January 25, 2021 • 45 mins
If you think you know James Maslow from Big Time Rush, you haven’t heard anything yet! Wells hangs out with the actor/singer/producer/everything to find out what motivates him and how he made to the Big Time.
Hear about how a family tragedy drove him to get into the entertainment industry full time.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Stretch out. I feel very strongly about the merits of
a good stretch before your podcast, or before you listen
to a podcast, or really anything feels good. Let's just
do it together, just stretch it out. Oh yeah, okay,
all right, let's go do it. Just run it. This
(00:25):
is a Wells cast with Wells Atoms and I heart
Radio podcast. All right, stretched out, limburg, loose, ready to roll,
feeling good. How's everyone doing out there? I'm on The
Bachelor this week barely they cut your boy out, which
(00:47):
I mean, I'm used to listen, but this week I
didn't even say anything. I'm just there for like three
seconds then boom, so whatever. I had like seven really
good jokes. I was so excited for it. I made
like a Biggie Tupac joke that I thought definitely was
gonna kill pun intended, and they cut it. Whatever. It's fine.
(01:08):
It's not about means about Matt and his journey. La
la la la la Claire and Dale. Though. Huh who
saw that coming? Every everyone saw that coming? Got it? Okay? Sorry, certain,
Here's the great thing about my podcast. They can't cut
me out because I do the cutting. Your boy is
the editor and also the editors over Abcat Listen, I
(01:31):
get it. I can't stand myself either, so I'm right
there with you. But I'm not gonna cutting out our
guest today because this guy literally has done everything. He's
an actor, he's a singer, he's a songwriter. He started
out early on a Nickelodeon show, A Big Time Rush,
part of the best selling mused a group of the
same name. He's pivoted over to the E d M
(01:52):
side of the music world. Got a song right now
that's number one across the pond. Dude won the I
Heart Radio Rising Star Award. Who was also the last
man standing on Dancing with Stars. Is the current host
of the CWS Global Talent show of The Big Stage
with Elizabeth stand He was on the first season of
CBS Celebrity Big Brother. He's got a new rom com
(02:14):
out right now called Stars Fell on Alabama. He's got
a war movie coming out later this year. I mean,
this guy's on everything except my show until today. Coming
up on the Wells Cast, we got James Maslow stick around.
This is a good one, all right. We are back
(02:41):
on the Wells Cast. Very excited to have the multi
talented James Maslow on the show. How are you, my man?
I'm good, But how you doing? I'm doing really good.
It's been fun doing this show because it's given me
something to do during the pandemic. But I'm always amazed
and a little jealous of my guests because they're getting
to do stuff, and I'm like, how what production company
(03:04):
allowed this? I don't understand. But you've got a bunch
of stuff going on. You've got your music going on,
You've got this movie going on TV shows. Everything's happening
for you right now. Let's start with the big kind
of headline. Stars fell in Alabama. How pumped are you
for this? I'm extremely pumped. It's it's nice for a
multitude of reason to see your points. We filmed this
(03:27):
right before COVID, and we filmed this in November December,
so this is actually the last movie that I finished,
and funny enough, the first one coming out. But I
was lucky to have several projects in the can you
know I have this and I have two other movies
that lead coming out this year, which it's more than
a lot of actors can say, because nothing really did
(03:47):
film last year. I was lucky to do some stuff
from like the CW with pop Star and a few
little hosting things here and there, but for the most
part it's been focusing on music right here in my
studio at home, which you know, lucky to have that
as well, but also just anxious and eager to get
back to touring. Yeah, it's this kind of weird situation
where all I had a lot of musicians on and
(04:09):
it's feast and famine for you guys, because you have
so much time to create and you have like a
lot of like emo news stories and just like just
depression in general to create like a lot of really
good content, but then you can't go out into the
world and present it to mass crowds and stuff. So
it's just it's this great thing, but then this kind
(04:30):
of crap thing as well. But also going out into
the world having normal freaking human experience is where I
draw most of my creativity from. So yeah, we have
more time, but ample time sitting around, you know, alone
at home like everyone else. So I guess drawing from
news stories in the way of the world is is
(04:50):
silver lining some ideas, but definitely not the same. And
I think I speak for just about all of us
when I say we prefer it the other way around,
back to some sort of semblance of normality. Soon, we hope. Yeah,
you just gotta go straight Bob Dylan now and just
be political and it's like, well, it's getting up Twitter, man.
Trying to avoid that as much as possible. I do
(05:11):
want to get into your music, but I want to
start on Stars fell in Alabama. Is this your first
rom com? It's not my first rom com. I filmed
a little gem called It Happened One Valentine's like five
years back that I'm very proud of, but didn't get
nearly the distribution this guy did. This is definitely, uh,
my first rom com in a long time. I've done
from big World War two movie to a raunchy comedy.
(05:33):
I think the one before that it played a serial killer.
So it was nice when this came across the desk
to to do something that's far more accessible and lighthearted,
and man, if there's a time that we need something
that's just positive and relatable, I'd say it's right now.
It's funny because I do feel like the holidays they're
such the time for really good rom coms. You know.
(05:54):
I had a little bit of withdrawals because I was like, man,
I don't have I need the story of the hardened
New York reporter that's coming home to the small town
and falls in love with the cookie baker and you know,
and then they fall and then I saw this and
I was like, yeah, back into a baby. So tell
everyone kind of the story, like, because I love, just
(06:17):
as someone who's in the industry, I kind of like
love the premise of this movie, So tell everyone what
the story is about. Yeah. Well, so I play an agent,
Bryce Dixon, and he's a very successful Hollywood agents who
has an up and coming starlett named Madison Bell. So
Bryce is out having drinks for Premier, gets a call
from his buddies back home who really want him to
(06:37):
come to the fifteen year anniversary, and they pressure him, going, hey,
you must have a serious relationship now you know you're
thirty three. I think the character is like, who is she?
Is she coming? And there's this kind of undo pressure
from the South, and so he kind of FIBs and
says that he does. Then they pressure him more and
says who is it? Who is it? He's like, I
(06:58):
can't tell you, and then eventually he slips and looks
up and see's a billboard of his client, Madison Bell,
and goes Madison. So he puts himself in the situation
where he's completely lied about dating a client and then
goes so far as to call a client up and
try and convince her to fake be his girlfriend and
go to Alabama and lo and behold he does, and
the comedy and romance ensues. Would you ever? Would you
(07:23):
ever date your agent? Manager? Both my agents think are married,
Um can have a couple of years on me, and
I'm in a very happy, committed relationship myself. I'm gonna
go ahead and say no. Generally speaking, Look, I feel
like things like this actually happened quite a bit, says
you know this, it's strange our industry. It's wonderful, but
(07:44):
if you're not in it, it's hard to explain it,
you know, especially from an acting perspective, Like it's hard
to explain, Well, I'm gonna go fake date somebody for
the next two months to ten years in my life,
depending on the project. So there's some sort of understanding.
I think that happens amongst people in the industry, whether
you're an actor, musician, agents, morior. So I get it. It
It happens a lot, but I am very happy that
(08:05):
my girlfriend does not do any of that. Smart Man,
Good Answer Stars Fell on Alabama's out now on demand
and digital. Do you find yourself looking more at scripts
like this, because I got to imagine it's really really
fun to go do pictures like this. Absolutely, man. I mean,
the more I've been lucky to have, you know, quite
(08:25):
a spectrum of rules, more I enjoy doing stuff the slighthearted.
That's fun because when you're filming a comedy, when you're
filming over homecount you're having fun on set. If you're not,
it's probably not going to be a very enjoyable movie
to watch, That's the truth. So you know, it's great
to do character work. It's great to dig in and
do drama, and I crave that every once in a while.
But I would love to spend the majority of my
career doing comedies. You know, our action action comedies. That
(08:49):
whole vein is stuff to me, is really enjoyable. Is
there any part of the film industry or television um
that you haven't done that you'd like to do? Quite
a few? You know the action movie of Reference a
couple of times now it is called Wolf Found, and
it's a massive World War two film that I'm very
proud of and very excited for that when to come out,
and I'd love to do more of that world. In fact,
(09:10):
as a little kid, I've always want to play a superhero,
and as an adult kid, I still want to play superhero.
So that's on the bucket list for sure. Tell Us
A Wolf Found About Wolf Found is a true story
to think God didn't come to fruition. It's based on
plans who were discovered about Nazi occupied France the end
of around nineteen four, towards the end of the war,
(09:33):
when they were attempting to Trojan Horse shoot down a
B seventeen American bomber and then Trojan Horse sat with
a big war ending bomb over London. So it was
a scary plan that again think God didn't actually happen,
But it's a story of what would that have looked
like if that almost went down. So I play a
P fifty one fighter, Captain Holden, defending a B seventeen.
(09:56):
We get shot down at the beginning of the movie,
and mind you, all of this is shot practically. We're
actually up in P fifty ones at B seventeens and
it's being filmed with a half million dollar skycam on
another plane in the air. It's pretty incredible. Um. And
then we get shut down and most of the crew
gets taken captive, and it's me running through the forest
trying to find them and creating this kind of one
(10:18):
man army approach to stopping this whole thing. You got
to be up in those old World War two fighters, dude.
The first the very first day of filming, I was
put into the back seat of a makeshift like jump
seats and they had one seat and pift ones and
(10:38):
you know, pretending to fake flood the same way they
shot Top Gun, just an order plane and put up
there and said, all right, when you deliver your lines,
press this button so it communicates back down to camera
and here we go. And then you just started dog fighting.
I'm in barrel rolls and back turns, and so I
literally were up that was up there, hitting my lines
as many times as I could before I was ready
to almost throw up, which say, what will you? What
(11:01):
you will? But when you're in the backseat one of
those planes doing bearables, you can only last for so long.
I don't care who you who you are. So it's like,
all right, buddy, don't want to throw up on your plane.
Less land You'd go no problem, you'd land be down.
I'd go hurl, hang out for three minutes, and go
back up. I mean that was the start of it.
By the end of the movie, I actually started getting
my pilot's license and they're comfortable enough to let me
actually fly a B twenty five bomber. And I don't
(11:23):
want to spoiler give any spoiler alerts away, but it's
pretty awesome, man. So you'll see me up there. You
actually see me, and there was a co captain there
obviously for safety reasons, but they see g I am out.
So when you see me fly on that plane, it's
actually me fly on the plane. Stop it super cool.
Did they let you ever fly the fighter? No? I
mean that one. I had only gotten seven hours of
my license something so far, so there'd be no way.
(11:46):
It wasn't like his dual control as in a fighter.
So maybe one day, dude, that sounds sick. Man, Yeah,
I want to see that now. When is that coming out?
That will probably be closer to the end of the year.
I mean, it's a massive production and they work and
on it. But m after Stars Fell, I'm not exactly
sure when. But I have a movie called We Need
to Talk that's a very funny, little more raunchy comedy.
(12:07):
I play one of the biggest gamers in the world
and that just one best comedy and one Best Actor
at the first Clance Festival in Phillies. That's pretty exciting.
It's going around and doing the little mini festival circuit
and uh yeah, those two or two more to look
forward to after this one. Dude, I'm such like a
big like Memphis Bell fans, So just hearing about this,
is it Wolf Found? Is that what's called? Yeah? That
(12:28):
sounds so sick, dude. Yeah. I mean, look all three
of these projects and I think about like the slate
of movies I have coming out already just again, so
so living in such a state of gratitude not only
to have the projects, but they're also different. That's what
every actor wants to do. You know. I do love
rom coms, but I wouldn't only want to do rom coms.
Same with action movies. They're super fun, but less dialogue,
(12:48):
different skills you know, you have to have for those.
So I'm just grateful to you. Know, be able to
work on all these different types of projects. Is there
anything you wouldn't do? I've been offered some absolutely awful
slasher films. Um having said that, I do want to
do one when it's a fantastic project and I feel
(13:10):
like there are far more bad than good in that world, respectfully,
but you get like a cabin in the Woods type script.
You're kidding me. I will jump at that in the harpeat.
But I've said no to everyone I've been offered thus
far because you know that it's easy to it's easy
to get cheesy in that world. What would you rather
be the good guy or the bad guy in that situation?
(13:31):
I mean, no situations A bad guys way more fun.
We're gonna do it to it, right, We'll see. It's
also nice to live potentially have, you know, like a
trilogy project. So maybe there's a bad guy that does live.
Maybe he's not the bad guy to like the third movie,
just throw that out there in the universe. Yeah, Mike
Myers is still walking around out there. Soft Halloween's later
(13:53):
most job security, right exactly, smart man right there. So
I mean, like this all kind of started with Nicole
Loodi and big time rush. You've kind of pivoted away
from that musical project into this more like E d
M situation. Tell everyone about l t X. Yeah, so
you know, I put out of my own album years back,
did a bunch of pop singles, many of which I'm
(14:16):
very proud of. But then my best friend and I
for fun a few years ago remixed one of my
songs called how I Like It before we had the
name l t X. We remixed that as the Tri
four remix. That's my best friend Eugenia Gorski, the name
that he d jed under and produced under for a while.
That little remix went to number one in the Netherlands.
(14:37):
It stayed on the charts and all the dance charts
in all of Europe weeks. I mean, it was like
beating out ed sheering and like crazy crazy things in
these markets and in the dance market mind you, But
for us it was a really good sign, like, hey,
maybe we need to do more of this together. So
we had a bit of a come to Jesus moment,
if you will. About two years ago, finally had time.
(14:57):
My best friend had finally moved up to l A.
He's living in Europe for about ten years and said,
why don't we why do we do this? Why don't
we jump in the studio right to create and see
what happens? And lo and behold, We've created UM I
think the best music of either of our careers to date,
and are super excited. I feel like we're just getting going.
I mean top we were DJ and we played Liquor
(15:20):
Box in Chicago. We're still on the line up to
play Summer Camp main stage whenever that happens. But obviously
the whole world got pushed, so now we're just focusing
on more releases. So we have an acoustic version of
our song History coming out soon, another single called Unforgettable
coming out shortly after that, and just a ton of
music and hopefully will be tour and play and DJ
(15:42):
and again very soon. Is there anything that I've missed
out on that you're currently doing. I think we've covered plenty. Yeah. Yeah,
I feel like, I mean, look, that's this is everything
that's that's going on. Luckily music I can continue to
create and produce UM and then otherwise, man, I'm just
back into UM auditioning as things start to pick up
again in the acting world, and I'm very eager to
(16:04):
see you know what the next project there's gonna be. Yeah,
pilot seasons right around the corner. Is there anything that
you want to talk about or promote that I didn't
ask you about before we pivot over to kind of
like my portion of the show. No, man, I feel
like if you want to follow anything else, just at
James Maslow across all social media. I tend to post
things that I'm doing on there. Well. I don't know
if anyone told you what the premise of this show is,
(16:26):
but I am fascinated with origin stories, how people got
to where they are now, what steps they had to take,
and what roads they had to go down to find success.
And you've done a lot of stuff, so I think
this is gonna be a really interesting conversation. Do you
have a couple of minutes to talk about this? Absolutely? Yeah? Yeah? Alright,
quick break and we come back where the hell James
(16:47):
Maslow came from and how the hell he got here?
Stick around on the Wealth Guys. Al Right, back in
the Welles cast. I have James Maslow on the show.
He currently is starring in a movie called Stars Fell
(17:07):
on Alabama. You might know him from Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush,
or maybe from his musical career doing the E d
M Project lt X, or maybe from Dancing with the
Stars or from the CWS the Big States, and he's
done a lot of stuff. I don't care so much
about all that stuff, even though it is very impressive.
I want to know how the hell you got to
(17:29):
get all that stuff. So let's go back to the beginning. James,
where the hell are you from? Where the hell am
I from? I was born in New York, but I
moved to San Diego when I was a young buck,
like six years old, So I'm really from the West Coast,
but a family in the East Coast and love it.
And fast forwarding just a couple of weeks, I ended
(17:49):
up attending performing art schools in the eighth grade. Frankly,
I was in regular school. I was playing sports surfing
board like any other kid who doesn't realize how good
they have it, especially place like San Diego. The more
off tour of the world, the more I realized how
freaking awesome San Diego is. But decided to go and
see this musical production. I had a Spanish tutor because
(18:11):
it's the only tutor I've ever had, by the way,
because my Spanish teacher started day one speaking in Spanish. Ironically,
now I speak decent Spanish, but how do you learn
I didn't, So I hatt a tutor, and she worked
at the school called s c p A or the
San Diego School of Creative Performing Arts. And finally, after
weeks of trying to get me to go see I
think it was by by Bertie, this production they were doing.
(18:31):
I'd be grudgingly accepted. I wasn't really in the theater
or musicals or whatever. I was just like a little bro.
Didn't think twice about it. I didn't know anything about it.
But alas I go and see the show, and I
was just blown away. I was like, holy crap, these
guys are talented. They're singing and dancing and it looks cool.
And I just had no idea. I had never been
(18:51):
exposed to that world. So I decided this seems way
cooler than my school. I'm gonna go ahead and audition
into the school. Whatever that means. Might have been singing
my whole life, so I'm like, okay, I'll use that,
and I figure out, like how to do a monologu
or whatever, and I got in. So then from the
eighth grade on, I guess I was in seventh grades.
From the eighth grade on, she started studying. Musical theater
(19:12):
is my major. And you know, they threw me like
jazz stap in ballet, which I hated until you know,
I love because it was fun to learn something new
and found myself surrounded by all these incredible actors and
singers and dancers. And I didn't know exactly in what
medium I was going to be, but I knew that
I wanted to entertain for a living very quickly. What
are your parents thinking? You know, I don't know if
(19:33):
like twelve year old Wells could tell my parents, hey, listen,
I appreciate the school that you put me in, but
I think I want to go to this other one.
I think I probably know what's best for me. You know, Like,
how did that conversation go? I mean, it's not like
they had put me in private school. Oh is it
the local public school? I don't think my dad really
gave a ship for being honest. Um, he was just like, dude,
(19:56):
if you're bored, you're not learning anything, then what's the
point If you think you're gonna learn something? Here, And
it's interesting. He was always so supportive of my brother
and I trying new things. Um, you know, he very
much made me have to think about it and and
talk about it and convince him to a point. But
my dad is one of the most supportive dudes. Um
you know, let me try everything from BMX racing to
(20:17):
horseback riding to performing arts. And I'm so grateful that
he did, you know. And I found that this is
what I really love to do and continued with it.
And look, the more dedication I showed towards it, the
more support he gave me. So you change schools. You
go to this creative and performing arts school. I read
something about going to some acting camp I went to.
(20:38):
I did laya Playhoffs Conservatory one summer. That was a
very notable one. Um, I mean dude. From there, I
went to the corner of School of the Arts. It
just kind of became a an obsession. I just wanted
to learn and train with as many people as I could.
Do you remember how old you are when you got
your first agent. Yes, it was strange because I had
(20:59):
shout out to one of the reasons that I do
what I do today least scare. It was my vocal
coach in San Diego, who I believe still teaches if
you guys are in San Diego and want a badass
lady to help you out from performance to sitting it.
And she was just she was like one of the
most strict people I've ever met in my life. But
for me, she was the nice ling in the world.
(21:20):
It's like hard to explain that everyone else she was
so hard on it, so strict. And then for me
she was like James, whenever you want to take your time,
you know, and you just like eventually I asked her
not to sit the sidebar two much, gonna ask him, like, hey,
why are you so nice to me? You know you're
not exactly nice to all your students. And she's like, James,
you're the hardest person on yourself. I could never compete
(21:43):
with that. You're hard on yourself than anybody ever. Man.
I guess that's that's how I was as a kid.
So she's likes that a doubling down on that. I
need to give you the other side of things. And
so she was just such a great person, so aware
and anyway she set up One day there was an
equity department, you know, theater department for a small agency
in the valley in l A, actually in Studio City,
(22:03):
and we went up there randomly one afternoon and I
was sixteen or fifteen or something and auditioned. And then
when I auditioned for that, I literally got like recruited
by the other agents on the floor that you know,
more commercial acting, traditional film and TV type people, and
got signed across the board. So I was like, I
guess this is a happy coincidence. Let me start driving
(22:24):
up to l A. And so that's what I did.
For years. I would drive from s D to l
A sometimes four times a week. It got absolutely absurd
um and then just because of a bunch of things
that happened in my life, including almost losing my brother
my junior year, you know, I realized life is short,
and I just took a gigantic risk and graduated early
(22:47):
and moved up to l A when I was seventeen.
How did your parents take that decision? I mean it
was hard to argue with life is short after what
we had just gone through. My brother was in a major,
major motorcycle accident. I see you for about six months
of life unconscious for most of that was pretty gnarly,
and thank god he is alive and well today was
in Chicago crushing it in the field of tech. I
(23:09):
couldn't explain half of what he does. That's how bright
I feel like this, um. But you know, after all that,
I've missed so much school. I was going into my
senior year and I had taken most of the courses
I needed to take all the aps and everything, so
it's like that the basics. Anyways, I was like that,
I don't need to be here. This is absurd, this
is done. Um. So he allowed me to go to
(23:29):
an independent study school that actually my brother had done
to you before. So I still got my education and
just did it in a very strange way my last
year and basically said, hey, give me a year, let's
see what happens. Were you the most talented person in
terms of the performing arts at the performing arts school?
Were you like the m v P zach More? Absolutely not.
(23:52):
I mean I landed some big roles, like in the
ninth grade, I got Danny Zooko and Greece, which was massive.
That was like, we have sports teams those equivalent to
like being imagine being a varsity captain on any sports
team as a freshman rarely, if ever happens. So look,
I was dedicated, and I was good and trying to
get better and better, but there were so many talented people.
(24:16):
It's like, how do you ever say, are you the best?
Second you think you're the best, First of all, you're wrong.
There's too many people. There's just so many freaking talented
people out there, the most talented which you probably never
heard of. Um, But you also lose that tenacity and
motivation to continue to train, and so that like fear
that there's somebody on my heels or there's somebody better
than me that I have to work hard to try
(24:37):
and beat or emulate or live up to. That's still
the same type of fear motivation that I thrive on today.
I feel Tom Brady kind of does this a lot
where there's probably a part of him that knows he's
arguably the greatest quarterback that's ever lived, but he does
this thing where he is a little delusional and thinks
that everyone's against him and he has to prove something
(24:59):
like the media's against him or something, and he creates
this dialogue in his mind that continues to motivate him.
And also when I was watching the that Michael Jordan's
documentary kind of did the same stuff for sort of
making things up that like players never said to him,
but continue to motivate him. I think that's a good
lesson to learn, is that the great ones know how
(25:19):
to continue to be great, and they have to use
tricks and stuff to continue to motivate themselves up and beyond. Yeah,
And I think it's a fine line between doing that
and keeping it healthy. Yeah, I think it's very easy
to let that attitude become unhealthy. Having said that, it's
a blessing and a curse, you know, right, Like you
could try and go halfway with this, probably only be
(25:41):
half as good as you could if you just said it.
Everybody hates meybe wants me to fail. I'm gonna prove
them wrong. I try not to live in a state
like that, you know, Like the chip that may have
been my shoulder when I was younger, I hope isn't
as large these days. But I think that, Look, these
are some of the greatest athletes, most successful people in
general and history, and I think everybody shares a little
(26:02):
bit of this. We need to constantly get better, and
constantly train, and constantly stand er a game or someone
else is going to take our spot. You graduate early,
you move up to Los Angeles. What's what happens once
once you get to Hollywood. Well, I'm initially sleeping on
my godmother's couch, which was let me just knock on
(26:24):
some wood and say thank you for you know, being
in my own home at this point, you know, a
very very different situation when I first came up here.
But it was not. One of the earlier auditions that
I had was big time rush. I started when I
was seventeen. I was in the very first round of
auditioning they ever did, and that lasted for two full year.
They did four screen tests for national tours, recasting every
(26:45):
single time, even shot a pilot. The third time around,
a million dollar pilot, recast one of the characters from
the pilot. If you can believe, a lot of people
don't know that. And all along I'm sitting there doing
like and I carly you know, guests start here and
tiny LONDI movie here and trying to figure it out
and eating ramen and tuna fish so I can afford
to pay for gas to go to auditions. I mean
that's how it was. You know, everything happens for a reason,
(27:08):
and I'm so glad that it stuck it out. I
think I actually end up getting an offer from Disney
for a small movie or something, and then all of
a sudden, this is after almost two years, they went,
you know, funny enough, we're gonna move forward. Now the
contracts are actually done. And that's that's how it started.
And after all that, it could have been a failure.
You have no idea how something's gonna work out. But
luckily people gravitated towards it. The premiere, remember, was like
(27:29):
the largest live action premiere in the history of Nickelodeon,
which is just incredible way to start. And then people
took to it, and the music took off, and we're
a tour of the world and film and just what
a killer way to to start a career, you know.
So because big time Rush took off, the Disney thing
dissolved quite immediately. Yes, it was. It was like the difference,
(27:50):
you like, hey, let me accept a role in like
a small movie and who the hell knows what this
or let me take you know, a series that has
the potential to be big they've been working on for
two years. I obviously wanted to do this one. You know,
I loved Scott Fellows, the creator, I loved the cast
members I was working with, Like it just made a
lot more sense. But you know, I think they had
us on a retainer of like fift a month, which
(28:14):
when you're making zero money, sounds like a lot. But
when you're living on your own in l A, paying
for gas, it wasn't even enough to really get by on.
And it just came a point where I was willing
to break my contract to go in make money to
eaton and live. So hey again, it all worked out, man,
But what a wild what a wild process. I think
one thing that a lot of people out there don't
(28:37):
realize about the entertainment industry, especially maybe listeners of this show,
is like, in your case, you booked this Nickelodeon thing,
so obviously Nickelodeon and Disney are not friends. And in
the perfect world you probably would have been like, well,
I would love to do the movie, and I would
also love to do this television show and uh, you know,
make all the money, and Disney says, no, fuck you,
(29:00):
you can't work for the glode and Nicolas, you cannot
go work for Disney. I hate that mouse, and so
you have to make a decision, which is so tough,
I imagine, especially as a kid. So how long This
is one of my favorite questions to ask people, especially
people who started really early. When did you realize things
(29:20):
were popping for you? It's a good question, to be honest.
It was hard to really understand it at first, not
because we didn't know things were happening, because we were
literally so insulated by how much we were working. We
filmed a single camera show, so we're up at five
in the morning. Beyond set at six, you film a
minimum of twelve hours and you just go home and
(29:41):
learn your lines, go back to work. Then we have
like a ten pm cut off with a police escort
to make it to the airport to go and fly
somewhere and play three shows and be back at six am.
We did this for months, years on end, so it's
really hard to like understand what was going on. We
get numbers and it'say, like, oh, that's cool, but until
(30:02):
you actually play music, so you actually get out in
front of a crowd, and then you're like, we're playing
for how many people? Holy sh it like there's ten
thousand people here, there's twenty thousand people here, and you know,
you realize that at least a few people like it
at that point. And then there's there's always those really
cool moments to stick in the back of your head.
Like one of the first concerts we ever did was
(30:24):
in the middle of Times Square. Most people will never
get to experience Times Square, but for one of our
first concerts, we had every single Billboard filming us live.
It took over the entire place, a stage had thousands
of people, um, and of course it starts raining right
before we go one stage, and we think that's the
sickest thing ever. We feel like rock stars. We're out
(30:47):
there and we know like three songs, four songs maybe,
and so we do our thing and get off, and like,
you know, you don't really recognize how cool that stuff
is until years later when you're like, that's some once
in a lifetime opportunity. And yeah, the bars set a
little high after that first gig, I guess it was.
It was so then our second gig, first ticketed gig.
(31:08):
This is actually a fantastically embarrassing story. The first time
we ever sold a hard tickets I guess we had
played like some random things or like you know, pop
up performance shows, but we actually charged people money to
see us performed. It was at Henderson, Nevada um at
the Henderson Pavilion, I believe. So I don't know a
few thousand people maybe, And I guess they made it
(31:29):
clear that we only knew five songs, but the fans
don't read the fine print. They don't know that we
only know five songs. So what we do? We were
not out there playing the track, you know, no band, nothing,
little choreography and crush our five songs and go off
stage and don't realize that everybody's chanting for an article.
And we did not have an encore. We didn't have
(31:50):
any more music, so we felt so bad. They're like
screaming like they're psyched. You know. I'd be like, oh,
they're all they want us to come out and see
one more easily song. We didn't fucking know one. So
we got in our cars and they're like waving goodbye
and feel like such assholes, like we gotta go learn
some more music, but never forget it. So how long
(32:10):
did Big Time Rush run for? I guess our last
tour was in like something like that. Um, the show
did four seasons, almost a hundred episodes, did a movie
or two in there, get a Beatles album, did a
bunch of music. I mean, we did so much stuff.
But yeah, I guess we stopped touring around there and
then what happens next. Look, everybody was ready for a break.
(32:33):
You know. Everybody had spent day in, day out years
together doing this one thing, playing this one character, singing
these specific songs, and that's amazing. But any artists wants
to mix it up. You know, you don't become an
artist to do the same thing for your entire life.
So for me, it was very much about hey, let
me I was focused on acting before I was focused
on my music, and I guess in retrospect would have
a nice I had like a bunch of music ready
to go, but that's not where my head was at,
(32:54):
and I just wanted to go and do gritty roles.
So I remember like buzzing off my hair for the
first time, going and do one my first gritty roles
of Benny Boom movie called forty eight Hours to Live
where Tommy Flann again, Amelia Rivera, d Ray Davis, like
all these fucking killer. Actors were in it, and it
was about like underground drug scene and that some dancing
(33:15):
in it, and like some fight scenes and I got
to kill someone and it's just you know, it's one
of the first ones I remember. But that was it
was so exciting, you know, like this is what I
want to do. And then after doing you know, ten
independent films, like you realize, like, ironically, more people will
probably see this small rom com you know, stars spelling
at Obama, which I'm also very very proud of, and
some of these other roles that took you know, maybe
(33:35):
three times as long to film and create because of
all the effects your dance or fights or whatever. Um,
And that's just the way the wild works. So I
just went out and did as many movies as I
could and then started getting back in and creating my
own sound. That took a very long time. And it
really wasn't until lt X a couple of years ago
that I found the niche that I really want to
do with music, you know, But hey man, just grateful
(33:56):
that it all bigger than that. Eventually, the story is crazy,
it's so interesting and I just can't wait to see
what happens next. Because you're so versatile. If you could
only choose one form of art to continue doing, what
would you choose. I've never given a direct answer to
this question, not that I'm trying to avoid it, but
(34:18):
I truthfully don't know. If anything, I would lean towards
music in the sense that it's more versatile in terms
of doing one thing for the rest of your life.
You can be in a different city every day, you
can create a new song every day. To turnaround on
creating music, you know, and putting out the world is
a lot faster than a movie. But you know, I
(34:38):
would miss the out of acting. You know, there are
days where I feel like I'm a better actor than
musician in their days, or I feel like I'm a
better singer than actor, and like I just go back
and forth my own head about that. And something that
keeps me saying is the ability to do both and
be in one location for a few months film and
something and then tour and again. This is a in
a normal year, So I don't know, it'd be tough
to choose. Very grateful to do both, and I hope
(35:00):
to continue to do both for the rest of my career.
Are you super high energy guy, do you not sit
down a lot? But I love that about myself. I
found as I've gotten older, I'm able to be aware
of it now. When I was younger, it was definitely
a little more just kind of this energy all the
time and like super excited and like I love that,
(35:21):
and that's still in me, but it's different. I can
kind of hone it in, focus it for a workout,
or focus it for an interview, and I can also
sit down and you know, zone out now and read
a book for half a day. You know, I'm just
progress into how I can focus it. But it's it's
this that's called energy for lack of a better word, um,
that's kept me going, that's allowed me to be focused.
(35:44):
It's the same energy that had me like too focused
when I was a young actor and a young musician
in the industry. I mean I remember like show runners
coming in just be like, hey, do you gotta like
enjoy it a little bit because I was so overprepared
and everything I was piste off of my co stars
didn't like that should happens, we'll show up not in
other lines. But I learned as I got older, like
it's not my concern, you know. I hope they do
(36:05):
for their sake, for my sake, for production sake, But
if you want to be an asshole and not do
your job, well, it really doesn't affect me. I'm gonna
show up, do my thing, and like the best thing
you can do is just like live and let live,
which after to remind myself to this day, but I'm
a lot better at it than I used to be.
What stuff are you watching right now or absorbing that
you're loving? You know, I hadn't watched The Crown until recently,
(36:27):
and you know, it's on this fourth season now, I think,
and I'm just in the middle of the second. But
just awesome. I mean from a historic perspective as well,
you know, in a cinematic perspective, don't. I don't know
if you've seen it, but part of the way that
this show tells chronologically where it's at in history is
by focusing in on what type of camera equipment they're using.
I don't know you ever picked up on that when
(36:48):
you watched it, but you see like throughout each season
you've jumped five ten years in places, or at least
several because you've gone from like one scene is here
recording and the next scene it's like a little know
nikon looking thing and it's just there's no flashes and
it dissolves and just brilliance. On an equal note. At
the Queen's Gambit, which is another Netflix miniseries, was bloody
(37:11):
brilliant and then not a more fun note. Man, I
would love to do a show like Hunters. Have you
seen Hunters? Yes? Yeah? Baas being Jewish mad respect you're
gravitating towards period pieces? Is that a byproduct of the
World War two movie that you've got coming out. I
didn't even draw that connection, and so you said it maybe,
(37:33):
And I think there's also a sense of character development.
You know, when you're playing somebody in everything is the
same that it is in your day to day life,
and you know, you have to figure out ways to
get out of your head and out of your life
and into that character and in those shoes. But when
you're in a period piece and the clothes fits different,
(37:54):
and the cars are different, and the scenery is in
many ways different, it's a lot easier to jump in
and just become a completely different character. So maybe that's
why I like it, But you know, down for all
of it, I know the future one. Next, what's the
best piece of advice you've either learned or been given
by co star director, you know, DP, whatever, it's the
(38:18):
same type of advice. You should drive me crazy to
be overprepared, but still drives me today to just get
better every day whatever that means. And better also means
different different acting coaches and classes and trying new ship. Um.
And that is that success comes when preparation meets opportunity.
The way I look at that is everybody's going to
(38:39):
have opportunities in their life. Some people can get a
lot more. That's the way life is. Life isn't fair,
but everybody's going to get some and the more prepared
you are, the better chance you're gonna have at those opportunities. So,
in fact, for those of us that may not have
gotten as much starting out, or don't feel like you're
getting a lot right now, I'm implore you to work
(39:01):
that much harder and be that much more prepared. If
you feel you're only gonna get a few opportunities, well
that's life you better damn well be prepared for. So
whatever that means to you. You You don't figure out what
your hobbies are, what you like doing and just keep
doing it if you enjoy doing it, get better and
better and keep it going because eventually the world will
conspire to make those dreams happen if you don't stop.
(39:21):
And I do think that success begets success like you
get more opportunities the more that you are prepared for
the situation and kick ask the first one you know,
so you can kind of question. You can create your
own badassory if you will. Well. In fact, so many
of my roles came to me because of the work
ethic I on previous movies. Yes, the job I did,
(39:45):
but also everybody talks more now than ever. It's a
lot easier if you're casting somebody. Oh I probably know
somebod I know somebody was in that movie. It's a
hundred people on a movie at least, And if you're
in the industry, you probably know once you go and
you ask, hey, was this guy easy to work with?
Or I want to spend the next you know matter
months or years of my life with this person. All
that ship is as relevant as it is how good
(40:05):
you are for the job, in my opinion, because when
they get to that, all right, you and this person
are both good enough they're really going to go down to, like,
who do I want to be around more? So, you know,
it's a lot easier to be nice than to be
an asshole too, in my opinion. Um, and just forget
any of the old stereotypes about like the famous people
have egos and attitudes and all that. Like day, let
(40:25):
me tell you, the most famous people that I've worked
with or mets are like the nicest, chilliest, most humble,
And that's motivating to me to be the same way. Yeah,
I totally agree. It's so much easier to book a
gig if everyone is excited to be around you. I mean,
look at the rock He's literally made not only a career,
but like the biggest fucking career just being a likable guy.
(40:48):
Like he's still not the greatest actor. I mean, don't
be wrong. I love watching his stuff, but it's because
of who he is, you know, and it's a it's
pretty inspirational. Listen, I'm running out of time with you.
Before let you go, you got some time for some
rapid fire questions. Let's go rapid fire questions with James Maszow.
Number one, what's one thing that's always in your fridge?
(41:08):
One thing on your bucket list to get my pilot's
license fully? What animal do you wish you could talk to?
An eagle? Physical trait you notice about someone you are
attracted to, smile, last person you texted? My best friend
Eugene and my partner in LTx. What was your high
school yearbook supprolative? Most likely to be something in entertainment?
(41:28):
I guess do you believe in soulmates? Yes, but I
think there may be more than one. How would you
describe your high school self? Flip flops, hair down on
my shoulders, fish out of water, but I never cared,
so you were like high functioning Spaccoli. I love that.
Who is your childhood hero? Sho? That's a tough question.
(41:49):
I mean my brother, my dad, and maybe acting wise
Ryan Reynolds. Who is your celebrity crush currently? Sure? I
haven't thought about that question in a long time. I
used to say, uh, a'ma, Oh my lord, it's been
so long. Yes, I was like Harry Potter. Why can't
I think of that? Um? And I suppose still gradually,
I haven't thought about this question a while. I guess
(42:09):
that's part of adulting. Your lady is very happy about
how you answer that. I suppose what's your biggest pet? Peeve?
People who talk on their cell phones like this when
they're driving a hund thousand dollar car. It most certainly
has Bluetooth. Who's the most famous person in your phone?
That's a very good question. I don't don't know. I'm
trying to think of. Just say, d Ray Davis. Throw
(42:31):
it out there. What was your first car? Nissan Box?
I don't know if that was the actual name, but
it's how I remember it was your favorite book owned
the day by Audrey Marcus. And last one when you
win your oscar? Who are you going to thank? First?
Probably my dad for supporting me, letting me go through
this wild path of being an entertainer. I love it.
(42:52):
James Maslow, you have been an absolute delight to chat
with everyone out there. Go watch Stars Fell on all Obama.
It's available now on demand and digital. Go stream and
download and buy all his stuff. L t X is
the project. Keep an eye out for like five other
movies that he's got coming out in one James, Where
(43:14):
can people go? Follow you on the social Media's just
at James Maslow on Instagram, Facebook and occasionally Twitter Like
faces you haven't been expelled from Twitter. That's good to know.
I've not been expelled. I've been abstinate, but still allowed. Dude,
thanks so much for taking the time. Continued success, and
when this is all over, it's good a beer. I
(43:36):
would love him at a It's super fun chatting with you.
Appreciate your time. You are damn good at your job.
Keep it up, thanks buddy. When this is all over,
I want you to take me up in the air.
I want that right. Let me get my license and
the extra practice hours. Yeah. Look, I don't want to
kill myself either, so I feel like you're probably pretty safe,
all right, James, Thanks buddy. That was great. Love that dude.
(43:58):
You can tell that guy's given a lot of inner views,
very very good interviewee. And as someone who's interviewed probably
I don't know, well over a thousand people, I appreciate
that for sure. Bro. Anyone else find it funny when
when he said one of his his childhood hero was
Ryan Reynolds, because the whole time I was like, dude,
you sound so much like Ryan Reynolds. Go back and
(44:20):
listen to a little of him talk and you're like,
oh my, that's Deadpool right there. Anyways, James Naso, thank
you so much for being on the show. That was
a lot of fun. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If
you like the show, don't forget to go rate and
review on the UH podcast store giving them five stars.
Tell me how you feel about the show, and that
really helps tell your friends and family. Also, if you
(44:42):
like the show, to listen to it. Okay, I'm gonna
stretching out. Stretch it out alright, follow me out Well's
Adams on social media. See you guys next week, app
casts or anywhere you get your podcasts. It's the Internet line.
Stretch out. I feel very strongly about the merits of
a good stretch before your podcast, or before you listen
to a podcast, or really anything feels good. Let's just
do it together, just stretch it out. Oh yeah, okay,
all right, let's go do it. Just run it. This
(00:25):
is a Wells cast with Wells Atoms and I heart
Radio podcast. All right, stretched out, limburg, loose, ready to roll,
feeling good. How's everyone doing out there? I'm on The
Bachelor this week barely they cut your boy out, which
(00:47):
I mean, I'm used to listen, but this week I
didn't even say anything. I'm just there for like three
seconds then boom, so whatever. I had like seven really
good jokes. I was so excited for it. I made
like a Biggie Tupac joke that I thought definitely was
gonna kill pun intended, and they cut it. Whatever. It's fine.
(01:08):
It's not about means about Matt and his journey. La
la la la la Claire and Dale. Though. Huh who
saw that coming? Every everyone saw that coming? Got it? Okay? Sorry, certain,
Here's the great thing about my podcast. They can't cut
me out because I do the cutting. Your boy is
the editor and also the editors over Abcat Listen, I
(01:31):
get it. I can't stand myself either, so I'm right
there with you. But I'm not gonna cutting out our
guest today because this guy literally has done everything. He's
an actor, he's a singer, he's a songwriter. He started
out early on a Nickelodeon show, A Big Time Rush,
part of the best selling mused a group of the
same name. He's pivoted over to the E d M
(01:52):
side of the music world. Got a song right now
that's number one across the pond. Dude won the I
Heart Radio Rising Star Award. Who was also the last
man standing on Dancing with Stars. Is the current host
of the CWS Global Talent show of The Big Stage
with Elizabeth stand He was on the first season of
CBS Celebrity Big Brother. He's got a new rom com
(02:14):
out right now called Stars Fell on Alabama. He's got
a war movie coming out later this year. I mean,
this guy's on everything except my show until today. Coming
up on the Wells Cast, we got James Maslow stick around.
This is a good one, all right. We are back
(02:41):
on the Wells Cast. Very excited to have the multi
talented James Maslow on the show. How are you, my man?
I'm good, But how you doing? I'm doing really good.
It's been fun doing this show because it's given me
something to do during the pandemic. But I'm always amazed
and a little jealous of my guests because they're getting
to do stuff, and I'm like, how what production company
(03:04):
allowed this? I don't understand. But you've got a bunch
of stuff going on. You've got your music going on,
You've got this movie going on TV shows. Everything's happening
for you right now. Let's start with the big kind
of headline. Stars fell in Alabama. How pumped are you
for this? I'm extremely pumped. It's it's nice for a
multitude of reason to see your points. We filmed this
(03:27):
right before COVID, and we filmed this in November December,
so this is actually the last movie that I finished,
and funny enough, the first one coming out. But I
was lucky to have several projects in the can you
know I have this and I have two other movies
that lead coming out this year, which it's more than
a lot of actors can say, because nothing really did
(03:47):
film last year. I was lucky to do some stuff
from like the CW with pop Star and a few
little hosting things here and there, but for the most
part it's been focusing on music right here in my
studio at home, which you know, lucky to have that
as well, but also just anxious and eager to get
back to touring. Yeah, it's this kind of weird situation
where all I had a lot of musicians on and
(04:09):
it's feast and famine for you guys, because you have
so much time to create and you have like a
lot of like emo news stories and just like just
depression in general to create like a lot of really
good content, but then you can't go out into the
world and present it to mass crowds and stuff. So
it's just it's this great thing, but then this kind
(04:30):
of crap thing as well. But also going out into
the world having normal freaking human experience is where I
draw most of my creativity from. So yeah, we have
more time, but ample time sitting around, you know, alone
at home like everyone else. So I guess drawing from
news stories in the way of the world is is
(04:50):
silver lining some ideas, but definitely not the same. And
I think I speak for just about all of us
when I say we prefer it the other way around,
back to some sort of semblance of normality. Soon, we hope. Yeah,
you just gotta go straight Bob Dylan now and just
be political and it's like, well, it's getting up Twitter, man.
Trying to avoid that as much as possible. I do
(05:11):
want to get into your music, but I want to
start on Stars fell in Alabama. Is this your first
rom com? It's not my first rom com. I filmed
a little gem called It Happened One Valentine's like five
years back that I'm very proud of, but didn't get
nearly the distribution this guy did. This is definitely, uh,
my first rom com in a long time. I've done
from big World War two movie to a raunchy comedy.
(05:33):
I think the one before that it played a serial killer.
So it was nice when this came across the desk
to to do something that's far more accessible and lighthearted,
and man, if there's a time that we need something
that's just positive and relatable, I'd say it's right now.
It's funny because I do feel like the holidays they're
such the time for really good rom coms. You know.
(05:54):
I had a little bit of withdrawals because I was like, man,
I don't have I need the story of the hardened
New York reporter that's coming home to the small town
and falls in love with the cookie baker and you know,
and then they fall and then I saw this and
I was like, yeah, back into a baby. So tell
everyone kind of the story, like, because I love, just
(06:17):
as someone who's in the industry, I kind of like
love the premise of this movie, So tell everyone what
the story is about. Yeah. Well, so I play an agent,
Bryce Dixon, and he's a very successful Hollywood agents who
has an up and coming starlett named Madison Bell. So
Bryce is out having drinks for Premier, gets a call
from his buddies back home who really want him to
(06:37):
come to the fifteen year anniversary, and they pressure him, going, hey,
you must have a serious relationship now you know you're
thirty three. I think the character is like, who is she?
Is she coming? And there's this kind of undo pressure
from the South, and so he kind of FIBs and
says that he does. Then they pressure him more and
says who is it? Who is it? He's like, I
(06:58):
can't tell you, and then eventually he slips and looks
up and see's a billboard of his client, Madison Bell,
and goes Madison. So he puts himself in the situation
where he's completely lied about dating a client and then
goes so far as to call a client up and
try and convince her to fake be his girlfriend and
go to Alabama and lo and behold he does, and
the comedy and romance ensues. Would you ever? Would you
(07:23):
ever date your agent? Manager? Both my agents think are married,
Um can have a couple of years on me, and
I'm in a very happy, committed relationship myself. I'm gonna
go ahead and say no. Generally speaking, Look, I feel
like things like this actually happened quite a bit, says
you know this, it's strange our industry. It's wonderful, but
(07:44):
if you're not in it, it's hard to explain it,
you know, especially from an acting perspective, Like it's hard
to explain, Well, I'm gonna go fake date somebody for
the next two months to ten years in my life,
depending on the project. So there's some sort of understanding.
I think that happens amongst people in the industry, whether
you're an actor, musician, agents, morior. So I get it. It
It happens a lot, but I am very happy that
(08:05):
my girlfriend does not do any of that. Smart Man,
Good Answer Stars Fell on Alabama's out now on demand
and digital. Do you find yourself looking more at scripts
like this, because I got to imagine it's really really
fun to go do pictures like this. Absolutely, man. I mean,
the more I've been lucky to have, you know, quite
(08:25):
a spectrum of rules, more I enjoy doing stuff the slighthearted.
That's fun because when you're filming a comedy, when you're
filming over homecount you're having fun on set. If you're not,
it's probably not going to be a very enjoyable movie
to watch, That's the truth. So you know, it's great
to do character work. It's great to dig in and
do drama, and I crave that every once in a while.
But I would love to spend the majority of my
career doing comedies. You know, our action action comedies. That
(08:49):
whole vein is stuff to me, is really enjoyable. Is
there any part of the film industry or television um
that you haven't done that you'd like to do? Quite
a few? You know the action movie of Reference a
couple of times now it is called Wolf Found, and
it's a massive World War two film that I'm very
proud of and very excited for that when to come out,
and I'd love to do more of that world. In fact,
(09:10):
as a little kid, I've always want to play a superhero,
and as an adult kid, I still want to play superhero.
So that's on the bucket list for sure. Tell Us
A Wolf Found About Wolf Found is a true story
to think God didn't come to fruition. It's based on
plans who were discovered about Nazi occupied France the end
of around nineteen four, towards the end of the war,
(09:33):
when they were attempting to Trojan Horse shoot down a
B seventeen American bomber and then Trojan Horse sat with
a big war ending bomb over London. So it was
a scary plan that again think God didn't actually happen,
But it's a story of what would that have looked
like if that almost went down. So I play a
P fifty one fighter, Captain Holden, defending a B seventeen.
(09:56):
We get shot down at the beginning of the movie,
and mind you, all of this is shot practically. We're
actually up in P fifty ones at B seventeens and
it's being filmed with a half million dollar skycam on
another plane in the air. It's pretty incredible. Um. And
then we get shut down and most of the crew
gets taken captive, and it's me running through the forest
trying to find them and creating this kind of one
(10:18):
man army approach to stopping this whole thing. You got
to be up in those old World War two fighters, dude.
The first the very first day of filming, I was
put into the back seat of a makeshift like jump
seats and they had one seat and pift ones and
(10:38):
you know, pretending to fake flood the same way they
shot Top Gun, just an order plane and put up
there and said, all right, when you deliver your lines,
press this button so it communicates back down to camera
and here we go. And then you just started dog fighting.
I'm in barrel rolls and back turns, and so I
literally were up that was up there, hitting my lines
as many times as I could before I was ready
to almost throw up, which say, what will you? What
(11:01):
you will? But when you're in the backseat one of
those planes doing bearables, you can only last for so long.
I don't care who you who you are. So it's like,
all right, buddy, don't want to throw up on your plane.
Less land You'd go no problem, you'd land be down.
I'd go hurl, hang out for three minutes, and go
back up. I mean that was the start of it.
By the end of the movie, I actually started getting
my pilot's license and they're comfortable enough to let me
actually fly a B twenty five bomber. And I don't
(11:23):
want to spoiler give any spoiler alerts away, but it's
pretty awesome, man. So you'll see me up there. You
actually see me, and there was a co captain there
obviously for safety reasons, but they see g I am out.
So when you see me fly on that plane, it's
actually me fly on the plane. Stop it super cool.
Did they let you ever fly the fighter? No? I
mean that one. I had only gotten seven hours of
my license something so far, so there'd be no way.
(11:46):
It wasn't like his dual control as in a fighter.
So maybe one day, dude, that sounds sick. Man, Yeah,
I want to see that now. When is that coming out?
That will probably be closer to the end of the year.
I mean, it's a massive production and they work and
on it. But m after Stars Fell, I'm not exactly
sure when. But I have a movie called We Need
to Talk that's a very funny, little more raunchy comedy.
(12:07):
I play one of the biggest gamers in the world
and that just one best comedy and one Best Actor
at the first Clance Festival in Phillies. That's pretty exciting.
It's going around and doing the little mini festival circuit
and uh yeah, those two or two more to look
forward to after this one. Dude, I'm such like a
big like Memphis Bell fans, So just hearing about this,
is it Wolf Found? Is that what's called? Yeah? That
(12:28):
sounds so sick, dude. Yeah. I mean, look all three
of these projects and I think about like the slate
of movies I have coming out already just again, so
so living in such a state of gratitude not only
to have the projects, but they're also different. That's what
every actor wants to do. You know. I do love
rom coms, but I wouldn't only want to do rom coms.
Same with action movies. They're super fun, but less dialogue,
(12:48):
different skills you know, you have to have for those.
So I'm just grateful to you. Know, be able to
work on all these different types of projects. Is there
anything you wouldn't do? I've been offered some absolutely awful
slasher films. Um having said that, I do want to
do one when it's a fantastic project and I feel
(13:10):
like there are far more bad than good in that world, respectfully,
but you get like a cabin in the Woods type script.
You're kidding me. I will jump at that in the harpeat.
But I've said no to everyone I've been offered thus
far because you know that it's easy to it's easy
to get cheesy in that world. What would you rather
be the good guy or the bad guy in that situation?
(13:31):
I mean, no situations A bad guys way more fun.
We're gonna do it to it, right, We'll see. It's
also nice to live potentially have, you know, like a
trilogy project. So maybe there's a bad guy that does live.
Maybe he's not the bad guy to like the third movie,
just throw that out there in the universe. Yeah, Mike
Myers is still walking around out there. Soft Halloween's later
(13:53):
most job security, right exactly, smart man right there. So
I mean, like this all kind of started with Nicole
Loodi and big time rush. You've kind of pivoted away
from that musical project into this more like E d
M situation. Tell everyone about l t X. Yeah, so
you know, I put out of my own album years back,
did a bunch of pop singles, many of which I'm
(14:16):
very proud of. But then my best friend and I
for fun a few years ago remixed one of my
songs called how I Like It before we had the
name l t X. We remixed that as the Tri
four remix. That's my best friend Eugenia Gorski, the name
that he d jed under and produced under for a while.
That little remix went to number one in the Netherlands.
(14:37):
It stayed on the charts and all the dance charts
in all of Europe weeks. I mean, it was like
beating out ed sheering and like crazy crazy things in
these markets and in the dance market mind you, But
for us it was a really good sign, like, hey,
maybe we need to do more of this together. So
we had a bit of a come to Jesus moment,
if you will. About two years ago, finally had time.
(14:57):
My best friend had finally moved up to l A.
He's living in Europe for about ten years and said,
why don't we why do we do this? Why don't
we jump in the studio right to create and see
what happens? And lo and behold, We've created UM I
think the best music of either of our careers to date,
and are super excited. I feel like we're just getting going.
I mean top we were DJ and we played Liquor
(15:20):
Box in Chicago. We're still on the line up to
play Summer Camp main stage whenever that happens. But obviously
the whole world got pushed, so now we're just focusing
on more releases. So we have an acoustic version of
our song History coming out soon, another single called Unforgettable
coming out shortly after that, and just a ton of
music and hopefully will be tour and play and DJ
(15:42):
and again very soon. Is there anything that I've missed
out on that you're currently doing. I think we've covered plenty. Yeah. Yeah,
I feel like, I mean, look, that's this is everything
that's that's going on. Luckily music I can continue to
create and produce UM and then otherwise, man, I'm just
back into UM auditioning as things start to pick up
again in the acting world, and I'm very eager to
(16:04):
see you know what the next project there's gonna be. Yeah,
pilot seasons right around the corner. Is there anything that
you want to talk about or promote that I didn't
ask you about before we pivot over to kind of
like my portion of the show. No, man, I feel
like if you want to follow anything else, just at
James Maslow across all social media. I tend to post
things that I'm doing on there. Well. I don't know
if anyone told you what the premise of this show is,
(16:26):
but I am fascinated with origin stories, how people got
to where they are now, what steps they had to take,
and what roads they had to go down to find success.
And you've done a lot of stuff, so I think
this is gonna be a really interesting conversation. Do you
have a couple of minutes to talk about this? Absolutely? Yeah? Yeah? Alright,
quick break and we come back where the hell James
(16:47):
Maslow came from and how the hell he got here?
Stick around on the Wealth Guys. Al Right, back in
the Welles cast. I have James Maslow on the show.
He currently is starring in a movie called Stars Fell
(17:07):
on Alabama. You might know him from Nickelodeon's Big Time Rush,
or maybe from his musical career doing the E d
M Project lt X, or maybe from Dancing with the
Stars or from the CWS the Big States, and he's
done a lot of stuff. I don't care so much
about all that stuff, even though it is very impressive.
I want to know how the hell you got to
(17:29):
get all that stuff. So let's go back to the beginning. James,
where the hell are you from? Where the hell am
I from? I was born in New York, but I
moved to San Diego when I was a young buck,
like six years old, So I'm really from the West Coast,
but a family in the East Coast and love it.
And fast forwarding just a couple of weeks, I ended
(17:49):
up attending performing art schools in the eighth grade. Frankly,
I was in regular school. I was playing sports surfing
board like any other kid who doesn't realize how good
they have it, especially place like San Diego. The more
off tour of the world, the more I realized how
freaking awesome San Diego is. But decided to go and
see this musical production. I had a Spanish tutor because
(18:11):
it's the only tutor I've ever had, by the way,
because my Spanish teacher started day one speaking in Spanish. Ironically,
now I speak decent Spanish, but how do you learn
I didn't, So I hatt a tutor, and she worked
at the school called s c p A or the
San Diego School of Creative Performing Arts. And finally, after
weeks of trying to get me to go see I
think it was by by Bertie, this production they were doing.
(18:31):
I'd be grudgingly accepted. I wasn't really in the theater
or musicals or whatever. I was just like a little bro.
Didn't think twice about it. I didn't know anything about it.
But alas I go and see the show, and I
was just blown away. I was like, holy crap, these
guys are talented. They're singing and dancing and it looks cool.
And I just had no idea. I had never been
(18:51):
exposed to that world. So I decided this seems way
cooler than my school. I'm gonna go ahead and audition
into the school. Whatever that means. Might have been singing
my whole life, so I'm like, okay, I'll use that,
and I figure out, like how to do a monologu
or whatever, and I got in. So then from the
eighth grade on, I guess I was in seventh grades.
From the eighth grade on, she started studying. Musical theater
(19:12):
is my major. And you know, they threw me like
jazz stap in ballet, which I hated until you know,
I love because it was fun to learn something new
and found myself surrounded by all these incredible actors and
singers and dancers. And I didn't know exactly in what
medium I was going to be, but I knew that
I wanted to entertain for a living very quickly. What
are your parents thinking? You know, I don't know if
(19:33):
like twelve year old Wells could tell my parents, hey, listen,
I appreciate the school that you put me in, but
I think I want to go to this other one.
I think I probably know what's best for me. You know, Like,
how did that conversation go? I mean, it's not like
they had put me in private school. Oh is it
the local public school? I don't think my dad really
gave a ship for being honest. Um, he was just like, dude,
(19:56):
if you're bored, you're not learning anything, then what's the
point If you think you're gonna learn something? Here, And
it's interesting. He was always so supportive of my brother
and I trying new things. Um, you know, he very
much made me have to think about it and and
talk about it and convince him to a point. But
my dad is one of the most supportive dudes. Um
you know, let me try everything from BMX racing to
(20:17):
horseback riding to performing arts. And I'm so grateful that
he did, you know. And I found that this is
what I really love to do and continued with it.
And look, the more dedication I showed towards it, the
more support he gave me. So you change schools. You
go to this creative and performing arts school. I read
something about going to some acting camp I went to.
(20:38):
I did laya Playhoffs Conservatory one summer. That was a
very notable one. Um, I mean dude. From there, I
went to the corner of School of the Arts. It
just kind of became a an obsession. I just wanted
to learn and train with as many people as I could.
Do you remember how old you are when you got
your first agent. Yes, it was strange because I had
(20:59):
shout out to one of the reasons that I do
what I do today least scare. It was my vocal
coach in San Diego, who I believe still teaches if
you guys are in San Diego and want a badass
lady to help you out from performance to sitting it.
And she was just she was like one of the
most strict people I've ever met in my life. But
for me, she was the nice ling in the world.
(21:20):
It's like hard to explain that everyone else she was
so hard on it, so strict. And then for me
she was like James, whenever you want to take your time,
you know, and you just like eventually I asked her
not to sit the sidebar two much, gonna ask him, like, hey,
why are you so nice to me? You know you're
not exactly nice to all your students. And she's like, James,
you're the hardest person on yourself. I could never compete
(21:43):
with that. You're hard on yourself than anybody ever. Man.
I guess that's that's how I was as a kid.
So she's likes that a doubling down on that. I
need to give you the other side of things. And
so she was just such a great person, so aware
and anyway she set up One day there was an
equity department, you know, theater department for a small agency
in the valley in l A, actually in Studio City,
(22:03):
and we went up there randomly one afternoon and I
was sixteen or fifteen or something and auditioned. And then
when I auditioned for that, I literally got like recruited
by the other agents on the floor that you know,
more commercial acting, traditional film and TV type people, and
got signed across the board. So I was like, I
guess this is a happy coincidence. Let me start driving
(22:24):
up to l A. And so that's what I did.
For years. I would drive from s D to l
A sometimes four times a week. It got absolutely absurd
um and then just because of a bunch of things
that happened in my life, including almost losing my brother
my junior year, you know, I realized life is short,
and I just took a gigantic risk and graduated early
(22:47):
and moved up to l A when I was seventeen.
How did your parents take that decision? I mean it
was hard to argue with life is short after what
we had just gone through. My brother was in a major,
major motorcycle accident. I see you for about six months
of life unconscious for most of that was pretty gnarly,
and thank god he is alive and well today was
in Chicago crushing it in the field of tech. I
(23:09):
couldn't explain half of what he does. That's how bright
I feel like this, um. But you know, after all that,
I've missed so much school. I was going into my
senior year and I had taken most of the courses
I needed to take all the aps and everything, so
it's like that the basics. Anyways, I was like that,
I don't need to be here. This is absurd, this
is done. Um. So he allowed me to go to
(23:29):
an independent study school that actually my brother had done
to you before. So I still got my education and
just did it in a very strange way my last
year and basically said, hey, give me a year, let's
see what happens. Were you the most talented person in
terms of the performing arts at the performing arts school?
Were you like the m v P zach More? Absolutely not.
(23:52):
I mean I landed some big roles, like in the
ninth grade, I got Danny Zooko and Greece, which was massive.
That was like, we have sports teams those equivalent to
like being imagine being a varsity captain on any sports
team as a freshman rarely, if ever happens. So look,
I was dedicated, and I was good and trying to
get better and better, but there were so many talented people.
(24:16):
It's like, how do you ever say, are you the best?
Second you think you're the best, First of all, you're wrong.
There's too many people. There's just so many freaking talented
people out there, the most talented which you probably never
heard of. Um, But you also lose that tenacity and
motivation to continue to train, and so that like fear
that there's somebody on my heels or there's somebody better
than me that I have to work hard to try
(24:37):
and beat or emulate or live up to. That's still
the same type of fear motivation that I thrive on today.
I feel Tom Brady kind of does this a lot
where there's probably a part of him that knows he's
arguably the greatest quarterback that's ever lived, but he does
this thing where he is a little delusional and thinks
that everyone's against him and he has to prove something
(24:59):
like the media's against him or something, and he creates
this dialogue in his mind that continues to motivate him.
And also when I was watching the that Michael Jordan's
documentary kind of did the same stuff for sort of
making things up that like players never said to him,
but continue to motivate him. I think that's a good
lesson to learn, is that the great ones know how
(25:19):
to continue to be great, and they have to use
tricks and stuff to continue to motivate themselves up and beyond. Yeah,
And I think it's a fine line between doing that
and keeping it healthy. Yeah, I think it's very easy
to let that attitude become unhealthy. Having said that, it's
a blessing and a curse, you know, right, Like you
could try and go halfway with this, probably only be
(25:41):
half as good as you could if you just said it.
Everybody hates meybe wants me to fail. I'm gonna prove
them wrong. I try not to live in a state
like that, you know, Like the chip that may have
been my shoulder when I was younger, I hope isn't
as large these days. But I think that, Look, these
are some of the greatest athletes, most successful people in
general and history, and I think everybody shares a little
(26:02):
bit of this. We need to constantly get better, and
constantly train, and constantly stand er a game or someone
else is going to take our spot. You graduate early,
you move up to Los Angeles. What's what happens once
once you get to Hollywood. Well, I'm initially sleeping on
my godmother's couch, which was let me just knock on
(26:24):
some wood and say thank you for you know, being
in my own home at this point, you know, a
very very different situation when I first came up here.
But it was not. One of the earlier auditions that
I had was big time rush. I started when I
was seventeen. I was in the very first round of
auditioning they ever did, and that lasted for two full year.
They did four screen tests for national tours, recasting every
(26:45):
single time, even shot a pilot. The third time around,
a million dollar pilot, recast one of the characters from
the pilot. If you can believe, a lot of people
don't know that. And all along I'm sitting there doing
like and I carly you know, guests start here and
tiny LONDI movie here and trying to figure it out
and eating ramen and tuna fish so I can afford
to pay for gas to go to auditions. I mean
that's how it was. You know, everything happens for a reason,
(27:08):
and I'm so glad that it stuck it out. I
think I actually end up getting an offer from Disney
for a small movie or something, and then all of
a sudden, this is after almost two years, they went,
you know, funny enough, we're gonna move forward. Now the
contracts are actually done. And that's that's how it started.
And after all that, it could have been a failure.
You have no idea how something's gonna work out. But
luckily people gravitated towards it. The premiere, remember, was like
(27:29):
the largest live action premiere in the history of Nickelodeon,
which is just incredible way to start. And then people
took to it, and the music took off, and we're
a tour of the world and film and just what
a killer way to to start a career, you know.
So because big time Rush took off, the Disney thing
dissolved quite immediately. Yes, it was. It was like the difference,
(27:50):
you like, hey, let me accept a role in like
a small movie and who the hell knows what this
or let me take you know, a series that has
the potential to be big they've been working on for
two years. I obviously wanted to do this one. You know,
I loved Scott Fellows, the creator, I loved the cast
members I was working with, Like it just made a
lot more sense. But you know, I think they had
us on a retainer of like fift a month, which
(28:14):
when you're making zero money, sounds like a lot. But
when you're living on your own in l A, paying
for gas, it wasn't even enough to really get by on.
And it just came a point where I was willing
to break my contract to go in make money to
eaton and live. So hey again, it all worked out, man,
But what a wild what a wild process. I think
one thing that a lot of people out there don't
(28:37):
realize about the entertainment industry, especially maybe listeners of this show,
is like, in your case, you booked this Nickelodeon thing,
so obviously Nickelodeon and Disney are not friends. And in
the perfect world you probably would have been like, well,
I would love to do the movie, and I would
also love to do this television show and uh, you know,
make all the money, and Disney says, no, fuck you,
(29:00):
you can't work for the glode and Nicolas, you cannot
go work for Disney. I hate that mouse, and so
you have to make a decision, which is so tough,
I imagine, especially as a kid. So how long This
is one of my favorite questions to ask people, especially
people who started really early. When did you realize things
(29:20):
were popping for you? It's a good question, to be honest.
It was hard to really understand it at first, not
because we didn't know things were happening, because we were
literally so insulated by how much we were working. We
filmed a single camera show, so we're up at five
in the morning. Beyond set at six, you film a
minimum of twelve hours and you just go home and
(29:41):
learn your lines, go back to work. Then we have
like a ten pm cut off with a police escort
to make it to the airport to go and fly
somewhere and play three shows and be back at six am.
We did this for months, years on end, so it's
really hard to like understand what was going on. We
get numbers and it'say, like, oh, that's cool, but until
(30:02):
you actually play music, so you actually get out in
front of a crowd, and then you're like, we're playing
for how many people? Holy sh it like there's ten
thousand people here, there's twenty thousand people here, and you know,
you realize that at least a few people like it
at that point. And then there's there's always those really
cool moments to stick in the back of your head.
Like one of the first concerts we ever did was
(30:24):
in the middle of Times Square. Most people will never
get to experience Times Square, but for one of our
first concerts, we had every single Billboard filming us live.
It took over the entire place, a stage had thousands
of people, um, and of course it starts raining right
before we go one stage, and we think that's the
sickest thing ever. We feel like rock stars. We're out
(30:47):
there and we know like three songs, four songs maybe,
and so we do our thing and get off, and like,
you know, you don't really recognize how cool that stuff
is until years later when you're like, that's some once
in a lifetime opportunity. And yeah, the bars set a
little high after that first gig, I guess it was.
It was so then our second gig, first ticketed gig.
(31:08):
This is actually a fantastically embarrassing story. The first time
we ever sold a hard tickets I guess we had
played like some random things or like you know, pop
up performance shows, but we actually charged people money to
see us performed. It was at Henderson, Nevada um at
the Henderson Pavilion, I believe. So I don't know a
few thousand people maybe, And I guess they made it
(31:29):
clear that we only knew five songs, but the fans
don't read the fine print. They don't know that we
only know five songs. So what we do? We were
not out there playing the track, you know, no band, nothing,
little choreography and crush our five songs and go off
stage and don't realize that everybody's chanting for an article.
And we did not have an encore. We didn't have
(31:50):
any more music, so we felt so bad. They're like
screaming like they're psyched. You know. I'd be like, oh,
they're all they want us to come out and see
one more easily song. We didn't fucking know one. So
we got in our cars and they're like waving goodbye
and feel like such assholes, like we gotta go learn
some more music, but never forget it. So how long
(32:10):
did Big Time Rush run for? I guess our last
tour was in like something like that. Um, the show
did four seasons, almost a hundred episodes, did a movie
or two in there, get a Beatles album, did a
bunch of music. I mean, we did so much stuff.
But yeah, I guess we stopped touring around there and
then what happens next. Look, everybody was ready for a break.
(32:33):
You know. Everybody had spent day in, day out years
together doing this one thing, playing this one character, singing
these specific songs, and that's amazing. But any artists wants
to mix it up. You know, you don't become an
artist to do the same thing for your entire life.
So for me, it was very much about hey, let
me I was focused on acting before I was focused
on my music, and I guess in retrospect would have
a nice I had like a bunch of music ready
to go, but that's not where my head was at,
(32:54):
and I just wanted to go and do gritty roles.
So I remember like buzzing off my hair for the
first time, going and do one my first gritty roles
of Benny Boom movie called forty eight Hours to Live
where Tommy Flann again, Amelia Rivera, d Ray Davis, like
all these fucking killer. Actors were in it, and it
was about like underground drug scene and that some dancing
(33:15):
in it, and like some fight scenes and I got
to kill someone and it's just you know, it's one
of the first ones I remember. But that was it
was so exciting, you know, like this is what I
want to do. And then after doing you know, ten
independent films, like you realize, like, ironically, more people will
probably see this small rom com you know, stars spelling
at Obama, which I'm also very very proud of, and
some of these other roles that took you know, maybe
(33:35):
three times as long to film and create because of
all the effects your dance or fights or whatever. Um,
And that's just the way the wild works. So I
just went out and did as many movies as I
could and then started getting back in and creating my
own sound. That took a very long time. And it
really wasn't until lt X a couple of years ago
that I found the niche that I really want to
do with music, you know, But hey man, just grateful
(33:56):
that it all bigger than that. Eventually, the story is crazy,
it's so interesting and I just can't wait to see
what happens next. Because you're so versatile. If you could
only choose one form of art to continue doing, what
would you choose. I've never given a direct answer to
this question, not that I'm trying to avoid it, but
(34:18):
I truthfully don't know. If anything, I would lean towards
music in the sense that it's more versatile in terms
of doing one thing for the rest of your life.
You can be in a different city every day, you
can create a new song every day. To turnaround on
creating music, you know, and putting out the world is
a lot faster than a movie. But you know, I
(34:38):
would miss the out of acting. You know, there are
days where I feel like I'm a better actor than
musician in their days, or I feel like I'm a
better singer than actor, and like I just go back
and forth my own head about that. And something that
keeps me saying is the ability to do both and
be in one location for a few months film and
something and then tour and again. This is a in
a normal year, So I don't know, it'd be tough
to choose. Very grateful to do both, and I hope
(35:00):
to continue to do both for the rest of my career.
Are you super high energy guy, do you not sit
down a lot? But I love that about myself. I
found as I've gotten older, I'm able to be aware
of it now. When I was younger, it was definitely
a little more just kind of this energy all the
time and like super excited and like I love that,
(35:21):
and that's still in me, but it's different. I can
kind of hone it in, focus it for a workout,
or focus it for an interview, and I can also
sit down and you know, zone out now and read
a book for half a day. You know, I'm just
progress into how I can focus it. But it's it's
this that's called energy for lack of a better word, um,
that's kept me going, that's allowed me to be focused.
(35:44):
It's the same energy that had me like too focused
when I was a young actor and a young musician
in the industry. I mean I remember like show runners
coming in just be like, hey, do you gotta like
enjoy it a little bit because I was so overprepared
and everything I was piste off of my co stars
didn't like that should happens, we'll show up not in
other lines. But I learned as I got older, like
it's not my concern, you know. I hope they do
(36:05):
for their sake, for my sake, for production sake, But
if you want to be an asshole and not do
your job, well, it really doesn't affect me. I'm gonna
show up, do my thing, and like the best thing
you can do is just like live and let live,
which after to remind myself to this day, but I'm
a lot better at it than I used to be.
What stuff are you watching right now or absorbing that
you're loving? You know, I hadn't watched The Crown until recently,
(36:27):
and you know, it's on this fourth season now, I think,
and I'm just in the middle of the second. But
just awesome. I mean from a historic perspective as well,
you know, in a cinematic perspective, don't. I don't know
if you've seen it, but part of the way that
this show tells chronologically where it's at in history is
by focusing in on what type of camera equipment they're using.
I don't know you ever picked up on that when
(36:48):
you watched it, but you see like throughout each season
you've jumped five ten years in places, or at least
several because you've gone from like one scene is here
recording and the next scene it's like a little know
nikon looking thing and it's just there's no flashes and
it dissolves and just brilliance. On an equal note. At
the Queen's Gambit, which is another Netflix miniseries, was bloody
(37:11):
brilliant and then not a more fun note. Man, I
would love to do a show like Hunters. Have you
seen Hunters? Yes? Yeah? Baas being Jewish mad respect you're
gravitating towards period pieces? Is that a byproduct of the
World War two movie that you've got coming out. I
didn't even draw that connection, and so you said it maybe,
(37:33):
And I think there's also a sense of character development.
You know, when you're playing somebody in everything is the
same that it is in your day to day life,
and you know, you have to figure out ways to
get out of your head and out of your life
and into that character and in those shoes. But when
you're in a period piece and the clothes fits different,
(37:54):
and the cars are different, and the scenery is in
many ways different, it's a lot easier to jump in
and just become a completely different character. So maybe that's
why I like it, But you know, down for all
of it, I know the future one. Next, what's the
best piece of advice you've either learned or been given
by co star director, you know, DP, whatever, it's the
(38:18):
same type of advice. You should drive me crazy to
be overprepared, but still drives me today to just get
better every day whatever that means. And better also means
different different acting coaches and classes and trying new ship. Um.
And that is that success comes when preparation meets opportunity.
The way I look at that is everybody's going to
(38:39):
have opportunities in their life. Some people can get a
lot more. That's the way life is. Life isn't fair,
but everybody's going to get some and the more prepared
you are, the better chance you're gonna have at those opportunities. So,
in fact, for those of us that may not have
gotten as much starting out, or don't feel like you're
getting a lot right now, I'm implore you to work
(39:01):
that much harder and be that much more prepared. If
you feel you're only gonna get a few opportunities, well
that's life you better damn well be prepared for. So
whatever that means to you. You You don't figure out what
your hobbies are, what you like doing and just keep
doing it if you enjoy doing it, get better and
better and keep it going because eventually the world will
conspire to make those dreams happen if you don't stop.
(39:21):
And I do think that success begets success like you
get more opportunities the more that you are prepared for
the situation and kick ask the first one you know,
so you can kind of question. You can create your
own badassory if you will. Well. In fact, so many
of my roles came to me because of the work
ethic I on previous movies. Yes, the job I did,
(39:45):
but also everybody talks more now than ever. It's a
lot easier if you're casting somebody. Oh I probably know
somebod I know somebody was in that movie. It's a
hundred people on a movie at least, And if you're
in the industry, you probably know once you go and
you ask, hey, was this guy easy to work with?
Or I want to spend the next you know matter
months or years of my life with this person. All
that ship is as relevant as it is how good
(40:05):
you are for the job, in my opinion, because when
they get to that, all right, you and this person
are both good enough they're really going to go down to, like,
who do I want to be around more? So, you know,
it's a lot easier to be nice than to be
an asshole too, in my opinion. Um, and just forget
any of the old stereotypes about like the famous people
have egos and attitudes and all that. Like day, let
(40:25):
me tell you, the most famous people that I've worked
with or mets are like the nicest, chilliest, most humble,
And that's motivating to me to be the same way. Yeah,
I totally agree. It's so much easier to book a
gig if everyone is excited to be around you. I mean,
look at the rock He's literally made not only a career,
but like the biggest fucking career just being a likable guy.
(40:48):
Like he's still not the greatest actor. I mean, don't
be wrong. I love watching his stuff, but it's because
of who he is, you know, and it's a it's
pretty inspirational. Listen, I'm running out of time with you.
Before let you go, you got some time for some
rapid fire questions. Let's go rapid fire questions with James Maszow.
Number one, what's one thing that's always in your fridge?
(41:08):
One thing on your bucket list to get my pilot's
license fully? What animal do you wish you could talk to?
An eagle? Physical trait you notice about someone you are
attracted to, smile, last person you texted? My best friend
Eugene and my partner in LTx. What was your high
school yearbook supprolative? Most likely to be something in entertainment?
(41:28):
I guess do you believe in soulmates? Yes, but I
think there may be more than one. How would you
describe your high school self? Flip flops, hair down on
my shoulders, fish out of water, but I never cared,
so you were like high functioning Spaccoli. I love that.
Who is your childhood hero? Sho? That's a tough question.
(41:49):
I mean my brother, my dad, and maybe acting wise
Ryan Reynolds. Who is your celebrity crush currently? Sure? I
haven't thought about that question in a long time. I
used to say, uh, a'ma, Oh my lord, it's been
so long. Yes, I was like Harry Potter. Why can't
I think of that? Um? And I suppose still gradually,
I haven't thought about this question a while. I guess
(42:09):
that's part of adulting. Your lady is very happy about
how you answer that. I suppose what's your biggest pet? Peeve?
People who talk on their cell phones like this when
they're driving a hund thousand dollar car. It most certainly
has Bluetooth. Who's the most famous person in your phone?
That's a very good question. I don't don't know. I'm
trying to think of. Just say, d Ray Davis. Throw
(42:31):
it out there. What was your first car? Nissan Box?
I don't know if that was the actual name, but
it's how I remember it was your favorite book owned
the day by Audrey Marcus. And last one when you
win your oscar? Who are you going to thank? First?
Probably my dad for supporting me, letting me go through
this wild path of being an entertainer. I love it.
(42:52):
James Maslow, you have been an absolute delight to chat
with everyone out there. Go watch Stars Fell on all Obama.
It's available now on demand and digital. Go stream and
download and buy all his stuff. L t X is
the project. Keep an eye out for like five other
movies that he's got coming out in one James, Where
(43:14):
can people go? Follow you on the social Media's just
at James Maslow on Instagram, Facebook and occasionally Twitter Like
faces you haven't been expelled from Twitter. That's good to know.
I've not been expelled. I've been abstinate, but still allowed. Dude,
thanks so much for taking the time. Continued success, and
when this is all over, it's good a beer. I
(43:36):
would love him at a It's super fun chatting with you.
Appreciate your time. You are damn good at your job.
Keep it up, thanks buddy. When this is all over,
I want you to take me up in the air.
I want that right. Let me get my license and
the extra practice hours. Yeah. Look, I don't want to
kill myself either, so I feel like you're probably pretty safe,
all right, James, Thanks buddy. That was great. Love that dude.
(43:58):
You can tell that guy's given a lot of inner views,
very very good interviewee. And as someone who's interviewed probably
I don't know, well over a thousand people, I appreciate
that for sure. Bro. Anyone else find it funny when
when he said one of his his childhood hero was
Ryan Reynolds, because the whole time I was like, dude,
you sound so much like Ryan Reynolds. Go back and
(44:20):
listen to a little of him talk and you're like,
oh my, that's Deadpool right there. Anyways, James Naso, thank
you so much for being on the show. That was
a lot of fun. Hope you guys enjoyed it. If
you like the show, don't forget to go rate and
review on the UH podcast store giving them five stars.
Tell me how you feel about the show, and that
really helps tell your friends and family. Also, if you
(44:42):
like the show, to listen to it. Okay, I'm gonna
stretching out. Stretch it out alright, follow me out Well's
Adams on social media. See you guys next week, app
casts or anywhere you get your podcasts. It's the Internet line.
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