Actor and Union Leader Shaan Sharma on The Chosen, Masterminding Your Career, and the Fallout After the Strike

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm like the one person of
color in the Minneapolis market.
If you want to look ethnic at all, just
sprinkle some shawl on your
project and boom, suddenly
everything's okay.
I'm like, while other people are trying
to get struck by
lightning, I'm building lightning
rods.
And the harder I work,
the luckier I seem to get.
My journey in union service has not been,
let's say, boring or uncontroversial.

(00:23):
And so there's this old school mentality
that some of the old
school leaders of our union
have, which is it's not the union's job
to help you get work.
It's only there to help
you when you are working.
And when less than 10% of our membership
qualify for health
insurance and can't make a living
doing this, I think the union owes it to

(00:43):
the 90% to do more to
help them get work and help
them succeed.
I wanted to be a series regular on a TV
series and I like, okay,
who controls television?
The writers.
What can I do to build relationships with
writers in the writers guild?
Table reads.
I'm going to start inviting writers with
amazing, I forgot
scripts to send me their
scripts and then I will cast amazing

(01:04):
actors because I work in casting.
I know all these people.
Your tips for table reads.
I've heard some things as far as don't
speak louder than the
most famous person at the
table.
I've heard what are some do's and don'ts.
Yeah.
Well, I think the first
thing that I would say is.
Hey everyone.
Welcome to the actor's guide to the end
of the world podcast
where we talk about acting

(01:25):
in Hollywood and white people understand.
I'm your host, E-Kan Soong
And I'm Rían Sheehy Kelly.
How's it going?
What's up buddy?
We have new episodes every Monday
wherever you find your podcast.
We have video on YouTube on sub stack.
Follow us at actors guide podcasts on all
social media for fun
clips during the week.
This is a monster of an episode.
We have Shaan Sharma, uh, actor series

(01:48):
regular from the chosen.
It's been running for six years now.
They just wrapped up their sixth season.
He's also a huge, uh, instrumental part
of the Los Angeles acting community.
He's on the national board for sag after
he's running for
reelection for the Los Angeles
board there.
The, the votes in right now, make sure

(02:08):
you get out there and vote.
We get into a little bit of his approach
to life and how he's
gotten to where he is today.
And it's, it's, I think it's really
valuable for people to
hear that how he got involved
in sag after a leadership.
I think all actors are going to want to
hear this and I think it
might make you motivated
to get more involved in the union.
His approach to the business is, is

(02:31):
really positive and forward thinking.
Great wisdom for actors.
And then as if that wasn't enough, he
also has the table read
podcast, which is a huge
hit and also just won a Webby award.
So we get into all of these things and
more sit back, relax,
and enjoy this episode with
Sean Sharma.
Sean Sharma is joining the show.

(02:53):
I don't want to lay this on too thick,
but when we first started
talking about a podcast,
I was dreaming about conversations like
this, where we get to
talk about the real stuff,
union stuff, a lot of the things that
we've seen going on in
our industry for the past
couple of years.
I'm sure you have great stories and I
already know that you've
been a incredible leader
in our community.
This is a busy week for you.

(03:15):
So everyone knows you just wrapped season
six of The Chosen
worldwide hit phenomenon
show based on Jesus and the Bible.
Just wrapped that this week here in the
middle of elections for
Los Angeles board member.
And then you're also serving on the
national board for SAG after us.
So the fact that you actually had time to

(03:36):
do this is kind of amazing.
And then also negotiating committee
during the strikes a
couple of years ago, you have
a hit podcast.
It's just incredible all the stuff that I
hope to get into today.
So anyway, I just
wanted to set the table.
Well, and I do want to say also that
there's no topic off

(03:56):
limits and I can handle tough
questions.
So don't feel like you need to handle any
topic with kid gloves.
If you have anything you want to
challenge me on or things
that you disagree about.
That's what I love about conversations is
that's where we figure out how we feel.
And that's where we can get to
the bottom of certain issues.
And so just know I'm an open book.
Magic.

(04:16):
I love that.
And I think that's a
great place to start.
To be honest, I don't have many things
that I want to fight you on.
I mean, yeah, we're we're we usually
bring on people we like.
So I just want to well, you can disagree
with people that you like very strongly.
I disagree with people that
I like and love all the time.
I just that's a good point.

(04:37):
For me, it's it's it's not so much about
a person versus person.
It's more about idea against ideas and
trying to get to the
truth and understanding.
So so yeah, it's as you probably know, my
journey in union
service has not been, let's
say like boring or uncontroversial.

(04:57):
And so I'm more than willing to discuss
any of the decisions that I've made.
Fantastic.
Before we get into
all the the saucy stuff.
I know you primarily through a lot of the
things that you've built
organizations, programs.
I mean, it just runs the gamut.
But I don't know too much of
your your acting career life.

(05:18):
How did that journey begin for you?
I'm from the state of
Minnesota born and raised.
I was there until 2007.
And I my home life was, let's
just say, really problematic.
And my parents are both
immigrants from India.
They were in a range marriage and that
was not a good situation for them.
In their case, it took my mom 22 years to

(05:40):
be able to divorce my father.
And I haven't seen him since.
So that's since what,
1998, that I haven't seen him.
He's somewhere out there.
But it was pretty chaotic in the home.
And the way that I self medicated was
spending time with
friends, drawing, playing games,
you know, music.
And so I fled into the arts instead of

(06:01):
like drugs and alcohol
and that kind of stuff to
heal and to try to be okay and to get
what was inside out in
some kind of healthy way.
And so I actually was doing so poorly in
school that I needed to
go to summer school to pass
the ninth grade.
And my summer school teacher was a guy

(06:21):
named Roger Mon, who just
happened to be the director
of the high school musicals.
So he invited me to audition for The
Fiddler on the Roof, which
was the upcoming musical.
My sophomore year in high school.
And I went to YZeta High School, very
large, very wealthy kind
of suburban high school.

(06:42):
And it was a big deal that I not only got
cast, but I got cast
with this solo singing
part, which never happens for a sophomore
at YZeta, at least not in those days.
So it kind of put me on
the map in the in the grade.
And I did nine plays when I was in high
school, all as a way to
kind of escape what was going
on in my home life.

(07:03):
And I made so many more friends and it
was just really fun.
And I also learned how to play music,
piano, guitar, drums, bass, guitar.
I was already singing in the choir as one
of the kind of the star
choir students and soloists
and stuff.
So it was pretty clear in high school
that art was my future.
I decided in eighth grade, I

(07:23):
wasn't going to go to college.
So I just took classes in
high school that I loved.
And so music theory and creative writing
and all kinds of fun
stuff to just like learn
about things I was
actually interested in.
And after high school, I went into
playing music as a singer
songwriter, starting a music
booking company and booking other singer
songwriters that I found at

(07:44):
other high schools and acting
was something I kind of did
on the side in the Twin Cities.
There wasn't a lot of
film and television.
So I just did a lot of regional
commercials and a lot of, you know,
industrials and things
like that.
And I did book three SAG national
commercials while I was still in
Minnesota, which got
me my union eligibility.
First time I booked a national

(08:05):
commercial, I got, you know,
I woke up to an upgrade and
a $15,000 check
waiting at my agent's office.
I was like 19.
I was like, I'm rich.
Dream, that's the dream.
Wow.
Anyway, I acted in the Twin Cities and
did music in the Twin
Cities until around 2007.
And then that's when I moved to Los
Angeles to kind of

(08:26):
challenge myself in a bigger market.
And it took a few years for me to get my
head on straight, to
learn how things work, to
get the kind of training I really needed
to be able to adapt my
craft for on camera acting
across, you know, drama, single cam,
multi cam and commercials.
And then that's when I really started to
book and work and make a living.

(08:47):
I tell people, technically I was making a
living as an actor
starting in 2011, but that's
because one national commercial paid me
130 grand over three years.
Like one booking is not a career, right?
That's a fluke.
That's just a happy accident.
I didn't really start booking
consistently until 2013, 2014.
And then from that point forward, it's
been just a really blessed ride.

(09:09):
And then of course the chosen came along
in 2018, but it wasn't
really paying us enough
to live on by itself until, you know,
season three, really.
So that was like 2021.
It's interesting though, because that's a
very, the fact that
you channeled all of that
into the arts is a very healthy response

(09:32):
to a difficult situation.
I'm funny because EKAN, EKAN's journey
into acting was a bit of
a rebellion against what
his parents had wanted.
I sort of stumbled into it by accident,
but it's interesting too.
Like that's a very proactive and a very
healthy kind of an
area to channel that into.

(09:52):
Yeah.
Well, the reason that
happened was not intentional.
I tell people, you know, I never intended
to be almost anywhere that I am at all.
Just kind of was drawn to
me or kind of pulled me in.
Like I would never have auditioned for
the high school musical
had that teacher not invited
me to do it.
That's something I never thought about.

(10:13):
And even music and the arts, it's like I
spent a lot of time as a
lanky, skinny, nerdy Indian
kid in an all white
high school by myself.
So I just sat in my room drawing and
reading and living in fantasy world.
Then because my home life was so rough, I
went to school early.
There was an early bus to go to school
early and there was a
late bus to take you home

(10:33):
a couple hours late after school.
So I didn't want to spend time at home.
So if I wasn't going to go to a friend's
house, I went to
school early and I stayed
late and I just plunked around in the
practice rooms, playing
piano, teaching myself how
to play to kind of pass the time.
And also my teachers loved
me and they saw my potential.
So they gave me like free voice lessons.
And so it's like a lot of the things that

(10:56):
make up my life, even
my union service, all
these things are just kind of accidents
that have led me in a direction.
So so yeah, we actually moved to L.A. the
same year I moved from Ireland in 2006.
2007, I came in on a
green card lottery win.
I did not acquit myself as well as you
clearly did because I only lasted.
I lasted less than a year.

(11:16):
But it sounds like you had your head kind
of screwed on from
the beginning in some in
some sense.
Well, that's what's so crazy, right?
Is like I already moved to Los Angeles
with union eligibility
in my pocket and I joined
the union the moment I landed.
I already had a body of work from doing
like 100 on camera
projects back in Minnesota.
I am a person of color.

(11:37):
And so I had that kind of ethnic aspect
to me that has been
appealing because people
are trying to be more inclusive.
I had like kind of a business savvy.
So I knew how to put together packages to
send out to agents and
managers and all this
stuff.
And I got an agent manager within 60 days
of being in Los Angeles.

(11:58):
And I was going on casting director
workshops and meeting
casting and getting auditions
and all this stuff.
And I got a job working in casting as a
session director and
hobnobbing and hanging out with
some of the top casting directors,
working with them, running sessions.
And still, I didn't book a single job for
the first two years I was in LA.
It's like, you know, you
can do everything right.
And still, there's just so much to know.

(12:19):
You know, it's tough.
In fact, I came out from the Twin Cities
with an inflated sense of
ability because I'd work
so much in Minnesota.
But some of that is because the kind of
projects I was booking, the
level of skill needed just
wasn't as high.
And then part of it too was like, I'm
like the one person of
color in the Minneapolis
market.
If you want to look ethnic at all, just

(12:40):
sprinkle some Shawn on your
project and boom, suddenly
everything's okay.
So like, I think I was cast sometimes
because I was the right
color in a very colorless,
you know, market.
It wasn't until I came to LA and really
started to focus on craft
that I realized how much
I needed to learn in
order to be competitive.
And I know exactly what I was doing

(13:00):
before I booked and worked consistently.
And what I was doing before.
And so that's a big part of what I teach
in the education that I
do at the union and my
own studio for Pace University and other
schools where I've invited
to guest lecture and stuff.
It's kind of the foundation of what grew
my kind of visibility
in the union community.
It was a talk that I did every month

(13:21):
called the commercial
session director's guide to
LA that turned into the
actors blueprint for success.
It was just kind of giving
people the information side.
You know, what I say is there's the
experiential side and then
there's the intellectual side
of our craft.
And in any endeavor, there's information
you need to know, but

(13:41):
then you also need to execute
on that information.
A lot of people have the right
information when it comes to
like diet and exercise, they
just don't do it.
It's an execution problem.
It's not an information problem, but in
our industry, there's
an information problem as
well as an execution problem.
Even if somebody had all the right
information, they struggle to
do it, but most people don't
even know what they're doing and how to

(14:03):
do it and how things work.
So it's just such a chaotic minefield of
people getting chewed up
and falling through the
cracks of a system.
And there's virtually no college
professors who are working professional
on camera performers
who can tell a student how
to succeed in this industry.
So they're all basically focused on
stagecraft and a very kind
of secondhand, almost like,

(14:24):
oh, don't talk to me about the business.
I'm just here to teach you the craft.
It's like, well, how can you teach
someone if you don't know
what the end goal is supposed
to be?
You've got to develop people for the job
they're actually going to be pursuing.
And that's missing in the educational
landscape by and large.
And we've talked
about this a lot recently.
And it's interesting that like before, in
the pre-social media
days, I personally found

(14:44):
like there was no information.
There was nowhere to
find that information.
And now there's such an excess of
information that it's hard to discern.
I mean, there's everybody with a TikTok
account and an opinion is
telling you this is what
you're doing wrong.
This is what you should be doing.
So where do you think, Rian, where do you
think the right place should be?
Just put just from a common sense
standpoint, where would

(15:05):
you look for the best and the
right information?
I look for examples of
people who have done it well.
I look for I look to people who have
something that I want,
whether that's how they approach
the world, whether that's how they, you
know, I see them helping
other people, how I see
their their careers develop.
Well, I'll give you the answer that I

(15:26):
would that I would say,
which is that has all the
qualities you just mentioned times one
hundred and eighty thousand.
And that's the union.
Now, you would think that the
organization that runs the
profession that we all belong
to, that we that is supposed to advocate
for us, that's supposed
to help us be as successful
as possible, that's supposed to justify
the dues we pay by
providing us value to give us

(15:46):
advantages over other performers.
You would think that that's the perfect
nonprofit structure
that represents the best
performers in the industry to give us
education we can trust
that has been vetted.
So from the moment I stepped into union
service, that's been my
goal, is to make SAG after
the best place in the world for you to
actually learn how to do

(16:06):
this and not just from craft,
but the business about contracts and
employment and about self
care and all this stuff.
And I'm happy to say that in the Los
Angeles local, we've built
a conservatory that's kind
of the best kept secret because it's just
so recently refurbished.
But it's incredible.
I just joined and it's $45 a year.
That's a year.

(16:27):
It is the best deal I've ever seen.
Every teacher, including those that have
already been teaching
for us, you know, for years
and years and years, had to go through a
vetting process that we
created during the pandemic,
because what we inherited were all these
random teachers that
some of them were not even
qualified to teach what it
was that they were teaching.
And so we put everybody who wanted to

(16:47):
teach through the vetting process.
I had to go through the vetting process
as the chair of the committee.
And then they give you the vetting
committee of really
diverse, established, accomplished
performers in multiple disciplines.
They're the ones looking at every
application and they're
saying, OK, Sean, based on what
you've presented, this is
what you're allowed to teach.
You can't go outside those boundaries.

(17:08):
You have to stay within this subject
matter, because that's the
only subject we feel that
you are qualified to teach.
And every teacher has to reapply if they
want to teach something
else other than what they
were. And then after you take a class,
there is an anonymous
feedback form sent to every
participant so they
can report bad behavior.
If somebody is trying to pitch their own
stuff, if somebody was
being abusive or weird or

(17:30):
hostile, like so.
There's no other educational institution
that has that kind of immediate feedback,
accountability, vetting by other
professionals without any
kind of politics or like
tenure or things that get in the way of
being able to replace somebody.
So now I'm so thrilled that
we can take what we did in L.A.

(17:50):
and start helping other locals in our
union have the same thing.
I love that. This is a lot of what I was
hoping to hear from
you, because there is so
much that is distracting of online
experts and the fact that
the union wouldn't be the
first place I would go to for, OK, this
is exactly what we need to know.
This is where we can go to
trust to have proper guidance.

(18:12):
And I do want to touch
on this a little bit.
It sounds like you never had a problem
focusing on your career as a business.
You know, many actors are like, I don't
even want to do my taxes.
I didn't want to deal with
the numbers of this craft.
So interesting enough, when I got out of
high school and I had
stars in my eyes about
being a singer songwriter, you know, rock

(18:33):
star, I did not want
to go to clubs and bars
with my hat in my hand and say, please
let me play a gig in your club.
That felt really low value.
Like what was I I didn't
have an audience to offer.
I didn't have, you know, so what was I
going to why were they
going to book me there?
So instead, what I did is I went to those

(18:53):
same clubs and bars
and I said, what's your
most dead night? And
they're like, who are you?
Eighteen year old, you know, and I'm
like, they're like Sunday fine.
I'm like, OK, give me a
Sunday coming up to pack the house.
I'm going to book five music acts that
are all original singer
songwriter acts from local
high schools and colleges.
They'll bring all their friends and all

(19:14):
that stuff and I'll
have a headliner who's more
established. And if we pack the place,
then you let me do it every week.
And they're like, all right, you're on.
So I started that way and I reached out
to all the area high
schools and colleges and
I said, I'm looking for original acts
from your schools or whatever.
We ended up getting amazing artists and,
you know, I got one of
my childhood heroes to

(19:34):
come in headline and that started what's
called the acoustic showcase.
Then I could book myself as part of the
five acts that were
playing a three hour show.
I didn't have to ask
anybody for permission to play.
And so it was kind of in my DNA, even
just when I was young,
to offer value and to try
to win together as opposed to trying to
do it all by myself
and to like have the more

(19:55):
people invested in something, the greater
likelihood it would succeed.
Because when we do a three hour show, all
of them are telling
their fan base has come
to this club and I
wouldn't put the order.
I wouldn't make the order public.
So whoever brought the most people would
play last, which meant
everybody had to stick
around until the very end.
So everybody played for as
full of a house as possible.
And that way we just kept exposing people

(20:17):
to great new musicians and building their
audiences. And so that kind of business
mentality wasn't because I love business.
It was more of like an answer
to how do I solve this problem?
I want to be able to play
where I want, when I want.
And so in order for me to do that, I have
to add something of value that this place
needs. And so like I said, when I was
growing up playing like

(20:38):
strategy board games and
video games and all that,
I love solving problems.
I love a complex puzzle to solve.
And so jumping in the union, when I
started serving in the
union, immediately I was like,
take stock, learn about everything.
How does everything work?
And I think I did the same thing when I
initially moved to
L.A., where I'm like, OK,
L.A. is a new town.

(20:58):
I don't know how it works.
I got to learn as much as possible.
Like I was just hungry for information to
be able to because like,
how are you supposed to
strategize and move forward if you don't
know a lay of the land?
That's like an army marching onto a field
that they didn't study before.
You're going to get eviscerated.
What is it? Aim, you know, ready, aim,
fire, not fire, ready, aim.

(21:19):
So yeah, yeah.
So I think it's just been in my nature to
try to add value to get
around kind of obstacles.
I think that's a wonderful lesson.
The concept of adding value is I would
say that your thinking
and your approach from a
young age is relatively rare or unique.
I don't think that I don't think
everybody thinks that way,
but I think everybody can

(21:39):
learn from that type of mindset.
I never even really thought of it until
we had this conversation.
But I think because I went from kind of
zero to hero in my high
school journey, like I
was like the skinny lanky dorky loner
Indian kid in like
elementary school junior high.
But then people started to see I had an
aptitude for singing and
music and all this stuff.
And then soon acting where I think the

(22:00):
fact that I have those
skills to offer opened up
doors for me that I
ordinarily would never have had.
So I think just the positive
reinforcement from a young
age of having something to offer
to get to change things in your life, as
opposed to just
hoping things come to you.
I agree.
I don't want to sound like the grumpy old
man, but if you kind of

(22:21):
listen to a lot of the
current mindset, actor mindset, a lot of
reinforcements saying I'm worth it.
I know what I'm worth.
And I think it breeds a little
entitlement before you
added value in of service.
Does that does that make sense?
So it's like like you said, you worked
for seven years of

(22:42):
bringing in business, doing a
really good job of promoting shows.
You are obviously working on your skills
and really very talented.
You were essentially building up trust
when a lot of people get off the bus to
say LA and say, no, I'm
sorry, I'm worth more than that.
Or they're interning at
a fancy corporate job.
It's like, yeah, no,
that doesn't work for me.

(23:02):
Well, what I say in my talks, and I think
this is why it really resonated with so
many members and why I showed up on the
kind of radar for the political factions
in the union, is because here I was every
month doing this talk to 150 members in
the Cagney boardroom at the union.
And all I was saying was we there is a
way to reduce the risk and the luck

(23:23):
that's involved in whether you can
consistently make a
living as a performer.
There's a reason why the
top earners stay at the top.
And it isn't just because their names and
they keep getting hired
because of their name.
There's something about their work ethic.
There's something about their craft.
There's something about their competence,
that, you know, their attitude, etc.,
that people want, not even want, need to
work with artists like that in order to

(23:44):
do the job that they're trying to do,
which is to push the art form forward.
To push the technology forward, to do
really demanding new things.
And so if you want to be a
lead, you have to be a leader.
You have to take responsibility.
You have to learn
about all of these things.
And so I'm like, while other people are
trying to get struck by lightning, I'm
building lightning rods, you know, like
the and the harder I work,

(24:05):
the luckier I seem to get.
And so the problem is, and you touched on
this really well, is that most people
were not properly informed about what
this industry is and what our craft is.
They've been misled.
And this app, I saw this
in the music industry, too.
They were misled by whatever they
consumed in, you know, media or who

(24:26):
taught them when they were
younger, that it's about talent.
I almost never use the word talent
because talent to me is something you're
either born with or not.
To me, talent is in the realm of, oh, you
just developed this kind of deflective
sense of humor to deal with bullying.
So you're funny or, you know, you're
particularly handsome or
strong or pretty or whatever.

(24:46):
But those are not things
that somebody can control.
I put about 5 percent of an actor's total
skill into those
intangible kind of talent stuff.
But when it comes to actually doing the
job, that is a skill that you learn and
people don't know that it's a skill.
So they come out with just their raw
talent, which is like 5
percent of what you need.

(25:07):
And they hope and think that they're just
going to get struck by lightning.
Meanwhile, other people are trying to
learn, but they're in these abusive,
terrible classes taught by people who
wish they could have been successful,
but now take their anger out on people
who are trying to come up and got even
college professors who
take their, you know, their

(25:28):
psychological issues
out on their students.
I can't tell you how many college
students I have that are just traumatized
by the time they come out of college,
unable to make a creative decision
because they've always been trying to
please the teacher who's more like a
tyrant than a mentor.
And so even people who are in classes
trying to learn, maybe only end up
learning 30 percent of
the stuff they need to know.
So now they're at like 35 percent.

(25:49):
You know, so really what we're all trying
to do is get as much of that 100 percent
of our skill developed so that, yeah,
maybe I have a
particular thing I was born with,
but I'm still at 95 percent, even if I
have no natural advantages.
And you see monster careers of the
biggest stars on the planet who are in
that 95 percent who didn't have those

(26:09):
natural advantages, but they're just
craftsmen and craftswomen and they build
these incredible, you know, stories.
And so that's the message that I think
resonates with people when you give them
some clarity, because there's so much
noise and like you
said, more noise than ever.
And if you can get it from the place
that's supposed to be your champion in

(26:29):
this industry, the union, then amen.
Go for it. And then it's up to us who are
members of the union to make sure that
trust is well placed and that they they
we earn the loyalty of our members by
delivering real tangible value that they
need to just avoid getting, you know, I
don't know, trounced on, trampled by the

(26:50):
pitfalls of this industry.
I always had a bit of a shame thing that
I never went to a full time drama school.
I carried that shame for a long time.
I felt like I didn't belong here.
And it's only through time and experience
and learning that I'm
like, oh, it doesn't matter.
It didn't matter. You know
what I mean? I got there.
Chances are whatever you missed was not
stuff that you necessarily needed to if
you wanted to work on camera.

(27:11):
And so I can't tell you how many people
go to college or
conservatory programs for stagecraft.
And then they wonder why they struggle
working in film and television.
It's like you trained almost the opposite
of every instinct you need to have as an
on camera performer because the stage is
just a completely
different storytelling medium.
It's like, oh, I'm a
dancer. Why can't I act?

(27:32):
I'm a voiceover actor.
Why can't I do on camera?
You learn very different skill set.
You went to a sushi class for four years.
You were trying to cook Italian.
It's different ingredients.
It's it's still
cooking, but it's a different.
It's still good.
You know what I mean?
I think what happens when you go to
college or conservatory is you meet a lot
of incredible people that become allies
and friends and resources for life.

(27:52):
But I think one of the main things you
learn, hopefully, if you take it
seriously, is work ethic.
But you don't need to be in a four year
program and spend 200
grand to learn work ethic.
You just need to surround yourself with a
players that, you know, make you
challenge yourself to to be your best.
And then you all like support each other.
Think community was something that I
certainly found
difficult upon moving to L.A.

(28:13):
You know, I think that's vital because it
takes away the mystique of you're
supposed to find the door yourself.
You don't know how to find it.
No one's going to tell you how to find it
because they don't want
you to know if they know.
Yeah, this idea that the more you give to
other people is less for yourself is
absolutely opposite.
It's just the more value you add to other

(28:33):
people, the more you become
indispensable to the community and they
can't wait to pour back into your cup.
And I'm experiencing that in ways even
beyond Union service, where it would
always feel so amazing to show up to them
where and not expect
anybody to know who I am.
And somebody will come up and be like,
hey, I read your letters.
Hey, I saw you on, you know, your

(28:54):
interview on the news.
I saw you, you know, at the conservatory,
you help teach me a thing that helped me
book a job or I'll just have random
people come up to me and
share the most lovely things.
And now on the show that I'm on, The
Chosen, which is touching people's lives
in such an amazing way around the world.
Like I get, you know, constant feedback
from people that is just every actor's I

(29:15):
can't say every actor because we know
there's all kinds of narcissists and
weird people out there.
But I can say most actors that I know, we
want to be telling stories that make a
difference in the world
and touch people's lives.
And generally because we were touched in
a way by film and television in a way
that, you know, made us
want to do this for a living.
And so. So, yeah, it's
really something special.
And it comes from adding value to other

(29:37):
people, not trying to be
stingy and hold it to yourself.
We're giving of ourselves to others.
And it's a cup that
replenishes on the daily.
It's not something that ever runs dry.
There's a we did an event at the at the
union years ago, 2017
ish, something like that.
I think it was the showrunner of the
show, Army Wives, that
was on around that time.
And she said something, she was a

(29:58):
producer or something.
And she said, I used to think that there
was a box called Success.
And if somebody took some out of that
box, it was less for everybody else.
And she's like, I realized that there's
no bottom to that box.
There's plenty of room
for success for everybody.
You don't have to be jealous or envious
of other people's success.
You can celebrate it with them.
And you're probably going to attract more

(30:19):
success in your own life if
you behave that way anyway.
That's amazing. So this
is a great transition.
Can you talk about how you got involved
with the union all the
way back in the beginning?
So I joined SAG when I
moved to Los Angeles.
And that was in 2007.
So that was pre merger.
And I found my first acting teacher who's
now like a mom I never had and just a

(30:40):
dear friend, Karen Austin.
And I studied with her for a year.
And around that time, I also got into
running sessions for commercial casting
directors and started doing that all over
town and helping the guys
at Casting Frontier, etc.
So I kind of got networked
pretty quickly all over the place.
And so I worked in casting for 10 years
as one of the top session directors.
When you would go audition for a
commercial, I was
probably running your audition.

(31:00):
I remember you as a session director.
You always had this calmness about you.
Well, like, you know, a lot of session
directors, especially in commercials,
they just saw 50 actors, you know,
pantomime eating a burger.
Sometimes those in-person auditions for
commercials are really chaotic.
I think I think that's why casting
directors tend to hire actors to run
sessions, even though it can be annoying

(31:21):
sometimes because we
have our own auditions.
And sometimes we have to
get somebody to cover us.
But, you know, for me, I'm efficient.
I know technology and I'm used to working
with really tough
personalities because of my background.
So a stressed out casting director was
just water off a duck's back for me.
And so, you know, and I had as much
energy at the beginning of the day as I
do at the end, because I'm used to being

(31:42):
on set for 14 hours a day.
Like, what do I care if I'm in like a
studio for, you know,
10 hours or whatever?
And I love fast pace.
Makes the day go fast.
And I'm in my zone just like
as a server in a restaurant.
It's the slow days
that you make mistakes.
It's the days when your brain is going
that you're really on it.
And, you know, I spent 10 years working
in hospitality in every different
position you could have.
And so I was just

(32:03):
well suited for the job.
And that's why I ended up working with
something like 45 of the top casting
directors in LA running
sessions for a long time.
And because of working with the kinds of
people that I did, I got invited to teach
a casting workshop as a session director.
And it got such a good response that we
turned it into a two-weeker
and then do a four-weeker.
And then I started
doing that every quarter.

(32:25):
And that eventually led to me
starting my own studio in 2012.
But before I ever started my own studio,
it just like I had all of this
information about what I was seeing in
the room and with clients
and callbacks and producers.
The fact that because I worked with so
many casting directors, I saw
what they all had in common,
whereas some people only
worked with one casting director.

(32:45):
So they only got to
know that office's quirks.
I got to kind of know what was
universally what people wanted to see.
And so I put all of that down into a book
format just because
somebody encouraged me to do that.
And I wanted to kind of have a curriculum
for what I would teach.
And so it turned into commercial acting
in LA, a session director's
guide, which is on Amazon.

(33:07):
And you can get it anywhere.
And if anybody wants it for free, I can
just send you the PDF for the MP3.
Like I don't I didn't put it.
I didn't make it to make money.
I did it to kind of be like a textbook
for my own education.
And then it just
happened to self publish it.
That's right. I didn't even know that.
And I'm glad that I did because it led to
backstage reaching out to me in 2015
saying, hey, how would you like to write

(33:27):
weekly kind of columns for us or advice
articles for actors?
We love your book.
And I'm like, all right.
So I started doing that.
And then I ended up auditioning for an
NFL network campaign and it was union.
And I auditioned and then got called back
and then I got a call from my agent being
like, hey, they want to book you, but
they turned it non union.
Will you still do it?

(33:48):
And I said, nope, I'm a union actor.
I wouldn't have my career if it wasn't
for the health insurance
that I got from my union.
So tell them to turn
it back to a union job.
Otherwise I have to pass.
So four hours went by and I
got a call back from my agent.
Like they flipped it back to union just
because they wanted you.
You were their number one.
So I ended up doing like eight spots
across six networks for
that ran for like half a year.
It was super visible, all that stuff.

(34:10):
And I wrote an article for backstage
called Stand Up for Your Union.
And I wasn't involved as a union
volunteer at that time.
I was just a union member who benefited
from the health insurance plan that saved
my career because I needed a surgery that
I had needed since I
was like 19 years old.
And so I apparently that article got read
by David White at the time, who was the

(34:30):
national executive director of SAG-AFTRA.
He called me into a meeting.
And before I knew it, I was part of these
meetings at HQ in this big fancy building
where I was meeting staff
and meeting other volunteers.
And then that's when Kevin McCorkle
invited me to teach in the commercial
department of the L.A.
Conservatory, where he was teaching and
he was on the committee.

(34:50):
And then the next year in 2016, I was
added to be a member of
the Conservatory Committee.
So that's when I really started to dig in
and see what I could
do to make a difference.
And that kind of started the whole thing
of me kind of reforming the conservatory,
me starting to gain notoriety because of
my talks that I was giving.
Here's this kind of young, diverse guy
who seems to have relationships in the

(35:11):
industry because of all my years of
casting experience and all that stuff.
So the staff were including me in
initiatives to bring more commercial work
back to the union because we were losing
it hand over fist to social
media and non-union stuff.
And that's when I was approached by the
political factions to get involved, not
because they knew me or loved me.
I think they all thought that they could
use me and my following to
give them kind of a halo effect.

(35:34):
And that kind of started
my entrance into leadership.
But it's not something that I seek out.
I was never like, I want to
be on the board of the union.
It was like, in fact, when they when they
approached me, I went to our staff and
Serena Kung, who's our local executive
director, will tell you this.
She was like, why
would I want to do that?
That sounds horrible.
These people hate each other.
There's so much toxicity.
Like I'm having fun teaching my classes

(35:55):
in the conservatory.
Why would I want to get
into that like rat's nest?
And she and Ilyan, who was our executive
director of L.A. at the time, were like,
Sean, if you want to
move resources towards that,
then you have to be in the room where
those decisions are made.
And true, I was so devoted.
There's this old school mentality that
some of the old school leaders of our

(36:17):
union have, which is it's not the union's
job to help you get work.
It's only there to help
you when you are working.
And when less than 10 percent of our
membership qualify for health insurance
and can't make a living doing this, I
think the union owes it to the 90 percent
to do more to help them get
work and help them succeed.
At least that's what I would want from my

(36:38):
union and what I wanted from my union
before I was making a
living as a performer.
So I don't really get down with the idea
that all of these people are supposed to
pay dues to something that shouldn't try
to help them until they actually succeed.
That doesn't really make sense to me.
And I think a lot of
members agree with me on that.
That's spot on.

(36:58):
It just brings me to another question I
had anyway, because, you know, just just
from talking to you, it seems like you've
had such a great attitude
to all of these things that
have come your way. Did
you ever have a goal in mind?
I want to be a series regular.
Whatever that was, did you have an end
goal or were you just kind
of taken along by the journey?
Yeah, you touch on
something really important.
I started to work consistently, but it

(37:20):
was so hodgepodge and random because I
didn't have a unified vision of what I
was trying to accomplish.
And this is what I find is true for most
actors that I now educate,
which is like, what's your goal?
Where are you actually trying to end up?
And like, oh, I just want to work.
I'm like, OK, well, that's like going
into a grocery store and
saying, I just want to eat.
It's like you've got a billion options in
here and I won't even know what aisle to

(37:41):
direct you to until you
tell me, are you want cereal?
Do you want fruit? Like, what do you
actually want out of this business?
Because you can't be in
every aisle all the time.
You've got to direct your time towards
the places where you
want to get something.
So, for example, if somebody's like, OK,
well, if you really ask me that I want to
be in like, you know, like Game of
Thrones type of stuff, it's like, have
you reached out to Nina Gold's office?

(38:02):
Are you reaching out to the directors
that direct those episodes?
Have you been reaching out to the writers
who write those episodes and looked at
what other projects they're doing?
Are you reaching out to the agents that
represent the actors on those shows that
have those relationships
with those casting offices?
Like you only have so
much time in the day.
So if you actually get laser focused on a
goal, you can start to
move energy in that direction.

(38:23):
And it's not only that you're going to
move your own energy in that direction,
but because all of these people around
you love you and want to help you, if
they have any connections
that can move you towards that place,
they'll be like, hey, I know this
director or hey, I
worked with this actor.
Hey, I know this thing.
And now you've got the universe pushing
you towards where you want to go.
So until I actually declared and decided

(38:43):
what I wanted, I was booking, but I was
it wasn't in any particular direction.
I was doing, you know, multi cam over
here, single cam comedy over there, drama
over here, just trying to make the job
booking a commercial.
But I wasn't building a momentum in a
direction until I decided that I wanted
to be a series regular on a TV series.
And I like, OK, who controls television?

(39:06):
The writers, they're the ones who are the
showrunners, the creators, et cetera.
What can I do to build relationships with
writers in the Writers Guild?
Table reads. Why don't I just start
inviting writers with amazing scripts to
send me their scripts and then I will
cast amazing actors
because I work in casting.
I know all these people. I'll just bring
great actors to a
table read of the script.

(39:27):
And then because I don't
just do anything half ass.
Normally, when we do a table read, it's
just people bring their iPads or they
print out a script and we sit in fulled
out chairs at a room
and we read a script.
That sounds really like a
underutilization of the opportunity.
Here's this writer who spent God knows
how many months or
years writing this story.

(39:48):
And this is their one opportunity to hear
it come to life by professional actors,
because the chance that it's actually
going to get produced
into a movie are almost none.
And so why don't we get food that's
inspired by the story?
So if somebody is eating lasagna in the
script, we're going to have
lasagna at the table read.
Why don't we design a custom trailer so
that there's something cool on the on the
screens when they come in the room?

(40:09):
Why don't we get props from a
professional prop houses like a
centerpiece to kind of bring
you into the world of the story?
We'll have table tents. We'll have, you
know, custom artwork
cover sheets on every binder.
Where can we make it so that when the
writer comes into this room, they are
like, who are you people?
Why are you so cool when
you don't even know me?
I'm just a nerdy writer who sits in my

(40:30):
room alone all the time imagining the day
that something will sell.
And you've just invested all of this love
and care into every
detail of this experience.
Our goal was that they would never forget
that and they would always associate SAG
AFTRA with that kind of attention to
detail and passion for storytelling.
And I started doing
those in twenty seventeen.

(40:51):
And now I've done something like four
hundred table reads across my podcast
across for the Writers Guild Foundation
for SAG AFTRA, for my own studio, for
other production companies, etc.
I've kind of become the table read guy.
But a year later, after saying I wanted
to be a series
regular, I booked The Chosen.
Now, whether that's coincidence or
whether it was the law of attraction,

(41:12):
whether it was like the in universe
helping move me in a direction, as soon
as I got serious about what I was trying
to accomplish, that's
when that came into my life.
Wow. Sorry. Sorry. We just yeah, there's
just so much that is the most helpful
section of talking I've
heard in quite some time.
And I know to your point, I absolutely

(41:35):
believe in the law of attraction and the
way you did it, which is the law of
attraction backed up by action, backed up
by taking some action that you don't know
where it's going to lead necessarily.
But you're taking the action in the faith
that at some point this is going to get
me closer to to where I want to be.
And in the meantime,
help a lot of people.
And I shout out to your podcast, the

(41:57):
table read podcast,
because it is incredible.
I'm so proud of it.
Yeah, for anybody who doesn't know, you
can talk about it if you like, but it's
just an incredible, I mean, the
production, the sound, the acting,
everything about it is fantastic.
Just on that point, can you talk about so
you started doing table reads for a long
time and then turned it into the podcast?

(42:19):
Like, what's the timeline? By the way,
you guys just want to Webby.
Yeah, we want to Webby over like the
biggest other kind of podcast, you know,
companies in the in the business.
And we won the Signal Award
for most innovative podcast.
And we've got so many amazing kind of
recognition for what we're doing, which
is funny to call for
them to call it innovative.
If there's anything that's innovative

(42:40):
about it, it's how far we go in service
to the writer in the story.
The fact that we want to not just do our
reading, but we want to bring it to life.
And we want the experience of the reading
itself to be immersive and for the actors
to be like, wow, look how much care and
attention the producers of this reading
have put into every detail.
I got to bring my game. This is not just

(43:01):
like cold reading a script here.
It's like if I don't come with choices
made with like a with ready to play with
a players, I'm just not
going to get invited back.
And so, you know, when initially when I
started doing those table reads, it was
to bring the Writers Guild and SAG after
members together through the
conservatory at SAG after it.
So we started doing
those on a monthly basis.
It became an L.A. local program.

(43:21):
And now we have a table read subcommittee
of the conservatory that
does these all the time.
I'm not even on it
right now, but I started it.
It's run by two amazing
former students of mine.
And so so we started doing
those on like a weekly basis.
And then I started doing them outside of
the union independently
because they're just so fun.
And I had all this commercial money.
So I'm like, yeah, let's get custom

(43:41):
T-shirts for the
reading and let's do this.
Like I was spending like seven hundred
dollars a reading every week and all this
stuff just because it was so addictive.
It was so fun to see the look on a
writer's face when they got
to see their script come alive.
And it was building a new
relationship for everybody.
And I reached out to the Casting Society
of America and they sent out a blast to
their entire membership like,
hey, if you want to help Sean,
cast these reads, reach out to them.

(44:02):
So I had these amazing casting directors
of the top shows on TV helping to bring
their actors to the reading.
And so here's a writer who's like, oh, my
gosh, this star of this network show
right now is reading my
script for free at the union.
Like what is what is happening?
And what would ultimately come out of it
was the writer would be like, is there
anything I can do to repay

(44:23):
you guys for what you did?
And I'm like, could you write a custom
monologue for this actor
who's about to do a showcase?
Because if they can say their monologue
was written by a staff writer on this
amazing network show right now, like it's
going to give them so much credibility
when they're doing these conversations
with the agents in attendance.
And they're like, absolutely.
And I've had writers mentor other
performers into creating their own award

(44:45):
winning short films that are now helping
launch their own careers.
That's just all this maelstrom of
creativity from just an
active service together.
But then when the pandemic
struck, we moved on to Zoom.
And around that time, one of my friends,
Jack Levy, who's now one of my partners
in table read, he's like, why don't we
create a TV show like the Hollywood
Reporter does those roundtables where
it's like a nice diffuse light around a

(45:06):
circular table and you just have these
actors talking about stuff.
We're like, why don't we create kind of
an environment like
that and make it a TV show?
But then the pandemic struck.
So we put that on ice for a little while.
But I was still doing Zoom table reads
and now we've become like the best at
doing Zoom table reads.
And then when the pandemic started to
abate, Jack was like,
why don't we do a podcast?

(45:26):
Because he was starting to help like
Universal build their
own podcast department.
He won an Emmy for his post production
sound on Battlestar Galactica.
He's a supervising sound editor for
countless numbers of movies and TV shows.
The guy knows his his stuff.
He has all the relationships.
So the reason our podcast sounds as good
as it does is because Jack,

(45:47):
that's his, you know, forte.
I'm the guy who brings
the towers and the scripts.
Jack brings his sound experience.
And then Mark is the guy who runs the
show of of like doing all the annoying
stuff that Jack and I
don't want to do as creatives.
We just decided to take some of our
favorite scripts into a recording studio.
And instead of miking everybody up one at
a time in an ISO
booth, we're in a circle.
So we're all playing off each other.

(46:08):
And then you can hear when we flub, when
we laugh, when something
cracks us up or whatever.
And we keep a lot of that in.
So when you're listening to it, you're
like laughing along with us when somebody
like mispronouncing something or gets a
line totally wrong or or
somebody does a line delivery.
We're like, really? That's all you got.
They have to come in.
And so it almost brings the average
person into the room with us

(46:30):
to feel like what it's like.
And it also makes it feel like, you know
what, everybody makes mistakes.
It's not a big deal to flub.
Don't make a big deal out of it.
Like and yeah, we're
into our third season.
We just recorded Night of the Living Dead
for a Halloween release
that we're going to do.
And then, you know, Dan Loria has been a
friend of mine for years now from doing

(46:50):
table reads with me and
through Union Service.
He was the father on a show called The
Wonder Years when I was
growing up back in the 80s and 90s.
I remember.
And so, you know, Dan knows everybody.
And so he started bringing amazing
scripts and actors to the table.
And we just did a reading of one of his
own scripts called My
Lady's Song with Joe Montania.

(47:11):
And like in Joe, Joe brought his
daughter, Gia, who's also part of the.
So it's just like it
keeps it growing and evolving.
We had Mark Hamill and Rosario Dawson and
others come in and do a reading when we
did a cast reunion of Fright Night.
And so we did that for Last Halloween and
Chris Sarandon and stuff.
So we had this incredible kind of cult

(47:31):
hit with all these actors in the room.
And so I got a chance to meet Luke
Skywalker through doing
table reading of all things.
And like, so this is this is amazing.
Sorry, I just have a granular question
for for this for an episode.
How much time does it take for to produce
one episode that's including is there
rehearsal time with the actors?

(47:52):
Is it all in one day around how much time
if you can if you can.
Oh, sure. And by the way, anybody who
wants to do table reads, do them, because
there's so many scripts made every year
that no one person could do them all.
So like I don't covet anything.
In fact, I give out our virtual online
table read production guide to anybody
who wants it so they can kind of benefit

(48:12):
from what we've been doing.
So happy to provide that to anybody who
wants to reach out for that.
But but anyway, no, we
know there's no rehearsal.
I just cast actors who take what we do
seriously and who love to tell stories.
And and I've tested so many of them out
over, you know, hundreds of reads before.
So I know who I could count on
to show up with their A game.

(48:32):
And everybody kind of knows that if you
don't pull your weight, the chances of
you coming back are pretty small because
you're in a room with people who do this
really passionately.
And I've had more emotionally poignant
moments and table reads than they have
watching any show or movie.
There's literally a script we read
earlier this year where it was like a
bunch of middle age black guys and myself
and a couple of white
guys and a couple of women.

(48:53):
And it was a story about the best boxer.
No one's heard of Sam Langford, who box
blind for the last third of his career.
But most of his life was him trying to,
you know, him and his father having a
really tortured relationship.
And about two thirds of the way through
the story, there's a scene between him
and his father that like I was doing the
narration, the stage direction.
I couldn't I could not continue for like

(49:16):
two minutes while I was just wrecked.
And all these other guys around the room
were like in tears sobbing.
And because it was kind of you had to be
like a dude with the father son
relationship to get it.
These women are looking at all these like
masculine like dudes in the
room just in tears crying.
And we can't even we can't even proceed
because everyone just needs a minute.

(49:36):
And I've never had that experience in a
movie ever, but I had it in a table read
because of the experience of creating
that live with each other.
So it's super addicting to do that.
We started about 10 a.m.
We take breaks every act.
So we have every script in three acts.
And we take a bio
break in between each act.
And we also take a lunch
break after the second act.

(49:57):
And then at the very end, we may have to
do some trailer and episode recap stuff
that's like last time our
heroes, blah, blah, blah.
So we kind of get that stuff.
So we're usually in a 10 and out by four.
So within six hours,
we get it all recorded.
It's not rushed. We can have lunch.
We can, you know, do some
trailer stuff if we end early.
Great. We do it at a place called Clearly

(50:18):
Recording Studios in Burbank.
It's not that expensive to do it.
I mean, it's one hundred fifty bucks an
hour to rent the studio.
You really what the cost is, is time.
It's the time we put into finding the
right scripts, casting the right actors,
doing the sound
production stuff that Jack does.
You'd have to ask Jack how many hours it
takes for him to produce
a, you know, each episode.

(50:39):
But it's in the past.
It's the most of that labor
is on him in post, really.
You know, but he's also so adept at it
because, you know, when you've been doing
it as long as he has,
he has all the libraries of sounds and
all the songs and he
knows exactly where to.
Like, I'm sure he's like a wizard on that
thing when you watch him move.
So it probably takes him, I don't know,
half the time, it would take somebody

(50:59):
who's like not as experienced as him.
Jack, if that's a lie,
I'm sorry. I don't know.
You actually have Jack
on the line right now.
He's furious.
He's diminished the value of what I do.
It's interesting you're
talking about table reads.
I've learned so much from table reads and
especially over the last few years,
you know, different experiences of them.

(51:19):
I did a table read recently for a movie
that shoots an Ireland big cast.
But it was interesting to see how people
show up, how who shows up prepared, who
shows up ready to go,
who's using it as an audition, who's not
prepared, who's phoning it.
People get fired all the
time after a table read.
You know, we actually did a table read of
a script in the pandemic where the
writers already had cast their lead

(51:40):
and they have the lead
come to lead the table read.
And then I cast all the other parts.
And after the reading, they're like, I
don't think we can keep this guy.
He was horrible. He was so unprepared.
He was so unprofessional.
Like he had no passion
for what we were doing.
They kind of like saw that they had kind
of stars in the rise about
this one particular person.
But when they actually saw what he was

(52:00):
doing, they're like,
we've made a mistake.
And they had to part ways
with them after the table read.
Like and it's part of the pitch that we
will do to like studios
and production companies,
which is like, it's kind of a good idea
to do a reading before
you go into production,
like just to kind of
see how stuff is working.
It can save you a lot.
I actually finally had a last year, last
year I got cast in a show.
Oh, yeah. You want to
tell them your story?

(52:20):
Yeah, I did table read.
And now look, I don't think it was
anything to do with me, but
I took it very personally.
I got cast in a show that shoots in
Chicago a few days before I was due to
fly out for the episode.
It was a smaller role.
You know, funny enough, I'd had friend I
had lunch with an actor friend of mine
right before the table read.
And he goes, careful.
People get fired at table reads.

(52:41):
So I went in with this in my head, did
the table read, whatever.
I got a call from agent the next morning.
She goes, I'm so sorry, but I just wanted
to tell you before you go to the airport.
She's like, they cut that
whole part from the show.
They cut a lot of they cut
like 10 pages of this episode.
She's like, your character got cut.
And I was like, what did I do?
And I subsequently found out it was

(53:01):
nothing to do with me.
I'm so glad you brought that up.
I'm so glad you brought that up.
One of the first reads we did when we
first started doing table reads through
the LA Conservatory,
there's a writer named Philip Eister.
He wrote a movie called Event Horizon
with Florence Fishburne and Sam Neill
back in the day, kind
of like a horror classic.
And he wrote this new script called
Guillotine, which was kind of like this

(53:22):
top suspense vampire story.
They were doing a little
talk back after the reading.
And during the conversation with all the
actors sitting around,
they're like, you know what?
I think that one scene isn't necessary to
kind of slow things down storywise.
So, you know what? I
totally agree. We can lose that.
And one of the actors was like, that's
the only scene my character's in.
So they're like, it had nothing to do

(53:43):
with me being a bad actor and everything
about what it's really
about, which is the story.
So it was there was almost like a healing
effect in the room for the actor to be
like, oh, those times when I was let go
had nothing to do with me.
Like when I booked the show, Mulaney, and
then I got the call that
actually your parts been cut.
We don't need you anymore.
Like it's not because I wasn't funny or I

(54:04):
didn't do a good job.
It's just that things change, especially
on a show, on a multicam where the
writing changes on a daily basis.
No, no. It really puts your focus on
story as opposed to your
focus on me, me, me as the actor.
Absolutely.
If you in brief can kind of give your
tips for table reads, you know, let's
just assume that
they're competent actors.
I've heard some things as far as don't

(54:26):
speak louder than the most
famous person at the table.
I've heard I've heard things like that.
Like what are some do's and
don'ts from your perspective?
Yeah. Well, I think the first thing that
I would say is like,
don't stress.
People are so different.
I really don't like find to be that

(54:46):
useful advice that is
really culturally specific.
Like, oh, in this show, we do this.
Great. Well, then if that's how your show
does it, then it's
helpful for people to know that.
But it's not universal.
So don't suddenly think everybody does it
this way just because one show does it or
just because one show has a narcissist
lead who doesn't want
anybody to outshine them.

(55:07):
Don't suddenly take that into every table
read where you're always afraid of
outshining some, you know, a secure,
mature performer will love having a
players with them that
elevate the story with everyone.
Right. It's not about their own ego.
It's about service to the story.
So I think there is advice like that that
I would say, OK, in a one off scenario,
if you have to deal with some ego or some

(55:29):
kind of crap of some
particular project, that's separate.
My advice would be kind of universal if
our focus is on the story, if it's on
serving the writing, if it's about like
helping the writer like shine or helping
them understand their story.
And in that case, it's all the basic
professionalism stuff like have read the
script, make your choices.

(55:49):
Sometimes you're going to be playing
multiple characters, not just one,
because, you know, you have a lot of
roles in the script and you need to
assign one actor to read multiple roles.
So what we do to help the writer or to
help the performer is to highlight each
character that are playing in
a different color highlighter.
That way, visually, you immediately like,
oh, blue, that's this character.
Oh, pink, it's this character.
It just helps you switch in your mind

(56:09):
when it's that clear as opposed to
everything being in the same color.
You're like, which character is this?
And making sure that you give every
character its own unique voice and kind
of perspective so that they're
distinguishable from each other.
Making a choice at all is a really
important thing because so many
performers are terrified of making a
choice because they don't
want to make the wrong choices.
If you can make a wrong choice, I don't

(56:32):
really think you can make a wrong choice
as long as you're serving the writing.
If you're conflicting with the writing,
that's where you can go wrong.
If you haven't read the script and don't
even understand the story, that's where
you'll go off the tracks.
But most actors are so brilliant and so
gifted and love what we do and good at
what we do that you'll
know what the scene's about.
You'll know what the story's about.
So like, how do you want the audience to

(56:54):
feel about that moment?
How do you want to use that experience to
teach them something or to be profound
about the truth
behind something like that?
And not the truth, but a truth because
there's many ways to find out that, you
know, you've lost your job.
What there's the what
truth do you want to show?
Do you want to show the truth of somebody
who's bitter and ends up being like
corrupted by it or now they want

(57:16):
vengeance or whatever?
Because people can
understand that impulse.
That's truthful.
Or do you want to show people somebody
who takes it like a champ and like puts
their you keep their chin up and just
moves on without enmity, without any kind
of like that's another
message you can send.
That's truthful. So like making choices
about what do you want
to accomplish with it?
Don't make choices based on what you
think is going to impress anybody because
what's going to impress somebody is the

(57:37):
wonderful contribution you want to make
to the story in terms of like where to
look and how it's like if you need to
look on the page, look on the page.
The other actor will hear your
performance like any other voiceover
actor and they will get
what you're trying to do.
If you can connect with somebody and you
want to feel free to do that.
Don't feel like you're
stuck at the microphone.

(57:58):
If you want to get up and be bigger or
whatever, go for it.
Like we can always adapt that in the mix
or it'll we won't be able to sell a
moment if you're just stuck
sitting at the microphone.
You might want to fall off your chair to
like create the reality of a
moment, like own the space.
Like make use of your instrument, make
use of the environment.

(58:19):
So I think all of those things I would
just kind of say are generally in the
bucket of take ownership, take
leadership, take
responsibility, make choices.
Don't be afraid. Don't live in fear.
Don't try to sell out
and make someone happy.
Take pride in your work as an artist and
make a thoughtful contribution, I guess,
is where I would generally land.
Well, that's well put. Well, don't go in

(58:41):
afraid to get fired.
That's not the way it's going to be.
Believe me, that does not work.
So so Sean, I do want to go
back a little bit to the union.
If you can break it down for because
right now the vote is out for national
board, local Los Angeles board and so on.
Make sure you get the vote in.
Everyone, I'm not going to lie. When when

(59:03):
these come up, it's kind of daunting.
It's kind of daunting. You have five
thousand people for delegates alone.
Can you kind of explain
it to a lay a lay person?
What is the function for national board,
local board and even delegate?
Yeah, it's really easy to understand.
It's not that dissimilar from our
national politics, right?
We have states. So we have 50 states in

(59:24):
the United States inside.
After we have 25, they're called locals.
Right. And they all represent a different
geographical part of the United States.
And each of those locals has a state
government, just like we have
states with state government.
So L.A. local has its own local
government and it's directed by
volunteers just like myself who are on
the board of directors.

(59:45):
So you've got like 45 ish people who are
making the decisions about how to spend
the money and the resources that we have
for the benefit of the eighty eight
thousand members that live
in the Los Angeles local.
And so every local has their own local
governance with their own local board.
And those board boards are elected by the
members of every local.

(01:00:05):
And and then the national board is
responsible for making
decisions as a whole.
And it has the most power
over the entire institution.
And that's about 80 individuals that are
on the national board between 10 national
officers and 17 national board members
from across all 25 locals.
And so the delegates came in with after
when we merged with after the

(01:00:26):
convention was an after thing.
So the convention is useful, but it isn't
very it's supposed to be useful.
And it still can be useful, but it's
really not serving the purpose that it
was designed to to serve, which was to
give the membership at large a broader
say in what happens in our union.

(01:00:48):
Because otherwise, you're just stuck with
the local boards deciding what happens
and the national board
deciding what happens.
But the membership beyond electing them
doesn't really have anything else that
they can do in the convention.
Any member can submit a resolution for a
delegate to bring forth to
the floor of the convention.
And if the convention body decides to
support something, it's supposed to be

(01:01:10):
implemented by our national leadership.
It's just that in practice, that hasn't
happened, that even when things pass at
convention, since our national board
isn't technically bound to
do it, they just don't do it.
So you end up having all of this energy
and all of these amazing ideas to get
something to the floor of the convention.

(01:01:31):
And then it actually passes and the body
says we want this and the body is like
500 union members,
leaders from across the country.
And still, the national board won't act
on it because of whatever
political reason or whatever.
So the convention is
kind of a broken system.
It's why Fran has wanted to reform it.
It's why the existing establishment that
I've been kind of working to reform is so

(01:01:52):
hostile to resolutions and the whole kind
of energy that convention has because it
threatens what they want to do because
they don't want to do
what the members want.
They want to be able to
do what they want to do.
And so how long has that
been around the system?
Yeah, our merger was 2012.
So since 2012, we've had this convention
system and it really is
a kind of broken system.
What's awesome about it is the fact that

(01:02:14):
you get to learn so much about what
people want from around the country from
different delegates.
And it's much easier to
get elected as a delegate.
So there's less kind of gatekeeping when
it comes to being a delegate than there
is to being a board member.
And so every delegate can bring forth as
crazy or as cool of an idea as they want.
And you can read all of it
and learn from all of it.
And so it's just a great kind of brain

(01:02:36):
trust harvesting
opportunity for ideas and solutions.
So anyway, right now we're electing
delegates and local board members from
around the country and also a national
president and a
national secretary treasurer.
Part of what I do every election that
I've done this since my very first time
running in 2017 is I put

(01:02:57):
out a letter to the L.A.
membership basically
saying, hey, it's Sean.
Here's what I experienced.
Here's what I think you should know.
Here's who I'm voting for and why in case
you find it helpful and actively kind of
saying, like, here's what I'm trying to
fix and here's how I'm going to fix it.
Which is so funny because there are
members or like leaders who find me to be
like a political adversary or threat

(01:03:17):
because I'm not satisfied with the way
that they've been serving.
And they'll be like, oh, Sean's got some
hidden ulterior agenda.
I'm like, I actually put it in writing
for 60,000 members
every two years at night.
I read it to you.
So there's no mystery.
I'm pretty clear about what my objectives
are, why I'm doing it.
Actually, I just listened to this.
You know, you're talking in your email

(01:03:38):
about hidden gems and boy,
do I have like hidden gems.
Maybe this is one of those.
But I just watched the diary of a CEO
podcast interview with Mr. Beast.
Interesting.
And it's so crazy because it's such a
useful podcast interview.
And one of the things he
talks about is the fact that Mr.
Beast started doing these philanthropy

(01:03:59):
things where he'd like go build wells in
Africa or go help people get like eye
surgeries they need or whatever.
And he's like, there's so many podcasters
out there that will do like, hey, I just
bought another million dollar mansion.
Look at my fancy car.
And all they get is love and adulation.
And then he's like, and then I do a video
where I like build wells in Africa and
the hate that comes in from like, who do

(01:04:21):
you think you are being some white savior
coming in and trying to do this?
Or that's not the most
sustainable solution.
This blah, blah. He's like, it actually
like if you want to be hated, try to do
good because it's like when you when you
try to do something good, there is no
lack of people who will
criticize and think that
you have ulterior motives.
You're doing it just for
this or that reason or whatever.
If you just focus on
serving yourself, you're a hero.

(01:04:42):
You're everybody's baller friend.
You're out there kind of
making making it rain, whatever.
Yeah, all the time. Yeah.
So he's like, actually, if you want
people to like you, I would not recommend
trying to do good things, which is
amazing to hear from the
top YouTuber on the planet.
This is so great.
So kind of calling back the beginning of
the podcast, we were kind of joking
around that, you know, how to have, you

(01:05:03):
know, dissenting opinions.
But in a civil way with even people that
you appreciate and so on.
So going into union politics.
Now, I heard about stories of factions
and wars and you don't
have to get into all of that.
But, you know, before I had an
understanding of all the work that
leaders like yourself have been doing and

(01:05:24):
all the work that the union does that
members who don't know, it's easy for us
to complain to our other actor friends.
It's like, man, this union sucks.
It's like there's so many problems.
If I didn't know any better, I would have
thought trying to organize with a bunch
of creative artistic actors with a
million different opinions.
I would have assumed it
was like herding cans.

(01:05:45):
Can you talk about what the challenges
are that you've seen over since 2017 as
far as organizing a bunch
of professional artists?
Yeah, I mean, this is a
really, really big conversation.
So I'll top line it for you.
Part of what the problem is is that we
like simple answers and simple solutions.
But sometimes the
problem is very complex.

(01:06:05):
Like it would really be easy for me to
say, oh, all these people suck and
they're corrupt and that's not the case.
There are so many
wonderful people in service.
The problem is that sometimes who's
leading them, who they owe, ends up
dominating their better
values and their better judgment.
It's like, OK, I disagree with what's
happening, but if I don't support it,

(01:06:26):
they won't support me
in the next election.
So I kind of have to go along with it.
So it's not so much as herding cats as
much as like like there's a bunch of
mafia bosses that control their people.
And if you get the mafia boss on board,
then you get what you want.
But you have to pay the mafia, you know,
and that expresses itself in so many
gross ways within our

(01:06:46):
national governance structure.
It's part of the reason
why things are so broken.
So like, you know, and it took eight
years for us to fix L.A.
L.A. is now operating properly.
And I'm so proud of our staff and of our
board and of our leadership.
But it took getting some of the most
divisive, toxic kind of
corrupt people out of leadership.
And now they would really be offended to

(01:07:07):
hear me describe it that way, because
they would say, well, the the ends
justified the means.
Like if you think if you think back to
what happened over the period of like 15
years, it created like
sharks and jets or like, you know,
Republicans and Democrats are like
Palestinians and Israelis.
Like there are more peace talks in the
Middle East than between these factions

(01:07:28):
in our union because of how crazy of
drama went on from the 90s
to like the merger in 2012.
So let me just recap for you.
There was a failed merger in the late
90s, so that was very
divisive between after and SAG.
Then there was the
commercial strike in 2000.
Then there was the agencies of the

(01:07:49):
A.T.A., which is basically all the top
agencies deciding they no longer wanted
to work with the union.
And so we lost the
franchise with the A.T.A. in 2002.
Then there was the
failed merger attempt in 2004.
So another fight about merging.
Then there was the lockout and after
negotiating separately with the studios
to undermine SAG that

(01:08:10):
forced the merger in 2009.
And then we were finally merged by 2012.
So you had in the span of a very short
period of time these traumatic events
that happened where the same people kind
of ended up on both sides of the issue.
It was basically those that represented
the Screen Actors Guild and working
performers and those that wanted to merge

(01:08:32):
the union of after with SAG to give us
more leverage, but also represented a lot
of people who weren't making a living.
And the interests of those who make a
living and don't make a living are really
hard to reconcile sometimes because a
performer who makes a living is trying to
keep acting a
sustainable living and improve it.
Whereas somebody who just wants a credit
is willing to give you every penny in

(01:08:53):
their bank account just to be in a movie,
just to move their career forward.
So how do you reconcile these interests?
And then you add different professions
like broadcasters with actors, with
dancers, with singers, with stunt
performers, with pilots.
How are they radio DJs?
So now you've got those things.
Then you've got regional conflicts of the
needs of somebody in Iowa are not the

(01:09:13):
same as somebody in LA, are not the same
as somebody in Atlanta.
All of these fractured competing
interests and then an incredibly
traumatic series of events that just
fractured people across
all these different things.
And so where you kind of ended up after
the merger was all the pro merger people
against LA, which was like Membership
First, which is like the group that kind
of grew out of Los Angeles.

(01:09:35):
That was pro SAG anti the merger the way
it was done and represented
more of like the working actors.
And then you had the pro after people
that got a lot of power because they were
able to basically take 75 percent of the
union for themselves between after and
their portion of SAG and then just
membership first in LA.
So that kind of bred an anti LA vibe

(01:09:56):
across the rest of the country.
And so that's been something we've
actively had to address and fix by
saying, no, no, no, no, no.
That was a long time ago.
We're trying to move those
people like out of leadership.
Now it's about the future.
We're a national union.
We need to take care of everybody.
It's not about LA versus anybody else.
And we need to start acting
together and coming together.

(01:10:16):
But there's so much skepticism around the
rest of the country because of all of
that drama and because a lot of the same
people are in power around the country
who live through all of that.
So they're traumatized about what it
means for a strong Los Angeles local with
lots of resources and great leadership.
I mean, we all knew SAG and after would
have to merge eventually.
It's just how it was going to get done.
But we had a group that

(01:10:36):
basically got the merger done.
And then afterwards,
they were out of ideas.
And everything that they did afterwards
was about maintaining
power and shutting people down.
And so it was run so much like a mean
bullying kind of corrupt regime.
And that's what I started speaking out
about in 2019 when I wrote a 50 page
letter and recorded it.
And that kind of changed the landscape of

(01:10:59):
our union, especially
in LA for the first time.
That party unite for
strength that had merged the union.
They lost Los Angeles local and
membership first took a super majority
position and has controlled the Los
Angeles local since and deservedly so
because they've served
the union membership well.
But I would just kind of say like what I

(01:11:19):
am trying to create is an environment
where people feel like they can speak up.
And just because they're challenging the
status quo does not mean they're going to
be treated with disrespect, with
hostility, with any of that stuff.
You end up with an echo chamber of yes,
people that just keep
telling everybody it's great.
And that's what happened to the
leadership of our local.
And that's what's still plaguing our
national leadership.
And so now that LA is working

(01:11:41):
appropriately, my next era of service is
going to be trying to help as many other
locals around the country ensure they
have the best leadership so that the
focus is on serving the members and
helping them win, not on
maintaining power and control.
And then that power and then that that
shift can translate to national board.
That's the only way to change the
national board because all of our

(01:12:02):
national board members
are elected by their locals.
And so you have to change the local to
change the national.
There's no just changing national.
It's just an expression of the locals.
So if we have unhealthy organs all over
our body, the whole body is in trouble.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, I don't want to dig up old wounds.
The strike you were on the negotiating
board, obviously, you know, you were one

(01:12:23):
of the few people who.
Dissented about the contract.
Can you talk about what
that was like speaking out?
I'll start with saying this.
When I was in junior
high, I was picked on.
I was pushed in the lockers.
I would literally hide under the cubicles
in the library to avoid having to walk in
the hallways because I was so teased
mercilessly for like being

(01:12:44):
different and whatever it is.
And then in high school, just a few years
later, when I was like in a band with the
coolest kids in school and I was like the
leads and plays and I was like, you know,
dressing better and working out like the
same people who used to push me into
lockers were like fawning all over and
being super cool and nice and inviting me
to parties and all that stuff.
I learned at a young
age, people are fickle.
One second, they love you.

(01:13:05):
One second, they don't love you.
Like you can't like your compass cannot
be attuned to other
people's fickle nature.
Right. Nothing speaks
more loudly than value.
We need value to survive.
The membership of this union has
protected me through all of the ups and
downs because they see
what I do as valuable.
And so as long as they continue to elect

(01:13:25):
me and support me, then it doesn't really
matter how other leaders feel about me
because I'm not elected by
leaders, I'm elected by members.
Now, that doesn't mean that I want to
needlessly antagonize other leaders.
In fact, I want nothing more but to unify
and be friends with as
many of them as possible.
It was a miracle that I ended up on the
negotiating committee at all.
But the only reason I ended up there was

(01:13:45):
because I was developing a really good
friendship with Fran, with Duncan, our
national executive director.
A lot of the staff are dear friends of
mine and I worked
with them for many years.
And the Los Angeles local are my friends
and allies who will help get elected.
And I have, you know, tens of thousands
of supporters in the Los
Angeles local over the years.
And so they kind of couldn't deny me.
And because I'm the education guy, I

(01:14:06):
rewrote the orientation our union uses.
I have a grassroots organization that
educated people on a weekly basis about
everything having to do with our union
and other unions and other issues through
the entire pandemic and beyond.
I have a voice. And so they wanted to.
L.A. wanted my voice to be on that
negotiating committee.
I ended up serving on the committee and I
was one of the most involved
negotiating committee members.

(01:14:26):
I was on, you know, subcommittees.
I was part of an inner circle that was
supporting Fran
emotionally through all that stuff.
Then on the strike lines and doing press
and doing member education.
I was involved and I built friendships
with people who had only been skeptical
or had negative views of me from around
the country from being
in that room together.
And we broke bread and we hugged it out

(01:14:46):
and we had amazing conversations and I
built really wonderful friendships.
And then we got to a point where I
couldn't no longer support what the
committee was deciding to
accept in the in the package.
And I told the committee at the time,
like, listen, if you do this, I will vote
no, but I won't

(01:15:07):
actively oppose the contract.
But if you do this, I will have to go out
and tell people that
I'm voting no on this.
You know, I won't tell anybody how to
vote, but I am going to have to say, as
for me, I can't support this, even though
I just gave it a year of my life to
helping to negotiate this.
And ultimately, they went
even two steps further than that.
So they actually crossed like three red

(01:15:28):
lines deep from where I would have had to
oppose it just ethically to myself.
And so I told them I'm going to dissent,
but I'm going to do it as
respectfully as possible.
And I did. I didn't. I never told a
single member to vote.
No, I always said how you
vote is totally your choice.
I can only say why I can't support it.
And here's why. And so I just started to

(01:15:49):
educate people about why.
And then a lot of the members saw value
in what I said and started
to share that with others.
And it kind of became
this like vote no campaign.
And they started demanding the actual
contract language instead of just making
a decision off of the 19
page summary, which is amazing,
because now it's becoming standard for
our union to provide that when we're
making our decisions, as opposed to just

(01:16:10):
going off of a cherry pig summary.
It was funny because, you know, our staff
would say, who wants to
read contract language?
Like we're asking for it.
What? Come on.
I have to say this because we didn't have
time to talk about solidarity, but your
grassroots organization.
I remember people telling me about the
solidarity zooms, your group.

(01:16:31):
And I logged on and I'm like lurking in
the corner of the back of the zoom at
first because I was like, I got to see
what what's going on here.
And all these actors across the country
are reading contracts.
And I'm like, no, I was
like, these people exist.
I was like, I didn't know actors would
ever do this on their free time.

(01:16:52):
When you're trapped in your home by the
pandemic, it's like we were doing we were
we were meeting at one of we would like
meet at each other's
houses before the pandemic.
It was like 12 of us guys getting
together being like,
let's read the Constitution.
Let's read the new Netflix agreement.
Let's all that. And then when the
pandemic struck and we moved online, like
then we'd have 50 to 100 people every
Wednesday just coming in and just

(01:17:14):
whatever was on the docket.
We're going to learn about
this part of the contract.
It was almost like a doctorate program in
unionism that went on
during the pandemic.
And it still continues to this day.
Anyway, I'm very proud of that because so
many of our solidarity
regulars are now committee chairs.
It really kind of became like the West
Point for unionists to come to a place,
which is really disappointing that our
union doesn't offer something like that.

(01:17:35):
Like there's no weekly place you can go
at the union to like learn about stuff
and then have social time afterwards.
And I do hope that we can establish a
solidarity like thing
under Sean's leadership.
Sean Astin, who's
running for national president.
Anyway, so what you were asking about, it
was not pleasant to have to speak out
about why I couldn't support the contract
as the education guy.

(01:17:56):
If I'm out there making a really cogent
argument as to why I can't support it,
anybody who voted yes would suddenly feel
like they had to explain to the
membership why they could
support it when Sean can't.
And it turns out that put a lot of those
negotiating committee members in a bad
position because they couldn't explain in
a capable way why
they supported the deal.
And because there were so few people
willing to speak out publicly.

(01:18:17):
So I got interviewed by everybody.
BBC, CNN, Democracy Now, because I'm like
the only person they could talk to who
had a different point of view than the
unions like to vote.
Yes, this is the greatest deal.
Billion dollar contract kind of language.
And then ultimately I was retaliated
against Fran was so upset that I was kind
of hurting her legacy and not going with
the plan and the Fran plan.

(01:18:38):
And Jody Long, who's our local
president, was furious at me.
So they removed me from every committee,
including programs that had started like
table reads and
conservatory and all that.
So for the last like two years, I've been
kind of banished from my home on those
committees in the L.A.
local for having the audacity to educate
members about why they may not want to
support the contract.

(01:19:00):
And and so it's given me a lot of my time
back, which has been helpful, especially
because I've been very busy with my
career these last couple of years.
But you know what, it was actually a
blessing in so many ways because I had
always been grooming people to take over
in case I was ever
removed from positions because,
you know, I was a pretty big target for
the ruling regime of our union.

(01:19:20):
It was only a matter of time until
somebody got elected and said, you know,
you know, let's get Sean out of there.
So I had been mentoring people and now
every place where I was serving, there
are amazing people who are doing as good
or better a job than I would have done
was in that position.
So even though I think it was unwise, I
was able to protect the union from that
kind of decision making by making sure

(01:19:42):
that there was redundancy so that you
could take me out of the mix.
The program can still function.
And our local staff did some great work
over the last few years to try to remove
politics as much as possible from the
committees, because that's really where
the work of the union takes place.
But you'll notice that Jody Long isn't on
the coalition flyer and on their slate

(01:20:02):
because she ended up behaving in ways
that made it impossible to support her,
not just me supporting her, but her
entire former allies and friendship group
and political party members
at first just could no longer.
Have her be involved. Yeah, I didn't know
about that drama the
past couple of years.
As far as negotiating, how would you say
is is how we balance the line between

(01:20:23):
tangible solutions and
trying to reach for perfection?
Well, so that's the challenge in every
negotiation is what's too far, what's not
far enough, and you want to basically
push it as far as you can go because you
don't want to go in asking for too little
because you only can get a
crack at this every three years.

(01:20:44):
And then it has huge ramifications, like
people not being able to qualify for
health insurance and the health plan not
having enough money and
people not being able to survive.
But you also don't want to go in so
unreasonable that you shut the whole
industry down and ends up like doing more
harm than good in the long term.
Right. So it's kind of this analysis of
like how much damage can we take in order

(01:21:04):
to make sure that this is a sustainable
profession and that we do our job.
And that's really the only tool the union
has is the threat to do a work stoppage
and to go on strike.
That's the only way we can really fight
back against our corporate employers and
they're incentivized to prioritize
shareholder value over
making employees happy.

(01:21:25):
So they have that natural
responsibility to push back.
And so we have to push equally hard back
in the opposite direction.
And so the the only way you can find what
you think is reasonable
is by the brain trust.
And so that's why we have all this
incredible staff of attorneys and people

(01:21:45):
who've been on multiple negotiating
committees like Duncan, who's been
involved with the
organization for 25 years.
Like he's been a part of all of these
things as general counsel and now is the
national executive director.
But you have all our other staff that
have been through so many negotiations.
And so they do the analysis. They crunch
the numbers. We bring
our ideas to the table.
We hash it out together and we put a
package together and then we all look to

(01:22:06):
the staff and we say, we
think this is reasonable.
Now you crunch the numbers and tell us if
we're asking for too much.
And our staff came back to us at the
beginning of the process and said,
everything that you have on this list is
defensible, is reasonable.
It's not asking for too much.
You'll remember that Duncan said when he
did a press conference, when we went on
strike, that the studios could have

(01:22:27):
signed on the bottom line and not seen
any difference in their profits.
Like we what we were offering was so
reasonable, especially after 43 years of
not striking that contract and having
things woefully behind.
And so when we as an organization say
that from the best of our knowledge with
decades of experience of people who've

(01:22:48):
been negotiators on this committee as
members before, as well as our staff
who've been around for decades,
the fact that we think this is defensible
means like we're going
to go to war for this.
Right. And so to end up in a place where
you end up settling for, let's say 16, 17
percent of what you all agreed was
reasonable at the outset is frick.

(01:23:09):
And brutal. Right. And in a lot of cases,
you're asking yourself, like, have we
done everything we can reasonably do to
try to get the most for our members?
And the answer to that question for me
was no, that we still had a lot of tools
up our sleeve, a lot of tools that we
could use to get more for our members.

(01:23:30):
But our negotiating committee as a whole
decided it was time to end the process.
And so that's when they voted up the
tentative agreement and
took the deal that they did.
I think we left our greatest asset unused
the entire time, which was to activate
all of our members and their the fact
that there's some of the most
recognizable faces on the planet to call
for consumer boycotts, either a general

(01:23:51):
boycott or a targeted boycott against one
platform and just say, OK, everybody
cancel your Netflix subscriptions or
everybody cancel your Disney Plus or
everybody cancel your Amazon Prime
accounts and just call on the AFL-CIO,
which is 50 million union members across
so many unions in the United States, as
well as all of the fans and the

(01:24:12):
supporters of us as artists, all of the
people who support our careers and
saying, hey, if you're a fan of me, I'm
asking you to do this to
help my union win against you.
What is unfair business practices going
on? We never pulled that trigger.
We never used the one asset we have over
every other union, which is the celebrity
and the influence of our members over the

(01:24:32):
culture and over people's beloved
connection to entertainment.
Absolutely. And that was the time because
I think what I felt during the strike was
it really leveled the playing field.
Everybody was kind of in it together.
And like you say, like there are
competing interests between people who
are just working actors and that's how
they make their living and people who are
desperate to book a job.
But during the strike, I found that
everybody was in the same boat and

(01:24:52):
everybody's together.
And the public was on our side.
Oh, absolutely. We
totally could have done that.
It's not like the industry
came roaring back anyway.
And we were going into the Christmas
holiday where it wouldn't have affected
employment for us to be out there for
another month or two.
We had members signing letters that were
open letters with thousands and thousands
of signatures saying stay strong.

(01:25:13):
You know, one of the big problems we have
with that whole process is that, you
know, when you go to a W&W and you
present a proposal that you want to
hopefully be taken up by the negotiating
committee, that's it.
Then you have no idea what the
negotiating committee is going to decide,
what the package looks like.
All you see is what comes back after the
negotiation when we say
here's what we negotiated.

(01:25:34):
But you have no idea where we started to
end up where we did.
So you have no frame of reference of
like, you know, this you should have
stuck with this or this.
Why did you go all the way to the right?
So the lack of transparency about that
whole process is really not helpful
because it robs the membership from being
able to know whether they're being well
served or not and to be

(01:25:55):
informed about the whole thing.
Because, you know, we can
say, hey, we want revenue share.
Then we come back with a streaming bonus.
That's like the
smallest, stupidest thing.
It's like, I know that's
not why I walked in circles.
You know what I mean?
So all kinds of A.I.
Like so many people were completely under
the wrong impression about
what we were doing in A.I.
They thought we would come back with
really strong protections against A.I.
Instead of we coming back saying, hey,

(01:26:17):
feel free to replace us with synthetics
and non-human characters
with CGI as much as you want.
Like that's not all we talked about.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So anyway, it's you can tell I have I
have no passion about this subject.
No, I love it. I love it.
You've been so forthcoming
about it and so so so generous.
But I just wanted to
ask you to be remiss.

(01:26:37):
I know we haven't got a ton
of time and you need to go.
We want to be mindful of your time.
But I would love to just hear about the
process of you getting your first series
regular role and how that felt.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. We're
getting to the chosen right now.
Yeah, this is great.
What that process was like for you, you
know, obviously having it as a goal and
then achieving that.
Was there a lot of, you know, uncertainty
during the process or was
it fairly easy and natural?

(01:26:59):
No, it was very easy and natural.
It was like I got an
audition from my agent.
I did the self tape for the first round.
I got the callback in person with the
director at the casting director's office
a month later for a different role.
And then that's the role
they ultimately offered me.
And I ended up shooting the first four
episodes in the fall of 2018.
And then we got enough money to shoot the
second four episodes of the first season

(01:27:19):
in the summer of 2019.
Then the pandemic struck, which like set
us back a little bit.
But then, yeah, we went
back to production in 2020.
And yeah, it's been seven years so far.
And we've got one more
season left to film next year.
Then that'll be it for this show.
It was always envisioned
as a seven season show.
It's the first time I've been a part of a
series like this for as long

(01:27:40):
as I have as a series performer.
It's a huge ensemble cast with so many
amazing performers that we've
all kind of grown up together
in that role, you know, as as being on a
show with this kind of impact.
It's nothing less than a miracle, life
changing, humbling,
completely altered my life forever.

(01:28:02):
And I'm just so grateful.
And my focus is on telling
the best story that I can.
And it feels the same on set as it did in
2018 with no money in the middle of a,
you know, Weatherford, Texas kind of
recreation of first century Jerusalem
as it does now with half a billion people
watching our show around the world

(01:28:23):
and having our own like set that we built
from the ground of a
turn of the millennium,
you know, Roman city of Capernaum that's
huge with huge sound stages and all that.
It's just been crazy to see how something
grew and all independently outside of the
traditional studios and
networks and all crowdfunded,
completely supported, independently

(01:28:44):
financed by people
who support what we do,
which is why we were granted an interim
agreement almost
immediately when we went on strike is
because we weren't an AMPTP production,
like the only show on the
planet that wasn't an AMPTP
production. And now it's spawning a whole
kind of cinematic
universe for the company that's,
you know, behind the chosen. It's just

(01:29:04):
been a dream come true.
I spent the last six months traveling to
Italy, to Utah, to
Texas, where I am right now.
And then now I'm getting invited to do
speaking engagements where
communities are bringing me
and other cast members out to be
catalysts for putting their
differences aside and just say,
"Hey, how can we bring people of
different faiths together to just focus
on love and unity and
service and all this kind of stuff?" Like

(01:29:24):
it's a dream come true.
And I'm just so grateful.
But I also say, like I did the work to be
ready when this
opportunity came to me, like my work
ethic, my infrastructure, like when I got
the self tape, I knew
exactly who to ask to help me prep.
And she worked with me for hours on that
to make sure that we did the best work.
And I had the self taping setup already

(01:29:47):
dialed in from years of
doing that and my casting
experience and whatever. And then because
I'm a psycho, I brought
her with me to the callback
and we ran stuff outside
the office before. Wow.
So she was outside the office running
stuff with me moments before I go in the
room and did it with
Beverly and Dallas and, you know, in the
room. You know, I've done
that countless times where
I will take somebody with me to a lot to

(01:30:07):
an office so that like, I'm not just
going cold waiting in
the waiting room. Like I'm running that
stuff with so many
moments before I go in the room.
That is a great idea. You know, or I'll
call somebody on the
phone where they go when I'm
walking around outside the trailer or
something. I'll run lines
with somebody over the phone.
Yeah, that's a great idea. So just some
numbers for the chosen
because it really is a phenomenon.
The crowdfunding campaign for the chosen

(01:30:28):
was one of the most
successful in history.
Ten million dollars was raised among
16000 investors. So
that's a case study in itself.
One hundred seventy five countries
translated in 75 languages.
This is all outside of the
studio system. I believe that there there
were some moments where
it was put in theaters.
Oh gosh, no, it is put in theaters every

(01:30:49):
every season. Now we launch in theaters.
Oh, every season is in
theaters. I didn't know that.
Which is insane because we're the only
television show that that
starts in movie theaters.
And because it's a television show and
it's put in theaters, we
get residuals for that.
If you shoot a movie as a SAG-AFTRA
member, the exhibition is

(01:31:09):
in your initial compensation.
You don't get any box office, you know,
money from that. Like you
already got that in your
initial compensation unless you're a
celebrity or a star and you
negotiated back end points
or profit participation or something. But
because it's a TV show
that's moved into theatrical
exhibition, we do get residuals for that.
Then we go on to
streaming and then we go on the CW
where we get the broadcast network

(01:31:30):
residuals as well. So it's like this
insane combination of like
all these ways of exhibition. And
actually every penny our show has ever
spent was crowdfunded,
either through donations to come and see,
which is the foundation
that was set up to make sure
that we didn't have to interrupt
production. Like they underwrite the show
so that if we're short
on crowdfunding, they'll stop gap it so

(01:31:52):
we can still keep going.
But you know, our budgets have
increased every year. So I guess in the
aggregate, we've got to be
in the neighborhood of 300
million dollars that has been raised to
produce the six
seasons that we have so far.
And every episode is free for everyone to
stream, stream for free.
There's no paywall. I mean, this is the
first year that we are a
Amazon Prime exclusive streaming

(01:32:13):
show for 90 days. And then after 90 days,
it goes on our own website
and app and people can watch it
for free no matter where they are. And
they don't even need an email
address to sign up like it's
completely free and easy for people to
watch. So Amazon was like,
fine, doesn't matter. We'll take
the 90 day window. We just want we want
to be the exclusive initial streaming
platform for you guys.
Revolutionary. I do want to add just the

(01:32:36):
fact that not only is this successful,
you know, marketing wise financially, and
obviously it has a great message as
someone who's partial
to growing up in the church and whether
you believe in it or not,
I actually do believe the
Bible is one of the greatest stories ever
told. The Bible stories
in media for years besides

(01:32:57):
maybe Passion of the Christ. A lot of
those stories used to be
kind of caricaturey, maybe
like preachy kind of hit you over the
head. This feels like a really great TV
show that just happens
to be about these stories and characters.
And you know, I just want
to as a Christian, I just
wanted to say that because I feel like
that's the goal. Just a dramatic TV

(01:33:18):
series. We don't call it
a faith based show. It's not a preachy
thing. It's not meant to
convert anybody. Like the show is a
dramatic television series that's based
on the Bible. 95% of the
show is just our imagined,
you know, stories of what it might have
been like to be alive at
that time and, you know,
be around Jesus at that time and the
people who knew him and
whatever. So it's the reason why

(01:33:38):
our show is different is because it had
the courage to take
creative license and imagine all
of that stuff and say, hey, there's no
evidence that Matthew was on
the autism spectrum. But what
if he was? Because it might explain some
of how his writing is so
different than the other books
in the gospels. And there's nothing that
says one of the apostles
had multiple sclerosis or
something, but having a disability is so
relatable because one in

(01:33:58):
five Americans has one. Like,
so, you know, the, it's just been such an
incredible, because it
doesn't take a denominational
approach. So it's been a unifying kind of
depiction because you can't say this is a
Catholic depiction or it's a evangelical
depiction or it's a Latter-day Saints
depiction. It's just
scripture plus imagination. And we have a

(01:34:19):
panel of a messianic
rabbi, a Catholic priest and
evangelical pastor, all who read all the
scripts to try to point out
anything that they think could
be problematic or go against scripture or
something. And nothing gets put out
unless that whole team
thinks that this is the best we can do.
It doesn't mean there still won't be
controversies because
you can't make everybody happy,
especially when there's like 6,000
denominations of Christianity

(01:34:41):
alone or something like that. That's an
interestingly democratic process for a TV
show, which is not, you know, not always
the case. I just wrap with
this question for me, but I,
you know, you seem to have a really good
sense of self, of who you are
and your experience has been
incredible. I mean, you've had such a
wide, varied, successful
career and continue to,

(01:35:03):
what do you struggle with? Is there
anything that like trips
you up? Is there anything that
any challenges you have to overcome?
Yeah, of course. I think
when you're problem solving,
it can be really challenging to solve
those problems, like the
amount of people management
and personality management that you've

(01:35:24):
had to do. You know, like for
me to have served for a year
with people from around the union that I
grew to be close with and
that we finally broke bread
together. We finally saw eye to eye. They
finally met me and they
learned I wasn't a monster. I was
actually somebody who, whose heart was in
the right place and
whatever. Like, and then to see
those relationships deteriorate simply
because I didn't go along

(01:35:44):
with the crowd and say, this is
the best contract and everybody should
support it. Like that hurts. You know
what I mean? Say once
again, because I didn't do what they
wanted me to do, I became like persona
non grata again. And
that sucks because there's a cost to
speaking up and speaking your
truth. So I think that's been
really difficult is just how hard it is
to make positive change,
how much you have to overcome

(01:36:06):
institutional on we. One thing that's
also been tough is I've been
such a hard worker focusing
on solving problems in my career. I would
have thought I would
have had a family by now,
but that's the next phase of my life is
to focus on my personal
life, not just on my professional
life. So, but that's something I always
said. And I think other
people say this too, is I'll have a

(01:36:27):
family once I have a certain amount of
stability that I can support
a family and kind of focus on
that aspect. So I've made such a
sacrifice in my life of time and energy,
just working and not
focusing on my personal relationships as
much. But one, one kind of
like, you know, hidden gem
that I would say for everybody to avail

(01:36:47):
themselves of is a video by
Mark Rober on YouTube called the
Super Mario effect. It's something I make
all of my students watch.
But essentially what he says in
that video is we don't want to play a
video game where it's just,
you know, you just walk across
the screen and you win. Like that would
not be a fun game. We love games that

(01:37:08):
challenge us and you
you try and you fail and you try again
and you strategize and
it's fun to figure out like,
oh, that's how you solve this puzzle.
That's how you do this. So look, I'm
getting better at this.
For some reason, we feel like our success
in our industry should be
more like the first. But if
it was that way, we wouldn't value it. We
wouldn't value it if you
just sign up and here's your

(01:37:28):
career. Like then everybody would do that
and it would just be
complete chaos. No, we actually,
the fact that it's a challenge is a
feature, not a bug. Like the
fact that we value it because it
takes so much like courage and strength
and commitment and
problem solving and creativity
and, you know, support from other people
and collaboration and all
these things, that's part

(01:37:48):
of what makes it so damn fun. And so if
you look at life more like
a game and setbacks as like
learning opportunities to learn how to do
it better next time, then
you almost can't lose. And so
I used to sign all my letters or all my
backstage articles that I
would write, you can't fail if

(01:38:09):
you never quit, right? I'll either win or
I'll die trying, but like,
you don't, you can't fail
if you never quit. And so I've always
looked at this as a game
where it's like, Oh, I fell in the
pit. Looks like I need to just run a
little faster next time. Like I'm not
like, Oh, I fell in a pit.
What am I doing? Yeah. Am I crazy? You
know, like I should just

(01:38:29):
leave it. You know, like I'm a
failure. I'm just in this pit. No, I'm in
process. I'm in process.
I'm playing the game. I'm in
figuring it out, you know? But because I
really want things to be
better, whenever I run up against
either incompetence or ignorance or, you

(01:38:50):
know, straight up
corruption or meanness or bullying
or injustice, then that's when things are
tough because I'm not
somebody who wants to be in
conflict with other people. I actually,
anybody who knows me
personally, who's, who's taken any
of my classes at the union or whatever it
is, they know that I am
all about love and support
and all that stuff. Like it's clear.

(01:39:11):
Yeah. I don't, I'm not, but I'm also not
scared of bullies. I
also don't back down from bullies. And so
if there's a problem, yo, I'll solve it.
It's a quote of fame. Well, this is a
great place to end. What's the best way
to keep in touch with
you, Sean, links, obviously we're going

(01:39:31):
to put, you know, information on the
chosen and all these
other resources in the show description.
Very simple. Just, you
know, my Instagram is at Sean
Sharma at Sean underscore Sharma. So I'm
very easy to find there. And
my email is just Sean at Sean
Sharma.com. I send that out with all of
my letters to 60,000 members every two
years. So it's not like
it's a big secret. And so yeah, I'm very

(01:39:54):
easy to reach. I'm very easy
to find. Not a lot of people
have the spelling of my name that I do.
So if somebody wants to get
in touch, that's the way to
do it. So you already dropped a few
hidden gems. If you wanted to drop
another hidden gem, I mean,
I think you did more than enough. Yeah,
there is a clip. You'd have
to search on YouTube for it.
I know Jordan Peterson can be kind of a

(01:40:15):
controversial figure
for people, but you know,
especially years ago before he joined
like daily wire plus and got kind of
really into that whole
phase. There's just pretty much a
university professor and
doing these incredible lectures
about taking responsibility and
sharpening yourself up and
being the best you can be.
There is a like five, six minute clip of
him speaking on stage at an

(01:40:35):
event where he talks about
how you're a node in a network and what
you do affects so many
people, because let's say, you
know, a thousand people, they know a
thousand people. So you,
you have the ability to reach
millions of people through the people you
already know, if you set
out a pulse through your own
network. And so what you say is
important. What you do is
important and the importance of

(01:40:56):
sharpening yourself up and saying what
you think and saying what
you believe, even if you are
proven wrong, because then you'll learn
and you'll get sharper. And if you just
get used to speaking
up and articulating yourself, you'll
become a force to be
reckoned with. And that's been the
story of my life as well. The fact that
I'm formidable. When I
take a position on something,
people know that it's not, you know, a

(01:41:17):
kind of trivial matter. I
put a lot of thought and I
have a lot of expertise behind what it is
that I say, which is why I
think a lot of members of
our union look to me for, for guidance on
issues, because they know
I've put in the work and I have
the, the education on that stuff. And so
I think that that video
along with the Super Mario effect
are two of the most powerful videos that
I have my students watch, because it

(01:41:39):
basically encourages
them to be courageous, to make strong
choices, including
artistically, and to not back down from
those and let anybody tyrannize their
tongue and, and rob them of their
creative leadership and
vision and to not be discouraged when
they're on this journey.
Because if it was too easy,
they wouldn't respect it. The fact that

(01:41:59):
it's difficult, as you
know, Mark Rober says is a
feature, not a bug. And like you said,
adversity is a privilege. It's like, my
God, I don't want to be
bored for the rest of my life, just
getting everything. If you
want, if you want someone
to be miserable, give them everything
they want the moment
they want it. Yeah, exactly.
Because then you don't have a purpose.
You know, we need purpose. We're beings
that need to wake up
every morning and have a goal and see
ourselves making progress towards that

(01:42:21):
goal. And what I tell
my in my talks and my lectures that I do
with the union, I say, you will die on
the way to your dream.
Because even if whatever your dream is
right now, even if you
achieve that, you will then have
another and when you achieve that, you
will then have another. So at
any point when you die, it'll
be when you're on a route to some dream
that you're working towards.

(01:42:41):
So if you're the kind of person
who says, I will be happy when you're
already set up wrong, you got to enjoy
the journey, not just
the destination. That's beautiful. Well
put. So I got one. I was gonna
say, well, we'll do once real
quick. Usually our guests come up with
better hidden gems than we do. Way
better. Mine's terrible.
Okay, you should read you go first

(01:43:02):
figures out. Well, I'll tell you what,
had we not been talking
to you today, Sean, mine was going to be
the saga after conservatory,
because I'm so impressed by it.
So since you are here and have talked
about it at length in much
more eloquent terms than I ever
could, mine is ridiculous. It's a
sandwich. I ate the other day, I went to
a sandwich place up the
street here in Montana. The sandwich
place is called breadhead.

(01:43:22):
There's a few of them around.
They make their own bread. When I say
they are enormous
sandwiches, I got the biggest sandwich
I've ever eaten. Now they're quite
expensive. It's a bit overpriced for
sandwich, I have to say,
but I met a friend of mine for lunch. We
went to this place. So I
was like, give me the, give me
the full one. The full one's massive.
Most people just get a half. And the guy
goes, oh, if you get
a full one, you can take half home. I was

(01:43:42):
like, brilliant. I ate the
full sandwich I didn't eat
for 24 hours after it. That's how big it
was. It was delicious. Well,
funny, I'll spit one out. And
Sean, you spend some time in New York, so
you might enjoy this one.
So I have another restaurant
hidden gem. Yeah, we just do this. I
don't know if you've been to
Delmonico's. Have you been to

(01:44:03):
the steakhouse in New York? I have. Okay,
so it's not hidden to
you, but I went there for
restaurant week. So restaurant week is,
you know, it's a special
deal. It was great value. I was
blown away. Delmonico's started in 1837.
A dessert called the Baked
Alaska was coined when the U.
Oh, you know the story. When U.S.

(01:44:23):
purchased Alaska, and it was a joke, they
created the dessert,
Baked Alaska. They use banana ice cream,
apricot jam, because those were the
ingredients that were
available. And they haven't changed the
recipe since 1837.
Anyway, those are hidden gems.
Not to steal any. It's pale in comparison
to yours. No, that's

(01:44:44):
great. There's a restaurant
not too far away from us here called
Prime 115 in Waxahatchee, Texas. They
have a Delmonico's ribeye,
and I get it a couple of times a week
when I'm out here. Oh, nice. Yeah, they
created the Delmonico
steak. I just want to say thank you for
coming on the show, but also your
service, this shift that

(01:45:04):
you're making in the union membership.
I'm part of that. I'm one of those who
wasn't engaged at all.
And now I'm feeling that there's so much
work that we can strive for
and also working with other
people. Very grateful for everything
you've done. And thanks
for coming on the show.
Yeah, you're making great content. I
think I reached out to
you and I said, keep it up,
because that's the kind of fun stuff we
need to keep people excited about

(01:45:25):
learning is for you to
take complex things and make it really
fun and easy to digest.
So keep up the great work.
Appreciate that. All right. Thank you.
It's been wonderful.
Really appreciate you, Sam.

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