May 20, 2025 • 49 mins
Welcome to Episode 29 of the Actor’s Guide to The End of the World!
This one is PACKED. We have AI Regulations for actors, healthcare, and everyone else are in danger thanks to the folks in Congress. You'll hear what happened when E-Kan gave them a call this week.
E-Kan and Rían also go over the tentative SAG-Aftra commercial contract up for vote this week and everything actors need to know to make an informed decision and what major gains were achieved. Also why these contracts are important for all actors, whether you're in SAG-Aftra or not. They get on to the very polarizing talk about union, fi-core, non-union, and the rampant amount of non-union projects, especially commercials. Why is Fi-core so polarizing? Should there be a stigma around fi-core? We go DEEP on this. Rian even drops some Ireland political history into the mix.
You'll hear what casting site just got called out for using AI models on its site. OY it never ends.
Then they discuss the valuable lesson learned from Alan Rickman, who achieved major fame with his first movie role at age 41 in Die Hard which gets them on to the importance of having a life, staying in the game, and how to play the waiting game as an actor without being a victim. Both Rían and E-Kan share how fear and ego has held them back and what they're doing about it and the power of community.
Follow us wherever you find your podcasts, including video on YouTube and Substack.
Hidden Gems:
AMC Discount Wednesdays and Tuesdays (with free Stubs membership)
Griffith Observatory show (Los Angeles) https://griffithobservatory.org/explore/daily-programs/
(02:10) Congress tries to strip AI Regulations
(04:15) E-Kan calls Congress
(07:26) The ongoing AI debate
(09:13) Casting site gets caught using AI models
(12:00) SAG-Aftra Commercial Contract
(14:15) How Streaming commercials pay out vs Linear TV
(24:00) What is Fi-core?
(28:55) Does Fi-core weaken the Union?
(35:00) Is it wrong to work outside of LA?
(37:10) Alan Rickman broke out at 41
(39:15) What is your idea of making it?
(43:16) E-Kan faced his fear
(44:20) Don’t wait for someone to reach down to you
(45:00) Hidden Gems
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
The picture of actors on their ad for
(00:03):
casting.com, the acting casting site,
they used AI to generate
these models. I know it sounds as
ridiculous as it is. The giveaway was the
fingernails were screwed
up. There wasn't six fingers, but it was
like morphed and like, it
was like morphed in like a
bad zoom call. Hey guys, welcome to the
actor's guide to the end of
(00:24):
the world podcast where we
talk about acting in Hollywood in a way
people understand. I'm
E-Kan Soong and this is Rían Sheehy Kelly
Rían Sheehy Kelly
How you doing? What's up buddy?
Follow us wherever you find
your podcast at Actors Guide
podcast. We have video on sub-stack and
YouTube. Make sure you
follow us on all social media at
Actors Guide podcast. Leave a review,
leave a comment, greatly
(00:44):
appreciate it. So on the show
for today, I tell a story about how I
called Congress. I was
doing my part as a concerned
citizen. I don't like to brag, but I am
an American hero. To
give a little context, there
was a reconciliation bill that was being
pushed up and in it had
(01:06):
AI regulations being banned
for 10 years. Yeah, so we get into all of
that. We also talk about
the SAG commercial contract
that is up for vote right now. We're
going to talk about all the
major gains that they achieved
and everything you need to know. We also
(01:27):
get into an honest
conversation about union,
five core, non-union, and why it's so
polarizing and why there's so many
non-union commercials.
And we talk about staying in the game
long enough without feeling like you're
waiting for your big
break. That's our show. Sit back and
relax. However, and
wherever you're listening to us,
thank you for making us part of your day.
(01:48):
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may occur. We have a lot
(02:09):
going on. We're going to jump around
today. One thing I want to
tell you, I happened to call
Congress this week. It was actually
yesterday. I called Congress. I'm going
to tell you all about
it. Just to say great job or? Actually, I
should probably give a
little context. There was a crazy
mega bill. Literally, that's the words
(02:30):
that they used. There was a mega bill.
Congress was pushing
it up and trying to get it passed. It's
specifically about the budget.
It just so happened that they
threw in a clause saying that it is not
allowed to put AI regulations on
anything. Actors, likenesses,
(02:51):
all that stuff for 10 years. This is kind
of like the point where
obviously we got into a little
political stuff last week. We're talking
about stuff that's
relating to actors. If you're
listening to this, it's something that
actors probably should
know. I had no idea. Someone
tagged me on this jargon. I was like,
(03:13):
"What is this?" It was so not on my
radar. Hang on a minute.
It was so bonkers. Yeah, go ahead. How
can they even do that?
How can you especially? No,
that's bonkers to me. Especially, I
thought there was a kind of a
thing among Republicans where
they don't want to interfere with state
(03:33):
laws. Then, you know,
federal's bad state is good.
I don't know. Anyway, that seems nuts.
Oh, that's a good point. That's a great
point. I don't know.
But a lot of things don't really make
sense these days. This bill, we can
safely say that big tech
is throwing a lot of money. I mean, it's
(03:54):
not a surprise. How much
they're concerned about us
as actors, probably not that much. A lot
of actors were passing it
around. I saw enough videos,
and I was like, "You know what? Honestly,
let me call Congress." So
when you say call Congress,
how does that work? So you go, "I'm going
to call Congress. Is that
I'm going to call my local
Congress person? Do you just call up and
(04:17):
go, "Put the nearest person
on the phone. I want to yell at
them." That's a great question. I know as
little as you do, it just
so happened that one of these
videos literally put the number for
Congress in her video. Oh, there you go.
And she's great. I'll
give her a shout out. I want to say her
handle is Patriotic Lady, blonde, very
(04:40):
articulate. She's on
all the platforms. She's actually pretty
huge. So she literally put
the number of Congress on there.
Can't make it any harder than that, any
easier than that. I
literally called Congress.
A person picks up in five seconds. It was
like I was calling my local
library. I was so thrown off
(05:01):
because I was expecting an automated
message. I was expecting the
voicemail to be full. I was
literally looking for an out saying,
"Hey, I tried." And then next thing you
know, I'm like, "Oh,
hi." I literally said, "Is this the line
for Congress?" This is
how out of my element I was.
I would have felt like you that I was
(05:22):
calling a state representative or
whatever. She got my zip
code. She transferred me over to another
person. Super casual, super
chill, not crazy. Thankfully,
I was kind of articulate to say, "Oh, so
what's your concern?" And I was like,
"Oh, this reconciliation
bill." And so on. "Oh, do you have
(05:43):
anything you wanted to add to
the note?" I was like, "Well,
there's a part in it that's about AI and
AI regulations. I'm in
entertainment and it's
something I deeply care about. And I
think this is troubling that
there are no regulations and
hypothetically for 10 years for all the
state bills that have been passed.
(06:04):
We'll get us into treky territory."
Anyway, I didn't have
anything written down. I wasn't
expecting to talk to a normal person or
talk to a person. She got
down my name. She was like,
"Do you want them to respond to you?" I
was like, "Oh, no, I'm okay. Just let
them know. I'm concerned
about this. The kicker of all this, I
(06:26):
tell my friends who are
sending me these things." I was
like, "I called Congress. I feel pretty
good about myself." It just
so happened, literally the day
after. Actually, it was actually that
afternoon. That bill was shot down. It
was the night it was
voted down. I would love to say that it
(06:49):
was because of me. It definitely was. It
was not because of me.
It definitely was. Guys, I know you all
like this bill. I know you
really got excited about it,
but a guy called us and he doesn't like
it. Yeah, I took notes.
Here they are. Sorry, guys.
Anything that forbids restrictions on
something for 10 years seems
(07:10):
ludicrous to me. For 10 years,
especially with how fast technology
moves, that's bananas. AI in the next 10
years is everything.
That's what everyone's saying. It's like,
"This is the 10 years for the upper AI."
Don't put any restrictions on it. Easy.
That is the very
definition of special interest.
(07:32):
Somebody's gone, "No restrictions for 10
years. Can't take it back."
Nuts. I tend to land on the side of
optimism and go, "I think
it's going to be okay." I sort of
believe that people will never fully
accept AI as... That humans can't be
replaced by AI. But I do
know that there are massive chunks of
this industry and there
(07:52):
are jobs that are going to be
eliminated because of AI. But I still
think that ultimately it will be all
right. I don't know why.
It's just, if I'm going to lie to myself,
I'm going to tell myself the
most helpful lie that I can.
I'm like, "You know what? It's going to
be okay." Because the
alternative is going around,
thinking the world's about to end.
(08:13):
Ignorance is bliss in
a way. We will get into
AI a little bit when we talk about the
SAD contract, which is a
step in the right direction.
They got more AI protections. Commercials
is a big area for AI as well because
we're talking about background actors,
talking about SATs, SAT
(08:34):
design. We'll save it for another
podcast. There is so much that is going
on. There are a lot of bills
being pushed and being passed
right now. Besides this scary
reconciliation bill, there's a lot of
progress that is being made.
California is involved in a lot of it.
(08:55):
Nashville, I'm sorry,
Tennessee and the music industry in
Tennessee doing huge things, protecting
musicians, protecting artists. We'll
definitely get into that
another time. Actually, one thing I
wanted to throw out
there, speaking of commercials,
we're going to talk about the commercial
contract. I just saw
this online. Casting.com,
which is one of the most... It's one of
(09:17):
our casting sites. You put
up a headshot. To be honest,
I don't even think I'm on it. It's one of
those smaller ones who's
just trying to get money from
actors. I saw this Instagram post.
Someone was calling them out.
They're ad a picture of actors
on their website. Supposedly, it was
created by AI. Wait,
(09:37):
say that again? Which?
The picture of actors on their ad for
casting.com, the acting casting site,
they used AI to generate
these models. I know it sounds as
ridiculous as it is. We'll
put a link to that post in the
description, but this is what we have to
deal with. They're
(09:59):
advertising to actors, hoping to
make money off of actors, getting money
off of actors. They have
the indecency to use an ad
generated by AI and not real people. The
giveaway was the fingernails
were screwed up. There wasn't
six fingers, but it was morphed in a bad
(10:21):
Zoom call and you got
messed up fingers or whatever.
That's where we are right now. I also
think it's hilarious that
AI can't handle fingers,
but still can't handle fingers. It's such
a dead giveaway. I saw a
trailer for a movie that was all
AI generated that popped up on Instagram.
People were like, "Oh, this
is great, but I don't know.
There's something weird about it. It's
(10:41):
something just eerie and
off." I've seen a lot of AI
misunderstanding context, which is a hard
thing for a computer to
recognize. I think somebody
posted a picture of a Google search that
said, "Is Marlon Brando in
heat?" AI had gone into a
description of how heat was related to
(11:03):
animals when they were
reproducing and when they were
fertile. As a deceased human being, it
would not apply to Marlon
Brando that he would be in heat.
It's that thing of you can have access to
all the knowledge in the
world, but if you don't
understand context or nuance, what's the
(11:24):
point? I still don't know. I
still don't think it's going
to be... I don't think it's going to
replace the industry. If you haven't
heard, we did an episode
on AI. It was talking about Ben Affleck.
There was a big interview
that he did, and he had some
really articulate comments. I still think
it holds up. I think for a lot of
creatives, AI is not
going to replace it. It's going to be a
(11:46):
tool that we're probably not
going to be able to escape.
That being said, going to this commercial
contract, fighting to put a
line in the sand of what's
not right. Let's talk about this
commercial contract. We did
an episode when I went to one
of the first meetings. It was called
W&W's. That's short for
(12:07):
wages and working conditions.
You put in motions, you raise your hand,
you go up to the mic, and you
say, "This has happened at an
audition. I put in a motion to do A, B,
or C." To hear the
conversations of what happens and then
what they eventually push through. They
had this huge document. They
pushed it to the negotiating
(12:28):
board. The negotiating board did it all
through March, I believe.
They avoided a strike, got this
contract. They sent it to the board. The
board approved it. They're
sending it to us members to
vote on. Before we get into some of the
nuts and bolts, if you're
non-union, a lot of this stuff
applies to you. First of all, everyone
(12:49):
auditions for commercials because
they're easier to get involved in, easier
to see new talent. They pay
often a lot better than TV.
Even if you're in another country or
you're in another region,
it's kind of helpful to say,
"Hey, this is how much we get paid for a
commercial that is streaming on Netflix."
(13:10):
And then in another country, an actor
could say, "Well, this is
how much we get paid. Wow."
Spoiler alert, it's
always lower than America.
Yeah, yeah. I was trying to be a
diplomatic way of saying that, but yeah.
So there was a huge,
huge concern about, obviously, if you
(13:32):
have a national commercial
that's on TV, on what they
call linear TV, that's an actual TV set,
ABC, NBC. I know who
actually watches that, right?
Those commercials are becoming fewer and
more rare. What about all
these bajillion commercials
that are on Netflix, that are on YouTube,
(13:52):
that are on Amazon, that
are on Freebie, that are on
Fubu, on Pluto, whatever? On Zavil, on
Flob, on Frunch. Yeah,
exactly. Those sounded very Dutch.
Fudal. So we made a huge gain. And a lot
of this is a shout out to
the negotiating board because
they worked their ass off and they
avoided a strike to this
point. We don't know if this
(14:13):
country is getting voted in. You have
this week to vote it in, yes or no.
Anyway, so the rates
for streaming jumped up. A streaming
platform, $10,000 for a year. That's a
lot more than it used to be.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but the
way you get paid on linear TV or
terrestrial TV is like,
you do cycles of when it's shown on
(14:36):
these. Do you get paid per showing or is
it just being showed?
Yeah, it's essentially per cycle, usually
13 weeks. If you get a
national commercial on, say,
network, it's kind of amazing. They
literally will show you the program that
it was airing on. That's
how specific it was. You would know. It's
(14:57):
like, "Hey, good morning,
America." It played during
there. And then it's playing on ESPN, NBA
playoffs. Meanwhile, for
streaming, they have all the debt
in the world and we still aren't getting
paid per use. It's funny
because I just saw a commercial.
I was watching SNL on Peacock with a pile
of mine. It showed an ad
(15:18):
that was for a pharmaceutical
company. One of the big pharmaceutical
companies, I won't name them,
but to give them any more free
publicity. But the ad showed three times
in a row. I know for a fact, because I
know the actor in it,
and I know for a fact that was shot in
Ireland, because I know the
actor in the ad. And he had
(15:39):
posted something about it when he did it.
He goes, "Oh, my first US ad,
three times in a row, this ad
shot." I guarantee you, he didn't get
anything like the money he would have
gotten paid in America
for that commercial. But it's obviously
non-union because it's being shot in
Ireland. I used to see
it in voiceovers as well. A lot of the
pharmaceutical
commercials are non-union. Yeah,
(16:01):
so it's interesting that a commercial
will be shown on a
streaming service here that is only
an American streaming service. I mean,
Peacock doesn't exist
because it's NBC. It doesn't exist
outside of the US. But the ad would have
been shot in Ireland, paid
in Ireland, and aired here.
Yeah. And we're going to get into that
because last week we
talked about productions going
(16:22):
overseas. Commercials is going, is
literally right now facing that same
problem. So remind me,
so you did work a commercial in Mexico
City. What year was that?
2022 maybe. Oh, okay. So that was recent.
Yeah. I mean, to be honest,
that's probably around the
time where it was popping up. So back to
(16:44):
this, when streaming was
really starting to hit and you see
a internet commercial run five bajillion
times, you think that the
actor's getting a lot of money.
They're not. A lot of those commercials,
if you see it streaming on
YouTube or Hulu or whatever,
a lot of them were non-union. And either
(17:06):
way, they were buyouts.
Now buyouts is very different
than say what we were saying, getting
paid per use. Buyouts is you
get paid for a chunk of time,
usually a year. They might throw you as
little as $300. They might
throw you as much as $500.
They might throw you $5,000. The thing
is, is those are still not
(17:26):
SAG rates that we're talking
about right now. So this is just helpful
to know. This is not a judgment on
non-union actors. This
is just one of many, many things where
non-union actors can realize,
hey, this is what we believe
is worth being streamed a bunch of times
(17:47):
per year. And you make
that choice and you say, well,
I need the money and I'll do it for $500.
And then we get into
this tricky territory of
strengthening our union and trying to get
more commercials to pay a standard wage.
The other thing that was brand new in
(18:07):
this is this prevalence
of YouTube TV. YouTube TV
is essentially like buying cable. So
before this contract, YouTube
TV ads were still considered
YouTube. Cheapest digital, pay for a
small amount, running a bunch of stuff.
You see all these little
(18:27):
loopholes. My mind was blown when I was
listening to the W&W's of all these
actors, very educated,
very like up with it. I'm like, wow, I
was blown away. I was like
all these little things that
they're trying to get around. Anyway,
YouTube TV is its own entity. It's its
own category and the
(18:49):
rates are higher. Like I said, streaming
rates are higher, $10,000 for a year.
It's a lot better than
before. Is it as good as what we want?
No, of course not. We
didn't even want to buy out. We
wanted Netflix to be like, hey, Netflix,
you're bigger than Peacock or you're
bigger than a lot of
NBC, ABC linear channels. And they're
(19:12):
still buy out. But this is
what we have to deal with. And
each contract is a step in the right
direction. By the way, it's also
acknowledged that YouTube has
more reach than anyone. Right now,
YouTube officially has
more reach than anyone. AI was
a step up as far as the strongest
regulations that we have
currently. The real danger was
(19:33):
is digital replicas, the digital copy of
all the actors, they were
being used in perpetuity.
Basically means they were being used
forever. If you're a
non-union actor, you got to read your
contracts. You might not have an agent.
You might not have anyone watching out
for you. This is kind
of like the thing where you should
probably watch out because we're all
(19:55):
fighting for the same thing.
And I think what I'm getting at is these
contracts is kind of like a blueprint for
what we hope everyone else's contract
will be. You work a
non-union commercial. You're going to
say, okay, we'll pay you $800. We'll use
it for the entire year. We have control
of all your likenesses.
(20:16):
We have, we will get consent for a
digital replica and we
will own it in perpetuity.
Now that right there is a red flag, but
it exists. And what it means
is they will own your digital
replica forever. In saying they tried to
do that to us. They tried to
(20:36):
do that to everyone. By the
way, digital replica use, if you did, if
you did a previous contract and you
signed digital replica
use in perpetuity, this contract will
nullify that old contract. Okay. This
contract right here.
So it's one little step protecting. Hey,
that's not cool. And even
if you signed it from before,
we're getting rid of it. It's just one
(20:57):
thing that a non-union
actor has to watch out for.
There's also a weird gray area with this
where, and I'm saying this to my agent,
we'll usually flag it,
where on some things there's a social
media in perpetuity, like a
natural, you know, it'll be
sort of a natural in perpetuity clause.
And like anything that's ever, and it's
not too many things,
but my agent has always flagged it and
(21:18):
gone, just so you know, this
is something we weren't able to
get taken off this because of the nature
of social media and the
sort of permanence of it
that they don't want to pay for, you
know, if it's on a social
media side of a company,
like an Instagram or whatever, they don't
want to have to pay for
that to leave that up there.
So that's a weird, you know, a weird sort
(21:39):
of gray area of in perpetuity where
they're not using it
for profit, but it still lives in the
kind of, you know, lives in
the ether of the internet.
It just seems ludicrous to me generally.
And this is the thing
we'll say, like for people
who aren't familiar, non-union jobs are
lower paid by and large, I
mean, pretty much universally
than union jobs. And that's part of the
(22:01):
reason that a lot of them
exist because companies are
able to pay less money to people for
these things. I noticed after joining the
union a few years ago,
the amount of commercial auditions I had
went dropped pretty
dramatically because a lot of
commercials are non-union and also
voiceover. A lot of people who are
critical of our union,
for good reason, because it's not a great
(22:22):
situation, says,
"We've gotten to this point
where we've lost so much control and so
many ads went non-union
and we're trying to recover.
I've always been a little more open
because everyone starts
on non-union." It's like,
this can't be an us and them situation.
Part of these negotiations
were, how do we fight for what
(22:43):
we need and not push these brands and
these clients and these
agencies away from dealing
with union actors? That's the
conversation. By the way, I want to add
this for all the people
paying attention who thought maybe we
would get 24 hours turnaround for
commercial auditions.
You've probably seen this, right? A lot
of times we get last
minute commercial audition. That
(23:03):
absolutely was not pushed. And I can say
this now because it's so
after the fact of outside the
meetings, I heard the conversations of
why they didn't ask for a 24 hour
turnaround. And going
into it, because we got that for, I think
we got 24 hours, we got 48
hours for TV and film, I think.
48 for TV and film, yeah.
(23:24):
Yeah, 48. I kind of assumed we were going
to get 24 hours for commercials.
And I heard the conversations and so many
people said, "Guys, I work
in casting. I realize so many
things in so many roles are so last
minute to ask for 24 hours
is unrealistic and it gives
(23:46):
these brands and agencies
another reason to go non-union."
Jesus.
And it was exactly right.
I always aspired to be a union member. I
don't know many actors who are like, "Oh,
my God, I love non-union. I'm going to
stay in non-union
forever." I don't think that's the
goal because it's better conditions,
(24:07):
better pay, better
protections. This is a lot of kind of
regulation stuff, a lot of technical
stuff, but there's a
thing. You can be what's called
five core or financial core in the union,
which is basically a
petitioning the union going,
saying to them, "I can't make enough
money from union work right
now. I need to be able to take
non-union jobs." You still pay union
(24:27):
dues, but you can't vote.
Yeah, you can vote. You don't get
screeners. You lose some privileges. You
can't vote on contracts.
It's obviously, and the union itself
frowns upon people doing
this. It's not illegal,
but they'll permit people to do it, but
it's not well thought of
by them. But I've heard
from some casting directors that there
(24:48):
are a lot of actors that are five core
that you would never
expect. That a lot of people do this
because it allows them to take
both union and non-union jobs.
Let's talk about that real quick. I don't
want to get into a lot of the
nitty-gritty because it can
get really, really polarizing. I know a
lot of people who said five
core and even the fact that
SAG after is not fighting non-union more
(25:09):
is the reason why we're in
this mess. Five core existing
is part of the issue. Now, I'm trying to
not make it us versus them, but people
have said that to me.
A client has no issues saying, "I can get
great actors and
avoid union restrictions."
(25:29):
Whether they're going to scab or "I can
find some five core
actors." I was a non-union actor.
Like everyone else, I worked non-union
commercials. I remember when
you said, "Econ, there's this
audition that you can go out to. It's a
commercial. It pays $500."
Boy, you would have thought I was
(25:51):
richy-rich that you're going to tell me,
"I make $500? Man, this is way better
than working at Urban
Outfitters. This is what I'm talking
about. This is the tricky
territory and I feel different than
I did five years ago. I feel a lot more
pro-union than five years
ago, so you got to admit that I'm
a little biased. But I realize that
(26:15):
everyone's thinking about their
pocketbook and it goes beyond
how much you're getting paid. It's about
supporting the union and I'm
not going to weaken the union
by doing A, B, or C. Yeah, and I think
that's commendable. I have
a slightly different take on
it to you. I grew up very pro-union. I've
always been in unions and
I grew up in a country that
(26:35):
was built on labor unions and a lot of it
and the labor movement. So I've always
been very pro-union.
I've seen the drawbacks of unions. I've
seen the downside of it, but I am
overwhelmingly in favor
of unions. The FICOR thing, I try not to
have a judgment on it because I
(26:56):
understand that everybody's
situation is different. You and I are not
looking after a family. I'm
not raising a family. I don't
have to think about that. So it's easy
for me to get on my high
horse and go, "God, you know that
we can see union," whatever. And yeah, in
a way it does. It's part
of the reason that companies
sort of get away with non-union
commercials. But to some degree, I know
(27:17):
you said it's not about the
money. To some degree it is though,
because I think that when
you look at the stats of,
like what are the stats again? I forget,
but it's trotted out
every so often, that of
all the SAG-AFTRA members in the US, the
percentage of them working at
any given time is minuscule.
It's like, would it be 15? Would it even
be that high? I can't
remember. It's something very low.
(27:38):
It's a stat I've heard a number of times.
I just know that it's hard
to make a living solely as an
actor right now for a lot of people. And
that includes a lot of
union members. And if you're
a union member, that means you're in the
sort of top tier of the
industry in this country. It means
that you've done enough union work to
qualify you for union
membership. So if someone needs to go
(27:59):
FICOR to live and to continue to do this,
it's not helpful for me
to have a judgment on that,
because I don't know their situation. I
know that it's hard to
make a living. So it's a real
trick you would, because yes, I see
exactly what you're saying. And a part of
me does feel the same
way. But then again, you know what I
(28:21):
mean? It's hard to make a
living in this profession.
And as we've seen, I am really curious
because a lot of people
don't tell other people of their
FICOR. A lot of people don't talk about
FICOR. Some people call it
LICOR. Oh, I've never heard
that. That they're actually just members
who are just working off the
clock and working on union.
(28:42):
If you're a FICOR actor, and let's say
that you have kids,
you have bills to pay,
are you really making that much more
money? I know you're
making more money. I think the
question that I'm asking is, what is the
end game? I know that I don't want to
generalize. I think a
lot of actors who do non-union, it's
(29:02):
because they want to feel busy. It's not
just about the money,
it's that they want to feel busy that
they're doing something. I
don't know. I kind of disagree
with that, just because there's a couple
of things I'll say on that.
One, I don't think it's an easy
decision to go FICOR. I think it is
literally rooted in, for
most people I would say, a need.
(29:23):
I am not making enough money on this. The
second thing I'll say on
that is, it depends on what
market you're in. Some markets have a lot
more non-union
commercials than union commercials.
You may not have access to the same
volume of union commercial auditions
that you do in New York or LA if you're
in another market. I don't think-
That's true.
(29:43):
I don't know if Atlanta
is right to work, right?
Atlanta is right to work, but Chicago is
not right to work. I
think there are a lot
less union commercials in Chicago than
there are non-union commercials.
I don't think it depends on-
That's true, and Chicago
is a very pro-union town.
Yeah, exactly. You may not make enough
money from acting for a
(30:05):
while. You know what I mean? It may
not be for your whole career, but there
may be a period in your career where
you're just not making
ends meet. I also talked to a casting
director about this one time,
and they told me that no one
cares except actors. Cast directors don't
care. Like no one else
cares except the stigma is
primarily among actors against this
thing, which makes sense.
That's understandable
that actors care more.
(30:27):
This may be a terrible parallel, but when
people are blaming the
actors who go fic or for the fact
that a lot of jobs are non-union,
particularly commercial jobs, it's kind
of the same to me as
saying that the cost of groceries is high
because people shoplift.
(30:48):
It's not really about that.
Decisions are made on a
much more corporate level.
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I'm wrapping
my head around that.
A few years ago in Ireland, there was a
real strong campaign where one of our
former prime minister,
there was a hotline you could call to
(31:09):
catch people who were
cheating on social welfare.
The implication being that the reason
this country is in such terrible stages
is because people are
cheating the system and they're stealing
from you. Whereas in actual
fact, the reason the country
was in shambles was done at a corporate
level. And it was corporate
greed that bankrupted Ireland,
that contributed to the crash. The idea
(31:30):
that it's the guy next to
you, that's the problem.
That it's the people on welfare, the
problem. I think it
distracts from the fact that nobody's
really holding big corporations to
account who are making
non-union commercials.
So to blame the actor who's going fic or
because they can't
afford to live on union wages,
(31:52):
I think it's probably
looking in the wrong direction.
I totally get what you're saying. I think
it's a multifaceted
problem. And I think Ficor is
one aspect that does not help the
situation. And also a lot of
this problem is not holding
(32:12):
corporations accountable. Because every
so often you'll see on
Cruise Stories or whatever,
you'll be like, "Hey, so-and-so Pepsi
just..." I don't want to say a brand, but
so-and-so just did a Super Bowl ad that
was completely non-union.
So we do hear those things,
but it doesn't get amplified to a degree
where people really
understand why we care so much.
I feel like there's a lot going on versus
(32:35):
Ficor is the enemy. If Ficor was not an
option, that might help the situation.
That's what that theory is just posing.
Again, I'm saying this as someone who's
very pro-union and always
has been. I've always been
pro-union. And I'm saying that it's
(32:56):
tragic that Ficor even has
to exist, that it is even a
"gram". Because in an ideal world, all of
these things would be...
It's interesting to talk about this stuff
because again for me just personally
I it's not good for me to have too much
(33:17):
judgment on why somebody does something
You know because I
don't know their situation
I don't know their life completely right
and I think that's a
great way to look at it
it reminds me of when we were talking
about Nora and we're talking about Sean
Baker and there was a lot of
Talk and this idea of what happened
behind the scenes that possibly he was
not as pro-union as you would
hope for a great independent
director these contracts are
(33:38):
hopefully
protecting everyone on set
These rules are hopefully protecting
actors crew members and
all that stuff and that's it
we want everyone to be working on a set
and it protected and
that's that's probably the the
What we're all aspiring to what's more
helpful is to educate people to bring
them in like you said a
(33:59):
lot of non-union actors
Picket it during the during the strikes
and also like I've now had
Because of the last couple of jobs I've
done which were which were in Ireland
which were on the dirt under the
jurisdiction of two different unions one
was UK equity one was Irish equity
They have different rates and they have
different conditions. So I got to see I
got to get some experience of contracts
(34:20):
you know from a different union that I'm
not as familiar with because my
Most of my experience has been through
side contracts and not through Irish
Union or UK equity contracts
All the only power we have is collective
bargaining, you know without that it's
everybody from themselves
and that's not a good scene
That's that's when that's when like wages
go down conditions go down and
(34:41):
protections get thrown out the window
So I know it's it's it's really it's
interesting to talk about this stuff, you
know, let me throw this out there
I'm gonna keep names out because I
actually don't want to talk about
specific name Gregory
Peck. So I worked it
I
Know expecting that one. Um, I'll try
I'll throw that name out as often as I
can just as I miss direct
(35:04):
So I worked in Atlanta a lot of LA actors
Actually brought up that point
to me you working in Atlanta is kind of
Lending your talents to other shows
Outside of LA and not really
Helping support more production in LA I
(35:27):
took it kind of personally
at first and I'm like, uh,
What are you getting at? I was like I'm
working a segue like it
wasn't working non-union
They were implying that it kind of felt
the same where I ended up
Ending up was I worked on the show I
worked on in Atlanta is exactly produced
and starred by a very
(35:48):
very big actors Gregory Penn my
and
my response to them was this conversation
is kind of silly because I'm
Not the highest on the totem pole all
these fancy stars and executive producers
live in LA they produced and
Start in a show in
Atlanta. I'm pretty sure I'm clean
(36:12):
You know what I mean? Well, of course, I
mean, I think a helpful response that
ought to be fuck right off
Because I think the goal is to work, you
know, I mean you're you're you're working
a job you're working
I can we started to stay in LA rally
There's a push to get production back in
LA because actors like PJ and people are
just working all over the
world because that's where
The production is I'm a part of the
problem then too if I go
home to work in Ireland
(36:34):
You know, I just work two jobs in Ireland
one of them is American job
So I'm a part of the problem too.
Ultimately you have a responsibility to
yourself in your own career
That's that's where you're that's where
your first responsibility lies
I will say though that you working in
Atlanta good for you
You're fucking working and you're going
after the work and you're doing it
You know, I mean you're doing it at a
high level and you're
working on good shows
and honestly, it kind
(36:55):
of sounds like a bit of
Sounds like a bit of jealousy if I'm
honest, I don't think
it's coming from a place of
Necessarily from an egalitarian place of
oh, you know, I'm just
I'm protecting LA industry
LA is a place where you live but the work
is wherever the work is.
Um, yeah, that was good
I'm glad we talked about that and then I
wanted to share something
This is about Alan Rickman like Alan
(37:16):
Rickman's first film role was Hans Grover
and I hard came at the age of 41
And that made his whole career and his
whole you know, he like he done the he'd
done a play in London
That went to Broadway
got a Mattoni nomination
He'd done some BBC serials before that
but his career just took
off at 41 and I've you know
The more stories I hear like that the
more I'm like, oh, yeah, you
(37:37):
just gotta stay in the game
Just gotta if you're enjoying it, you
just gotta hang in there and it's
something that Leslie says
Sometimes she's like I've heard her say
to me and others like just promise me you
won't quit which like feels like a lot of
pressure, but
you know, it's a
It's nice for me to frame it in that way
and go. Yeah, I don't
(37:58):
think I'm ever gonna quit
No matter how it looks, you know, I mean
not fully quit. I like this. Um, this is
something that I feel like
it is omnipresent for a lot of
Just in our careers and it just so
happens that this is the time where
people might be thinking that I
(38:19):
Look at it like a business. There's going
to be great years.
There's going to be soft years
The only thing that you know that you
need to do is to survive. That's it
I don't want this to sound judgy with the
way that the industry is going
right now whether it's you me
Anyone else if you're not kind of looking
around the corner and just trying to be
ready for whatever might happen
(38:41):
I'd be kind of worried unless you're
already rich then that's great
But I think that there is kind of a
balance between keeping your head down
and grinding and also
trying to stay flexible
you can
Pivot all you want just stay in the game.
No makes total sense. I think
if you're going to officially
Retire don't tell anyone just do it
(39:02):
yourself. You don't have to go tell your
reps. I'm officially
retired. Just do yourself
I was talking about an actor
friend about this this morning
Actually, he was talking about the idea
of making it and he realized some of some
of his idea about making it was rooted in
Him 15 years ago when he came up with the
idea what it looked
like 15 years ago and then
(39:23):
three years ago it changed again, you
know, and now it's different now and he
just he reframed what
making it meant to him and
I really appreciated that because I think
Some of the self-imposed pressure that I
have comes from my idea of what making it
look like when I moved to America
Or when I was in my 20s or
(39:44):
you know in my 30s or you know
Even before I got sober like my life has
looked so different all along the way
That it's good for me to examine these
ideas every so often ago. I'll get rid of
that. That's not helpful
I don't I don't even realize that I'm
hanging on to these old ideas until
they're kind of
challenged and someone goes
Well, why do you feel like that? You're
(40:06):
like, oh, it's because I came up with
this idea not being clinging to it
like the idea of like
Waiting waiting is a really interesting
thing for me. I think it is the least
helpful place I can be
It's the least helpful state is waiting
for anything. I don't I don't like to
ever feel like I'm waiting whether that's
(40:26):
Waiting for an audition waiting for the
result of an audition waiting to hear
back waiting for the next one to come in
It's a really powerless place to be
waiting and I'm starting to see like
being in being in class now
This new class that I'm in I'm seeing all
these people just doing stuff
They're just making things and people who
are working to some of them are you know?
(40:47):
Pretty consistently working actors and
some are serious regulars, but they're
just doing stuff. They're
just making things and you know
I've resisted it for a long time because
I want to be the exception
I want it to just be successful at this
one thing and it's got to look like this
and and the older I get and and the
More experience I got a mic. No everybody
who is successful is
doing something as well
(41:08):
I don't mean like a like a
side job or a part-time job
I'm like they're they're
they're exploring other
Avenues that they're either making their
own films or they're writing something or
some kind of other creative endeavor or
they just have other interest and
You know we've heard this for a long time
you have to make your own material
but I think I had heard it in
the context years ago of like
If no one's putting you in a movie make
(41:29):
your own movie, and you know
to get it's but it was always
Or some of it was always like a back step
or yeah, exactly exactly
like a back avenue to get oh
It'll get you somewhere, but now I think
you just have to do
it just to have a life
You know what I mean just to have
something that interests you and it takes
all the pressure off this
other thing and when you talk
About Alan Rickman 41 because I heard
(41:49):
enough interviews that he had
a very full life. He never felt
like
He a life was slipping by him
I agree, and I was just thinking about
what the catalyst for change
is and a lot of the time for me
Unfortunately or for better or worse
It's discomfort when I get uncomfortable
(42:10):
enough in a situation
and forced to change now
I think when I say I wanted to be
exception rather than that
Yeah
I wanted acting to kind of take off and
and save me and I think and you said ego
and I think that's right a lot
Of its ego. I don't want to you know I
want to be different. I
want to I want to just do this
I think underneath that ego is fear
because it's fear of like being judged
(42:30):
for something putting something out there
in the world and people
You know and and I think that's what's
kept me from some of it
And I've branched out more in the last
few years into writing and other things,
but I think fear kept me
Stuck for a long time with that
But I'm starting to see as I'm starting
to be inspired more and more by people
around me just doing stuff
You know and at the studio now we're
(42:52):
working with a female filmmaker an actor
who's who's created this
Wrote and created this short film for a
for a streaming service
And they've given her a
budget to make it into a feature
And it's a decent budget you know and
there's big producers on board and and
she's gone through this process
And it's really inspirational to see that
(43:12):
just for your own sanity
as much as anything else
You know funny we talked about this
before but I never
thought about in this way
I had to make that step when I decided to
put things on YouTube and
some people suggested to me
But I felt like it was beneath an actor
realize when I start when I first did it
I was absolutely horrified and scared and
(43:33):
everyone was very
supportive. I was like oh my god
I was like this I was not expecting this
um my first video with no skills and no
idea what I was doing my sister
Sent it to her friends,
and I was super embarrassed
And they're like it looks
like you're having a lot of fun
I almost had a breakdown
because I was horrified this good
(43:53):
Encouragement meant that I had to do it
I had to jump off that ledge and and and
just give it a shot the writing thing and
people creating their projects
They all help each other writing actually
helps you become a better actor directing
helps you become a better actor
Acting helps directors be a better
director. It's like if you really care
about your acting. Maybe
you should write a direct
(44:14):
Yeah, and I heard something really
helpful the other day from another actor.
She was saying she was talking about
Don't wait for someone to
reach down and bring you up
Come up with the with your peers make
stuff with your peers like
there's something brilliant
You see it in like a lot
of filmmakers will like
Work with the same actors
(44:35):
that they've always worked
But like you know Wes Anderson would be
one or like you know people that have
kind of just come they've come up with
There's something
beautiful about that rather than
Waiting for someone to kind of reach
someone successful already to reach down
and elevate you
nothing is made in a vacuum
This is a this is a ecosystem like the
ocean you know I mean
everybody needs everybody else
(44:56):
All right, let's do hidden gems. I don't
know this really just came
into my mind completely randomly
But I figure let's give some movie
theaters some love AMC just announced for
the starting this summer
They're going to do half-off Wednesdays
Basically tickets are going
to be half off on Wednesdays
Everywhere AMC nationwide starting on
(45:18):
July 9th stubs members can buy tickets
for 50% off normal adults
evening ticket price on Wednesdays
And if you don't know
They've always had seven dollar
discounted Tuesdays so Tuesdays at AMC
have always been seven dollars
You need their online
Membership that's free, but you just need
(45:40):
to sign up for that
also if no one knows canopy
K-a-n-o-p-y
With any local library card you
essentially get free membership to the
app and they have great
movies like criterion movies
They have Oscar winning movies, and it's
just there sitting on an app so
Go for it guys enjoy, and that's my
(46:02):
hidden gem nice hidden gem
all right. I'll take that
I'll take that for the bank the my hidden
gem for this week is a
a movie called yellow sky starring
Gregory Peck no, it's not my
What is my engine for this oh, you know
what this is what it is
(46:23):
I don't know how hidden this is, but I
had never done it and I've
lived in LA for quite a while
But again this might be something that
people do all the time that I just have
recent news come but I've been up to
Griffith Observatory a number of times.
I've been up there a bunch
of times. I've never done
I've been into the to the
observatory. I've never done
There's a planetarium show in there which
(46:43):
they do every so every like hour or two
but it's like a
You know you go into this you go into the
dome and they project this show onto the
like the the domed ceiling it is
Incredible it's $10. It's
there's there's different ones
but it's I
Got motion sickness at the start because
(47:03):
it's so realistic like your flights
This was about the planets and the stars
and our solar system. Oh my
god. It's so well produced
I was expecting something a bit dated and
cheesy not at all. It
is brilliant. It's $10
I think it's like 45
minutes long. It is incredible
You're sitting on these seats kind of
like angled backwards.
You're staring up at the ceiling
They have a little they've a guy that
(47:24):
comes out there a host
guy that kicks it off
Who was it was brilliant this older guy
who was just a brilliant?
And I was like a brilliant speaker like
kind of a quirky dude
But the shows put on a good show
Yeah, it was a show was incredible, and I
just I've never thought to go in there
I've always you know like out the next
shows at 145 and it's this
But I went in there last week, and it was
(47:46):
magic so if you're up that way yeah
I remember you I remember you guys
mentioned, and I was like oh my god that
sounds like a hidden gem
That's a great find. I
learned so much from it
I learned so much about the different
moons and like water on planets and all
kinds of things it was incredible
like it was really educational and
entertaining um I do want to throw this
(48:08):
out there if you're new to the show
hidden gems are a way we say thanks for
Listening to the end we
throw out a fun little
Gems or tidbits from our lives that we
want more people to know and
I have to give you a little
Give you a shout out my cousin is
Binging all of our shows she's a big fan
a cousin Lee went a shout out not only
(48:28):
that she was so captivated by your
Irish gluten-free oats bread if you're
watching this on video
I'm gonna show a picture of her her
creation her first time came out really
good. She enjoyed it so
This was a early hidden gem for us
Rean had a handmade Irish
(48:49):
recipe of bread and
Yeah, we have we have a fan who tried the
recipe so nice you go
I got I got shit off a friend of mine
She's like how have you never had that
before because I only
like keep my you know
I discovered it recently and she was like
how have you never heard of
that before and I was like
I don't know, but it's
great. Is that common though?
I mean, I don't know a lot of people
(49:10):
don't really make their own bread like I
mean, I think it's my mind to me
My mom makes it now
Exclusively, I mean that's most of the
bread in at home in my parents house is
is this bread and it's magic
Cuz my mom canny-gluten so, you know,
it's perfect. Yep. Nothing wrong with
that folks. All right, so that's our show
See you next week. Thanks for joining us.
(49:30):
See you next week guys
The picture of actors on their ad for
(00:03):
casting.com, the acting casting site,
they used AI to generate
these models. I know it sounds as
ridiculous as it is. The giveaway was the
fingernails were screwed
up. There wasn't six fingers, but it was
like morphed and like, it
was like morphed in like a
bad zoom call. Hey guys, welcome to the
actor's guide to the end of
(00:24):
the world podcast where we
talk about acting in Hollywood in a way
people understand. I'm
E-Kan Soong and this is Rían Sheehy Kelly
Rían Sheehy Kelly
How you doing? What's up buddy?
Follow us wherever you find
your podcast at Actors Guide
podcast. We have video on sub-stack and
YouTube. Make sure you
follow us on all social media at
Actors Guide podcast. Leave a review,
leave a comment, greatly
(00:44):
appreciate it. So on the show
for today, I tell a story about how I
called Congress. I was
doing my part as a concerned
citizen. I don't like to brag, but I am
an American hero. To
give a little context, there
was a reconciliation bill that was being
pushed up and in it had
(01:06):
AI regulations being banned
for 10 years. Yeah, so we get into all of
that. We also talk about
the SAG commercial contract
that is up for vote right now. We're
going to talk about all the
major gains that they achieved
and everything you need to know. We also
(01:27):
get into an honest
conversation about union,
five core, non-union, and why it's so
polarizing and why there's so many
non-union commercials.
And we talk about staying in the game
long enough without feeling like you're
waiting for your big
break. That's our show. Sit back and
relax. However, and
wherever you're listening to us,
thank you for making us part of your day.
(01:48):
Now, a quick word from our
sponsor. Is craft services
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not waterproof. Spillage
may occur. We have a lot
(02:09):
going on. We're going to jump around
today. One thing I want to
tell you, I happened to call
Congress this week. It was actually
yesterday. I called Congress. I'm going
to tell you all about
it. Just to say great job or? Actually, I
should probably give a
little context. There was a crazy
mega bill. Literally, that's the words
(02:30):
that they used. There was a mega bill.
Congress was pushing
it up and trying to get it passed. It's
specifically about the budget.
It just so happened that they
threw in a clause saying that it is not
allowed to put AI regulations on
anything. Actors, likenesses,
(02:51):
all that stuff for 10 years. This is kind
of like the point where
obviously we got into a little
political stuff last week. We're talking
about stuff that's
relating to actors. If you're
listening to this, it's something that
actors probably should
know. I had no idea. Someone
tagged me on this jargon. I was like,
(03:13):
"What is this?" It was so not on my
radar. Hang on a minute.
It was so bonkers. Yeah, go ahead. How
can they even do that?
How can you especially? No,
that's bonkers to me. Especially, I
thought there was a kind of a
thing among Republicans where
they don't want to interfere with state
(03:33):
laws. Then, you know,
federal's bad state is good.
I don't know. Anyway, that seems nuts.
Oh, that's a good point. That's a great
point. I don't know.
But a lot of things don't really make
sense these days. This bill, we can
safely say that big tech
is throwing a lot of money. I mean, it's
(03:54):
not a surprise. How much
they're concerned about us
as actors, probably not that much. A lot
of actors were passing it
around. I saw enough videos,
and I was like, "You know what? Honestly,
let me call Congress." So
when you say call Congress,
how does that work? So you go, "I'm going
to call Congress. Is that
I'm going to call my local
Congress person? Do you just call up and
(04:17):
go, "Put the nearest person
on the phone. I want to yell at
them." That's a great question. I know as
little as you do, it just
so happened that one of these
videos literally put the number for
Congress in her video. Oh, there you go.
And she's great. I'll
give her a shout out. I want to say her
handle is Patriotic Lady, blonde, very
(04:40):
articulate. She's on
all the platforms. She's actually pretty
huge. So she literally put
the number of Congress on there.
Can't make it any harder than that, any
easier than that. I
literally called Congress.
A person picks up in five seconds. It was
like I was calling my local
library. I was so thrown off
(05:01):
because I was expecting an automated
message. I was expecting the
voicemail to be full. I was
literally looking for an out saying,
"Hey, I tried." And then next thing you
know, I'm like, "Oh,
hi." I literally said, "Is this the line
for Congress?" This is
how out of my element I was.
I would have felt like you that I was
(05:22):
calling a state representative or
whatever. She got my zip
code. She transferred me over to another
person. Super casual, super
chill, not crazy. Thankfully,
I was kind of articulate to say, "Oh, so
what's your concern?" And I was like,
"Oh, this reconciliation
bill." And so on. "Oh, do you have
(05:43):
anything you wanted to add to
the note?" I was like, "Well,
there's a part in it that's about AI and
AI regulations. I'm in
entertainment and it's
something I deeply care about. And I
think this is troubling that
there are no regulations and
hypothetically for 10 years for all the
state bills that have been passed.
(06:04):
We'll get us into treky territory."
Anyway, I didn't have
anything written down. I wasn't
expecting to talk to a normal person or
talk to a person. She got
down my name. She was like,
"Do you want them to respond to you?" I
was like, "Oh, no, I'm okay. Just let
them know. I'm concerned
about this. The kicker of all this, I
(06:26):
tell my friends who are
sending me these things." I was
like, "I called Congress. I feel pretty
good about myself." It just
so happened, literally the day
after. Actually, it was actually that
afternoon. That bill was shot down. It
was the night it was
voted down. I would love to say that it
(06:49):
was because of me. It definitely was. It
was not because of me.
It definitely was. Guys, I know you all
like this bill. I know you
really got excited about it,
but a guy called us and he doesn't like
it. Yeah, I took notes.
Here they are. Sorry, guys.
Anything that forbids restrictions on
something for 10 years seems
(07:10):
ludicrous to me. For 10 years,
especially with how fast technology
moves, that's bananas. AI in the next 10
years is everything.
That's what everyone's saying. It's like,
"This is the 10 years for the upper AI."
Don't put any restrictions on it. Easy.
That is the very
definition of special interest.
(07:32):
Somebody's gone, "No restrictions for 10
years. Can't take it back."
Nuts. I tend to land on the side of
optimism and go, "I think
it's going to be okay." I sort of
believe that people will never fully
accept AI as... That humans can't be
replaced by AI. But I do
know that there are massive chunks of
this industry and there
(07:52):
are jobs that are going to be
eliminated because of AI. But I still
think that ultimately it will be all
right. I don't know why.
It's just, if I'm going to lie to myself,
I'm going to tell myself the
most helpful lie that I can.
I'm like, "You know what? It's going to
be okay." Because the
alternative is going around,
thinking the world's about to end.
(08:13):
Ignorance is bliss in
a way. We will get into
AI a little bit when we talk about the
SAD contract, which is a
step in the right direction.
They got more AI protections. Commercials
is a big area for AI as well because
we're talking about background actors,
talking about SATs, SAT
(08:34):
design. We'll save it for another
podcast. There is so much that is going
on. There are a lot of bills
being pushed and being passed
right now. Besides this scary
reconciliation bill, there's a lot of
progress that is being made.
California is involved in a lot of it.
(08:55):
Nashville, I'm sorry,
Tennessee and the music industry in
Tennessee doing huge things, protecting
musicians, protecting artists. We'll
definitely get into that
another time. Actually, one thing I
wanted to throw out
there, speaking of commercials,
we're going to talk about the commercial
contract. I just saw
this online. Casting.com,
which is one of the most... It's one of
(09:17):
our casting sites. You put
up a headshot. To be honest,
I don't even think I'm on it. It's one of
those smaller ones who's
just trying to get money from
actors. I saw this Instagram post.
Someone was calling them out.
They're ad a picture of actors
on their website. Supposedly, it was
created by AI. Wait,
(09:37):
say that again? Which?
The picture of actors on their ad for
casting.com, the acting casting site,
they used AI to generate
these models. I know it sounds as
ridiculous as it is. We'll
put a link to that post in the
description, but this is what we have to
deal with. They're
(09:59):
advertising to actors, hoping to
make money off of actors, getting money
off of actors. They have
the indecency to use an ad
generated by AI and not real people. The
giveaway was the fingernails
were screwed up. There wasn't
six fingers, but it was morphed in a bad
(10:21):
Zoom call and you got
messed up fingers or whatever.
That's where we are right now. I also
think it's hilarious that
AI can't handle fingers,
but still can't handle fingers. It's such
a dead giveaway. I saw a
trailer for a movie that was all
AI generated that popped up on Instagram.
People were like, "Oh, this
is great, but I don't know.
There's something weird about it. It's
(10:41):
something just eerie and
off." I've seen a lot of AI
misunderstanding context, which is a hard
thing for a computer to
recognize. I think somebody
posted a picture of a Google search that
said, "Is Marlon Brando in
heat?" AI had gone into a
description of how heat was related to
(11:03):
animals when they were
reproducing and when they were
fertile. As a deceased human being, it
would not apply to Marlon
Brando that he would be in heat.
It's that thing of you can have access to
all the knowledge in the
world, but if you don't
understand context or nuance, what's the
(11:24):
point? I still don't know. I
still don't think it's going
to be... I don't think it's going to
replace the industry. If you haven't
heard, we did an episode
on AI. It was talking about Ben Affleck.
There was a big interview
that he did, and he had some
really articulate comments. I still think
it holds up. I think for a lot of
creatives, AI is not
going to replace it. It's going to be a
(11:46):
tool that we're probably not
going to be able to escape.
That being said, going to this commercial
contract, fighting to put a
line in the sand of what's
not right. Let's talk about this
commercial contract. We did
an episode when I went to one
of the first meetings. It was called
W&W's. That's short for
(12:07):
wages and working conditions.
You put in motions, you raise your hand,
you go up to the mic, and you
say, "This has happened at an
audition. I put in a motion to do A, B,
or C." To hear the
conversations of what happens and then
what they eventually push through. They
had this huge document. They
pushed it to the negotiating
(12:28):
board. The negotiating board did it all
through March, I believe.
They avoided a strike, got this
contract. They sent it to the board. The
board approved it. They're
sending it to us members to
vote on. Before we get into some of the
nuts and bolts, if you're
non-union, a lot of this stuff
applies to you. First of all, everyone
(12:49):
auditions for commercials because
they're easier to get involved in, easier
to see new talent. They pay
often a lot better than TV.
Even if you're in another country or
you're in another region,
it's kind of helpful to say,
"Hey, this is how much we get paid for a
commercial that is streaming on Netflix."
(13:10):
And then in another country, an actor
could say, "Well, this is
how much we get paid. Wow."
Spoiler alert, it's
always lower than America.
Yeah, yeah. I was trying to be a
diplomatic way of saying that, but yeah.
So there was a huge,
huge concern about, obviously, if you
(13:32):
have a national commercial
that's on TV, on what they
call linear TV, that's an actual TV set,
ABC, NBC. I know who
actually watches that, right?
Those commercials are becoming fewer and
more rare. What about all
these bajillion commercials
that are on Netflix, that are on YouTube,
(13:52):
that are on Amazon, that
are on Freebie, that are on
Fubu, on Pluto, whatever? On Zavil, on
Flob, on Frunch. Yeah,
exactly. Those sounded very Dutch.
Fudal. So we made a huge gain. And a lot
of this is a shout out to
the negotiating board because
they worked their ass off and they
avoided a strike to this
point. We don't know if this
(14:13):
country is getting voted in. You have
this week to vote it in, yes or no.
Anyway, so the rates
for streaming jumped up. A streaming
platform, $10,000 for a year. That's a
lot more than it used to be.
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but the
way you get paid on linear TV or
terrestrial TV is like,
you do cycles of when it's shown on
(14:36):
these. Do you get paid per showing or is
it just being showed?
Yeah, it's essentially per cycle, usually
13 weeks. If you get a
national commercial on, say,
network, it's kind of amazing. They
literally will show you the program that
it was airing on. That's
how specific it was. You would know. It's
(14:57):
like, "Hey, good morning,
America." It played during
there. And then it's playing on ESPN, NBA
playoffs. Meanwhile, for
streaming, they have all the debt
in the world and we still aren't getting
paid per use. It's funny
because I just saw a commercial.
I was watching SNL on Peacock with a pile
of mine. It showed an ad
(15:18):
that was for a pharmaceutical
company. One of the big pharmaceutical
companies, I won't name them,
but to give them any more free
publicity. But the ad showed three times
in a row. I know for a fact, because I
know the actor in it,
and I know for a fact that was shot in
Ireland, because I know the
actor in the ad. And he had
(15:39):
posted something about it when he did it.
He goes, "Oh, my first US ad,
three times in a row, this ad
shot." I guarantee you, he didn't get
anything like the money he would have
gotten paid in America
for that commercial. But it's obviously
non-union because it's being shot in
Ireland. I used to see
it in voiceovers as well. A lot of the
pharmaceutical
commercials are non-union. Yeah,
(16:01):
so it's interesting that a commercial
will be shown on a
streaming service here that is only
an American streaming service. I mean,
Peacock doesn't exist
because it's NBC. It doesn't exist
outside of the US. But the ad would have
been shot in Ireland, paid
in Ireland, and aired here.
Yeah. And we're going to get into that
because last week we
talked about productions going
(16:22):
overseas. Commercials is going, is
literally right now facing that same
problem. So remind me,
so you did work a commercial in Mexico
City. What year was that?
2022 maybe. Oh, okay. So that was recent.
Yeah. I mean, to be honest,
that's probably around the
time where it was popping up. So back to
(16:44):
this, when streaming was
really starting to hit and you see
a internet commercial run five bajillion
times, you think that the
actor's getting a lot of money.
They're not. A lot of those commercials,
if you see it streaming on
YouTube or Hulu or whatever,
a lot of them were non-union. And either
(17:06):
way, they were buyouts.
Now buyouts is very different
than say what we were saying, getting
paid per use. Buyouts is you
get paid for a chunk of time,
usually a year. They might throw you as
little as $300. They might
throw you as much as $500.
They might throw you $5,000. The thing
is, is those are still not
(17:26):
SAG rates that we're talking
about right now. So this is just helpful
to know. This is not a judgment on
non-union actors. This
is just one of many, many things where
non-union actors can realize,
hey, this is what we believe
is worth being streamed a bunch of times
(17:47):
per year. And you make
that choice and you say, well,
I need the money and I'll do it for $500.
And then we get into
this tricky territory of
strengthening our union and trying to get
more commercials to pay a standard wage.
The other thing that was brand new in
(18:07):
this is this prevalence
of YouTube TV. YouTube TV
is essentially like buying cable. So
before this contract, YouTube
TV ads were still considered
YouTube. Cheapest digital, pay for a
small amount, running a bunch of stuff.
You see all these little
(18:27):
loopholes. My mind was blown when I was
listening to the W&W's of all these
actors, very educated,
very like up with it. I'm like, wow, I
was blown away. I was like
all these little things that
they're trying to get around. Anyway,
YouTube TV is its own entity. It's its
own category and the
(18:49):
rates are higher. Like I said, streaming
rates are higher, $10,000 for a year.
It's a lot better than
before. Is it as good as what we want?
No, of course not. We
didn't even want to buy out. We
wanted Netflix to be like, hey, Netflix,
you're bigger than Peacock or you're
bigger than a lot of
NBC, ABC linear channels. And they're
(19:12):
still buy out. But this is
what we have to deal with. And
each contract is a step in the right
direction. By the way, it's also
acknowledged that YouTube has
more reach than anyone. Right now,
YouTube officially has
more reach than anyone. AI was
a step up as far as the strongest
regulations that we have
currently. The real danger was
(19:33):
is digital replicas, the digital copy of
all the actors, they were
being used in perpetuity.
Basically means they were being used
forever. If you're a
non-union actor, you got to read your
contracts. You might not have an agent.
You might not have anyone watching out
for you. This is kind
of like the thing where you should
probably watch out because we're all
(19:55):
fighting for the same thing.
And I think what I'm getting at is these
contracts is kind of like a blueprint for
what we hope everyone else's contract
will be. You work a
non-union commercial. You're going to
say, okay, we'll pay you $800. We'll use
it for the entire year. We have control
of all your likenesses.
(20:16):
We have, we will get consent for a
digital replica and we
will own it in perpetuity.
Now that right there is a red flag, but
it exists. And what it means
is they will own your digital
replica forever. In saying they tried to
do that to us. They tried to
(20:36):
do that to everyone. By the
way, digital replica use, if you did, if
you did a previous contract and you
signed digital replica
use in perpetuity, this contract will
nullify that old contract. Okay. This
contract right here.
So it's one little step protecting. Hey,
that's not cool. And even
if you signed it from before,
we're getting rid of it. It's just one
(20:57):
thing that a non-union
actor has to watch out for.
There's also a weird gray area with this
where, and I'm saying this to my agent,
we'll usually flag it,
where on some things there's a social
media in perpetuity, like a
natural, you know, it'll be
sort of a natural in perpetuity clause.
And like anything that's ever, and it's
not too many things,
but my agent has always flagged it and
(21:18):
gone, just so you know, this
is something we weren't able to
get taken off this because of the nature
of social media and the
sort of permanence of it
that they don't want to pay for, you
know, if it's on a social
media side of a company,
like an Instagram or whatever, they don't
want to have to pay for
that to leave that up there.
So that's a weird, you know, a weird sort
(21:39):
of gray area of in perpetuity where
they're not using it
for profit, but it still lives in the
kind of, you know, lives in
the ether of the internet.
It just seems ludicrous to me generally.
And this is the thing
we'll say, like for people
who aren't familiar, non-union jobs are
lower paid by and large, I
mean, pretty much universally
than union jobs. And that's part of the
(22:01):
reason that a lot of them
exist because companies are
able to pay less money to people for
these things. I noticed after joining the
union a few years ago,
the amount of commercial auditions I had
went dropped pretty
dramatically because a lot of
commercials are non-union and also
voiceover. A lot of people who are
critical of our union,
for good reason, because it's not a great
(22:22):
situation, says,
"We've gotten to this point
where we've lost so much control and so
many ads went non-union
and we're trying to recover.
I've always been a little more open
because everyone starts
on non-union." It's like,
this can't be an us and them situation.
Part of these negotiations
were, how do we fight for what
(22:43):
we need and not push these brands and
these clients and these
agencies away from dealing
with union actors? That's the
conversation. By the way, I want to add
this for all the people
paying attention who thought maybe we
would get 24 hours turnaround for
commercial auditions.
You've probably seen this, right? A lot
of times we get last
minute commercial audition. That
(23:03):
absolutely was not pushed. And I can say
this now because it's so
after the fact of outside the
meetings, I heard the conversations of
why they didn't ask for a 24 hour
turnaround. And going
into it, because we got that for, I think
we got 24 hours, we got 48
hours for TV and film, I think.
48 for TV and film, yeah.
(23:24):
Yeah, 48. I kind of assumed we were going
to get 24 hours for commercials.
And I heard the conversations and so many
people said, "Guys, I work
in casting. I realize so many
things in so many roles are so last
minute to ask for 24 hours
is unrealistic and it gives
(23:46):
these brands and agencies
another reason to go non-union."
Jesus.
And it was exactly right.
I always aspired to be a union member. I
don't know many actors who are like, "Oh,
my God, I love non-union. I'm going to
stay in non-union
forever." I don't think that's the
goal because it's better conditions,
(24:07):
better pay, better
protections. This is a lot of kind of
regulation stuff, a lot of technical
stuff, but there's a
thing. You can be what's called
five core or financial core in the union,
which is basically a
petitioning the union going,
saying to them, "I can't make enough
money from union work right
now. I need to be able to take
non-union jobs." You still pay union
(24:27):
dues, but you can't vote.
Yeah, you can vote. You don't get
screeners. You lose some privileges. You
can't vote on contracts.
It's obviously, and the union itself
frowns upon people doing
this. It's not illegal,
but they'll permit people to do it, but
it's not well thought of
by them. But I've heard
from some casting directors that there
(24:48):
are a lot of actors that are five core
that you would never
expect. That a lot of people do this
because it allows them to take
both union and non-union jobs.
Let's talk about that real quick. I don't
want to get into a lot of the
nitty-gritty because it can
get really, really polarizing. I know a
lot of people who said five
core and even the fact that
SAG after is not fighting non-union more
(25:09):
is the reason why we're in
this mess. Five core existing
is part of the issue. Now, I'm trying to
not make it us versus them, but people
have said that to me.
A client has no issues saying, "I can get
great actors and
avoid union restrictions."
(25:29):
Whether they're going to scab or "I can
find some five core
actors." I was a non-union actor.
Like everyone else, I worked non-union
commercials. I remember when
you said, "Econ, there's this
audition that you can go out to. It's a
commercial. It pays $500."
Boy, you would have thought I was
(25:51):
richy-rich that you're going to tell me,
"I make $500? Man, this is way better
than working at Urban
Outfitters. This is what I'm talking
about. This is the tricky
territory and I feel different than
I did five years ago. I feel a lot more
pro-union than five years
ago, so you got to admit that I'm
a little biased. But I realize that
(26:15):
everyone's thinking about their
pocketbook and it goes beyond
how much you're getting paid. It's about
supporting the union and I'm
not going to weaken the union
by doing A, B, or C. Yeah, and I think
that's commendable. I have
a slightly different take on
it to you. I grew up very pro-union. I've
always been in unions and
I grew up in a country that
(26:35):
was built on labor unions and a lot of it
and the labor movement. So I've always
been very pro-union.
I've seen the drawbacks of unions. I've
seen the downside of it, but I am
overwhelmingly in favor
of unions. The FICOR thing, I try not to
have a judgment on it because I
(26:56):
understand that everybody's
situation is different. You and I are not
looking after a family. I'm
not raising a family. I don't
have to think about that. So it's easy
for me to get on my high
horse and go, "God, you know that
we can see union," whatever. And yeah, in
a way it does. It's part
of the reason that companies
sort of get away with non-union
commercials. But to some degree, I know
(27:17):
you said it's not about the
money. To some degree it is though,
because I think that when
you look at the stats of,
like what are the stats again? I forget,
but it's trotted out
every so often, that of
all the SAG-AFTRA members in the US, the
percentage of them working at
any given time is minuscule.
It's like, would it be 15? Would it even
be that high? I can't
remember. It's something very low.
(27:38):
It's a stat I've heard a number of times.
I just know that it's hard
to make a living solely as an
actor right now for a lot of people. And
that includes a lot of
union members. And if you're
a union member, that means you're in the
sort of top tier of the
industry in this country. It means
that you've done enough union work to
qualify you for union
membership. So if someone needs to go
(27:59):
FICOR to live and to continue to do this,
it's not helpful for me
to have a judgment on that,
because I don't know their situation. I
know that it's hard to
make a living. So it's a real
trick you would, because yes, I see
exactly what you're saying. And a part of
me does feel the same
way. But then again, you know what I
(28:21):
mean? It's hard to make a
living in this profession.
And as we've seen, I am really curious
because a lot of people
don't tell other people of their
FICOR. A lot of people don't talk about
FICOR. Some people call it
LICOR. Oh, I've never heard
that. That they're actually just members
who are just working off the
clock and working on union.
(28:42):
If you're a FICOR actor, and let's say
that you have kids,
you have bills to pay,
are you really making that much more
money? I know you're
making more money. I think the
question that I'm asking is, what is the
end game? I know that I don't want to
generalize. I think a
lot of actors who do non-union, it's
(29:02):
because they want to feel busy. It's not
just about the money,
it's that they want to feel busy that
they're doing something. I
don't know. I kind of disagree
with that, just because there's a couple
of things I'll say on that.
One, I don't think it's an easy
decision to go FICOR. I think it is
literally rooted in, for
most people I would say, a need.
(29:23):
I am not making enough money on this. The
second thing I'll say on
that is, it depends on what
market you're in. Some markets have a lot
more non-union
commercials than union commercials.
You may not have access to the same
volume of union commercial auditions
that you do in New York or LA if you're
in another market. I don't think-
That's true.
(29:43):
I don't know if Atlanta
is right to work, right?
Atlanta is right to work, but Chicago is
not right to work. I
think there are a lot
less union commercials in Chicago than
there are non-union commercials.
I don't think it depends on-
That's true, and Chicago
is a very pro-union town.
Yeah, exactly. You may not make enough
money from acting for a
(30:05):
while. You know what I mean? It may
not be for your whole career, but there
may be a period in your career where
you're just not making
ends meet. I also talked to a casting
director about this one time,
and they told me that no one
cares except actors. Cast directors don't
care. Like no one else
cares except the stigma is
primarily among actors against this
thing, which makes sense.
That's understandable
that actors care more.
(30:27):
This may be a terrible parallel, but when
people are blaming the
actors who go fic or for the fact
that a lot of jobs are non-union,
particularly commercial jobs, it's kind
of the same to me as
saying that the cost of groceries is high
because people shoplift.
(30:48):
It's not really about that.
Decisions are made on a
much more corporate level.
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. I'm wrapping
my head around that.
A few years ago in Ireland, there was a
real strong campaign where one of our
former prime minister,
there was a hotline you could call to
(31:09):
catch people who were
cheating on social welfare.
The implication being that the reason
this country is in such terrible stages
is because people are
cheating the system and they're stealing
from you. Whereas in actual
fact, the reason the country
was in shambles was done at a corporate
level. And it was corporate
greed that bankrupted Ireland,
that contributed to the crash. The idea
(31:30):
that it's the guy next to
you, that's the problem.
That it's the people on welfare, the
problem. I think it
distracts from the fact that nobody's
really holding big corporations to
account who are making
non-union commercials.
So to blame the actor who's going fic or
because they can't
afford to live on union wages,
(31:52):
I think it's probably
looking in the wrong direction.
I totally get what you're saying. I think
it's a multifaceted
problem. And I think Ficor is
one aspect that does not help the
situation. And also a lot of
this problem is not holding
(32:12):
corporations accountable. Because every
so often you'll see on
Cruise Stories or whatever,
you'll be like, "Hey, so-and-so Pepsi
just..." I don't want to say a brand, but
so-and-so just did a Super Bowl ad that
was completely non-union.
So we do hear those things,
but it doesn't get amplified to a degree
where people really
understand why we care so much.
I feel like there's a lot going on versus
(32:35):
Ficor is the enemy. If Ficor was not an
option, that might help the situation.
That's what that theory is just posing.
Again, I'm saying this as someone who's
very pro-union and always
has been. I've always been
pro-union. And I'm saying that it's
(32:56):
tragic that Ficor even has
to exist, that it is even a
"gram". Because in an ideal world, all of
these things would be...
It's interesting to talk about this stuff
because again for me just personally
I it's not good for me to have too much
(33:17):
judgment on why somebody does something
You know because I
don't know their situation
I don't know their life completely right
and I think that's a
great way to look at it
it reminds me of when we were talking
about Nora and we're talking about Sean
Baker and there was a lot of
Talk and this idea of what happened
behind the scenes that possibly he was
not as pro-union as you would
hope for a great independent
director these contracts are
(33:38):
hopefully
protecting everyone on set
These rules are hopefully protecting
actors crew members and
all that stuff and that's it
we want everyone to be working on a set
and it protected and
that's that's probably the the
What we're all aspiring to what's more
helpful is to educate people to bring
them in like you said a
(33:59):
lot of non-union actors
Picket it during the during the strikes
and also like I've now had
Because of the last couple of jobs I've
done which were which were in Ireland
which were on the dirt under the
jurisdiction of two different unions one
was UK equity one was Irish equity
They have different rates and they have
different conditions. So I got to see I
got to get some experience of contracts
(34:20):
you know from a different union that I'm
not as familiar with because my
Most of my experience has been through
side contracts and not through Irish
Union or UK equity contracts
All the only power we have is collective
bargaining, you know without that it's
everybody from themselves
and that's not a good scene
That's that's when that's when like wages
go down conditions go down and
(34:41):
protections get thrown out the window
So I know it's it's it's really it's
interesting to talk about this stuff, you
know, let me throw this out there
I'm gonna keep names out because I
actually don't want to talk about
specific name Gregory
Peck. So I worked it
I
Know expecting that one. Um, I'll try
I'll throw that name out as often as I
can just as I miss direct
(35:04):
So I worked in Atlanta a lot of LA actors
Actually brought up that point
to me you working in Atlanta is kind of
Lending your talents to other shows
Outside of LA and not really
Helping support more production in LA I
(35:27):
took it kind of personally
at first and I'm like, uh,
What are you getting at? I was like I'm
working a segue like it
wasn't working non-union
They were implying that it kind of felt
the same where I ended up
Ending up was I worked on the show I
worked on in Atlanta is exactly produced
and starred by a very
(35:48):
very big actors Gregory Penn my
and
my response to them was this conversation
is kind of silly because I'm
Not the highest on the totem pole all
these fancy stars and executive producers
live in LA they produced and
Start in a show in
Atlanta. I'm pretty sure I'm clean
(36:12):
You know what I mean? Well, of course, I
mean, I think a helpful response that
ought to be fuck right off
Because I think the goal is to work, you
know, I mean you're you're you're working
a job you're working
I can we started to stay in LA rally
There's a push to get production back in
LA because actors like PJ and people are
just working all over the
world because that's where
The production is I'm a part of the
problem then too if I go
home to work in Ireland
(36:34):
You know, I just work two jobs in Ireland
one of them is American job
So I'm a part of the problem too.
Ultimately you have a responsibility to
yourself in your own career
That's that's where you're that's where
your first responsibility lies
I will say though that you working in
Atlanta good for you
You're fucking working and you're going
after the work and you're doing it
You know, I mean you're doing it at a
high level and you're
working on good shows
and honestly, it kind
(36:55):
of sounds like a bit of
Sounds like a bit of jealousy if I'm
honest, I don't think
it's coming from a place of
Necessarily from an egalitarian place of
oh, you know, I'm just
I'm protecting LA industry
LA is a place where you live but the work
is wherever the work is.
Um, yeah, that was good
I'm glad we talked about that and then I
wanted to share something
This is about Alan Rickman like Alan
(37:16):
Rickman's first film role was Hans Grover
and I hard came at the age of 41
And that made his whole career and his
whole you know, he like he done the he'd
done a play in London
That went to Broadway
got a Mattoni nomination
He'd done some BBC serials before that
but his career just took
off at 41 and I've you know
The more stories I hear like that the
more I'm like, oh, yeah, you
(37:37):
just gotta stay in the game
Just gotta if you're enjoying it, you
just gotta hang in there and it's
something that Leslie says
Sometimes she's like I've heard her say
to me and others like just promise me you
won't quit which like feels like a lot of
pressure, but
you know, it's a
It's nice for me to frame it in that way
and go. Yeah, I don't
(37:58):
think I'm ever gonna quit
No matter how it looks, you know, I mean
not fully quit. I like this. Um, this is
something that I feel like
it is omnipresent for a lot of
Just in our careers and it just so
happens that this is the time where
people might be thinking that I
(38:19):
Look at it like a business. There's going
to be great years.
There's going to be soft years
The only thing that you know that you
need to do is to survive. That's it
I don't want this to sound judgy with the
way that the industry is going
right now whether it's you me
Anyone else if you're not kind of looking
around the corner and just trying to be
ready for whatever might happen
(38:41):
I'd be kind of worried unless you're
already rich then that's great
But I think that there is kind of a
balance between keeping your head down
and grinding and also
trying to stay flexible
you can
Pivot all you want just stay in the game.
No makes total sense. I think
if you're going to officially
Retire don't tell anyone just do it
(39:02):
yourself. You don't have to go tell your
reps. I'm officially
retired. Just do yourself
I was talking about an actor
friend about this this morning
Actually, he was talking about the idea
of making it and he realized some of some
of his idea about making it was rooted in
Him 15 years ago when he came up with the
idea what it looked
like 15 years ago and then
(39:23):
three years ago it changed again, you
know, and now it's different now and he
just he reframed what
making it meant to him and
I really appreciated that because I think
Some of the self-imposed pressure that I
have comes from my idea of what making it
look like when I moved to America
Or when I was in my 20s or
(39:44):
you know in my 30s or you know
Even before I got sober like my life has
looked so different all along the way
That it's good for me to examine these
ideas every so often ago. I'll get rid of
that. That's not helpful
I don't I don't even realize that I'm
hanging on to these old ideas until
they're kind of
challenged and someone goes
Well, why do you feel like that? You're
(40:06):
like, oh, it's because I came up with
this idea not being clinging to it
like the idea of like
Waiting waiting is a really interesting
thing for me. I think it is the least
helpful place I can be
It's the least helpful state is waiting
for anything. I don't I don't like to
ever feel like I'm waiting whether that's
(40:26):
Waiting for an audition waiting for the
result of an audition waiting to hear
back waiting for the next one to come in
It's a really powerless place to be
waiting and I'm starting to see like
being in being in class now
This new class that I'm in I'm seeing all
these people just doing stuff
They're just making things and people who
are working to some of them are you know?
(40:47):
Pretty consistently working actors and
some are serious regulars, but they're
just doing stuff. They're
just making things and you know
I've resisted it for a long time because
I want to be the exception
I want it to just be successful at this
one thing and it's got to look like this
and and the older I get and and the
More experience I got a mic. No everybody
who is successful is
doing something as well
(41:08):
I don't mean like a like a
side job or a part-time job
I'm like they're they're
they're exploring other
Avenues that they're either making their
own films or they're writing something or
some kind of other creative endeavor or
they just have other interest and
You know we've heard this for a long time
you have to make your own material
but I think I had heard it in
the context years ago of like
If no one's putting you in a movie make
(41:29):
your own movie, and you know
to get it's but it was always
Or some of it was always like a back step
or yeah, exactly exactly
like a back avenue to get oh
It'll get you somewhere, but now I think
you just have to do
it just to have a life
You know what I mean just to have
something that interests you and it takes
all the pressure off this
other thing and when you talk
About Alan Rickman 41 because I heard
(41:49):
enough interviews that he had
a very full life. He never felt
like
He a life was slipping by him
I agree, and I was just thinking about
what the catalyst for change
is and a lot of the time for me
Unfortunately or for better or worse
It's discomfort when I get uncomfortable
(42:10):
enough in a situation
and forced to change now
I think when I say I wanted to be
exception rather than that
Yeah
I wanted acting to kind of take off and
and save me and I think and you said ego
and I think that's right a lot
Of its ego. I don't want to you know I
want to be different. I
want to I want to just do this
I think underneath that ego is fear
because it's fear of like being judged
(42:30):
for something putting something out there
in the world and people
You know and and I think that's what's
kept me from some of it
And I've branched out more in the last
few years into writing and other things,
but I think fear kept me
Stuck for a long time with that
But I'm starting to see as I'm starting
to be inspired more and more by people
around me just doing stuff
You know and at the studio now we're
(42:52):
working with a female filmmaker an actor
who's who's created this
Wrote and created this short film for a
for a streaming service
And they've given her a
budget to make it into a feature
And it's a decent budget you know and
there's big producers on board and and
she's gone through this process
And it's really inspirational to see that
(43:12):
just for your own sanity
as much as anything else
You know funny we talked about this
before but I never
thought about in this way
I had to make that step when I decided to
put things on YouTube and
some people suggested to me
But I felt like it was beneath an actor
realize when I start when I first did it
I was absolutely horrified and scared and
(43:33):
everyone was very
supportive. I was like oh my god
I was like this I was not expecting this
um my first video with no skills and no
idea what I was doing my sister
Sent it to her friends,
and I was super embarrassed
And they're like it looks
like you're having a lot of fun
I almost had a breakdown
because I was horrified this good
(43:53):
Encouragement meant that I had to do it
I had to jump off that ledge and and and
just give it a shot the writing thing and
people creating their projects
They all help each other writing actually
helps you become a better actor directing
helps you become a better actor
Acting helps directors be a better
director. It's like if you really care
about your acting. Maybe
you should write a direct
(44:14):
Yeah, and I heard something really
helpful the other day from another actor.
She was saying she was talking about
Don't wait for someone to
reach down and bring you up
Come up with the with your peers make
stuff with your peers like
there's something brilliant
You see it in like a lot
of filmmakers will like
Work with the same actors
(44:35):
that they've always worked
But like you know Wes Anderson would be
one or like you know people that have
kind of just come they've come up with
There's something
beautiful about that rather than
Waiting for someone to kind of reach
someone successful already to reach down
and elevate you
nothing is made in a vacuum
This is a this is a ecosystem like the
ocean you know I mean
everybody needs everybody else
(44:56):
All right, let's do hidden gems. I don't
know this really just came
into my mind completely randomly
But I figure let's give some movie
theaters some love AMC just announced for
the starting this summer
They're going to do half-off Wednesdays
Basically tickets are going
to be half off on Wednesdays
Everywhere AMC nationwide starting on
(45:18):
July 9th stubs members can buy tickets
for 50% off normal adults
evening ticket price on Wednesdays
And if you don't know
They've always had seven dollar
discounted Tuesdays so Tuesdays at AMC
have always been seven dollars
You need their online
Membership that's free, but you just need
(45:40):
to sign up for that
also if no one knows canopy
K-a-n-o-p-y
With any local library card you
essentially get free membership to the
app and they have great
movies like criterion movies
They have Oscar winning movies, and it's
just there sitting on an app so
Go for it guys enjoy, and that's my
(46:02):
hidden gem nice hidden gem
all right. I'll take that
I'll take that for the bank the my hidden
gem for this week is a
a movie called yellow sky starring
Gregory Peck no, it's not my
What is my engine for this oh, you know
what this is what it is
(46:23):
I don't know how hidden this is, but I
had never done it and I've
lived in LA for quite a while
But again this might be something that
people do all the time that I just have
recent news come but I've been up to
Griffith Observatory a number of times.
I've been up there a bunch
of times. I've never done
I've been into the to the
observatory. I've never done
There's a planetarium show in there which
(46:43):
they do every so every like hour or two
but it's like a
You know you go into this you go into the
dome and they project this show onto the
like the the domed ceiling it is
Incredible it's $10. It's
there's there's different ones
but it's I
Got motion sickness at the start because
(47:03):
it's so realistic like your flights
This was about the planets and the stars
and our solar system. Oh my
god. It's so well produced
I was expecting something a bit dated and
cheesy not at all. It
is brilliant. It's $10
I think it's like 45
minutes long. It is incredible
You're sitting on these seats kind of
like angled backwards.
You're staring up at the ceiling
They have a little they've a guy that
(47:24):
comes out there a host
guy that kicks it off
Who was it was brilliant this older guy
who was just a brilliant?
And I was like a brilliant speaker like
kind of a quirky dude
But the shows put on a good show
Yeah, it was a show was incredible, and I
just I've never thought to go in there
I've always you know like out the next
shows at 145 and it's this
But I went in there last week, and it was
(47:46):
magic so if you're up that way yeah
I remember you I remember you guys
mentioned, and I was like oh my god that
sounds like a hidden gem
That's a great find. I
learned so much from it
I learned so much about the different
moons and like water on planets and all
kinds of things it was incredible
like it was really educational and
entertaining um I do want to throw this
(48:08):
out there if you're new to the show
hidden gems are a way we say thanks for
Listening to the end we
throw out a fun little
Gems or tidbits from our lives that we
want more people to know and
I have to give you a little
Give you a shout out my cousin is
Binging all of our shows she's a big fan
a cousin Lee went a shout out not only
(48:28):
that she was so captivated by your
Irish gluten-free oats bread if you're
watching this on video
I'm gonna show a picture of her her
creation her first time came out really
good. She enjoyed it so
This was a early hidden gem for us
Rean had a handmade Irish
(48:49):
recipe of bread and
Yeah, we have we have a fan who tried the
recipe so nice you go
I got I got shit off a friend of mine
She's like how have you never had that
before because I only
like keep my you know
I discovered it recently and she was like
how have you never heard of
that before and I was like
I don't know, but it's
great. Is that common though?
I mean, I don't know a lot of people
(49:10):
don't really make their own bread like I
mean, I think it's my mind to me
My mom makes it now
Exclusively, I mean that's most of the
bread in at home in my parents house is
is this bread and it's magic
Cuz my mom canny-gluten so, you know,
it's perfect. Yep. Nothing wrong with
that folks. All right, so that's our show
See you next week. Thanks for joining us.
(49:30):
See you next week guys
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