''My Journey From Trauma'' with guest Heidi Philipsen

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Episode Transcript

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The following is a paid podcast.iHeartRadio's hosting of this podcast constitutes neither an
endorsement of the products offered or theideas expressed. Welcome to Becoming the Journey.
This show will be a series ofconversations that will inspire listeners along their
life's journey. This show's mission isto cultivate a community of mentorship by sharing

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our experiences in our life's journey.Nobody's journey is a straight line, So
no matter where you are in yours, this show is for you. Meet
Grace Loverrae Hi listeners and this isBecoming the Journey on WOR seven ten iHeartRadio.
Today's show is about perseverance in lifein the film industry, The Best

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and the Ugly, and my guestis Heidi Phillipson. She currently resides in
Germany with her husband and is nowan empty nester, which a lot of
people get to, I don't know, experience and then I firmly believe enjoy.
Heidi has a bio that I Amjust going to run off because it's

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so long and so impressive, butanyway, she is an award winning producer,
director, writer and actress with twentyfive plus years in film, international,
TV and media in the industry.Her focus is on international film co
productions. She has a BA inFilm Theater and Germany Literature, a Certificate

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of Completion and Foreign Study Abroad,an MA in International Communications, a certificate
in Film directing and Cinematography. Shehas won in Advanced screenwriting from the Professional
Screenwriting Program at UCLA, a Certificatein International Production Management, multiple years of

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advanced training and acting, and anMBA in Management from Easton, Michigan University
College of Business. She's a memberof the Producer's Guild of America, the
International Committee, and Women's Impact NetworkCommittee, among other things, sag AFTRA
AEA New York, WIFT. Sheis the founder and President emeritus WIFT Germany,

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the Alliance of Women Directors. Andit goes on and on and on
and on. Hed it's way toolong, but extremely impressive. So welcome
to my show. Oh great,Thank you so much for having me.
Yeah, no, this is goingto be fun, and thank you.
I know it's late in Germany,but that's okay. We'll get through this.

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So my main question and then we'llget into the past and little nitty
gritted things, is so there's manyyoung people vying to be in this so
called entertainment arena, and the lastsix month strike has left many dissolutioned.
Why did you choose this course?What was it in your younger age,

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since you're in it twenty five plusyears that wanted you to be in this
industry? You know, it's amazing. I think I was just talking to
my therapist about this today. Actually, you know, it's two things.
Let's face it. When you goand go to the movies or in the
theater for that matter, you getto be taken away. You go to

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another world. You see how maybeanother person or main character will face big
odds and come against them. Oryou go into the fantasy world, or
you go into the world of lovewhere all is forgiven and you move on.
And in a way, it's actuallyan approved form of disassociation, right

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you are not in the shoes thatyou currently reside. You can go somewhere
else for even a short moment.And I think that that's one of the
reasons that I was always I alwaysfelt that poll The second reason is simply
from a very young age, theyoften say, well, what did you
do what gave you great joy fromthe get go? And that was always

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performing, always be funny, always, I think getting a certain amount of
attension that way, because I waswitty at five and I love to sing
and I love to dance, andI remember Shirley Temple and all the musicals.
And I think the other thing ismy father loved movies so much.
I mean, it was almost likea religion for us, you know.
And I think my story in thiscase isn't singular. I've heard of talk

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to many people that's sort of similar. They had a family member who brought
them in and Thanksgiving, you intothe movies. Christmas, you went to
the movies. Easter. It wasthe big blockbuster, right And to this
day, when I'm in the movietheater, I love the theatrical experience.
I love being in a movie theater. I always fight to have a film

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in the theater and go to thetheaters be because it's almost a form of
yeah service, just sitting there amongstothers and getting ready for the movie and
watching it. I always feel myfather's presence with me there, and he
was just a very special person inmy life. You know. It's funny.
For the Holidays, you just broughtup a memory for me. For

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the holidays. Aside, I'm onehundred percent Italian, so far from the
food, which was very important.Every year we used to go to Radio
City Music Hall and watch the Rockets, and I'll never forget one year we
stood on the line around the blockfor the first showing of the Ten Commandments,
which was huge, And so yeah, I do recall that. And

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although I'm not in the business ofperforming, which I guess that's not really
true because we all perform at somepoint, I did sit with my dad
and watched he was a big Westernfan, or James Cagney and all of
those wonderful performers. So yes,those are some of my best memories too.

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Absolutely, And when you watch them, do you feel like you've there
with you? I mean I findthat too, right, Like, so
if you watch a classic, let'ssay Oklahoma, or do you sense that
he's close to you? Because that'show I feel. I'm just curious,
always, absolutely always. I mean, look, growing up, I mean,

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we didn't have the technology we havetoday. We had a black and
white TV. We didn't know whatcolor was, and it was like,
wow, we have a TV.And it was our watching of that TV
was monitored because we had to.And look, I don't want to sound
like I came from a very strictfamily. I did, but you know,

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we had to have our homework done, we had to have dishes done,
and then it was okay, whatdo we watch? And and it
was usually a western my or comedy, I mean The Honeymooners or something like
that. Yeah. But but mydad was a big John Wayne fan and
James Cagney. Actually he looked likeJames Cagney and so uh so, yes,

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whenever I tell me, right,whenever I see those classics, absolutely
it reminds me of my dad,and it brings me back to those to
those days that you know, Iactually passed now, but that that I
you know, I spent with him, uh you know, watching TV,
which is something young people do notdo today. They don't watch. First

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of all, they don't watch TV. Everything's on their computer, iPad or
telephone. But they don't they don'tshare that with their with their family,
their parents, and and that's ashame because that's a memory they won't have.
Well, the interesting thing is,since my kids have moved out,
I've actually found have found when theycome back now they will I think now

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they under they get it now thatthey're out of the house. So we
just watched Terry Potter because it's justI can't help it. Every year when
school starts, for some reason,I need to watch the entire series,
all the different films. And sothey watched it with me, and I
couldn't believe it. I was,really I was, because they definitely are
gen Z and they belong to they'llwatch it on their computer or iPhone,

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but not really they don't have evenhave a TV for that matter, exactly.
I actually was. I felt likeI won a little something the fact
that they were going to watch thatwith me. So yeah, no,
and it's great. I actually fortunateto share all that with my granddaughter.
Now she comes over and she sitsand will watching a TV series or or

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a movie or something you know,which is which is fantastic. And even
in the music Indy, so youknow, I go back with you know,
I'm of the the the Journey,you know, uh Pink Floyd and
uh actually with Mac and right andand to be honest with you, my

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kids now and they're grown, Imean that you know, their product of
the eighties, uh and nineties,and and they love that music, so
something of me kind of spun offon them. So you mentioned your therapist,
and so I want to I wantto go back and we don't have

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to elaborate on on something a traumaticincident that happened to you at a young
age, and however simplified you wantto present it is fine with me.
But I think it told a littlebit of your story as to why when
you mentioned it's sort of like acting, directing, writing is sort of like

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coming out of yourself and being somebodyelse. Can you talk about that a
little bit? Yeah, sure,you know. Obviously I can't speak for
everyone, but I do know ingen X, which is what I am.
My parents are both professionals. Mymother actually was a chemist in the

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pharmaceutical industry and my father was apilot who then ended up working his way
up the ladder in the community airlineindustry and started his own so they were
very busy. They were both Aquarius. My mother's actually still alive, my
father unfortunately passed away, and theywere very independent, but they lived in

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a time where there was a lotof support for childcare. There wasn't a
lot of support, and it wassort of like the wild West. I
feel like, you know, itwas a time in history in the US
where women were becoming more professional,they were going after the careers, but
there weren't a lot of checks andbalances on the system. So for me,

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it even just started with the babysitterafter kindergarten, right, and and
then it moved on to an incidenthappening there and then actually even vacation Bible
School when I was five years old. I just a trigger warning for some
of the audience members. I remembermy parents told me to pick me up

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and I was tied to the flaghole with my other way down and I've
just left that way, so youknow, I have gone a long way
into replacing those traumatic memories with thatcan also associate a large sense of shame

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and guilt, and that can takecarry a lot of other burdens with you
as you move on in your lifeand then attracts, so it kind of
becomes a downward spiral until you startto get treatment. Right, and I
think that whenever you're thinking of dreams, you're getting away from a situation at

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hand. You go outside of yourself, and that's both what that has done
for me is number one. Atsome point it forced me to get therapy
because in my life, I thinkthat it also isolated me quite a bit.
And it made me, on theone hand, on the good side,

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very independent because I just learned tobe I was a loaner for a
while there, and I learned togo my own way. But on the
other hand, it almost destroyed me, and that's where the therapy started to
take over. And from that journeyonward, it's about It has made me
an activist. A lot of whatI do is about supporting women, supporting

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empowerment, but not just women,anyone who's been through an abusive situation and
social clause. And I think theother test for me really has been,
as I said, not just replacingthose sort of negative memories and experiences,
but really it can get in yourDNA and it can really kind of change

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your entire personality, which is whya lot of people, including my father
in his stage in his life,medicates through alcohol or they find other ways
to medicate themselves, right, becauseyou just want to be numb. And
I think that's also what for me. I can't speak for others, but
for me, disassociation is it's aform of numbness where you can let go

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and get away from the pain.There is always a plus to that,
though, and I think that that'swhere my journey has really been. The
more I separate myself from the painand the guilt and the shame, and
I replace it with good things,and I replace it with your survivor.
Or you can tell stories, Heidi, or you can reinvent yourself, Heidi,
or you can put yourself in themost vulnerable person's shoes and understand where

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they're coming from. That's what empowersme, and I have to say in
my life as an actress, buta really as a director, as a
writer, even as a producer.That has empowered me so much. The
fact that I've become so sensitive.I'm what might people refer to as an

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EmPATH. In many ways, Ioften can sense what another person's experience in
the emotions before they even know itis themselves that hypersensit. That comes from
my experience as a child and thehard work I've had to do to learn
to listen to my own inner voiceand believe it and trust it has really

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given me a strength on set whenit comes to working with actors and getting
a sense of the story and givingthem the tools to through even difficult scenes,
are becoming an ally with them asthey move through them. And that's
extremely extremely important to me. Yeah, I I so, I Look,

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I can't there are different extremes oftraumatic experiences, but I don't know of
anybody who hasn't experienced something in theirlife. And and and what I what
I call living in a prison ofpain, And and then you develop this
lack of trust and and you wantto you want to ignore the fact that

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you don't want to recount all theindignities, and that's that's extremely difficult.
Why do you think, and andI'll speak to you directly, would would
you wait to be able to tellsomebody? Why would Why do we wait
so long too? I'm not sayingfigure it out to talk about it with

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someone? Why does that? Whydo you think that guilt takes us over
where we feel where responsible and wecan't talk about it? Well, First
of all, I think there's Ican't speak for everyone, right, I
know that, and I'm no psychologist, let's put that out there. I
can only experience, speak from myexperience and what I've learned over the years

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and what I've read. I think, first of all that there's body language
and that does speak right. Somy body language at that time definitely spoke.
The only thing is my parents didn'tunderstand that language. I started wedding
the bed, my behavior started toact erradically. I started actually running into

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difficulty reading even right because I couldn'tconcentrate. I think my body language spoke
a lot, but I'm not aI didn't have apparently not even the teachers
around me were child psychologists enough toreally understand what I was going through at
that day and age to help meout. I think that's the first thing.
And I think what that does iswhen you're a child and your body
language is saying something and no onereacts to it, you kind of learned

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the reinforcement or if nothing else,they do react it, but they see
your body language and they see youit's acting out and misbehaving, and back
in the day they had really noperception of this. They would get punished
right for bad behavior. So thatjust negative reinforcement, which taught you why
better shut down and or it taughtme that, and that's where the disassociation

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happened more and more, but alsowhere I realized, Okay, this role
doesn't want to hear what I haveto say at this point in time,
and then you start to go throughrepression, right, you try to be
normal, whatever that is. Youtry to understand what normal is. And
I think that's where my acting alsocame in. I would be the chameleon
who would fit in any role thatsomeone wanted me to have, just to

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get positive reinforcement or positive attention.So that's I think that's one reason.
Another is it's nature versus nurture inmany ways. And for me, I
went to a very very strict Lutherangrade school that taught me that anything associated
was a sin, right, Sothat just dogma just reinforced that I was

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part of something that was very notgood, and in fact I was probably
going to go to hell. Andwhen you're a child and you you are
an innocent child who believes all theadults around you so fervently you don't put
into questions, you carry that along time. I think the other thing
too, is quite frankly, welive it in different stages. So a

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lot of what I went through actuallykind of went dormant and latent. It
had to for me to survive,so I would pour myself and to become
a champion swimmer, where I wouldpour myself into be a strace student,
to be a drum major, toall these things, to get that acknowledgment
and to be a perfectionist. Butit wasn't until I had my daughter,

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and my daughter went through something whenshe was five that all of a sudden
it was almost like the Fortress withouteven realizing or I would like to even
think this idea of an alien beingimplanted in me, right, it was
to experience this my daughter, that'ssomething in the story to come up,
and I wasn't even aware of itmyself, and certainly people around me weren't

(19:32):
aware of it. And once toget my behavior changed, and thank goodness
for me, I had things likegroup therapy or I had found a therapist
to really understood PTSD and adult victimsof childhood sexual abuse that I could start
to be treated and find my veryvery slow way to recovery, which is
not going in process all the time, just like I think anything else.

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But that's how I understand and whyit takes some people a lot longer than
others. So here's an opinion question. Knowing what you know now and the
emotion and your emotional journey. There'sso much today. I mean, young
people are more and more depressed.Young people are committing suicide, young people
are doing more drugs or alcohol.Do you think we've missed the boat like

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we did years ago, where we'rejust not recognizing those problems Like you just
said, your parents your body languagewas there, but your parents didn't understand
it and it all came down tobehavior. Do you think that we are
still in that mode of just notrecognizing it. No, I mean I

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don't because of my own specific experience. I don't believe in generalities to begin
with, because if I were anumber or statistic, I would be on
the starts right now and probably wouldhave committed suicide long ago. And that's
the truth. But there's always thatangel, there's always that bright light,
there's always that something that keeps youto hold on. And then there's that
creative experience, which is what creativity. I mean, that's been a huge

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lifesaver for me, and honestly,I've seen that creative therapy is a very
very strong force. So I thinkwe have to look at as the case
by case look at we are.If you look throughout history right, We've
gone through horrible, horrible times andwe've come out on the other side.
So you're talking to I mean,even though I do try to keep my

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feet on the ground, and Ido have my moments of ups and downs
like anyone else. In fact,mine can go quite low and I'm feeling
down about myself or maybe I'm notable to take on a personal test that
I really want to take on andsucceeding. I'm still an optimist. I
have to be, because I havegained so much out of some of the

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suffering that I went through and theabuse ice. And I'm not glorifying that.
I'm saying that I thank God thatwell, first of all, thank
God because I believe in God,but also think the people around me,
who are those angels when I neededthem to step up. I mean,
Grace, you're an angel to me. I mean, just the bility to

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be on this program with you andturn this over for others to learn from.
It's a wonderful, magical thing.I was very frightened of it,
actually, because I thought, howam I going to speak to this It's
such a huge responsibility, and isit going to make me fall back into
my own depression. You've been talkingabout it, you know, and even
talking to my therapist about this andfiguring things out. I realized, No,

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this is You're up for this challengeand you can help be part of
the light. This is a choiceto be part of the light. And
that's what we need to give allthe youth out there right now, is
they to let them know that eventhe darkest of times, light is still
there. They can be a partof it, and they can take back

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whatever negative experiences or abuses or thathappened to them, and out of that
void, out of that dark blackhole, they can find a whole nother
realm if they're willing to do thework to get there. Are we getting
there? I Mean, I worrybecause look, the Internet can be great

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and it can be an evil,and I think the internet has disassociated young
people today, right and I worryabout that, and I worry about the
mental illness, and I worry.I mean, I have three grandchildren and
I'd like to leave them a betterworld than I've been in and my parents
were in, and so but Ijust see this. I can't explain it.

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I just see this, like youjust called it a black hole.
I see this smoke screen and itworries me. And so that's why,
you know, I asked you,you know, do you think that we're
recognized and maybe we maybe we arerecognizing it, we're just not We're just

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not acting on it. We're nottrying to solve it. We're just well,
that's where I have I'm sorry.I think that's where grace, that's
where I get away from the emotionaland my brain goes more to it's a
matter of physics or it's a matterof math. Right, You always at
some point have an evening out andthey cancel out each other at some point.

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I don't. I think ultimately it'swhere we decide to put our attention
and put our energy. And I'mnot in the States all the time right
now, I can say that oftentimesI'm a little alarmed in the States.
And how much I mean, Ilove the free market as much as anyone

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else, but you put a pricetag on everything, and you get toward
the point where you're putting more pricetag on friendships and whatnot. That's something
that I personally decide to step awayfrom. Not everything is money worth money,
So there are things where I don'teven want to put a monetary value
on and that's a choice that Ihave for myself to stay mentally fit,

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and oftentimes in the States in thisday and age of social media and whatnot,
I do see that it can behave negative impacts on people, especially
if they don't have the discipline totrain their minds or to do what's right
for them. And that's just balance, that's balanced living right. Anytime we

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were in front of TV too muchor anything else, it's a test for
this generation. We haven't had itaround for all that long if you think
about it, right, and ithasn't been completely negative. There's been great
outcome of this. I mean,look, I can be in Berlin,
you're in New York, and herewe are having a conversation that's being recorded

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and will be live for people tolisten to. I think that's brilliant.
So there are definitely positives out ofit. And I understand your concern.
I think that's we are always worriedabout what kind of legacy we're leaving behind
us, and I'm sure are forparents, for fathers. Fore mothers did

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that before us. I don't reallyhave all the answers to that. All
I can do is just trying tolive in the now and be the example
from my own family and see thatthey spread it, they pass it on.
Are you what are things that?Is this one of the things that
you do with your radio show thatyou try to bring good to the world

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in the negativity that you absolutely,I mean, look, if one person
listens I'm happy and changes the waythey think or makes them feel better about
themselves, that's fantastic. When Ifirst started doing the podcast, I had
a guest on my show who workedin the sandbox and she was extremely shy

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and really frightened and anxious about beingon the show, and it was a
little difficult pulling things out of her. But her comment to me was,
I am not good in the realworld. I live in the metaverse.
I'm much more comfortable in the metaverse. And I thought about that, and
I said, well, that's like, you know, like not even being

(27:36):
in the real world. You're justyou know, people don't really know who
you are, and you're masking everythingwho you are, and you know,
and if you're a good, decenthuman being, why wouldn't you want to
get out there in the real world. Anyway, fast forward, I met
her six months ago and she cameup to me and she said, I

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want you to know that your show. Me being on your show changed my
life. And I was just blownaway, like why, and she said,
because it made me realize that Ireally needed to be in the real
world. I needed to communicate outsidethis fake world that I've created to be

(28:17):
safe. And she said, andI'm a much better person for it.
So if I can do that,if I that would be amazing. And
so that's really why I do whatI do. It's not the only thing
I do, but it started outto be a fun thing, but yeah,

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it became more of a chore now. But I keep going because of
you know, guests like you andsome of the other guests that I've had
that have been so amazing. Youknow, there's a you were talking before
about emotional and behavior, and there'ssomething called metacognition, and what it is

(29:03):
is emotional consciousness. So you're consciousabout the emotion you're going through, but
you don't let that control you.You then go more towards the behavior,
which and and that's what how youchange your response or reaction to something not
based on an emotion, but ifyou're conscious about your emotion, then you

(29:29):
can react better in your in yourbehavior. And and I I told you
that I totally get that. Yeah, yeah, go ahead, And that's
what you were saying that. Well, it's very interesting because you may notice
I most recently got my MBA.Part of the reason is because when I
was younger, I was way tooemotional, like I could not I could

(29:53):
not continue my emotional behavior, myconstant emotional reactions to things. It was
all consuming. But the more therapyI did, the more I was able
to and I was able to actuallyexplore my love for math, my love
for finance, my love for management, and other concepts in it. And
so you know, we could alsotake the conversation towards agism today because I

(30:18):
feel as if I'm just now startingto reap some of the joys of all
the work I've done in my lifeon myself, and I look forward to
continuing that journey where I'm able toseparate much more sinstinctly my emotions from what

(30:45):
I want to pursue or do,and I don't let them control me in
the same way. And I'm sureeven ten ten years down the road is
going to be even more so.So I do hope as well that I
think a lot of the power inAmerica, a lot of the pressure is
given to the youth, and Ido sort of wish that we could come

(31:07):
away from that a little bit,because those fifty and older, there's such
gems. You learn so much beyondand we are living longer, and we
have so much to give, andthose are some of the connectivity that I
would love to see rebuilt in communities, because you can't put all the pressure

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on one particular generation or one particularage group. You've really got to have
everyone connected. And there's wonderful thingsthat you can get when you're in your
younger years, but there are somany other gems that you start to explore
and open up to in your olderyears that I hope everybody gets to have

(31:55):
that and not just feel that they'resort of being put out to pastor for
lack of a better term, thisis becoming the journey. That's what you're
listening to on wor seven ten iHeartRadio, and my guest today is Heidi Phillipson.
I agree with you, and Itruly believe that one you're never too

(32:19):
old to learn, and I've learnedso much just doing this show from other
people, and I like to thinkthat every time I have a conversation with
somebody, it humbles me even morebecause they're just so inspiring. But I

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also truly believe that young people orI don't care what age you are,
can learn from each different generation,not just the older generation, but every
generation, because let's evolve. Andyou know, I I often I listen

(33:00):
to my mom talk about World Wartwo. My dad was in World War
two, and some of the storiesof what they went through and the struggles
and you know, and then Ilistened to the next generation, which I
guess I am, you know,about things that they went through and the

(33:22):
generation after me. And it's youknow, and that's where the community build
comes in, because you know,we learn constantly. We have to want
to learn constantly, and not onlythrough media, but through books and and
you know, just it's a shamethough a lot of young people don't read

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many books today, but but youknow, I learned so much through books.
They are fascinating. And media.If if you had the opportunity to
produce and I know you're producing somethingright now which is probably relative to the

(34:08):
war in Ukraine. It's called loveand vodka, And even though it's a
rom com, what's the message?I mean, do you in your profession
do you feel that things that youdo you want to send a message from
where you've been, where you're going, where you where you, where you

(34:32):
want to go to, you knowwhere you are now? Do you think
that's important? Always? Always?And sometimes I don't even really know what
the message was. I mean,this film came to me in two thousand
and I would say seventeen eighteen froma high school teacher at the high school

(34:52):
that my son was studying at.It in our Worst, Michigan. So
he had had the script. Itwas based upon something that had happened to
him. He had fallen love withthe Ukrainian girl and followed her to Ukraine
and met the family, and he, as an American, pretty much stumbled
upon every faux pa you can imaginethat you would stumble into with her family,

(35:15):
and he was he was so hewanted so much to ask her to
marry him, and he felt somuch under pressure. And here he was
this nobody kid who wanted to bea screenwriter and wanted to make something of
himself and had to prove himself.But It wasn't until he sort of accepted

(35:35):
who he was and embraced it,and embraced their differences and then learned that
he had things to learn from themand that love connects. That he found
himself and went back and the lovestory kind of cemented itself there. The
irony is I was producing this filmway before, and I because I liked

(36:00):
the teacher a lot, I knowthat feeling of I've been doing writing something.
I want to make this happen.I'm always for the underdog. I
believe so much in that. Andthen as I was sort of producing this
and we ran into, of course, the pandemic, so we were put
off there for a while, andwe worked on it some more. I

(36:22):
finally found after going to Kiev myselfand going to the various markets, the
con market, of course, theEuropean fell market. I found European co
producers who were going to help mefund this one point five million dollar budget.
And I was excited because I lookedlike it looked like things were finally

(36:43):
coming together for us. We weregoing to shoot the summer of twenty two,
and then the war broke out thatFebruary and all that hard work fell
apart, like completely fell apart.And then I thought to myself, but
why I'm totally feeling sorry for myselfbecause of course now my Ukrainian co producer,
he was hiding for his life.He had sent his family abroad.

(37:06):
They were refugees now and there wasno way he had to go fight.
He wasn't going to be making amovie. And then I thought to myself,
but you know, Heidi, ifthey're going through that, they've lost
their homes, they've lost their freedom, they've lost their families in many cases,
how can you feel sorry for yourselfright now? So I think finally
for me, I was like,okay, well it's not at one point

(37:29):
five, but I know how tomake a micro budget. I know how
to crowdfund. I know this isfor a good cause. Now let's make
this film and then if we cando it on a very small budget,
we can get it done, maybedo the festival route. If it gets
picked up for distribution, that's amazingand we will always do a caveat that.
Once we can make that money back, which isn't a lot because we

(37:52):
didn't spend a lot. We didin kind donations, we did everything,
pulled favors people working for next tonothing to make it happen, And because
we couldn't shoot it in Michig inUkraine anymore, I actually found a space
in northern Michigan that looked like Carpathianmountains and we found artistic refugee status Ukrainians

(38:15):
who had moved to Michigan. I'mreally excited to be part of something creative
that was about their home and feelinggood and family life in Ukraine and celebrating
Ukrainian culture and wasn't just about thewar. So if we could do all
that, and then when we doscreenings and raise some money for what's important

(38:36):
to me are organizations that are helpingchildren and mothers with PTSD from the war,
the MEDSA win win all around.It's not easy, it's a form
of actimism. It's me. We'vespent a huge amount of our own personal
money on the project. But Ihave to say that in cutting it and

(38:57):
bringing it together, I'm really happy. And I don't really know why this
particular endeavor came my way. Ijust know that through the ups and downs
in it, I've learned an enormousamount And above all, I always refer
back to that perseverance and determination andthe grit to get me through territory where

(39:19):
other people would rather sign off andsay no, no, I'm not going
to do this, no, thankyou. So we're not there yet.
We're actually still pushing to get morefunds. We're in editing with an editor
who was a young man out ofUkraine who's actually been displaced into Vancouver now
of all things, because he's hopingto get more work out there, and
he's doing a brilliant job. Soyou make it work and that's where you

(39:44):
find your joy in collaborating and creatingand making something. And I can't wait
till we're there. But this isthis particular, this particular sort of baby
in my life now, if youwill. It's not only to baby,
but the just filming something like thisthat maybe has a message of being uplifting,

(40:08):
but a journey itself kind of reflectswhere you've been and where you are
now. So I think I thinkit too right. I forgot to point
out that the message is really itis about. So we had to also
rewrite the story, right. Itwasn't just your typical romcom where he goes
over there and I can't give awaythe whole ending because I want people to

(40:30):
see it. But we do takea look at current events to a large
degree. I have to say toothat even in speaking with the editor,
part of the reason he decided totake on this project when he could have
edited a slew of other things isbecause he said to me, Heidi,
I already know I see it onTV all the time. What I know

(40:52):
of the heartbreak, I know ofthe destruction, I know of the pain
and the trauma. I don't needto sit with that in a film about
war in Ukraine right now for hourson end, for weeks on end,
because I will fall a complete depression. So for me to work on something
that is uplifting's funny, and it'sabout bringing differences together for love. I'm

(41:17):
totally about that. And we havea great time together. He laughs a
lot, and that makes me feelgood. Absolutely. Do you think we
need a lot more films that areuplifting? Definitely. I actually got hooked
on Lessons in Chemistry. I hadread the book and now I'm watching this
series and it's just mom It isfantastic, you know. Brie Larsen is

(41:38):
amazing, But it is totally uplifting. I mean, I haven't it's not
finished. I haven't seen it allthat right now. They're the last one
I saw was they were getting moreinto the you know, the Martin Luther
King and all of that, andyou know what went on in that time.

(41:59):
But it it's great. Anybody whowants to watch something that's kind of
you, go for it. Itis. Well, I'm always looking for
good shows to see you with mymom, and I'm heading out to Michigan
for Thanksgiving, so ah nice,yeah, wait to see that. We're
going to binge that. Then wellwe won't binge it, okay, because
let's close to it. It's reallyit's really good, and so I kind

(42:22):
of like that. I love documentaries, but this is kind of kind of
really really cute. You do alot of work with Women in the Media
International Committee and Women's Impact Network.You are in Upstate Women in Film and
Television. Tell me a little bit. What direction are we going in now?

(42:46):
Have we come to a point nowwhere we've kind of evened out?
I've heard met Look, I justrecently got into the entertainment business. I'm
not so sure I like it,but it's very different than finance. But

(43:06):
I hear men say, you know, they forgot about us. Now we're
like in the bottom. I knowI've heard that too recently, and I
don't believe that. For if youlook at the statistics, right, yeah,
and I know you know how toread statistics really well. So the
bottom line is this, we've actuallygone down in the last couple of years.

(43:27):
We were over the last eight years, we were on a trajectory that
was looking going up, and thenpeople get complacent and everyone says the coast
is clear, and then we goback down again, and it's not.
The numbers are not great. Iknow that the media does an enormous amount
and pr is an enormous amount tohighlight that one, two, three,

(43:50):
four, even five female directors andthe large I think the positive is that,
yes, we do have so manymore women who are in higher positions
in the film world and entertainment businessin the TV world. But that being
said, it's not even by anymeans, okay, And even if the

(44:13):
numbers and the positions might be even, we know for a fact that the
wages are not even. And yetlast time I checked, you don't get
seventy five cents per dollar discount whenyou're going to a place like NYU or
whatnot. Right as a film student, you're paying the same amount. Now,
there are scholarships out there, butnot everyone gets one, and these

(44:35):
film schools in the States especially areextremely high. In Europe, they don't
charge there's film schools here that areamazing massed. They don't charge you anything
practically, and not only that,the regional funding and the government funding will
pay for your thesis feature film,and then they will pay to put the
marketing into it to get it outthere so that you can actually go someplace

(44:55):
after those experiences. But in theUnited States, I think that PR teams
do an exceptional job of highlighting certainpeople while the rest simply are not surviving.
It might be their sort of onthe side hobby job, but it's
not something that they can sustain andyou know, save up for retirement.

(45:20):
I mean, I know, formy for myself and my entire workload that
I've ever taken on, I don'thave nearly enough saved up. And it's
for me the one area where I'mactually very concerned. And that's why I
say activism, because I don't Idon't I know that was a choice that
I made to go in that direction, but I did not think that that

(45:45):
choice would mean financially that I wouldhave to be so afraid at this stage
of my life. So, andI know I could say this because I
know for a fact that there aremany women out there who feel the same
way. And you know, I'mI'm lucky. I mean, I'm very,

(46:07):
very fortunate. You know, I'mnot a single mother. I'm I
don't have other I have my ownobstacles, of course, but not not
what many women have. So Idon't think we're there yet. And I
really wish that we could get toa place where we would understand there's enough

(46:28):
for everyone that it doesn't have tobe men then saying oh yeah, no,
I can't get my stuff made.No one's interested in it. Well,
look everything I've ever done, I'vehad to make myself. No one
has produced a feature that I couldcome on as a director. It's just
not going to happen. At thispoint. I get rejected all the time.

(46:49):
I get told all the time,well, it's a great script.
You know, you've gotten top fifteenpercent of the nickels, but sorry,
you're not big enough to direct it. So no one is going to give
me opportunities, and I have towork really hard to make them for myself.
Look, I think it's an absoluteshame that the same people constantly get

(47:10):
picked. And let me give youmy spin on this, and again I'll
repeat, I'm recently thrown into thiswhole entertainment world. I am not going
to deny that. I mean,I'm in the finance world too many years.
I don't even want to think aboutit. And it's still run by
the old white male regime. Asmuch as we try, and so I

(47:35):
have to assume that the studios areall run by men, and and you
know there's still that whole, youknow, control power aspect of it.
But you know, I can't helpbut think that they take these actors and

(47:55):
actresses or or i'll call them entertainmentnoons, okay, because I refuse to
call them celebrities and use them becausethey're the moneymakers and of course capitalism is
what it is. But then thenyou go so far as to them going

(48:19):
on and talking about cryptocurrency or they'retouting some product that they never use or
they and to me, that putsa total bad taste in my mouth.
And I will harp a little biton the whole crypto thing. You know,
how many so called touted crypto forwomen and look what happened. So

(48:40):
I think we relied too much.Yes, we relied too much on celebrity
status, which I think is ajoke in half. But maybe, and
I'm just thinking, maybe the factthat this whole me too movement, and
I am not in any way disparagingit. There are a lot of creeps

(49:06):
in the entertainment industry as well asacross the board in every other sector.
But I mean, look at Nigardjust you know, was found guilty.
I mean, he's eighty years old. Why not when it was thirty when
it was happening. However, butdo you think we got a bad name
for ourselves kind of doing that wherethey're afraid of us now and they're saying,

(49:30):
ah, you know, we don'tbecause the younger people are speaking up
more. What are the younger peoplewho are speaking up more sane? Well,
I think younger actresses, younger writers, younger directors, whatever, are
not going to take the garbage thatThat was the point though, right,
I mean, that was the point. If even the fact that we are

(49:51):
have created somewhat of a field ofmore transparency, then it's all worth it.
Look, my very first production coordinatinggig, I had a first AD
who told me who came out ofLA told me I wasn't going to be
anything. And by the way,what I do in sexual favors, I
mean, I have had scent coordinatorstell me Haihan you know, introduced me

(50:13):
to the first ad and a huge, huge show and say this is my
future ex wife. And then youknow, my name isn't even like given
out. Instead it said, oh, you know how to pick them with
long legs, don't you? Imean, And by that time I had
already had like all of my degrees. I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
And yes I was in shock,and yes I did something. And

(50:34):
then guess what, I didn't workin that area anymore. Suddenly the jobs
just disappeared. No word. Thesesystems, when they are created a certain
way, they become like fortresses thatnobody singularly can dismantle. And I think
that's the big issue there. That'swhy so many people even if you have
I know, there's a lot ofsort of backlash now against me too in

(50:57):
many ways, but I still believein it. Because as until that point
in time, no one was sayinganything at all, and no one understood
all the jobs that I created lateron for women, all the women I
mentored, not a single one understoodwhat I went through. They didn't understand
my PTSD, and they didn't ask, and had they asked, maybe they

(51:17):
would have understood exactly that I feltlike a soldier and getting to a place
where I could actually pass something down. And I have to I maybe you
misunderstood me. It was. Itis an amazing thing that these women did
and stood up, and I hopethat it continues, and I hope,
you know, anyone that's ever daredto treat a woman differently gets the blame.

(51:44):
But what I'm saying is in theseolder men, these so called studio
whatever, they're afraid now because wehave spoken of that. That was really
what I was trying to say.I you know, I don't a bad
thing, do you. I mean, there's good fear and bad fear.
I think there's respect. I wouldn'teven grace. I don't know if I

(52:07):
would use the word fear. Andif that is fear, then so be
it. They can get a therapist. Quite frankly, I've had one,
you know, and I mean there'sa certain amount of respect. It's healthy.
Look, if we really care,if it's really about storytelling, which
everyone says they're all on board,I mean, of course there's those who
will say it's just about money,it's a product, and those are the

(52:29):
ones who we rely upon what theyunderstand celebrity to be. And oftentimes I
find that those are the films thatnobody wants to watch after a while because
they were just a formula of itdidn't work. But I think if people
really care about true storytelling, likemost of us dream of them, why
we stay in the industry what wehope to be able to achieve at some

(52:52):
point, and some have achieved itand they've inspired the rest of us,
then you know, we have toevolve, and those who are not learn
to respect. They're going to bethe dinosaurs that become extinct, because that's
the way. It's tricky. Ifyou had half a minute to give some
sentence of advice to younger people tryingto get into the industry, what would

(53:15):
you say, Follow your heart,know your mind, and listen to your
instinct. There are good people outthere. There are also some bad people.
Say no to the bad people andyes to the good people, and
you'll find your way. Heidi,thank you so much everyone you've been listening
to Becoming the Journey. Love tohave you. Keep tuning in on WOR

(53:37):
seven ten iHeartRadio and you can followus on Instagram at Becoming the Journey.
Bye bye. You have been listeningto Becoming the Journey hosted by Grace Lovery.
Tune in weekly to hear more conversationsthat will inspire listeners along their life's
journey. The proceeding was a paidpodcast. Radio's hosting of this podcast constitutes

(54:01):
neither an endorsement of the products offeredor the ideas expressed.