22] And the funny thing is a lot of my friends and my peers, like I have friends and peers that work in New Zealand a lot, like they just they do a lot of the Godzilla King Kong stuff that films out there or the. With the big feet, the hobbit stuff, sweet. Lord of the Rings. Sorry. Oh, I'm going to catch so much shit. OK. And they're really great at what they do and they're they get to travel all over the place and they have a little bit of FOMO. I'm like, man, I want to go work in New Zealand.

[00:08:50] But then they're also kind of telling me like the tricks and the ins and the outs. And they can't be too far away from the IATI union for too long, which is primarily in North America. Right. So, I mean, there's like, yeah, because then they're losing their insurance days. It's a whole thing, you know, so. Right. You want to keep in good standing with the union. You want to get your insurance days. And so, yeah, it's a real big balance.

[00:09:15] And unfortunately, a lot of productions right now have been doing things for really cheap across the pond, you know, overseas. Like you were saying before, stay in your lane, but also don't. You know, find ways to go outside the bubble once in a while. But yeah, not too long. Yeah, I mean, yeah. So, I mean, for that aspect of it, I would love to be working in Europe. I would love to be working in Italy. The best facial hair layers for beers are in Italy, like hands down.

[00:09:45] Nice. So to have those experiences would be wonderful. But I also really like my IATSE insurance, you know what I mean? Gotcha. Yeah. And I was fortunate enough to work on Broken, the Zonsold TV pilot, which you also worked on. I did, yeah. Yeah. It was pretty much LA Law for Women. And I was like, why did that not take off? Yeah, there was Broken and False Profits with Vanessa Williams. Yes.

[00:10:12] Coincidentally on Broken, I was just day playing on that, going in to help out with the background. By Reese Witherspoon. So I was like, what? It was. And Anna Paquin, you know, she was so lovely. And I remember like my first day on set. Again, I'm just background. I'm invisible when I do day playing in background. Like I don't whatever. And I ended up in this weird confined space with Anna Paquin. And at the time, like I loved True Blood. I'm a huge X-Men fan.

[00:10:40] My partner is a big comic book guy out in North Hollywood. So you got to be on the gifted X-Men Spinner. We got to day play on that too. It was great. And Anna Paquin showed up on that too because her husband. Yeah. Stephen Moyer. Yeah. Stephen Moyer was on that. And so Stephen was also showing up on the pilot of The Broken. And it's so funny. Like the crosshairs, right?

[00:11:07] And all the weird while you're watching them have those intimate scenes on True Blood. And you're like, oh, this is cringy. But they're actors and performers. Right. They're a couple of people. They don't go online, but they know what's out there. It's like, yeah. Yeah. If I got fans listening after me, I guess I've done my job. You know. Exactly. I remember the first time I met Anna Paquin, her makeup artist was where she had a personal and she was touching her up.

[00:11:36] And she caught my shirt. I was wearing like a Sriracha shirt. You get at Spencer's or Hot Topic or whatever. Yes. And yeah, she looked at it and she's like, I like your shirt. And I was like, thanks. I was feeling a little spicy today. And then I caught myself and I was like, oh, shit, we're not supposed to talk to number one. Right. We're not supposed to talk to like one, two or three. I'm glad you mentioned that.

[00:12:02] Do you think anyone could have like a reminder like PAs or first ADs could go out and remind people, hey, just because you're in a non-union state or a production where everyone's OK with it doesn't mean you should go out of your way to do it most often, because I would see that where people would go up and try and offer amateur productions to all these A-listers is like, guys, that's not going to happen without. Oh, my God. Or read my script or listen to my demo or follow on Instagram.

[00:12:33] Yeah. Let's start hustling. And it's like, you know, you should be planning your next move, not their next move. It's pretty cringy. And you'd be shocked at how many I mean, Billy Bob Thornton on Landman is like one of the kindest, most. Yeah. Personable people you will ever meet. And he grew up with this bad boy attitude. But somewhere along the way, I think like, oh, seven, he was like, OK, not going to do the bad boy act anymore. Yeah.

[00:13:03] It's going to be more paparazzi. People evolve. Kind. I mean, she's like and genuine and authentic. And like, yeah, he and he would he's the one that would rather talk to like the everyday person. Like he wants to talk. He wants to talk to the PAs. He's not really interested in the suits, you know, he's like. And and so it's really cool when you see that, because then you realize, well, you might be told, don't look so and so in the eye. Right.

[00:13:31] And then it's like it's coming from an A.D., you know, where it's coming from their experience. I get. Yeah. You know, it's like at the end of the day, though, I think the professionalism aspect is like, don't distract that person from doing a job. Right. You know, I had a stuck up community college teacher one time who was like, I was an assistant to Morgan Freeman. He was very cranky. And I was like, well, knowing you, you probably did something you weren't supposed to.

[00:13:58] And he was like, please get me my coffee and stop, you know, hanging. And, you know, if you're doing one of the nose, the no nose, then what do you expect? I'm going to be grumpy because I've told 500 people and yet it still happened. I'd be kind of angry, too. That's a good you know, that's a good way to look at it, because at the end of the day, even the assistants are just there to make the best environment they can for the actor. Bingo.

[00:14:25] Even if the actor has had a bad day, God forbid, even if they're hungover, like, you know, that's all of our jobs, really. And it's not even to say you'll have so many actors that are like, don't treat me like that. I'm not a star. I'm not better than you. I mean, we're talking about A-listers. That's good. And they're like, don't treat me like Jesus. Don't totally. But at the same time, I mean, especially for me as a makeup artist, they need to feel

[00:14:52] like they're being watched and seen, not necessarily because they're being watched and seen because they want to feel trusted that I'm doing my job because their job is not to keep up with continuity. Their job is not to keep up with, oh, this scratch was a little bit more on the side yesterday, like, or, you know, you know, maybe this is not look like it's not their job. And so it's a grace if they give you that feedback and they're like, hey, this looks a little off.

[00:15:22] You know, a lot of artists would get very, especially the egotistical ones. Oh, you know, yeah, I know better. I'm, you know, whatever. And I've got the content. You'll see the egos. But at the end of the day, they're really helping you. And even if they're not helping you, maybe you could help them feel more comfortable. You know, if they feel like that's it, maybe there's a like a halfway between where you guys can meet.

[00:15:48] And I feel like that's really like at the first of the morning, four or five, three, sometimes in the morning, we're the first people they encounter. And we set the tone for the entire day. And go, it's a big responsibility. You're not going to want to get to the end of the tunnel if the first thing you said is, oh, this is not going well. Oh, gee, I guess it's not going well. Totally.

[00:16:13] So I think the key for any artist or artists in working with talent or actors and directors is just to listen. Yes. And then after you listen, be able to discern what you can help and what you can't. You know, bingo, man. I that is that's poetry, man. That's because it is maddening when you see so many who want to get into divisive chats is like this isn't even divisive. This is just a simple.

[00:16:43] We keep stressing this because it works. It's been shown to work. It's what you would like in any other job. If you're dealing with a cynical boss, if you're dealing with a micromanager, guess what? You're going to be putting in your two week notice once you've had it instead of. Absolutely. I'm looking forward to this. I am valued. I am contributing something I am proud to contribute, you know, and. Totally. And, you know, something that I've taken in my career in my head.

[00:17:13] My head has always been to take a mentality or my mantra is, how can I help? Yes. You know, it's that simple. And I feel like if I were. If I were a department head, a key, a department head talking down or communicating with. I don't want to say subordinates, but my team, you know, lesser than me or lesser entitled.

[00:17:43] Because I also don't feel I don't feel that like I've got to say, like, I've been blessed to work with a lot of department heads that. Treat me on the same par that a department head would be treated, you know? Right. They haven't talked down to you or done anything out of their field. Yeah. Yeah. But I would say that, like, even as a department, as a top person and somebody below me was struggling, I would say, how can I help? You know, I wouldn't judge.

[00:18:12] I wouldn't be like, control yourself, you know, reel it in. You're spiraling. I wouldn't do that. I would say, how can I help? You know, and I think it's such a healthy mantra to have within any position you're working on in production. Bingo. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. Do you feel like even makeup's getting better notice at the award shows like Golden Gloves or Emmys or is there still a little traction needs to be done there?

[00:18:42] I feel like, well, we've got the red carpet side and then we've got like the award side. Yeah. The actual shows that someone's put in a sizzle reel for consideration. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you say that. Right before I jumped on this call, before this podcast interview, I had to fill out my four-year consideration for primetime Emmys. and I had to submit as a key makeup artist for this last season on Landman

[00:19:12] that can get tricky sometimes because I mean at the end of the day I'm just trying to make these characters look real but also look good so there's like this fine line between they look real like maybe as a real life person they did their own makeup particularly women I have this character amazing, I love my two females on Landman

[00:19:42] Kayla Wallace who plays Rebecca Falcone like a power attorney HBIC, right? She's a hard ass and then I have Ariana played by Polina Chavez and she's equally a badass but she's younger and she's a single mother now and she's a widow and she's falling in love with Billy Bob Thornton's son and there's like this whole thing going on there their character makeups are so unique and unique and different to the character

[00:20:11] because like on the one end I have Rebecca character of Rebecca who is rich she's wealthy she's smart she like, have you seen Landman? Have you seen her monologues or dialogues? She's into it I don't feel anything forced she's Canadian too, right? And she's so sweet Yeah Like, we'll text each other we were texting each other the other day because our favorite character lipstick for Rebecca just came back into production because it was it got like

[00:20:42] reformulated and so it was off the market for a while and we were stressing like, what are we gonna do for season three? But yeah, no it's like so curated to her that her makeup looks like Rebecca would do that makeup but Rebecca's also not she's all brains and she's like I wanna look pretty enough like so it would be like a five minute makeup routine that this woman would wake up she'd go work out she'd shower she's probably tanning getting natural sun

[00:21:12] from just being out all the time and then she would like do like a five minute makeup and get out like she's always on the go but then you have Ariana played by Polina Chavez who does wanna gussy up a little bit she's gonna go bartend at the Patch Cafe she's gonna wanna make her tip she's gonna wanna look cute right so she's gonna do a little bit more of like the bigger eye makeup she's gonna be maybe doing a little contouring a little more ambitious yeah totally and so really what it boils down to is it's nice if like

[00:21:42] you know the Emmys and and you know different award systems recognize that we as makeup designers are putting in all of this thought to the character because that I cannot stand and I'm not gonna shade Hallmark I'm not gonna shade Lifetime right but like when you're watching characters wake up in full makeup right with lashes and like the whole thing and it's morning time and they just woke up like it's not

[00:22:11] believable it's not real so it's nice to see it being recognized more and it's nice when you also have the actors that are willing to be vulnerable and say yes I just woke up my makeup might be a little smudged maybe we got down and dirty the night before so maybe like you know my character didn't wash her makeup off but it's still warned it you know all of these different character details are so important and I love it when you know award systems

[00:22:40] kind of acknowledge that and I do feel like we're getting a lot of recognition especially effects man effects is getting such such rave like a spotlight right now and again it's like subtle effects and I don't know if you've watched the ugly stepsister have you seen have you seen that movie I have not okay are you a Disney prime guy or do you my sister has it so yeah I can look it up call sis

[00:23:09] text sis be like hey what's your password if you care if you're into like subtle effects type makeup and again mind you like the substance I love the substance that I got to work with that was which is amazing we've had great conversations in the makeup trailer my department head Greg Moon does an amazing job on her makeup but like sometimes when she's in his chair you know she'll chit chat with me and yeah she's told me some really cool stories

[00:23:39] about the substance but I digress the ugly stepsister is it's on Hulu such a is it on Hulu too yep oh yeah well Hulu prime or oh god yep I'm a Hulu guy yep yeah check it out you gotta do it there's promise one scene and I want to get a message from you when you watch it there's one scene where this really cringe grotesque makeup happens but it's subtle because there's like a stitching motion involved

[00:24:08] and I would love to know what you think of it when you watch it I will do so I I and so I'm gonna take you up on that yep and but yeah I mean I think that's the other annoying thing is having to tell people hey sometimes the most smallest thing on screen can take three days just if we want to prep and however much effort we're gonna put into it you know and yeah by the time someone said let's do it we've already decided

[00:24:38] so we gotta gotta do our thing instead of complain oh it's not that great it's like well we are but I'm you know I'll also give you this insight um if I had a dime for every time I had to assemble a special effect makeup meaning customize molding sculpting yes having it ordered manufactured getting five or six versions of them because we don't know how many takes we're gonna have to do yeah all of that just for a director

[00:25:08] to be like oh just throw some blood on it oh for god's sakes we'll keep waiting all day to do this the insert special the close-up and then by the end of the day we're so out of time that they're like oh just fuck it like scrap the close-up and this prosthetic is like sitting on them all day and you're just like oh like you know that's what we get paid to do but it is very frustrating as an artist sometimes where we put so much work

[00:25:37] and especially with makeup it always looks freshest at the beginning so we're like can we get the special at the beginning and then when the AD department and director just like push push push push push at the end of the day we usually get cut or just throw blood on it and call it a day and that is a downside for us as artisans but it's the nature of the beast you know well that's the other problem too is like

[00:26:07] how badly did someone want to do it and then of course you got in these different powers some of them are smart some of them are questionable and it's like well I can't argue they're the guy in charge but yeah like that to not not put any effort into it if we're not going to use it but totally and I'll and I'll tell you recently um uh an an academy award winning effects house um was commissioned

[00:26:36] to do some stuff and then even that didn't make the cut and wow I know and I was like oh that was expensive I mean we're talking 30 to 60 thousand dollars worth of work that never saw the light of day because it ended up on the cutting room floor yeah and it's like oh you know but that's where you gotta like temper the ego a little bit you know at least we got paid for it I wouldn't say it's ego though I mean unless someone is like oh no one's

[00:27:06] gonna get to see my creation it's more like I put all this work and you'll never just really nurse on that paycheck you know yeah hey you know it is what it is but it is what it is uh you've been fortunate enough going back to how you've been in charge of a department you were on the Dolph Lundgren

[00:27:36] alien comedy welcome to willard's which was liked by genre fans and you've been in John Hyams is sick which flirted with reality tv with the housewives of Dallas yeah cruel summers is still available to stream when abc family was getting into psychological mysteries for teens i heard a rumor that jessica beale is bringing back that original cast of cruel summer

[00:28:06] um with a production company at e1 they i'm pretty sure i heard that some of those actors are going to come back as an older version of themselves in a different generation it's kind of was weird it was like a mixture between some of those other uh i guess for lack of a better word how to get away with murder and even pretty well liars just people like those kind of just unusual stuff hitting the

[00:28:47] your audience and it still takes a while to filter it out whether people like it for the right reasons or not and yeah well and i was kind of like when i read the script especially as the key makeup artist um and that was interesting enough because that happened right after we came out of lockdown and covid yeah so we it was us in like yellowstone season four and we had the strictest uh back to work you know

[00:29:16] policies happening where like we had to wear the full like blue paper gown and the you know the binoculars and the mask and whatever and when i got onto that i was just trying to wrap my head because it was like three different timelines like in the 90s yeah and then and then me and my department head we worked in separate trailers so the department heads were in one trailer and the keys were in another trailer specifically because

[00:29:46] if any of us got covid we needed to be able to take over for one another and it was so tight but they had us separated and so we're trying to tell this story we're trying to do designs with makeup you know all of our correspondences through text and then like six feet apart on set i mean it was a really strange situation to work in um so but between the whole physicality of filming that show and then watching it play out online

[00:30:15] or i'm sorry on on tv was really nice because there was just a discombobulating feeling that what we were making wasn't going to make sense on on the show because literally everything was spread out between years in the storyline and departments and like six feet apart it was crazy so i'm glad that it was a hit with a lot of people people seem to really like it well i'm sure like you say i mean first ad

[00:30:45] i've heard the great mick garris bestowed for all of his stephen king adaptations he joked on his now defunct podcast first ad shouldn't be called first assistant director they should be called first executive producer because they're the guys who you know remove a director if they're behind on schedule they're the ones who report the studios hey uh you know actors coming in late you know we're out of time to you know film their shots what do we do besides scrap and call it a loss

[00:31:16] so i mean like you say though yeah it's like when you're told get back to work while threatening your health and then not sure if the continuity is still working the way it's supposed to i mean that had to still be stressful and then at the same time say hey boss ordered i'm just gonna just gonna wing it at this rate yeah oh my god even the makeup too you know because when the actors would wear i'm having

[00:31:45] like a triggering memory it was kind of traumatic kind of yeah it was so traumatic because then like all of a sudden the actors are wearing masks right and if they have lipstick you know you're trying to find out everywhere yes there's waterproof smudge proof like formulas out there but only to an extent when you have like the steamy nose breath going into the mask it's like it's always gonna or people's human oils you know like their skin yeah it's always gonna break down makeup no matter what

[00:32:15] and so you would have like well you sweat smearing you take their mask off and they're ready to go and you're like whoa wait i need to touch them up because it's now like smudge but then the 80s like what the fuck are you doing you said they were ready to go and i'm like yeah but you didn't call last looks and it was triggering so then that kind of changed the tones that we would use in lipsticks the formulas we would use in lipsticks like it changed everything because we could no longer do our job

[00:32:45] because now we all of a sudden we had stuff rubbing on their face 24 7 and if that wasn't enough if somebody was dehydrated if people are gonna drink some water but people are if they drink alcohol the night before if they have a high sodium meal the night before they might be a little bit puffy so when you have these masks on your face they would take even if for a few minutes they take them off to do their scene and there's

[00:33:15] these lines embedded in their skin you know like the sleepy lines like have you ever slept really hard on one side yeah yeah and it looks like you've just been slugged when it's like no it's the equivalent of cause inflating a wound or something and there I am there we are just like rubbing out their cheeks trying to like massage out the lines and stuff I mean what a time I'm so glad you brought that up

[00:33:44] I'm triggered all over again well do you think good story though do you think before anyone takes a makeup class whether it's you know the Rick Bakers or Stan Winston's of the world whether it's all the other just regular makeup if people need to be reminded hey you know just like a cinematographer you gotta also know a little math you gotta know a little science behind this you know put this on causes this layer to show up this way absolutely I would say the key

[00:34:14] fundamentals to that would be chemistry yes you know know what your silicone based water based and alcohol based things will do to the skin know how the skin would react to those bases know the chemistry of what you're putting on and how they interact with each other look at the ingredients make sure it doesn't give someone allergic reaction a thousand percent or even just react to itself I can't tell you there's like sometimes if you mix silicone with water based products they'll roll

[00:34:44] up on each other and then suddenly you're like doing makeup and it's like rolling off like their skin's peeling the demon mask looks like it's just been going apart yeah or like if you have a water based something and then someone's oils start coming out of their skin and breaking it down then you're trying to touch them up all day and it just is not working you have to clean it up and start all over again so chemistry I would say color theory is a thousand percent and it's also changing a little

[00:35:14] bit now because a lot of the lights are no longer what we used to use you know we had the tungsten lights and like the kinos and kino flows and all of those hard lights and I've been doing this for over 20 something years so yeah I saw the end of film into digital and now I've seen the end of those lights into like the led lights and it changes so much and so I feel like you need to have a good grip on color theory especially because a lot of these tones of lights especially if they don't have

[00:35:43] the registered meter of like red frequency lights coming in then you'll start to see people's makeup start to go more yellow you know or in some cases orange a little bit and you're looking at your product and then it'll oxidize you know and that also goes into chemistry so I say lighting you know chemistry color theory 101 so that you know if you're doing or if your director is going to say this is the these are the tones that we're going to use this is

[00:36:13] the colors and the tones and like this is the treatment it's going to get and if you're doing and trailers too I mean our makeup back in the day in our makeup trailers we would have people from the lighting department come and balance our light with gels and they would put gels all over the place so that the light that we were seeing was going to be the end product of the filter treatment that the film was going to get and now everything is just like cool bright light

[00:36:42] everything is cool natural daylight and and then we get I'll take for Landman for instance the treatment that they give Landman is very warm it's very golden it's very yellow and so like we have to use warmer yellow lights in the trailer so that we know that the makeup we're doing especially with bruising effects and blood is going to read the right way in camera and then sometimes in camera like the LUTs aren't quite applied yet

[00:37:12] so when we're looking at the monitor it's a little jarring and you're just like ah but in the end you know your DP knows what he's doing you know lighting knows what they're doing and then we all come together because we're on the same page so yeah I mean chemistry color theory lighting all of that is very very pertinent to the job for sure I hope they continue to give you a big enough trailer because yeah it's like it's not just

[00:37:44] supplies keep batteries charging hair dryer everybody always thinks so like the hair and makeup trailer is like the beauty parlor and I'm like word no like it's probably stressful yeah then they complain was they look awful when I it's time to light them like didn't give me any time to make them that part that part or or you know when you have actors you know coming in late for whatever reason you know if they had a late fitting if they were you know if

[00:38:13] if costumes took too long if hair took too long or whatever whatever the department is and then all of a sudden it's like you've got five minutes to do their makeup to get them on set it's a lot of stress and then and then if they're like late to getting on set then they're always down on for some reason they always think the fluff and puffs you know like hair and makeup they're just chatting and like and I'm like no if you knew the stress like we time ourselves like as you said earlier ad's count every minute

[00:38:43] yeah so I mean we count every minute we document every minute that an actor gets into our chair and when they leave we have to because that is the day you know that's the day so that's the other annoying thing too is then without felt when some of the Chinese lanterns have gone out or just a camera malfunction because the AC you know it's always annoying when there is a backup but people instantly kind of like when someone

[00:39:12] told an inappropriate joke and got pulled away by the principal everyone likes to instantly assume oh shit something's going down it's like just you're not looking forward to this let's not you know yeah it could just be some other deal the actor just forgot the line they know everything but just for whatever reason they're so in character just like please line yeah the director just came over and just needed to just pat him on the shoulder respectfully absolutely we'll return after these messages

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[00:42:07] show dot com i gotta ask you about what it was like working on the sequel to laser team because that was a big youtube red event and colton dunn star has got even further you know on superstore and yeah it was in super store and and nicole sakura um blockers yeah pronounce her name right yeah i think i think she was she was on superstore too at the

[00:42:35] time um yes and it was really cool like they were just so i have a funny story did you have problems like putting their makeup on because they're making you laugh yeah like we had a lot of fun on that show and on that one i think i was doing hair um but i mean everybody was just wonderful and um we had a really good time and i have a really funny nicole story if you want to hear it or if we have time but i also have a

[00:43:04] funny like alien poop story about that one because it was like a whole alien poop scene with that yes i mean the the effects department had like these vats and vats of alien shit sorry i don't know if i can say that you can completely me um and it was like all made out of like this edible grade gelatin it was really good right food you

[00:43:34] would actually want to eat but we got to make it look disgusting on screen totally yeah silky and they had like vats and vats of it i remember that weekend we had had we finished that scene and then we had leftovers and i was like can i take the alien alien crap i'm gonna have some friends over i want to kind of entertain them with the alien poop it tastes delicious and they were like yeah take it um

[00:44:01] but no nicole and die yeah eat shit and die and get killed by a giant snail like there was a killer snail on that yeah a slug there's all kinds of monsters in it it's making fun of all those space operas yeah it was so funny um nicole who was also in super superstore at the time um she and i had gone out with some of the casting crew and do you know ty sheridan are you familiar with the actor

[00:44:30] ty sheridan so i not to be confused with taylor yeah yeah i know i i like ty he's pretty i knew ty and it's funny i have like a bunch of like these like jacob laughlin i think did mud with ty um i believe it could be wrong i think you're right and i have some like weird like connections that i sheridan but so nicole and i and a couple of casting crew were out in austin like up and down sixth street or whatever and

[00:44:59] we were a little tanked um i guess she was friends with ty they had been friends before and so i had stepped away to get us some more drinks and i come back and i see nicole city and mind you that evening a bunch of people recognized her so everywhere we were going people kept like flocking to her and the store is still big on streaming so yeah and like cast and crew we kind of get protective of each other especially the cast right i feel like they're being hounded a

[00:45:28] little bit you read a room and you see stuff that you don't want to see and you're like can we please have a private room so you know like yeah birthday room where there's it's taped down and no one can see we're in here totally and i get a little bit i get a little papa bear with stuff uh especially especially with actresses and especially you know like drinking is involved like i just always want to keep an eye out and um so i saw this guy just like hanging

[00:45:56] hanging around her and um i went up to her and i was like hey girl are you okay whatever and i sat and i was chilling with her and i started getting like kind of i guess i started grilling him and i was just like how do you know her what do you do and he was trying to tell me that and mind you this was ty sheridan he was telling me that he worked on the art department of another movie that was filming in austin like he was just like giving me all this bullshit and being funny about it you know he was like so but then

[00:46:25] he was also kind of like i think once he realized that it was trying to be a little protective of nicole he started just being a little like started pushing the buttons with you know being flirtatious and big anyway the whole thing was like really funny and i was like girl if we need to go let's go like whatever and she's like you know who that is right no i don't here's the art guy that you worked with on your friend and she's like no is that what he told you that's ty sheridan he's an actor and i was like oh my god and i

[00:46:55] think at the time well he was acting too well and i think at the time he was uh doing x-men or something or just wrapped x-men and i loved it because i was such a huge x-men fan that afterwards i was like oh my god ty sheridan totally like punked me oh he was in apocalypse okay wow yeah he was in like the first class and all of the so the younger ones okay yeah i only i've seen those

[00:47:23] but i know him from mud and the order and all these yeah i mean it was really funny because i feel like they were playing with me but it was just terrible all afterwards i felt like such a dumbass you know and but also i was like oh my god came early yeah i know i'm like i love his work he's a great guy so this keeps coming back to superheroes in some capacity so what is your superpower if you are a mutant oh god

[00:47:55] you can make it all spooky if you want to go all pinhead or jason forties on me i do oh god what's your favorite horror movie by the way oh gosh uh some ask me one day it's candy man ask me the next day it's probably shoot gremlins or something can't be i love freddy kruger you know freddy kruger yes it was just it all the time i don't scream i'm a diehard scream fan

[00:48:22] so when i got to work for kevin williamson on sick and department head and design that it was like a dream come true and i remember specifically with that one i had done like a split neck and uh me and a local utah artist kelly she was an effects artist we worked together and we did this amazing split neck and i remember being nervous about it because the executive producer was like you know kellen's kevin is really particular about effects specifically split necks

[00:48:50] and when he saw the dailies the executive producer came and he was like kevin loved your split neck and i was a slit neck and i was like yeah validation i wish you could tell me that but you're full circle so yeah hey yeah yeah yeah no yeah full circle career moment uh kevin approved my slit neck um but uh uh yeah no with i'm sorry wait what did you just ask me oh i went on my tangent

[00:49:19] no it's fine i oh superhero power yeah um yeah i think i would love to move things with my mind you know like if i could just you know sit on a lounge on a couch and like move the makeup brush on your face and like create perfection that would be fun um i think that'd be pretty cool what would your superpower be the i don't want to read minds that'd be creepy but

[00:49:48] yeah the creepy i guess to disable weapons oh there you go so how do we do world peace if we're gonna is that a gray is that a palladian thing is that a an in i'm kind of a good version of magneto if you think about it just like i'm just gonna you know flick my hand and your guns just been pulverized they can't fire yeah you could do that if you want to fight you're gonna have to get off your ass and start putting your

[00:50:17] dukes up if you want to actually start to fight it if you're a chicken should hire any minor weapon i guarantee you you're not gonna do that you're gonna the camera are you follow are you following any of the stuff that's happening with congress but like the aliens and stuff with the you what are they called like not ufos are called like they have a different name for them but these unidentified flying things that have been deactivating nuclear sites oh the anomalous phenomenon no i haven't really

[00:50:45] been following that too much i've been kind of just i've been distracted by so many other things but yeah i gotta say it's pretty fascinating like i i watched some guy testify the other day because they were having a hearing you know in dc about this and it's kind of fascinating that like these unidentified things are flying around over nuclear you know sites and deactivating missiles

[00:51:14] um as they're trying to launch them or even what i think one instance had been launched and something unidentified flew up to it shot some beam into it it deactivated and then it like fell to the ground it's kind of like the 77 000 pages of jfk documents and yet you still got 99 of the other stuff you know hidden but yeah it there's still like you say we're getting closer to answers but

[00:51:43] then it just makes you wonder is like who who is cock blocking who is gatekeeping and you can say that about any job who is the higher up making it impossible for other people to do their jobs yeah totally because regardless who's in control you got all these other guys who like don't want you to know how the sausage is made and it's like well everyone's exhausted they want some kind of truth dude i i tell you and not to get

[00:52:11] political but just being an american in this day and age every day you're learning something that we're being lied about they're lied to about yes it's just like oh i feel it's almost like take me back to when santa claus was real in my mind and i was a kid you know or yeah to an extent it's just like everything is way more you just feel really dumb and naive for just taking what you're being fed

[00:52:40] and it's very anxiety causing but like you say is like there's got to be other healthier well that you we're kind of at this point with food there are so many healthier options but then if you go down the wrong path you'll find five other sites that are all meant to just basically stress you out oh you could try this but there's that i'm like yeah wrong site let's go to a different site that is reliable and i'll get some opinions and

[00:53:09] yeah figure out how i want to live my world and eat something that's going to give me less problems but yeah it's yeah and i think as long as people are still making that executive decision for themselves you know as long as you have we're still thinking yeah you're like i'm not going to be fed this let me go do my own research or let me i think as long as we're still thinking that way there's hope for us you know i i think it's where you're like and oh my family but anyway my family members that

[00:53:39] are just like oh well i'm gonna die anyway so i might as well blah blah blah and i'm like oh that's not what we're saying either yeah it's like there's got to be that middle ground um totally and given how you've worked on other movies have you ever had to even give a disclaimer it's like yeah i worked on a project of faith i don't do just faith movies yes i've done political dramas like i've done both i've done both lbj and reagan that doesn't have anything to do with me

[00:54:05] yeah i have um specifically with the movie that i did uh by is it dinesh d'Souza yes hillary's america yep yep hillary's america yeah oh my god i was actually told by people on that crew not to put my name on a resume and not to put it on imdb not to be listed in the credits to give a fake name i actually have crew members co-workers that put fake names

[00:54:34] i forgot onto their cast credits for that because they were worried about being attacked by the government it was a whole thing and then um yeah i felt at one point i had to explain myself for that and then again like with the chosen people are like right what are you doing working on the chosen as an out gay man and i'm like well you know most true christians are very accepting of all people because that's what christ taught them

[00:55:04] yeah to love and forgive everyone well additionally in all fairness i mean it is both a big budget you know theatrical looking religious movie but yes then you go into the argument it's like okay i'm in this kind of faith movie but it's not a judgmental pure flicks film but it's not this kind of thing but we're getting this now with angel studios you got people on all sides of the aisle appearing on stuff like that and like well there's some problematic movies in that but work is work at the same time so

[00:55:33] it's like i isn't that funny yeah well and i think at the end of the day though like oh god i do oh you know what now that you say that you've unlocked some memories from a project but i think that might be an off the record thing we could i'm happy to talk to you about off the record i'm not gonna say i'll tell you an off the record thing on a project both of us have worked on there was a project that involved gangsters that without fail i would encounter some assistants who were doing

[00:56:03] nothing but talking smack about the actors and everything and i'm like well okay we got something that's a remake of a soap opera i get that a telenovela but have faith in your work but why are you guys talking smack in front of us yeah well it's like it's not a good environment and yeah i kept encountering a stunt guy who was like oh they switched directors i'm like well that's that's what episodics do yeah

[00:56:33] that's why it's so consistent like or maybe they want the inconsistency you know i don't yeah they want to keep it fresh and new it's like but yeah yeah i got a lot of crap too i and and honestly from working on taylor sheridan shows specifically yellowstone um i had personal friends that were like what are you doing on that show how do you not fear from your life

[00:57:02] it's being run by a bunch of rednecks and hillbillies and they're homophobes and they hate latinos and you're a double minority because you're a gay latino and blah blah blah and i'm like i've never felt unsafe really by the people that i work with on those shows nobody has ever been outwardly racist to me or it's a very mainstream show you don't have to like it but that's not does it mean the people are playing are awful totally in real life and people trying to tell me like

[00:57:31] oh taylor sheridan he writes all this stuff like he hates gay people he's all about and i'm like but honestly i know some of taylor's close circle of people and like his wife and they're wonderful people from all different sides of the aisle like they're you know they're they're not all white people they're not all straight people they're like all over the place and so i mean i look at and mind you like i've worked with him on set

[00:58:00] but like i don't know him personally but i see the circles of people that they're around and they're like really well-rounded people you know they don't scream you know a conservative or progressive or one or the other they just seem well-rounded so people are telling me how i should or shouldn't be working for this man or his shows and what he writes and i'm like i don't feel that way about his person and i definitely don't feel that way about the crews on there because i feel like we're all very accepting of each other we're all like crew people we're crew family

[00:58:29] i feel like that goes back to many shows like there are many people who liked other sci-fi horror shows like twilight zone x-files or star trek yeah but many were doing the whole oh don't get on that you'll get typecast or only work on sci-fi channel schlock and it's like that's not necessarily true so i feel like a lot of people act like his stuff is for only a conservative market even though it's being consumed by people on all ends of the aisles kind of like totally

[00:58:58] west wing and 24 were apolitical but everyone wanted to label them for only a certain crowd so i don't know i yeah i will say too um when i jumped on to a season of yellowstone later uh towards the end we were filming in montana and i started seeing these signs we were in the bitter root valley and like the locals there hated us so much there were protesters one weekend we were filming in hamilton

[00:59:29] and they had signs like go back to hollywood baby eaters and oh my god um yeah and like it was just so crazy because i'm sitting here thinking we're in the thick of what the yellowstone storytelling environment is in montana and i was so shocked to see how the locals really did not want them there they did not want production there they didn't want us there they didn't want

[00:59:59] hollywood there and yet those shows he hasn't come out as conservative but his shows are kind of considered like 80s non-pcs so that's just so wild how even with different side of the aisles they were still like oh hollywood guy get out of here uh-huh yeah and then i like to think in several interviews he's denounced hollywood you know but they're still like bah paramount hollywood baby eaters pedophiles get out you know

[01:00:28] we're just like what the hell so yeah i've definitely not really in the industry so to speak but i felt more prejudice and stuff of just what i've worked on from outside people in the communities fort worth currently we're filming a lot in fort worth for a lioness and landman and yes madison the spinoff of dutton ranch and who knows what else and um and fort worth has been largely accepting they love us here they love the money that you know

[01:00:58] all of the cast and crew and the productions are dropping yeah do you think they'll ever figure out that whole film deal because they kind of were doing that for a while we don't want hollywood here or you'll have to pay extra taxes if you film here blah blah blah i think it's like the new atlanta you know all right i think that right now to get filming here the tax incentives are going to be very loose and stringent on what it's going to take to get those from production um and i think that is going to get to a point

[01:01:28] where then people are going to start getting greedy and then it's going to start getting more stringent and structured on that kind of thing so then that goes back to the next question is like how do this is what i'm both fear for for anyone getting into film some people like living on the edge but how do you pat yourself uh on the back at night letting yourself know hey i work for me i got all these different clients but it's not always

[01:01:57] steady income you know oh my gosh i just had to talk to another peer of mine yesterday about this because it takes a lot of resilience to be in this industry and you gotta crash on people's sofas on some houses or some yeah and it's like it can be a little depressing if you don't know what you're doing you know or if you don't feel good about what you're doing and um i've always been very blessed to have a steady

[01:02:27] stream of work i mean granted that you know the pandemic sucked and yes um the uh strikes were very very hard on me financially and in hollywood so many of my friends out in la were just like losing their homes losing their cars moving back with family in different states and like that was yeah we're talking about like award winning artists um so that was really weird to see and even to a point

[01:02:56] where it's made me a little uh conscious when i've been so happy to or blessed to work after that uh steadily um seeing still some people that haven't worked since the strikes is devastating and horrible and seeing them like driving for a door dash and not that that's anything to be ashamed of i think that's a a great way to like do supplemental income but it's just that i know that that's not what they trained to do

[01:03:26] that wasn't their whole so it's really an identity shift and a life crisis shift to pivot and say this is now how i make my money even though i'm an academy award winning makeup artist you know right kind of like uh what's his name uh oh what's his name who was on cosby's show we just saw him on the pit and we were like oh great he was at traders joe's because you know cosby's show isn't syndicated as much so yeah yeah yeah was it was it his son or who

[01:03:56] was it uh jeffrey owens who played elven yeah yes and um yeah i mean even danny do you remember danny pintaro he was on who's the boss i don't know how old you are but i i'm seven years behind you but yeah uh yeah i mean that was a good point where it's like yeah i think he was doing door or amazon he was driving for amazon and it's just like you know and that's the weird part i will say that once you

[01:04:26] if ever you're working in a market like la or new york or like one of the bigger markets the stardom really goes away yeah because you're suddenly in the same we're all just going from job to job to job and if we're not we're trying to go from job to job to job so we're only as good as our last job and if you haven't worked in a month or a year or two months or three months or three years or five years like that weighs in on you and then you start to wonder

[01:04:55] like what am i doing with my life why am i trying to do this the industry is rejected me or the industry doesn't want me so i always say get what they're is good if your heart is in it keep doing it don't stop don't give up i feel like the industry rewards people that are constantly pursuing it totally and and just don't give up i promise to still do a music video it's been a minute but i think that would be a good contrast especially now that mtv is

[01:05:25] dead and i would be it'd be better than just doing a short that i throw away or doing a festival psa that not everyone gets to see so yeah and totally it seems like you're being realistic about it because yeah i see so many other people being so snarky oh you know like a bunch of these famous people have just come out with like some video on demand movies like easy to go they might be very reasonable slashers or action revenge movies but you

[01:05:55] just don't know because everyone's so judgmental about the covers and it's like well you got to keep working you got to keep staying relevant even if it's not a lifetime you do even if it's a yeah look at film film isn't yeah what it used to be anymore and now you have a-listers like billy bough thornton demie more nicole kidman reese witherspoon people said i would never do tv never do so donna is like the highest grossing actor of all time um didn't

[01:06:25] she just top off scarlett johansson i mean i will give it that you haven't seen scarlett johansson do a tv series right or like an episodic let alone for avatar movies so there you go you know because that's the other thing too you know even if you're just part of an ensemble is like hey you know if i'm totally and but i mean like i think if you have someone like a nicole kidman and billy bob and zoe and like all of these a-list film actors are now

[01:06:54] doing streaming shows and episodics and stuff you've got to be able to see where the industry is going they all know and that's why they're doing it well they know that they're not holding out for the next film because they know it's probably not going to happen and if it does happen you know it could flop and not be successful i mean for god's sake look at sydney sweeney i mean yeah i how they keep trying to make him a star and he keeps being rejected so you don't know it's not even political it's like well give it time you know like

[01:07:24] mickey rourke wasn't a hit overnight then he burned out and became impossible to work with so i mean you've been fortunate enough to work with people who you both admire and you're like i do want to have a drink with you because you are a good storyteller blah blah blah you're just a sweet person blah blah but yeah i mean i i'm going back to your deal on just being real i mean my sister and i were real distressing the news how matthew lillard was having a blunt statement saying oh hollywood's hiring

[01:07:53] me back but not because they think i'm good i don't i'm not against him being real but i was like oh don't give your haters like tarantino more ammunition is like people want to work with you because you've never been a problem mr lillard and totally you're right for this project now if you don't feel like you were picked because your tout that might be slightly true but don't again don't give ammunition for the clickbait articles you know it's like you've been on a number of amount of cartoons movies

[01:08:23] and tv shows and that's also you know got to play a part of like matthew matthew lillard has been working as an actor since he was young never heard anything of someone wanted to punch him or never to a waiter been on recognizable so that's a talent you know yeah and it sucks though that even someone like him who's shown up done the job done it well been pleasant still goes through that spell and then has to come up with like why am i defending myself

[01:08:53] i'm just doing what i'm doing why do i have an agent totally totally that's unfortunate but yeah no he's a talent for sure and yeah i'm sure sometimes in all these homages and all these parodies movies even movies that are just throwback sequels where they're getting you back for someone back for a surprise cameo it's like yeah we we didn't do any casting on that we literally just had you show up you know unannounced and it was no different than all these

[01:09:23] productions that film under a different alias to prevent paparazzi you know giving away the location at i'm cool with people calling a spade a spade and at the same time it's like you know i appreciate the bluntness but overall you will be valued you know that you would have to have literally run someone over or you know just said something so despicable for someone to be like i hope we never hire you unless the direct video market you know wants you you know it's yeah it's kind of maddening to

[01:09:53] have to even you kind of get this with politics where everyone feels the need to defend someone is like no no no let let everyone speak for themselves here and at the same time don't let them talk shit about themselves because they're too close to something that they're mistaking the bad filming experience for or not getting their full money back for the movie being bad it's like let let them totally yeah that's not on anyone else but but the situation you know i mean denzel washington or red harris could

[01:10:22] probably easily come up to someone and be like i know what my worst performance is but they also are wise to know i am a brand i would be doing everyone including myself a disservice if i told you what i was bad in you know yeah it is kind of it is so cool to see those who have navigated this and been both real and had the charismatic business side and then there's others where it's like okay i i think we've seen other people reinvent themselves too much like

[01:10:52] jennifer lopez and the rock kind of do this every three years and it's like stop you never talk that way you need to say jennifer lawrence maybe a bit of that you see some of it with even scientologists like tom cruise but you've been fortunate enough to kind of just work with a lot of just straight up just people who have always navigated through career highs and lows i really have yeah and i mean i can remember plenty of the 2000s where no one was talking

[01:11:22] about kevin costner or demi moore i was like what the fuck happened yeah he didn't just stop being stars but they needed time to calm down you know totally kevin was tired of doing flop after flop and demi needed to literally embrace uh her personal side and just get away from the hollywood scene for a bit so it's like yeah just let people it's interesting to see that too and it's also like those are people that we used to love to watch like

[01:11:50] anywhere without some re-release you know anywhere you know and even now i mean poor anne hathaway like yeah she she kind of had a moment of overexposure after les mis you know and too much and it's like whose fault is that though you know like is it the media is i wouldn't blame anyone on that it just kind of happened but that's a good point i i didn't expect russell crowe to make some little

[01:12:19] scene action and horror movies but russell crowe can we talk about how he did two like exorcism movies yeah totally different it was like the pope's exorcism what was the other one and i was like it was just called the exorcism but it was like a meta movie but you're like marketing much yeah i know and then i'm like who's paying for these like somebody is buying somebody is like with money just like i want to see russell crowe in another priest uniform let's write another script you

[01:12:49] know yeah it's it's so weird kind of like i mean web series used to be a thing and now we've been braced streaming i i think everybody's kind of saying a lot of the same stuff and then they're doing different types of the formula before they can get good at it so yeah i mean yeah video on demand was kind of a joke you know seven when it started and then everyone's like nope now it's second nature you can see this movie the same day you see it play for two weeks in theaters

[01:13:19] it's yeah people don't even go to the movies anymore i mean me and my partner we have our amc stubs you know like and that's our just about everything goes for there you're like yeah but you would be shocked i mean or maybe you wouldn't like every time we go to the movies like unless it's an opening night of something like it's almost always 50 occupied or less yes crazy it's just like what's happening right now yeah i like to say

[01:13:48] i don't know whose fault it is other than you can just say hey they experimented on to the next one you know on to the next one could have been worse they could have done a job bad job on something they were just so not serious about and so as a result everyone paid the price no one saw anything yeah i i think people are slowly getting better at not talking smack about something i do applaud directors who keep

[01:14:17] uh like the madam web gal she's like hey i'm gonna establish tv director i'm gonna say it straight up for risk of career suicide uh studio messed with my movie that is not yeah like i'm glad you owned it you you beat the tabloids to that so it's gotta be authentic it's like yeah movie you're gonna see they've taken me out and i'm going back to tv and that's fine by me because they messed with me yeah and you're seeing a bunch of weird things on that front now because

[01:14:47] you have the whole lawsuit and um just like people suing each other now and trying to get control of films and stuff and all and then like you know something is a flop i mean even for what was her name she directed eternals and then oh yeah yeah and then but then she like you know she's kind of like this golden gal director but then she had that was considered a flop

[01:15:16] somehow by marvel but or at least amongst fans i don't know um but then you have that she tried to do the buffy the vampire slayer reboot recently and they did a pilot and like hulu scrapped it all and they were just like nah it's not it you know but then she wins the oscar i mean there's just so many ebbs and flows of this industry that's like what is what anymore like almost no one is an absolute unless you're like an executive at a major studio

[01:15:46] now it's kind of strange to me it's crazy i'm glad you mentioned that because it's like there's so many powerful women in hollywood especially women of color like we got sandra rhymes she's always yeah gonna be working we got courtney a camp as part of the power franchise and handed it off to other people she trusts but then we have people who are brilliant but who are described by casting crew as toxic to work for like misha green of love back country so you're just

[01:16:15] like oh yeah yeah you get some of that but like you say you get all these other hits and misses it's like you know it's a lot as a lot of the same kind of just politics and yeah award show egos and it even goes back to the whole you gotta ask it's kind of was what we were doing with me too is like okay if i've asked more than five people you know and this isn't people who are already difficult or already full of themselves then something's wrong we gotta address the elf in the

[01:16:45] room then there it's kind of also been like when people get accused of being difficult is like were the actor or actress asking too many questions and pissing everyone off or were they doing a good job and the other insecure people just started talking shit you don't know yeah i don't know totally i think the other hard part is just when nothing's perfect but or something's halfway successful like we kind of had this where we want people of color to

[01:17:15] talk about colored stories now we're having other people accuse each other of whether or not you have to be gay in order to play a gay person on screen listen if we if any straight person if any true heterosexual person really wants to play a gay character with all the physicality involved yeah good for you you know what good for you for being so

[01:17:44] secure it's acting you're getting into a character you're exploring a new part of yourself all for the sake of understanding another person's perspective you know i think that's great but i also get you know especially with hollywood's like long history of having so many leading men in the closet and then we not finding out until they're dead or you know later on that does at a point when homosexuality was

[01:18:13] such an oppressed like thing right you know it is painful for those people to be like why couldn't i have had representation so i do get the sake of writing gay stories for you know with gay actors there's representation but i mean if we're just going to go there and talk about that i don't know if you've seen heated rivalry at all i'm not my sister has she was it was so funny that's a perfect example of something where everyone's half and half on some are like it's good others are like i felt like

[01:18:43] it's just soft core porn and others were like hey i'm gay but i don't really get much out of it other than the whole shocking content so that's another example of and i would equate it to you know people are watching sex in the city or true blood you know that's basically like soft core porn right but everybody was like oh it's hot oh whatever right so i can't wait to tune in every weekend and and i'll give you an interesting perspective on that when i was watching heated rivalry it actually triggered a lot

[01:19:13] of things in me that i became so uncomfortable watching that show as a gay man who should have been like oh this is hot this is nice to see look at these two looking good looking gay guys like going at it you know whatever yeah um i had the reverse the opposite reaction and i felt so uncomfortable because i realized it was probably one of my first times outside of broke back mountain that i had seen a love story like that that wasn't a soft core

[01:19:42] porn or it wasn't meant to be pornographic erotic or anything you know what i mean it was like and i think that's what made me uncomfortable because i was like no no we're not supposed to have real life like love narratives like this that's not for us we get the porn you know we get the we get the gratuitous crazy shit that's like out of grips with reality because it's not real and so right that was like a real mind fuck for me to really process and be like i am worthy of watching

[01:20:11] a story and finding representation in it i should be more comfortable with watching that it made me so uncomfortable to watch and and i was just you know and that sucks because it was a beautiful love story and i think by the time the show the series had ended i'd done my processing and i was like i loved the characters for who they were i got over all the gratuitous sex stuff and i felt more comfortable in my own skin but i mean i'm sure that i'm not the only person that felt that

[01:20:40] way yeah i mean there's plenty of stuff where you're just like it's just not for this audience like i i know podcasters who don't care for only murders in the building who's podcasters true crime guys aren't like that and like i like true crime i'm about to start my own thing but you know teach their own i why is it that now we're doing the whole only a minority can do another minorities film yeah unless you're spilberg then you get to slap on the wrist and nice try so i i think yeah i think

[01:21:09] there's just that goes back to the whole root of this problem is like don't even start this conversation if you can't even come with a solution kind of like politics i gotta be louder but not come up with a better idea than you yeah and it's funny it's funny too uh as um i have a project that i'm working on coming up but like uh part of it entails like producing more brand that i'm creating and so but one of the things that i was

[01:21:39] like what do i want to say like if somebody just says yes do a real in 10 seconds what are you gonna say and the first thing i thought today was like i would say i love all my white friends i love all of my white friends who are straight and white and white who are allies who are allies because it is my straight white friends whose voice is unfortunately louder than ours that if they stick up for me if

[01:22:09] they're an ally to me that is the most valuable thing i know it sounds crazy like it's important for me to stick up for myself but if they're doing it on behalf of whatever the oppressed is then it's like that's true allyship you know and and honestly like i really feel like i feel like in pride month we should have like a straight ally day because it is it's a lifeline to everybody who's different only because it's just so you do you know what i mean no i totally know what you mean because

[01:22:37] like you get all these other idiots who well they might not be the radicals or the enemy they're just crazy about the name or they get stressed out or everything or they're you get the i don't want to be political about anything crowd and so unfortunately they are enabling the other opposition got kind of like the idiots who make fun of blm even though there is some valid criticism just rename the fucking thing already because people are just getting all stuck

[01:23:06] on a name you know it's like when it should just be black you know black power wouldn't be the right thing but just black equality you know something where it's like i'm letting you know that yeah i'm tired of law enforcement shoving your faces and curb stopping yeah you know that's not cool that's been going on for centuries and it needs to stop instead of oh we coincidentally don't have a camera so i mean you're at a good deal where it's like yeah how did uh demi lovato was getting under

[01:23:36] heat because she was changing her pronouns and then after a while i was like you know guys can you just stop the news media for just one goddamn minute and let her just find her inner truth while you guys find your truth instead of how many times are we going to rename the lgbtq oh i want it to just be called lgbt it's like well we got to include everybody so it's got to be renamed it's like yeah and so that's the politicization of the already not trying to be politicized so totally totally but i'm like i want

[01:24:06] my white friends to have a little love day too you know i'm like and but only only allies though i was telling my partner i was like no haters just allies i'm glad that we can even say hey i got a partner that used to be oh you know everyone wanted the whole intrigue or putting a taboo on something that shouldn't be taboo it's like yes so and so oh my god friend your girlfriend you know what is crazy though is that now i meet so many they're mostly actors i don't know

[01:24:36] if this has anything to do with it i meet so many people they're always like my partner my partner and i'm thinking like like we call partner yeah and then it's like the opposite gender and i'm like wait a second the opposite sex and i'm like your partner but she's what she's her wife you know like yeah you know and they're like oh we're not married or we're like you know we've been together for 10 years she's my partner but we haven't gotten married i'm like

[01:25:05] okay that's fine you know but now it's starting to throw me off you know i'm like your partner and then i'm like it's kind of selective though too i've seen some people be picked out for that like they kind of the media kind of politicized oh why have tim robbins and susan sarandon not been married and then they finally broke up after like 30 plus years but then you see other people who are just cool enough it's like the powers that be tell the media hey buzz off don't leave them alone no one ever brought up hey jimmy smiths and his partner

[01:25:34] wanted to do jesus been together for years still together yeah never got buzzed in a question i'm sure his agent made sure do not ask me about my love life that's i'm not gonna be an answer so and then they they tried doing it for other people for a while too like vigo mordinson and keanu reeves even charlie sterron and he just got to where it's like you're just not giving us any answers so i guess we'll buzz off but we're still gonna ask george clooney and brad pitt angel and jolie all those people who are you dating who are you who are you sleeping with in your trailer

[01:26:04] it's like i i know stuff no one needs printed on a damn magazine billboard and totally i'm sure even the magazines are trying to find different ways to be shocking without being as exploitive as they were post 95 i don't i don't know it's i don't even know anymore i mean like now everything is online it's all ai bots commenting on stuff and yes that's that's the crazy part like the bots i got one today

[01:26:34] on my thing and i'm like this guy is based in dubai i already know this is just meant some hacker made to pay and it's kind of like the spam calls where you look at the area code it's like yeah that's a morocco number so yeah this guy is not claiming to be in new york city it is not actually from new york city he's trying to steal my data and but who am i more mad at the cell phone companies that do this daily versus the other hackers who are just surviving you know it's

[01:27:03] like yeah it's it's kind of like which bastard do i want to go take down first it's kind of yeah all part of the cesspool but well where do i drain the swamp first so i don't exactly especially when we got other enablers who are doing the whole i'm taking it down but no really i'm keeping it active keeping it oh my god guarded we are living in a bizarre time well and

[01:27:31] kudos to anyone who can have a normal interview on a talk show it seemed like that for a while i think it was so funny it's like uh jimmy fallon was interviewing keifer sarlanda recently and keifer just kind of stopped him down in his track you haven't seen the show have you jimmy because you would know this i've seen this and i think other people are just having to realize it's like they got to pull a jimmy kibble or conan where they they get they don't lie but they do give a disclaimer it's like from

[01:28:00] the clips i've seen you seem very joyous from what other people have told me because i don't make time to watch movies you seem very extravagant it's like just say that then they'll buzz off and you're like yeah you you don't watch many movies or you don't have time i've never thought about that like yeah like what does an interviewee do when they're just like you have no idea what the fuck you're asking you were simple to research but i didn't want to ask you puny generic schlocky questions either so

[01:28:30] yeah what would i did you did yeah no what would i want to ask any makeup performer and i i've been so lucky to know at least five other working guys and they all of them kind of lived in where they wanted to moved around state to state and did what they wanted to do when they wanted to so i do think it's a little more freeing kind of like a other visual effects animators or even

[01:29:00] advertisers or real state yeah it's like you kind of just when you want it you want it when you are burned out on it you can just hang it up and collect your savings totally totally and you know god bless the visual effects people from disney that just got marvel it was so despicable to read i'm like that's not that's not just five that's not just twenty a thousand a thousand and i think evangeline lily did i almost did a movie with her but she

[01:29:29] i mean she said it so well when she was like these artists fed the machine and now they just got done away with and and even when they were trying they've been trying to unionize for years yes and i felt like they keep you know the studios kept like pushing it off and delaying it and pushing it off knowing good and goddamn well this is where they were going i think you know just unlocked something so the cover story is really we're doing this for a time-saving thing but really it's to not honor this agreement that we

[01:29:59] fought so hard during the strikes on and video game companies unfortunately are still trying to get away with some ai stuff not pay animators or voice actors so it's yeah i were seeing kind of a regurgitation of we didn't learn anything from this instead we kept saying seeing people who were like oh damn it not another strike i'm like well what do you they have no other choice until you treat them don't treat it like a slavery shop but yeah i i

[01:30:28] yeah and that's a good point on evangeline lily most people are gonna go oh anti-vaxxer like well i can agree with that point even though i don't agree with the politics on that so i yeah at least other people are looking out for people who've been there since 2010 and it is kind of ridiculous it's like all this money is going to these overpaid stars it's almost as bad as the stunt people are getting paid the same amount to get burnt alive yeah and it's like they don't even have a speaking role there if this goes

[01:30:57] wrong it's going to be either forced retirement or just long time recouping in the hospital it's even it's even worse i think than like in movie advertising uh how we all have to have a vpn in order to find censored uh search results yeah that aren't you know paid for promotion by walmart or amazon it's yeah kind of intoxicatingly bad at times

[01:31:27] just like same thing with news sources and it's like most people are going to just read the headline and not the actual article body yeah it's like well you can tell if it's a good story or not and i've even had other people uh come back at me you don't know a damn thing about ai i'm like well i believe this because it's by people who are generally trusted like deadline or highway reporter you know this isn't a yeah woe is me it's kind of like when you are told uh when you're

[01:31:56] judging a restaurant is like i'm not talking about the taste anyone can do that we're talking about the texture and care put into this i'm sure you do this with people you want on your makeup crew is like i don't want to kiss ass i want someone who actually can estimate how much uh latex costuming and literally said that the other day too i was like i was talking to a friend and giving her advice and she was like well how do you go about booking people and i said i booked the people that are

[01:32:25] reliable show up on time zero drama get the job done know my expectations like that's that and like when you when you work this long with people you kind of start to feel out your teams you feel out you know what what works best for the team and so sometimes like i have there was one person that was always gifting me stuff and but but i felt like the gifts got heavier when that

[01:32:55] person was not like doing their job and so it was kind of like oh it's a defense reaction of like kiss assery that yeah i'm sure i don't want you to buy me dinner i want you to have your head in the game i want yeah i want you to have your head in the game and show up and do your job and then go home and be great you know and uh and then it started getting weird to the point where i'm like i feel weird accepting gifts from people when we're on a show right because like you know maybe save it for rap or at the beginning of the show

[01:33:24] but like during the run of a show it's just like at this point it just feels like you're trying to bribe me or pay for my favor but then i get you know but then i get shit talked about me when i'm not calling that person as much and i'm calling other people because that person's a little bit disruptive and you know distraction to the team um and it's just not like operating at a high it's a weird thing you know it's just and how to call it out without looking like an asshole that's what i hate is

[01:33:54] just having to find these guys it's like i appreciate what you're doing and i'm not gonna tell you to do better but i am telling you just you know it's like we can be friends in so many other ways yeah you take me out to lunch yeah and i've really had to be like uh that's weird too because i guess when i was like a date like when i wasn't as important put it that way when i wasn't as when you were number six on the call sheet

[01:34:22] yeah when i was like number 12 or 13 or 15 on the call sheet you know um it's just weird how it changes when you do you know climb up you know you get up on the higher call list you're called for higher more important positions and roles and stuff that like even people that i've known for a while like years have started treating me differently in a way uh it's very flattering and i

[01:34:52] don't know how to take it yeah because i still see myself as that student who started like i don't see myself as a mentor i don't see myself as a pillar in the community i don't you know i've been doing this for over 23 years 24 maybe um and i don't see myself as that person i still see myself as like the student the the young you know young and youngster and so it's kind of funny when people are like ray you're my mentor and i'm like what

[01:35:21] yeah what meant with me like no you can find better there's better out there there's better mentors and then i but i feel like i'm finally making peace with that that i do have something to offer and thank you for asking me to be on this podcast because likewise reminding me that i have amassed a lot of experiences that i think are valuable for upcoming artists that i can share that information with well i think a lot of people are just not very receptive unfortunately and i'm not trying to throw other people under the bus but

[01:35:51] it's kind of like i mean hell when we did this podcast we were just like hey we want to talk about stuff that we just haven't been able to find any blog or pod show or youtuber talk about so it was kind of like that was the end and then we just kind of went in other stages and then it was like and now that covid's over this is filling the void in our lives on days where we're not working so let's try this you know it's like but yeah i think a lot of people unfortunately and this is what i'm so

[01:36:19] grateful how there are so many mental health mentors out there even podcasts about it and they all get to the root of the problem on the root of all jealousy all bullying often comes from one's own insecurities and unfortunately that festers when you don't treat it and you don't find a predicament for that so that's why we again unfortunately have to remind ourselves it's like okay so and so they were an asshole when they started and they for the ones who

[01:36:47] corrected it after a year maybe five that's why they have a better reputation versus the ones who are still known for that brilliant talent i mean frank it's been so wild looking at other like having to remind others who want to just look one way or the other on stuff like this like yeah hitchcock was brilliant but a monster to work for you know it was a monster frank capra was toxic and yet he made all these heartfelt emotional movies everyone is

[01:37:17] proud of so it's like yeah it lovecraft is a terrible person but yeah it's a at least he can't make any money off his work you know yeah before the copyright that took effect so yeah and i and what is that saying that people always remember how you make them feel yes it's like totally that's all we have to work on here yeah yeah absolutely is if nothing else what

[01:37:47] then yeah so yeah i mean if i if someone has to be not famous that's that's still better than being infamous or you're the guy who injures people on sets while making these popular blockbusters like i it's kind of like how the studios have finally put their hand down and said okay michael mann and james cameron will compromise with you we won't mess with your vision because you know what you're doing but

[01:38:15] enough with the 16 hour work days that can't happen anymore yeah and i'm happy to see that being cracked down more and more in the industry it's like you're gonna get heat exhaustion you're gonna get people fainting on set you're gonna get someone who's just gonna be a crybaby and shut everybody else down because they're just like i don't know how to con conceive of this and yeah if you're gonna do that you should pull a robert rodriguez and just bring five of your techs who are willing to do that

[01:38:44] and do it for your pickup shots and what have you not to hold everyone hostage until they finally protest with the assistant producer saying what the hell is this not what i signed up for yeah a thousand percent i'm glad that we're no longer unfortunately it still exists with marvel and that's a fortress but we're done with a lot of what people like eddie murphy or even jim carrey were getting for a while where once they did a movie they were kind of forced to do a sequel and they

[01:39:13] had to basically either do a payout or convince their agent i'll do a different movie for you but it's not going to be a sequel you know i don't want to do that i have a new sequels clause for a reason because i know i'm smarter than the average bear i know there's generally just not good i don't yeah i don't want to share that embarrassment i want to do something else for it and then you see other people who uh you would love this one uh documentary and i'll let you go uh uh vanderpump rules the randall scandal

[01:39:44] and for anyone who doesn't know that was randall emmett was the guy who was exploiting bruce willis and getting all these other former a-listers like stallone mel gibson morgan freeman deniro is like hey you want to be paid you know five million for just two days work he was doing all these cheap movies yeah and uh it's i think still on hulu but yeah uh yeah the randall scandal

[01:40:11] totally watch it i'm kind of uh i know some of those people from those shows so that'll be you've done that'll be fun to watch but yeah i know it's a small world it was a good kind of it'll it at least goes into just the ins and outs it's like this guy could have been light but despite doing all these big movies and smaller b movies he unfortunately and just wasn't a good person and it yeah showed millions of dollars

[01:40:41] later but i think it was also very telling is like with the bruce deal is like we thought okay he's been known to be difficult all his life it was like no he's really this is a cry for help now because when you're having to have your lines fed to you and you can't remember where you are that's that's exploitive and that needs to be called out so i think yeah a lot of people don't know it's like we gotta do something more than just come up with good safe words

[01:41:09] and i i still don't know the solution to that other than say can someone come up with some solution on recognizing signs of fear or mistreatment when someone it's kind of like when figuring out if you have a neighbor who's being abused but you don't have any physical evidence that they've been slapped in the face but there's still something off about their delayed responses you know that's such a good analogy and you know who i've worked on my fair share of

[01:41:39] sets where that has gone on unfortunately but i'm sorry or well not to that extent but just certain talent having to be fed their dialogue or like you know the teleprompters and stuff and yeah i always feel for them because you never know what somebody's dealing with right so like where their cognitive decline is coming or is it their eyesight that's declining like i really don't know

[01:42:09] um but it was like you know it's interesting to be in that environment because you're just like it does make you wonder you know you're like you know the the salaciousness of it all and you're just like oh why it's just a curious mind right but really at the end of the day we never really know so that's the other shitty thing too is then it feeds rumors where people go see they're not that great an actor i i did have to do that on queen of the south i saw some guys who thought they were hot shit i'm like

[01:42:38] felice braga has to get out i'm like guys the stunt person coordinator needs to deal with that car and reset it it doesn't make sense for her to concentrate on that she has to get out and walk in slow motion while delivering this you know cheeky one-liner that's part of the style of the show so it's like i have seen people talk shit about gerard butler and sandra bullock on film sets it's like where's the thing they're doubling they already got back from a six-hour staff meeting and resetting a few other things and

[01:43:08] well and i can't tell you how many times i i love seeing stunt doubles be used i love it you have to because i work on so many things where people do their own stunts and so like we will get the stunt doubles wigged up dressed up facial hair or tattoos like we do the works on them i mean almost sometimes more than the original talent to get them to look like the principal talent and then they'll sit around all day sweating their ass off in a heavy costume a wig and whatever and then they don't

[01:43:37] ever end up doing the stunt so i personally i love it when the stunt people get used and utilized you know i love it when they're also the fitness coach for or roommate of the actor and they can joke hey at least i get uh to also be beautified totally hey it's been a delight having you on here man a long time coming we were having all kinds of different for this month likewise it is cool

[01:44:07] are you still in north texas by the way i am i was also a great prairie native so okay all right um well then you might be interested to know that my partner and i are opening a little business in fort worth do tell and it might be up your alley this is the blog it might be up some of your audience um we're opening a comic book shop called back to the superheroes and the graphic novels uh we're opening a comic book shop in fort worth

[01:44:37] it's called odyssey comics um okay we're hoping to be we'll be off of vickery and montgomery uh i'll shoot you the address already got the website hey that we're we've got our sign up site little bit about sign up site there um yeah odysseycomicshop.com i believe is our website but um yeah follow us on the gram odyssey comic shop um we're hoping to be open by sometime in july uh we signed our

[01:45:06] lease last week and so we have to do the whole process and the build out and the inspections and the permits and everything but we uh we're feeling pretty good especially since i've worked a lot in um different uh all of this it's you'd be surprised at like how a lot of crew members from la working on these shows have not picked up their comics from the shop that he used to manage in north hollywood so they're like i'm like hey just buy

[01:45:36] from us when we open it'll be great so it's a symbiotic relationship oh i like how you just straight up went to the nitty and gritty anyone else would have just sexified that they would have been like and we're offering this it's like no no you didn't even go into sales pitch mode you're just like what we offer is like we got this we got this so i think this is it you get into just again you like honoring that say i'm about to make you a mean lean stew i'm about to make you

[01:46:06] a wonderful burger and yeah but i got this and this to make sure that's perfection so it's like you are all about the details instead of totally how about i go on focus on the escapism portion of this no you know really what it is is uh we just want a third space you know like we need more in the world of ai and the world of video games in the world of like

[01:46:35] connectivity or lack thereof i feel like more and more spaces like that are needed and i really saw an opportunity having worked in fort worth a lot in the last several years there wasn't a huge safe space for marginalized people you know and that's just like i don't even want to say marginalized just everybody you know i want us to be for everyone in fact god bless my partner he he wanted to name it comic cafe where comics are for everyone

[01:47:05] and i thought that was just the sweetest thing and i was like well we could still have you know comics are for everyone in our right in our branding but truly you know and i'm not even a huge like i like some comics but i like watching movies i like cinema so i would rather watch my avengers than read it um that's what's fascinating to tell people too is like there is some how to get away into that even if you're not it's not the first format you go to kind of like how pixar's outlet for even people

[01:47:34] who don't like cartoons like there's there's a way to get through this we haven't said the right word yet yeah and you know like i mean if if ai starts to take over what marvel starts kicking out i mean there's a very real chance that the audience could just pendulum swing in the other direction you know what i want hand-drawn comics so i'm just gonna go back and like you know who knows where it's gonna go but you know all i know is that there was a moment there where everything became so visual and like a

[01:48:04] like a cinematic kind of way now i feel like it's swinging back but i think what really matters now because anybody can order a comic or a book online right they don't have to step a foot out of their house you know um and i think that's where we're rooted in is that we volunteer with a lot of charities in fort worth and we've really just gotten in good with the crews here you know that the crews like want to see familiar places and things and maybe like things that kind of

[01:48:34] remind them of la a little bit because we'll have that la vibe but also not pretentious at all and has like the heart that fort worth has so we're really excited and we don't know where that adventure is going to take us but um we do know it will be an odyssey so i'm happy about that it's some kind of odyssey i mean it's yeah it's also an adventure you want to go on versus totally plus our dog my dog is going to be our mascot which is his name is homer so he was the one

[01:49:03] that inspired the name for the comic book shop because originally we were contemplating doing coffee uh so we thought odyssey coffee or homer's coffee or homer's odyssey and we were just like wait a second why don't we just call our comic book shop that um it's fitting you know so everything feels like it's happening i mean even down to working so much in fort worth and like i love la i love washington i love colorado new orleans i've lived and worked from east coast west florida ecky west

[01:49:33] i was out there for a while um there's something very special about north texas and fort worth that is really charming you know there's a lot of potential here so we hope to do good by the community uh that's eloquently said but that's also that's that's careful that's thinking you know it's you're you're pre-planning the planning so again yeah you're all about

[01:50:03] just it was like before i even put pen to paper is like what kind of pen do i want to use you want to know every part of the detail i mean i am a capricorn that's just that goes with the zodiac side there you go yeah that

[01:50:37] label i don't want to label we're not labeling you we're that's the other thing it's like it's like an archetype you know it's a mathematical archetype and you can reject it or you can accept it you know exactly it's like it's it's all said with love there's no ill intent it

[01:51:07] disability to make it us know that we're trying to make your environment better i'll do it just yeah just so you know the word itself is not met with any ill meaning either so it's yeah whatever i like the way you think cam you've got you've got a good lens on you you've got a good you're a very good interviewer by the way you've made this very easy and so after hearing millions of other bad interviews where i was just getting i was seeing the

[01:51:37] celebs get bored and it's like yeah just listen to that question it doesn't really it's a regurgitation of the last five questions there's plenty of times where i just wing it but i also you know listening is rule number one just like comedy and improv it's like you must listen just yeah and don't go and it's kind of like how many times have you been at a meeting and there's always that one jerk in the corner going uh-huh uh-huh

[01:52:07] it's like you want to annoyance get ready to state the same thing five different ways until they get it because you're going to get even

[01:52:37] more annoyed if you repeated the exact same way that confused someone the first time be prepared to say it differently use a different word and you should totally go into acting if you can do it five ways different ways there you go that's the audition process right now say it again like especially if you're in commercials say it with delight say it with angst I love that I'm glad you're where you want to be and you're

[01:53:07] also still challenging yourself you're finding some other side avenues you're you're finding ways to keep life fresh instead of let life determine your next step so it's like yeah you're not waiting around so that is neat because I just love that you said that because today I was like am I doing this because I'm scared of another strike and that could be it but I can't afford it so can't afford it I mean listen if I've got to you know like if I got to do delivery service or

[01:53:36] if I because I mean I'm telling you that that that strike was like especially following the pandemic a couple of years later yeah that was negotiations going up with the WGA and SAG in the fall of last year I was like shit I should start a side hustle I'm having to do besides even with my nine to five job there's plenty of slow months

[01:54:06] or moments where you look at your invoices and go ooh I'm in my you know unacceptable area what do I do to and it's great that we can just be honest about that because again like like and I don't not to make this too long but the other day mentoring a peer in our industry and having to explain sometimes you gotta be resilient and you have to be really flexible and you have to say no I'm not a failure this has nothing to do

[01:54:55] qualified people getting jobs that I may have felt entitled to or maybe didn't get it hasn't happened often in my career but it has happened don't put a face to the problem look at more of the enablers or other hidden figures totally and just say what's for me universally is for me

[01:55:25] that's okay that's cool I'm glad you said that I'm glad you just pointed that out because I get really sick of others saying oh so I should have to suffer and it's not at all what we're saying we're just saying we all have our time and then when we've soaked in the sun enough we move on to something else I

[01:55:56] people who were just like well I learned a long time ago I'm like well you should still be looking at a book or a blog I had to learn how to do special effects makeup and I was always interested in it but I was intimidated by it but then there was a moment where I I I I'm not going to keep working as much as I can't tell you how my after I did that I started getting hired into key positions because my department had needed someone who could do both beauty and

[01:56:25] effects you know so it was just like and it you know and then if we needed really extensive effects stuff where you know then we hire somebody that is trained to handle that because I don't do all effects you know I do the gore cuts bruises aging you just recognize the skill set and you hire the people that can get the job done period you know

[01:56:55] you should never try to be somebody that does it all and takes it there so many times when I went to film school and I would see others complain about stuff you have to snap out

[01:57:25] of that if it not the way I want it I don't want to release it I'm like well you got to talk to the professional side of you to happen when you are five million dollars maybe ten and you're asking your parents to feed

[01:57:55] everybody is like you got to be so rational you got to be realistic you got to be yeah you got to not be reductive and unfortunately I'm seeing that even with movie reviewers they want to be the next red letter media is like okay if you want to be snarky that's fine but we do comedy roast but we also have to

[01:58:25] remind everyone we're doing it like old dean martin style where it's very you know poke poke nudge nudge is like it's not it's not supposed to be I destroy your character I've even had to do that with other reviewers like remember we're on here to give a pros and cons not to destroy one's character you know this is not you can say I don't I think you should pick a different day job instead of I

[01:59:04] old Christian boy next door as well as just the teacher who's supposed to be setting a good example but is caught behind the scenes saying can't stand these kids like okay well at that point you gotta know what are you I mean at this point we're literally watching people

[01:59:34] give them hate mails like okay yeah what are you doing kind of I mean that's an old like that's a whole topic on its own it's wild right yeah you just gotta wonder sometimes and at the same time it's like I don't need to wonder I need to not give the negative people attention absolutely yeah just thank him for the engagement you're like I'm good right I'm glad we could engage without

[02:00:04] getting worn down by a few things you know and yeah I can't tell you how many podcasts need to work on their interviews this has been a blast thousand percent and glad we could just kind of unload just like what's on people's minds instead of just argue or talk about only the sexy side of the business is like yeah no there's there's all

[02:00:34] in between fun there's plenty of other stuff that's not so fun and how do you navigate beyond fun to get to the fun again yeah and I like those conversations just because like I was saying before a lot of my peers in the industry we've all had hour to three hour long conversations of just like commiserating with each other through their highs or my highs or their lows and my lows and

[02:01:03] you know it's just important to do that because there is like you said there's like a very glitzy glammy version of the industry and everybody who's not in it probably will never get it so it is nice when you can have those real conversations and then maybe you know ears that might need to hear this topic and this conversation will find it I think that's great nothing worse than when it's like hey in between that moment where we were all having fun

[02:01:33] we had plenty of moments where we just wanted to say oh hell with it already yeah totally fame and fortune can't buy everything no neither can accomplishments or awards you know yeah I can hide behind the trophy but it's not gonna make it better so yeah well very cool my dude and glad that again you're always looking to forward to a challenge and you're challenging yourself so it's like yeah it's it's not gonna get old

[02:02:03] for you anytime soon it's like yeah not at all and it's I think we got this and it's not gonna feel like just another hustle it's like no it's just it's just another thing I do yeah it's just a job one that I love I've been grateful for glad to promote another hard-working fella in the workplace and I just hope that everyone just treats you with respect still thank you yes and I appreciate you and thank you for taking the time to reach out and set this up and have me as a guest would love to

[02:02:33] come back and shoot the shit about the industry anytime you want you know it you absolutely know it follow us on the web on Facebook Twitter and Instagram the podcast is available on Podbean Spotify iHeartRadio Anchor Apple and anywhere else podcasts are available feel free to review our show and leave comments on any of those sites

[02:03:01] thanks a million for listening it's a jacked up review show