May 27, 2025 • 32 mins
Welcome to the Actor's Guide to the End of the World, Episode 30! Both E-Kan and Rían are having excellent days with this recording, you’ll have to listen to hear why.
E-Kan saw DeNiro speak and learned what it makes him such a great movie star and actor. It was also the first time E-Kan's sister was ever star struck. We talk about how the game has changed since DeNiro was coming up and a little about the pros and cons of self-tapes. What are actors missing out on not going into the room anymore? Does it hurt them on set?
We get onto a little bit about the process, memorizing lines, what we have found to be successful, and an interesting story about Anthony Hopkins and why he reads his script 200 times.
Then E-Kan talks about how he sets boundaries, avoids getting overwhelmed by the news cycle and what he's learned about the Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck.
Follow us wherever you find your podcasts, including video on YouTube and Substack.
Hidden Gems:
Radio Bakery (NYC) @radiobakerynyc
Line Learner App
Anthony's Paint & Body Shop (Santa Monica) - https://www.yelp.com/biz/anthonys-paint-and-body-shop-santa-monica?utm_campaign=www_business_share_popup&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_source=(direct)
Walton Goggins video - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJaSWnKs9mB/?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
Anthony Hopkins Westworld video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kSGkGKwp9U
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck-
https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713
(00:00) Intro
(05:08) Meeting DeNiro
(09:04) How the industry has changed
(10:50)The trap of self-tapes
(13:40) How important is memorizing lines
(14:20) Anthony Hopkins' simple process
(19:00) What works for us
(26:00) How do you choose what to care about? And not get overwhelmed
(28:40) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
(30:00) Hidden Gems
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
It's always great bringing
(00:01):
my sister to these things.
I take her to all these fancy award
screenings, Oscar nominated.
I bring my sister out.
It doesn't matter what the star.
And I'm like, "Oh my God,
I think she's enjoying it.
I think this is it."
We leave the theater
and she's real quiet.
And she goes to me, she goes, "Ikan, so
let me get this straight.
That was good."
(00:22):
Oh boy.
Hey guys, welcome to the Actors Guide to
the Underworld podcast.
I'm E-Kan Soong.
This is where we talk about acting in
Hollywood in a way people understand.
And this is my co-host.
Rían Sheehy Kelly, how you doing?
What's up buddy?
Feeling good.
Feeling good.
I am feeling good.
I'll tell you what's up.
You are talking real close to the mic and
(00:43):
really sexy because
you are in a public place
and I think it works.
I think this podcast is taking a turn.
Yeah, exactly.
You guys haven't heard anything yet.
Welcome to the Actors Guide to Love.
So if you guys haven't followed us yet,
we're wherever you find
your podcast at Actors Guide
(01:05):
podcast.
We're on YouTube.
We're on Substack.
Follow us on all social media.
Leave us a comment.
Leave us a review.
Greatly appreciate it.
So on the show for today, I talk a little
bit about seeing De
Niro here in New York.
Some interesting tidbits and
some lessons learned from him.
We talk about how the industry has
changed for an actor, self tapes.
(01:25):
We talk a little bit about process and
how different actors
approach building a character,
learning lines.
And we also talk about the
subtle art of not giving a fuck.
Which is a title we did not
come up with, but it is a book.
Spoiler alert.
Yeah, a lot to talk about this episode.
Hope you enjoy it.
Sit back and relax.
And a word from our many,
one of our many sponsors.
(01:47):
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So let's just get right into it.
I'm having a great day.
(02:08):
If you heard in our previous podcast, I
said a hidden gem was
the Capital One Cafe.
This is specifically in New York, but
they're all across the nation.
If you're a Capital One Cafe, sorry,
Capital One card
holder, you can book a nook.
Book a nook.
I'm in a little nook, a
(02:30):
little nook here in Manhattan.
And this is the first time I'm recording
in one of these nooks and it's heaven.
So I'm just crushing life today.
You are a serial nook booker.
Yeah, exactly.
So big, big fan.
I'm not sponsored to say this yet, but
(02:52):
big fan Capital One Cafe baby.
Anyway, so here's where we are.
You're also having a pretty good day.
Do you want to share a
little bit about your saga?
Yeah, so I got my car back.
My car was smoke damaged in the wildfires
in January and it's back.
It's back in my possession and it looks
(03:12):
brand new and it's, I'm thrilled.
I'm absolutely thrilled.
It's like having a new car.
Good for you, man.
Mind you, I will say I was driving a
rental car for the last couple of months.
It's a Prius and they gave me a Prius and
the gas mileage on a
Prius is unbelievable.
I sound like such an old person.
(03:33):
Yeah, exactly.
You're just 20 years behind.
Yeah, but my God, I mean, you could,
anyway, I'm not going
to go into any more.
Oh, I was just going to say I've been
driving a Prius for
15 years, so I'm a fan.
Oh, really?
Fucking Johnny Prius.
But it is pretty sweet, right?
Yeah, it was nice.
Except the horn is a little weak.
(03:55):
Like when you hit the horn, it's like,
and also the warning,
the warning sounds like
the lane assist
shocks the life out of me.
Every time I veer towards the middle
line, it pushes me over.
I couldn't figure out
how to turn that off.
And the warning signs
are a little annoying.
If you go backwards, it sounds like a
medieval lute or
(04:15):
something, like a little horn.
It's like, boom, boom, boom.
Funny enough, my car is older before they
had all the lane assist.
So you're talking about technology that I
haven't even touched.
My car is so old, but
still runs like a gem.
My dashboard doesn't light up.
It literally doesn't light up.
(04:36):
I don't know how fast I'm going.
I just go off of instinct.
Shit, you should not
ever tell anybody that.
Don't repeat that.
Ever.
If you ever see me.
Yeah, exactly.
Hopefully, no cops are listening to this.
That E-Kan is estimating
his speed on the roads.
My dash doesn't light up, so you just
(04:56):
have candles all across the dash.
I'm just going pure instinct, baby.
Pure instinct.
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
Anyway, moving on.
Good idea.
I wanted to share this story.
I've been spending a
little more time in New York.
My sister and I got to see De Niro speak.
He was presenting.
I don't know if people...
This is so under the radar because
(05:17):
there's so many things
going on, but he's in a new
show, fairly new, a show on Netflix
called Zero Day, playing
an ex-president, a former
president.
Yes, yes.
And he did a Q&A, Angela
Bassett, Lizzie Kaplan.
And you know, I mean,
you get to see De Niro.
It's a handful of times.
(05:37):
It doesn't do a lot of press, as most of
you guys probably
already know, but also in New
York.
I was like, "Oh, yeah.
Let me check this out."
It's always great bringing
my sister to these things.
I will say this was the first time out of
awards screenings, out
of celebrity screenings,
this is the first time
(05:58):
she's ever been impressed.
First time ever.
I'm not even joking around.
It's so tough.
Wow.
She actually might be
listening to this, but you know.
So you show all these fancy movies, these
fancy TV shows, and these celebrities.
I bring my sister out.
It doesn't matter what to star.
(06:18):
And I'm like, "Oh my God.
I think she's enjoying it.
I think this is it.
I think she's really enjoying this."
We leave the theater
and she's real quiet.
And she goes to me, she goes, "Ikan, so
let me get this straight.
That was good."
Oh boy.
I take her to all these fancy award
screenings, Oscar nominated.
She goes, "Am I missing something?
(06:40):
You guys think that was good?
That is the bar.
It doesn't matter what
star, what celebrity."
And it's humbling because you have to ask
yourself, you have all
these hyped up movies
and you ask yourself, is the audience
actually really engaging
or is it really connecting
with the audience or is it just celebrity
(07:01):
packaging and this is
what they're pushing
out.
This is the first time I
took her to see a celebrity.
She was like, "Oh my God."
It's like, that's freaking DeNiro.
And there's only a couple of things.
He's not verbose.
He's not shatty.
There's something about him which is a
lot of insight into a
movie star, a lot of insight
(07:21):
into a celebrity.
You just want to watch him.
He's not acting.
He's not performing.
Let's just say Angela
Bassett is on the other side.
She could talk for five hours.
She will not stop talking for five hours.
She's very excited.
She wants to talk.
She wants to communicate.
DeNiro, if he doesn't need to
(07:42):
talk, he's not going to talk.
So DeNiro was exactly
where he needed to be.
If he needed to speak, he would.
And if he didn't need to speak, he was
perfectly fine being quiet.
My sister was captivated by him.
It was like she was watching.
This is what people say when you act with
children or animals.
(08:03):
They're always going to upstage you
because they're never acting.
And that's kind of like what made me
think of she just wanted to watch DeNiro.
His face, his expressions,
his thoughts, everything.
She was just captivated.
And that's what a movie star is.
You just want to watch them.
If anything, we're
dying for him to speak more.
(08:26):
That's what you want, right?
You don't want to be the one who they're
just waiting for you to shut up, right?
The other thing that I thought was
interesting because I think
at the end they talked about
what's the best advice that you would
give to young actors.
He kind of was meandering around and he
eventually said something to the effect
of casting directors
(08:46):
are so important to actors because
they're the gateway to
the directors and they see
so many more actors than directors do.
What came to mind was this is how
different the game is
compared to when DeNiro was coming
up, right?
Yeah.
We're in such a different time and now
it's like with self
tapes, is that really as true
(09:10):
or applicable to an actor
just starting right now?
Yeah, that's interesting.
It is because it has changed so much and
it's changed so much in
such a short space of time.
Like it was changing, I think,
incrementally over time, but
I think the pandemic really
accelerated that.
I think in the beginning of my career, I
would have preferred
(09:32):
self tapes because it would
have taken the pressure off, but I think
I would have missed out
on all those times where
I went into a room and I was a bit too
adrenalized and I was a bit too, you
know, where it didn't
necessarily...
I think that nerves got in the way.
And now at this point, I think I like
being in a room now.
(09:52):
I do appreciate self
tapes because it allows...
Like personally, it allows me to audition
for stuff all over
the place, like stuff in
Ireland, stuff here, stuff in Chicago.
There is something to that pressure,
(10:13):
which, which, because,
you know, when you're on a
job and you're on a set and you have to
just show up and hit it right away.
But something about booking a room is
very appealing to me.
Like I like to meet the people that
you've been working
with for better or worse.
And, you know, I've had different
experiences with that, but I was saying
like my first, my first American TV
audition, I think I
talked about it before,
but it was for, um, a TV show in Chicago.
(10:35):
And I think my nerves
really got in there.
Something threw me in the audition.
The character wasn't, it was an accent
thing or the
character wasn't quite what I
thought it had been.
I misconstrued Irish for Southside of
Chicago Irish, which is pretty different.
Um, and that threw me in the moment.
And I just, I was like, I was like, just
want to clarify this guy's Irish.
She's like, no Southside Chicago Irish.
(10:55):
And I was like, yeah, yeah.
There's so many pros and cons.
It's such a different landscape.
And I agree.
I like the control of self tapes, but
when it comes down to it, if you're a new
actor, when are you going to be in the
room aside from a commercial edition or
maybe an independent film?
It's like, we got that experience of
(11:16):
actually being in the room and that
immediacy and that
urgency for better, for worse.
And a lot of new actors will never even
need to deal with that.
And then maybe once in a few times when
they're in rooms with producers, you
know, three times out of the year, it's,
they're not going to have that
experience that we had.
So it's, it's nice to
have gotten a taste of that.
You know what I mean?
(11:37):
That's very true.
I suppose it does.
Um, I hadn't thought about that.
I hadn't thought about actors coming in
now and trying to contend with how
everything, how the business is now.
I don't know.
Like I wonder, I wonder, are there more
or less people becoming actors today?
You know what I mean?
I know that's what we'll say that for
(11:58):
another time, because I feel like that's
a huge ball of wax where I'm amazed as,
as much as we talk about the shortcomings
of the industry and how hard the game is
and all the things that are happening.
Um, I'm kind of surprised at how many
there are a lot of people who are getting
into the game, there are a lot of people
getting into this crazy industry.
(12:20):
But, um, the last thing about these self
tapes is a lot of people get on set
after they book a self tape, they don't
know their lines when they're on set.
A lot of people are never even learning
their lines for their self tape.
Is there easily, they're either using
teleprompters or they're
doing their auditions on zoom.
Right.
It's, it's a lot of actors are feeling
out of their element on set because they
(12:41):
didn't even officially
learn the lines the first time.
Have you, have you spoken to actors like
younger actors who, or have you seen it?
Have you seen like younger actors not
know their lines on a set or.
That was not a knock on a tendency for
younger actors because of
self tapes are so prevalent.
I think a lot of people are becoming a
little more comfortable in, I see a lot
(13:04):
of options where I don't need to fully be
off book as opposed to
seven, eight years ago.
This is what's happening with self tapes
dominating the TV film game.
Oh, I heard of that a
lot from other actors.
Yeah.
It's interesting though, learning, you
know, learning lines, because even with
the best wheel in the world, under the
pressure of, um, a set, you can forget
(13:25):
your lines I've seen
experienced actors forget their lines.
I've forgotten my lines.
Even when I thought I absolutely had
drilled them and knew them and was ready.
Uh, there are times when just the
pressure of the environment just seems to
knock them out of your head.
And, and it's kind of a,
it's a very unsettling feeling.
Cause you're like, I knew this.
Like I, I, I put to work
(13:46):
in like I had it in my head.
I saw, I've seen it with, um, I saw it
with, I've seen it with series regulars
on shows, um, where they've
just struggled with their lines and they,
you know, cause they're
just, there's a lot going on.
It's not always a lack of preparation.
I do hear the number
200 thrown around by.
Or two was a 200, 201.
(14:07):
Actors like Anthony Hopkins, I've seen in
interviews say like
he'll read it 200 times.
Um, okay.
Read a script, you know,
he'll read his lines 200 times.
And then, uh, I heard, I, well, I never
heard the number 200, but I know that.
Actors like Anthony Hopkins, they they're
just over and over and over again.
Uh, uh, uh, a numerous amount of times.
(14:27):
There is a kind of an old school thing of
like, um, particularly older theater
actors will talk about how they memorize
lines and how Bill Nye, I just saw Bill
Nye talk about how, uh, on an interview,
talk about how he learns lines and
sitting down with the play and going
through it over and over.
And then it's interesting you brought up
Anthony Hopkins because in the context
(14:50):
that I heard about Anthony Hopkins
reading the script religiously, that
actually wasn't in the
context of learning his lines.
I think that was in the context of
understanding character, understanding
what he was the preparation of his work.
And that was actually that
that was actually the game.
And I've heard numerous act like, like
(15:11):
fast bender, a bunch of actors when
they're just absorbing the material and
ideally it's good material.
That's it was never in the context of
memorizing the lines.
I'm sure they memorize the lines as well,
but it was actually, it was actually,
that was their,
actually their preparation.
Oh, that's knowing their character and
knowing all the work.
(15:31):
So, and that's also part of the reason
why they're brilliant.
So there you, there you go.
Regardless, you're probably going to be a
lot better if you are
reading the script 200 times.
I'm not sure if this is the
other thing we should add.
If you're just reciting it 200 times, you
might be getting into a line reading.
So you really have to find your way in
that works for you, um, to learn and
(15:54):
prepare and all that stuff
because that's dangerous.
I don't think he's reciting
his lines the same way 200 times.
Oh, no, no, I don't think he's recited,
but I said the way he
reads it to like, yeah.
Um, to, to really fully understand the,
but that is a good point.
I think, yeah, I think
it is part of the prep.
I think it was described
as that memorizing lines.
I find lately the way, particularly, you
(16:14):
know, with what we learn at
Leslie's and that it's, it's.
That's sort of the last thing.
It's a byproduct of all
the other prep you do.
It's not, I don't ever go in now and try
and get off book right away because it
doesn't, um, I don't find that's the most
helpful way for me to work.
Like I try and go, you know, I try and go
through the script and
prepare the way that, yeah.
(16:36):
And then the lines seem to just kind of
be, uh, uh, incidental, you know, it kind
of comes to you at the end.
Inside out.
And I know people who don't.
We can dive into this a little bit more
because I think this is very on topic.
When we talk about learning lines, people
(16:58):
make such a focus on learning lines where
without the context, I don't
really know what they mean.
Are they talking about I need to know
what the scene is and what's happening?
Or is it I need to memorize these lines
like I'm studying for my
biology test when I was
(17:19):
in high school?
There's so many different – it's so
much more nuanced when
you talk to like when you
actually get into the nitty gritty.
I know that it's going to ruin my acting
and make my acting worse.
If I'm focusing on needing to get every
syllable, every line
perfect and I'm going to give it
to you perfect, right?
I know where I am.
I need to go opposite of that and make
(17:40):
sure I'm not losing everything else.
So I already know where I fall.
I am not going to recite it 50 times
because now that we're
talking more in depth, that's
kind of how I look at it.
And then going back to the whole Anthony
Hopkins thing, Walton
Goggins had this great clip.
There was a couple of
actors that were on a pedestal.
(18:01):
Anthony Hopkins was one.
I actually forget the second.
But Walton Goggins had an acting teacher
and he said, "These
great actors, they read the
script a million times and they give
themselves over to the circumstances."
That's literally what the process is.
(18:22):
Whatever that means to you, obviously as
a younger actor,
you're like, "What does that
even mean?
That's all they do?"
Walton Goggins eventually
worked with these two actors.
He goes up to Anthony Hopkins.
He's like, "Is that really what you do?
That's it?"
Anthony Hopkins, that's all he does.
(18:43):
Whatever that means to an actor, I read
the script a million
times and I give myself over
to the circumstances and what's going on.
And that's it.
And that's my point.
At no point in that process is he talking
about memorizing his lines.
No, no, no.
I absolutely understand.
The thing that I have
(19:03):
found most helpful is...
And this is another thing I think I got
from Neses was things
that are actionable.
I don't know how to...
If you tell me, give
yourself over to the circumstances.
I'm like, "What does that mean?
How do I do that?"
And I kind of know in
a sense what he means.
I have an idea.
(19:24):
But I need things to be...
For me, I have found that I need things
to be simple and
actionable and that is the most
helpful for me.
Because when people talk about objectives
and intentions and that
stuff, I do understand
it.
It's not always easily doable for me
because I'm like,
"Well, what do you mean?
(19:44):
It's a bit vague."
And so what I've really appreciated in
the last few years and of
being in class is really
actionable questions and
directions and suggestions.
That helps me more than anything else.
And I do.
I think I have massive
respect for Anthony Hopkins.
(20:05):
That brings up a great point when you
study with different
teachers and you add tools
to the toolbox, you realize that every
actors are trying to
achieve the same thing when
it comes down to it.
How they get there is a
bunch of different ways.
When I mentioned that story about Anthony
Hopkins and Walt Ngonkin's talk about the
experience, the funny part about that is
it's the simplicity of it.
(20:28):
I'm not saying that what Anthony Hopkins
actually makes sense.
I think that's part of the genius where
you have this genius
generational actor, the simplicity
of it.
I'm not saying that we instantly know or
I instantly knew
exactly what he was talking
about.
I might have an idea of what he does, but
(20:49):
that by no means was
an easy one, two, three
checklist of how to be a brilliant actor
like Anthony Hopkins.
I think that I think it's just funny how
you have this amazing
actor and his process
is that simple, not easy, but simple.
And I love that.
I really enjoy that.
And I know people don't always like
talking about processes
(21:09):
and it's boring for people.
And I know it puts even actors in it
don't like talking
about it or they don't like.
Yeah.
Then you're absolutely wrong.
Yeah.
And I personally enjoy hearing people's
experience of it just
because sometimes I hear something
helpful.
I'm like, or it just,
it's just interesting to me.
I love this job is
really fascinating to me.
And this sort of art form is really got a
(21:33):
sense of wanky when I say art form.
I was conscious of that.
And I was like, I have one.
But you know what I mean?
I have to get over that a little bit too.
Cause it is like, it's great, but I, I
really enjoy it too.
I enjoy the kind of craft of it.
And I think I didn't always
know, no, it didn't always know.
I didn't know what I
was doing for a long time.
I felt like I was just kind of fumbling
(21:55):
around in the dark, a
little bit, hoping, hoping
to stumble on the right answer.
And I feel like now after, you know, good
for years, I
understand it better and I have
a just kind of a
better idea of what it is.
A hundred percent.
And being at Leslie's
helped being at Leslie's.
It changed my, it just changed my whole
approach and it really
made it accessible to me.
And you know, it helped me understand it
(22:17):
and it made it actionable.
It gave me places to start and all the
other stuff that I had
learned before still informs
that too.
You know what I mean?
That's all still there.
You don't just throw it all out.
And there's a great clip of Anthony
Hopkins on the, on the internet.
I don't know if you've ever heard of
that, but it's, it's,
it's readily accessible to
you and me.
(22:38):
There's a YouTube clip that I saw one
time where somebody just
broke down a short scene
from a Westworld that
Anthony Hopkins was in.
I think it was season one of Westworld.
And he gets some news and the way he
takes it and his
reaction, it breaks down each sort
of thought you can see in him, like the
thoughts and his
reactions and then his lines.
(22:58):
It was incredible.
It's actually a really good clip.
You can find it.
If I can find the link.
I'll, I'll, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And hopefully we can find it.
We'll put it in the episode description,
but it's a really,
it's a short enough clip,
but it just shows how skilled he is as an
actor and how in the circumstances he is.
So I think when we talk about giving
yourself over to the
circumstances, I think it's,
it's pretty, it's pretty clear in that,
(23:19):
that he is absolutely
living in those imaginary
circumstances.
And to going back to De Niro, it's
effortless, you know,
regardless of your process and
regardless of how much time and effort
you put into the work,
um, when it comes and when
they're doing it, and hopefully when
ideally when we do it,
it, it comes out effortless
(23:40):
and that's, or it looks effortless.
Talking about effortlessness, um, it's
amazing the amount of
work that goes into making
something look effortless.
I think like, and it's so funny as an
audience, you can always
tell, I think an audience can
tell when, when an actor is not thinking
the thoughts that, you
(24:00):
know, the, you can tell
when there's no thoughts there.
And I don't know, someone can give a
perfectly good line read,
but something just bumps
about it.
Like something just seems off about it.
If, if, if the, if they're not fully
thinking the
character's thoughts, I think.
And real quick, we, we use the word
thoughts a lot because
we're over at Leslie Khan and
(24:21):
we, that's kind of like a lot of the
process, but if you're an
actor or if you're someone
who, who doesn't really know what that
means, I think, I think
I, I think I've found a
better way to describe it.
You can always tell when the actor
doesn't understand why the
character they're playing
says a certain thing, or they don't
understand the line itself.
(24:42):
They don't know why
they're saying what's happening.
Exactly.
Yeah.
They don't really understand why they're
saying what they're
saying in those circumstances.
That's spot on.
And I've been there.
Like I've absolutely been there.
I'm like, and someone goes, well, why is
your character saying that?
And you're like, hmm, good question.
Why is my character saying that?
And, and I'm forced to think about it.
And that really helps me too.
There's a sort of a, I think there's a
(25:02):
sort of a conception
out there that acting is
quite easy because it looks easy.
It's when you pull it apart and you
realize that so much
work goes in under the
hood, so to speak.
That's, it's a magic trick.
We don't see all that work that that
actor and the writer
and the director and the
editors put together that piece.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Because it takes so, so many people for
it to put that
together for someone to not
(25:24):
notice all of it.
And the less they notice
of that work, the better.
I think it is.
Roger Deakins talks about that.
He goes, if you notice the cinematography
in a movie, I haven't done my job.
If you're going, God, the
cinematography in that was great.
It shouldn't take you out of it.
You know, that's a great, that's a great
Deakins quote moving
on past few episodes.
We talk about things in the industry,
things in the news, actors, especially
(25:44):
since we've been doing this actor, send
me actors, send me
stories, which is great
because we want really cool stories where
we might talk about on our show.
Someone sent this a story to me and they
were really passionate about it.
Why is nobody sending me stories?
Hang on, hang on a minute.
We'll save that for another podcast.
Hang on a minute.
(26:04):
Love that you're being singled out for
this special treatment.
Send me more stories, guys.
I like stories.
Yeah, exactly.
There's this news bit that angered my
friend and long story short, I said, I
didn't really think that much of it.
And this is over text.
He goes, I'm kind of surprised you're not
more concerned about it.
(26:25):
Right.
And there's no judginess about it, but I
thought it was an interesting lesson.
I've gotten really good at this is what I
can handle being an actor, not being
overwhelmed by every little bit that's in
the news, in the industry, and that's
(26:45):
happening around the world.
I have only so much in this container.
That is how I protect myself to be a
functional human being every week.
Kind of like this podcast, we can't talk
about every story that comes across our
newsfeed in this podcast.
We have to decide.
We're always deciding and no
different than in our week.
We are choosing what
(27:07):
things to really care about.
Yeah.
How do you decide?
Don't care about this
conversation at all.
So I don't want to know.
No, I don't think I'm as good at
filtering that kind of
stuff as you, because there
are things going on that affect me.
There are some world events going on at
the moment that I find affect me quite a
(27:28):
bit.
It's difficult to know where my, what
kind of influence I
can have or not, or, you
know, what are my responsibilities?
It is hard.
There's an awful lot of stuff out there.
This is nothing to do with acting, but
just in the world, there's a lot of stuff
going on.
Yeah, of course.
And it's hard to choose
what to really care about.
I find that difficult.
(27:48):
But no matter what I do, I try to not get
swept away in it all
and neglect the things
that are close to home.
Like I think a sense of
serenity and sort of peace is vital.
I think a lot of what I've learned about
how to get there is
(28:10):
what I've learned, you
know, sort of in sobriety and through
recovery and stuff like that.
I think I'm more equipped to deal with
life certainly than I used to be.
And some of that is age as well.
Like you kind of heard the phrase one
time that enlightenment
is not learning things,
(28:31):
but letting go of what's not important.
That's spot on with
what we're talking about.
Yeah, it's not about acquiring knowledge,
but sort of letting go of what's not
important.
I want to give a shout out
because this book came to mind.
This is a classic best seller, the subtle
art of not giving a fuck.
First of all, that's a
great, that's a great title.
(28:51):
It is a great title.
It's Mark Manson.
I might have it.
I'm just looking at my bookshelf here.
I'm trying to see if I have it.
Yeah.
I have a similar book, which my pal,
Emmett gave me when I
was at his house one time,
which I'm just going to grab now.
And it's just called Fuck It.
The ultimate, the tagline is
the ultimate spiritual way.
(29:12):
The ultimate spiritual way.
Fuck it.
The ultimate spiritual way.
Let me just drop a
couple gems from this book.
Mark Manson will put a
link in the description.
And if you go around giving a fuck about
everything and everyone without
conscious thought or choice, well, then
you're going to get fucked.
Ah, the key to a good life is
not giving a fuck about more.
(29:32):
It's giving a fuck about less, giving a
fuck about only what is true and
immediate and important.
And the last one, the desire for more
positive experience is itself a negative
experience and paradoxically the
acceptance of one's negative experience
is itself a positive experience.
We could probably do a
whole nother podcast on that.
(29:53):
Anyway, so there you go.
So a hidden gem that I want
to drop this small bakery.
It's called Radio Bakery.
There's a couple in
Brooklyn, but it's Radio Bakery.
Line out the door before they open
because they
basically, I think they close at
three, but also they have limited
supplies, great sandwiches.
They also have a variety of different
(30:14):
flavors of croissants.
I'll throw a couple of pictures if you're
watching this on video.
Anyway, I had a smoked salmon sandwich
one time with cream cheese on it.
It's just really top notch.
There you go.
That's my hidden gem.
Hidden gem.
Great hidden gem.
I actually have two today, but I'm going
to, uh, I'll just give them both away.
I'll just, I'll just, here you go.
Here's a bonus, a bonus gem.
One of them is a bit more, uh, localized.
(30:37):
But, uh, the first one is, and I know
this should be not the
first thing you do, but
probably the last thing you do, but an
app called line
learner where you record your
lines and you record the other person's
lines, or you can just record the other
person's lines in a scene and just leave
a gap for your own lines.
And you just, you
determine how long the gap is.
So you can actually practice
(30:57):
your lines with another voice.
That's great.
So I find that that to me is more helpful
than trying to do it in a
vacuum and practice on my own.
So the app is called line learner.
I think there is a premium version, but
the version I use is free and, um, it
really helped me out the other day when I
was trying to learn the other one is
local to Santa Monica or the LA area.
(31:17):
There's a, I just got my car back from
Anthony's body shop in Santa Monica.
It's on 14th street and they could not
have been nicer to that.
They did a phenomenal job.
They were fast.
They were polite.
They were communicative.
Uh, they, they were so reasonable.
They were really honest about everything.
I had a phenomenal experience.
I've got great recruit
reviews across the board.
(31:37):
I just picked them off Yelp because I was
looking for a body shop for my car.
And, uh, they are.
So that's Anthony's body and paint shop
in Santa Monica or paint and body shop.
I'm not sure, but they're fantastic.
So if you're looking for any work done on
your car, there you go.
Anthony's shout out to Reuben.
Shout out to Reuben at Anthony's.
It was super, super nice.
(31:57):
Oh, that's great.
Great hit and jam.
Uh, so that's our show everyone enjoy.
Have a good week and we'll be back.
We'll be back with a
special episode next week.
See you next week.
It's always great bringing
(00:01):
my sister to these things.
I take her to all these fancy award
screenings, Oscar nominated.
I bring my sister out.
It doesn't matter what the star.
And I'm like, "Oh my God,
I think she's enjoying it.
I think this is it."
We leave the theater
and she's real quiet.
And she goes to me, she goes, "Ikan, so
let me get this straight.
That was good."
(00:22):
Oh boy.
Hey guys, welcome to the Actors Guide to
the Underworld podcast.
I'm E-Kan Soong.
This is where we talk about acting in
Hollywood in a way people understand.
And this is my co-host.
Rían Sheehy Kelly, how you doing?
What's up buddy?
Feeling good.
Feeling good.
I am feeling good.
I'll tell you what's up.
You are talking real close to the mic and
(00:43):
really sexy because
you are in a public place
and I think it works.
I think this podcast is taking a turn.
Yeah, exactly.
You guys haven't heard anything yet.
Welcome to the Actors Guide to Love.
So if you guys haven't followed us yet,
we're wherever you find
your podcast at Actors Guide
(01:05):
podcast.
We're on YouTube.
We're on Substack.
Follow us on all social media.
Leave us a comment.
Leave us a review.
Greatly appreciate it.
So on the show for today, I talk a little
bit about seeing De
Niro here in New York.
Some interesting tidbits and
some lessons learned from him.
We talk about how the industry has
changed for an actor, self tapes.
(01:25):
We talk a little bit about process and
how different actors
approach building a character,
learning lines.
And we also talk about the
subtle art of not giving a fuck.
Which is a title we did not
come up with, but it is a book.
Spoiler alert.
Yeah, a lot to talk about this episode.
Hope you enjoy it.
Sit back and relax.
And a word from our many,
one of our many sponsors.
(01:47):
Today's show is brought to you by tired
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So let's just get right into it.
I'm having a great day.
(02:08):
If you heard in our previous podcast, I
said a hidden gem was
the Capital One Cafe.
This is specifically in New York, but
they're all across the nation.
If you're a Capital One Cafe, sorry,
Capital One card
holder, you can book a nook.
Book a nook.
I'm in a little nook, a
(02:30):
little nook here in Manhattan.
And this is the first time I'm recording
in one of these nooks and it's heaven.
So I'm just crushing life today.
You are a serial nook booker.
Yeah, exactly.
So big, big fan.
I'm not sponsored to say this yet, but
(02:52):
big fan Capital One Cafe baby.
Anyway, so here's where we are.
You're also having a pretty good day.
Do you want to share a
little bit about your saga?
Yeah, so I got my car back.
My car was smoke damaged in the wildfires
in January and it's back.
It's back in my possession and it looks
(03:12):
brand new and it's, I'm thrilled.
I'm absolutely thrilled.
It's like having a new car.
Good for you, man.
Mind you, I will say I was driving a
rental car for the last couple of months.
It's a Prius and they gave me a Prius and
the gas mileage on a
Prius is unbelievable.
I sound like such an old person.
(03:33):
Yeah, exactly.
You're just 20 years behind.
Yeah, but my God, I mean, you could,
anyway, I'm not going
to go into any more.
Oh, I was just going to say I've been
driving a Prius for
15 years, so I'm a fan.
Oh, really?
Fucking Johnny Prius.
But it is pretty sweet, right?
Yeah, it was nice.
Except the horn is a little weak.
(03:55):
Like when you hit the horn, it's like,
and also the warning,
the warning sounds like
the lane assist
shocks the life out of me.
Every time I veer towards the middle
line, it pushes me over.
I couldn't figure out
how to turn that off.
And the warning signs
are a little annoying.
If you go backwards, it sounds like a
medieval lute or
(04:15):
something, like a little horn.
It's like, boom, boom, boom.
Funny enough, my car is older before they
had all the lane assist.
So you're talking about technology that I
haven't even touched.
My car is so old, but
still runs like a gem.
My dashboard doesn't light up.
It literally doesn't light up.
(04:36):
I don't know how fast I'm going.
I just go off of instinct.
Shit, you should not
ever tell anybody that.
Don't repeat that.
Ever.
If you ever see me.
Yeah, exactly.
Hopefully, no cops are listening to this.
That E-Kan is estimating
his speed on the roads.
My dash doesn't light up, so you just
(04:56):
have candles all across the dash.
I'm just going pure instinct, baby.
Pure instinct.
Oh, boy.
Oh, boy.
Anyway, moving on.
Good idea.
I wanted to share this story.
I've been spending a
little more time in New York.
My sister and I got to see De Niro speak.
He was presenting.
I don't know if people...
This is so under the radar because
(05:17):
there's so many things
going on, but he's in a new
show, fairly new, a show on Netflix
called Zero Day, playing
an ex-president, a former
president.
Yes, yes.
And he did a Q&A, Angela
Bassett, Lizzie Kaplan.
And you know, I mean,
you get to see De Niro.
It's a handful of times.
(05:37):
It doesn't do a lot of press, as most of
you guys probably
already know, but also in New
York.
I was like, "Oh, yeah.
Let me check this out."
It's always great bringing
my sister to these things.
I will say this was the first time out of
awards screenings, out
of celebrity screenings,
this is the first time
(05:58):
she's ever been impressed.
First time ever.
I'm not even joking around.
It's so tough.
Wow.
She actually might be
listening to this, but you know.
So you show all these fancy movies, these
fancy TV shows, and these celebrities.
I bring my sister out.
It doesn't matter what to star.
(06:18):
And I'm like, "Oh my God.
I think she's enjoying it.
I think this is it.
I think she's really enjoying this."
We leave the theater
and she's real quiet.
And she goes to me, she goes, "Ikan, so
let me get this straight.
That was good."
Oh boy.
I take her to all these fancy award
screenings, Oscar nominated.
She goes, "Am I missing something?
(06:40):
You guys think that was good?
That is the bar.
It doesn't matter what
star, what celebrity."
And it's humbling because you have to ask
yourself, you have all
these hyped up movies
and you ask yourself, is the audience
actually really engaging
or is it really connecting
with the audience or is it just celebrity
(07:01):
packaging and this is
what they're pushing
out.
This is the first time I
took her to see a celebrity.
She was like, "Oh my God."
It's like, that's freaking DeNiro.
And there's only a couple of things.
He's not verbose.
He's not shatty.
There's something about him which is a
lot of insight into a
movie star, a lot of insight
(07:21):
into a celebrity.
You just want to watch him.
He's not acting.
He's not performing.
Let's just say Angela
Bassett is on the other side.
She could talk for five hours.
She will not stop talking for five hours.
She's very excited.
She wants to talk.
She wants to communicate.
DeNiro, if he doesn't need to
(07:42):
talk, he's not going to talk.
So DeNiro was exactly
where he needed to be.
If he needed to speak, he would.
And if he didn't need to speak, he was
perfectly fine being quiet.
My sister was captivated by him.
It was like she was watching.
This is what people say when you act with
children or animals.
(08:03):
They're always going to upstage you
because they're never acting.
And that's kind of like what made me
think of she just wanted to watch DeNiro.
His face, his expressions,
his thoughts, everything.
She was just captivated.
And that's what a movie star is.
You just want to watch them.
If anything, we're
dying for him to speak more.
(08:26):
That's what you want, right?
You don't want to be the one who they're
just waiting for you to shut up, right?
The other thing that I thought was
interesting because I think
at the end they talked about
what's the best advice that you would
give to young actors.
He kind of was meandering around and he
eventually said something to the effect
of casting directors
(08:46):
are so important to actors because
they're the gateway to
the directors and they see
so many more actors than directors do.
What came to mind was this is how
different the game is
compared to when DeNiro was coming
up, right?
Yeah.
We're in such a different time and now
it's like with self
tapes, is that really as true
(09:10):
or applicable to an actor
just starting right now?
Yeah, that's interesting.
It is because it has changed so much and
it's changed so much in
such a short space of time.
Like it was changing, I think,
incrementally over time, but
I think the pandemic really
accelerated that.
I think in the beginning of my career, I
would have preferred
(09:32):
self tapes because it would
have taken the pressure off, but I think
I would have missed out
on all those times where
I went into a room and I was a bit too
adrenalized and I was a bit too, you
know, where it didn't
necessarily...
I think that nerves got in the way.
And now at this point, I think I like
being in a room now.
(09:52):
I do appreciate self
tapes because it allows...
Like personally, it allows me to audition
for stuff all over
the place, like stuff in
Ireland, stuff here, stuff in Chicago.
There is something to that pressure,
(10:13):
which, which, because,
you know, when you're on a
job and you're on a set and you have to
just show up and hit it right away.
But something about booking a room is
very appealing to me.
Like I like to meet the people that
you've been working
with for better or worse.
And, you know, I've had different
experiences with that, but I was saying
like my first, my first American TV
audition, I think I
talked about it before,
but it was for, um, a TV show in Chicago.
(10:35):
And I think my nerves
really got in there.
Something threw me in the audition.
The character wasn't, it was an accent
thing or the
character wasn't quite what I
thought it had been.
I misconstrued Irish for Southside of
Chicago Irish, which is pretty different.
Um, and that threw me in the moment.
And I just, I was like, I was like, just
want to clarify this guy's Irish.
She's like, no Southside Chicago Irish.
(10:55):
And I was like, yeah, yeah.
There's so many pros and cons.
It's such a different landscape.
And I agree.
I like the control of self tapes, but
when it comes down to it, if you're a new
actor, when are you going to be in the
room aside from a commercial edition or
maybe an independent film?
It's like, we got that experience of
(11:16):
actually being in the room and that
immediacy and that
urgency for better, for worse.
And a lot of new actors will never even
need to deal with that.
And then maybe once in a few times when
they're in rooms with producers, you
know, three times out of the year, it's,
they're not going to have that
experience that we had.
So it's, it's nice to
have gotten a taste of that.
You know what I mean?
(11:37):
That's very true.
I suppose it does.
Um, I hadn't thought about that.
I hadn't thought about actors coming in
now and trying to contend with how
everything, how the business is now.
I don't know.
Like I wonder, I wonder, are there more
or less people becoming actors today?
You know what I mean?
I know that's what we'll say that for
(11:58):
another time, because I feel like that's
a huge ball of wax where I'm amazed as,
as much as we talk about the shortcomings
of the industry and how hard the game is
and all the things that are happening.
Um, I'm kind of surprised at how many
there are a lot of people who are getting
into the game, there are a lot of people
getting into this crazy industry.
(12:20):
But, um, the last thing about these self
tapes is a lot of people get on set
after they book a self tape, they don't
know their lines when they're on set.
A lot of people are never even learning
their lines for their self tape.
Is there easily, they're either using
teleprompters or they're
doing their auditions on zoom.
Right.
It's, it's a lot of actors are feeling
out of their element on set because they
(12:41):
didn't even officially
learn the lines the first time.
Have you, have you spoken to actors like
younger actors who, or have you seen it?
Have you seen like younger actors not
know their lines on a set or.
That was not a knock on a tendency for
younger actors because of
self tapes are so prevalent.
I think a lot of people are becoming a
little more comfortable in, I see a lot
(13:04):
of options where I don't need to fully be
off book as opposed to
seven, eight years ago.
This is what's happening with self tapes
dominating the TV film game.
Oh, I heard of that a
lot from other actors.
Yeah.
It's interesting though, learning, you
know, learning lines, because even with
the best wheel in the world, under the
pressure of, um, a set, you can forget
(13:25):
your lines I've seen
experienced actors forget their lines.
I've forgotten my lines.
Even when I thought I absolutely had
drilled them and knew them and was ready.
Uh, there are times when just the
pressure of the environment just seems to
knock them out of your head.
And, and it's kind of a,
it's a very unsettling feeling.
Cause you're like, I knew this.
Like I, I, I put to work
(13:46):
in like I had it in my head.
I saw, I've seen it with, um, I saw it
with, I've seen it with series regulars
on shows, um, where they've
just struggled with their lines and they,
you know, cause they're
just, there's a lot going on.
It's not always a lack of preparation.
I do hear the number
200 thrown around by.
Or two was a 200, 201.
(14:07):
Actors like Anthony Hopkins, I've seen in
interviews say like
he'll read it 200 times.
Um, okay.
Read a script, you know,
he'll read his lines 200 times.
And then, uh, I heard, I, well, I never
heard the number 200, but I know that.
Actors like Anthony Hopkins, they they're
just over and over and over again.
Uh, uh, uh, a numerous amount of times.
(14:27):
There is a kind of an old school thing of
like, um, particularly older theater
actors will talk about how they memorize
lines and how Bill Nye, I just saw Bill
Nye talk about how, uh, on an interview,
talk about how he learns lines and
sitting down with the play and going
through it over and over.
And then it's interesting you brought up
Anthony Hopkins because in the context
(14:50):
that I heard about Anthony Hopkins
reading the script religiously, that
actually wasn't in the
context of learning his lines.
I think that was in the context of
understanding character, understanding
what he was the preparation of his work.
And that was actually that
that was actually the game.
And I've heard numerous act like, like
(15:11):
fast bender, a bunch of actors when
they're just absorbing the material and
ideally it's good material.
That's it was never in the context of
memorizing the lines.
I'm sure they memorize the lines as well,
but it was actually, it was actually,
that was their,
actually their preparation.
Oh, that's knowing their character and
knowing all the work.
(15:31):
So, and that's also part of the reason
why they're brilliant.
So there you, there you go.
Regardless, you're probably going to be a
lot better if you are
reading the script 200 times.
I'm not sure if this is the
other thing we should add.
If you're just reciting it 200 times, you
might be getting into a line reading.
So you really have to find your way in
that works for you, um, to learn and
(15:54):
prepare and all that stuff
because that's dangerous.
I don't think he's reciting
his lines the same way 200 times.
Oh, no, no, I don't think he's recited,
but I said the way he
reads it to like, yeah.
Um, to, to really fully understand the,
but that is a good point.
I think, yeah, I think
it is part of the prep.
I think it was described
as that memorizing lines.
I find lately the way, particularly, you
(16:14):
know, with what we learn at
Leslie's and that it's, it's.
That's sort of the last thing.
It's a byproduct of all
the other prep you do.
It's not, I don't ever go in now and try
and get off book right away because it
doesn't, um, I don't find that's the most
helpful way for me to work.
Like I try and go, you know, I try and go
through the script and
prepare the way that, yeah.
(16:36):
And then the lines seem to just kind of
be, uh, uh, incidental, you know, it kind
of comes to you at the end.
Inside out.
And I know people who don't.
We can dive into this a little bit more
because I think this is very on topic.
When we talk about learning lines, people
(16:58):
make such a focus on learning lines where
without the context, I don't
really know what they mean.
Are they talking about I need to know
what the scene is and what's happening?
Or is it I need to memorize these lines
like I'm studying for my
biology test when I was
(17:19):
in high school?
There's so many different – it's so
much more nuanced when
you talk to like when you
actually get into the nitty gritty.
I know that it's going to ruin my acting
and make my acting worse.
If I'm focusing on needing to get every
syllable, every line
perfect and I'm going to give it
to you perfect, right?
I know where I am.
I need to go opposite of that and make
(17:40):
sure I'm not losing everything else.
So I already know where I fall.
I am not going to recite it 50 times
because now that we're
talking more in depth, that's
kind of how I look at it.
And then going back to the whole Anthony
Hopkins thing, Walton
Goggins had this great clip.
There was a couple of
actors that were on a pedestal.
(18:01):
Anthony Hopkins was one.
I actually forget the second.
But Walton Goggins had an acting teacher
and he said, "These
great actors, they read the
script a million times and they give
themselves over to the circumstances."
That's literally what the process is.
(18:22):
Whatever that means to you, obviously as
a younger actor,
you're like, "What does that
even mean?
That's all they do?"
Walton Goggins eventually
worked with these two actors.
He goes up to Anthony Hopkins.
He's like, "Is that really what you do?
That's it?"
Anthony Hopkins, that's all he does.
(18:43):
Whatever that means to an actor, I read
the script a million
times and I give myself over
to the circumstances and what's going on.
And that's it.
And that's my point.
At no point in that process is he talking
about memorizing his lines.
No, no, no.
I absolutely understand.
The thing that I have
(19:03):
found most helpful is...
And this is another thing I think I got
from Neses was things
that are actionable.
I don't know how to...
If you tell me, give
yourself over to the circumstances.
I'm like, "What does that mean?
How do I do that?"
And I kind of know in
a sense what he means.
I have an idea.
(19:24):
But I need things to be...
For me, I have found that I need things
to be simple and
actionable and that is the most
helpful for me.
Because when people talk about objectives
and intentions and that
stuff, I do understand
it.
It's not always easily doable for me
because I'm like,
"Well, what do you mean?
(19:44):
It's a bit vague."
And so what I've really appreciated in
the last few years and of
being in class is really
actionable questions and
directions and suggestions.
That helps me more than anything else.
And I do.
I think I have massive
respect for Anthony Hopkins.
(20:05):
That brings up a great point when you
study with different
teachers and you add tools
to the toolbox, you realize that every
actors are trying to
achieve the same thing when
it comes down to it.
How they get there is a
bunch of different ways.
When I mentioned that story about Anthony
Hopkins and Walt Ngonkin's talk about the
experience, the funny part about that is
it's the simplicity of it.
(20:28):
I'm not saying that what Anthony Hopkins
actually makes sense.
I think that's part of the genius where
you have this genius
generational actor, the simplicity
of it.
I'm not saying that we instantly know or
I instantly knew
exactly what he was talking
about.
I might have an idea of what he does, but
(20:49):
that by no means was
an easy one, two, three
checklist of how to be a brilliant actor
like Anthony Hopkins.
I think that I think it's just funny how
you have this amazing
actor and his process
is that simple, not easy, but simple.
And I love that.
I really enjoy that.
And I know people don't always like
talking about processes
(21:09):
and it's boring for people.
And I know it puts even actors in it
don't like talking
about it or they don't like.
Yeah.
Then you're absolutely wrong.
Yeah.
And I personally enjoy hearing people's
experience of it just
because sometimes I hear something
helpful.
I'm like, or it just,
it's just interesting to me.
I love this job is
really fascinating to me.
And this sort of art form is really got a
(21:33):
sense of wanky when I say art form.
I was conscious of that.
And I was like, I have one.
But you know what I mean?
I have to get over that a little bit too.
Cause it is like, it's great, but I, I
really enjoy it too.
I enjoy the kind of craft of it.
And I think I didn't always
know, no, it didn't always know.
I didn't know what I
was doing for a long time.
I felt like I was just kind of fumbling
(21:55):
around in the dark, a
little bit, hoping, hoping
to stumble on the right answer.
And I feel like now after, you know, good
for years, I
understand it better and I have
a just kind of a
better idea of what it is.
A hundred percent.
And being at Leslie's
helped being at Leslie's.
It changed my, it just changed my whole
approach and it really
made it accessible to me.
And you know, it helped me understand it
(22:17):
and it made it actionable.
It gave me places to start and all the
other stuff that I had
learned before still informs
that too.
You know what I mean?
That's all still there.
You don't just throw it all out.
And there's a great clip of Anthony
Hopkins on the, on the internet.
I don't know if you've ever heard of
that, but it's, it's,
it's readily accessible to
you and me.
(22:38):
There's a YouTube clip that I saw one
time where somebody just
broke down a short scene
from a Westworld that
Anthony Hopkins was in.
I think it was season one of Westworld.
And he gets some news and the way he
takes it and his
reaction, it breaks down each sort
of thought you can see in him, like the
thoughts and his
reactions and then his lines.
(22:58):
It was incredible.
It's actually a really good clip.
You can find it.
If I can find the link.
I'll, I'll, yeah, yeah, exactly.
And hopefully we can find it.
We'll put it in the episode description,
but it's a really,
it's a short enough clip,
but it just shows how skilled he is as an
actor and how in the circumstances he is.
So I think when we talk about giving
yourself over to the
circumstances, I think it's,
it's pretty, it's pretty clear in that,
(23:19):
that he is absolutely
living in those imaginary
circumstances.
And to going back to De Niro, it's
effortless, you know,
regardless of your process and
regardless of how much time and effort
you put into the work,
um, when it comes and when
they're doing it, and hopefully when
ideally when we do it,
it, it comes out effortless
(23:40):
and that's, or it looks effortless.
Talking about effortlessness, um, it's
amazing the amount of
work that goes into making
something look effortless.
I think like, and it's so funny as an
audience, you can always
tell, I think an audience can
tell when, when an actor is not thinking
the thoughts that, you
(24:00):
know, the, you can tell
when there's no thoughts there.
And I don't know, someone can give a
perfectly good line read,
but something just bumps
about it.
Like something just seems off about it.
If, if, if the, if they're not fully
thinking the
character's thoughts, I think.
And real quick, we, we use the word
thoughts a lot because
we're over at Leslie Khan and
(24:21):
we, that's kind of like a lot of the
process, but if you're an
actor or if you're someone
who, who doesn't really know what that
means, I think, I think
I, I think I've found a
better way to describe it.
You can always tell when the actor
doesn't understand why the
character they're playing
says a certain thing, or they don't
understand the line itself.
(24:42):
They don't know why
they're saying what's happening.
Exactly.
Yeah.
They don't really understand why they're
saying what they're
saying in those circumstances.
That's spot on.
And I've been there.
Like I've absolutely been there.
I'm like, and someone goes, well, why is
your character saying that?
And you're like, hmm, good question.
Why is my character saying that?
And, and I'm forced to think about it.
And that really helps me too.
There's a sort of a, I think there's a
(25:02):
sort of a conception
out there that acting is
quite easy because it looks easy.
It's when you pull it apart and you
realize that so much
work goes in under the
hood, so to speak.
That's, it's a magic trick.
We don't see all that work that that
actor and the writer
and the director and the
editors put together that piece.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
Because it takes so, so many people for
it to put that
together for someone to not
(25:24):
notice all of it.
And the less they notice
of that work, the better.
I think it is.
Roger Deakins talks about that.
He goes, if you notice the cinematography
in a movie, I haven't done my job.
If you're going, God, the
cinematography in that was great.
It shouldn't take you out of it.
You know, that's a great, that's a great
Deakins quote moving
on past few episodes.
We talk about things in the industry,
things in the news, actors, especially
(25:44):
since we've been doing this actor, send
me actors, send me
stories, which is great
because we want really cool stories where
we might talk about on our show.
Someone sent this a story to me and they
were really passionate about it.
Why is nobody sending me stories?
Hang on, hang on a minute.
We'll save that for another podcast.
Hang on a minute.
(26:04):
Love that you're being singled out for
this special treatment.
Send me more stories, guys.
I like stories.
Yeah, exactly.
There's this news bit that angered my
friend and long story short, I said, I
didn't really think that much of it.
And this is over text.
He goes, I'm kind of surprised you're not
more concerned about it.
(26:25):
Right.
And there's no judginess about it, but I
thought it was an interesting lesson.
I've gotten really good at this is what I
can handle being an actor, not being
overwhelmed by every little bit that's in
the news, in the industry, and that's
(26:45):
happening around the world.
I have only so much in this container.
That is how I protect myself to be a
functional human being every week.
Kind of like this podcast, we can't talk
about every story that comes across our
newsfeed in this podcast.
We have to decide.
We're always deciding and no
different than in our week.
We are choosing what
(27:07):
things to really care about.
Yeah.
How do you decide?
Don't care about this
conversation at all.
So I don't want to know.
No, I don't think I'm as good at
filtering that kind of
stuff as you, because there
are things going on that affect me.
There are some world events going on at
the moment that I find affect me quite a
(27:28):
bit.
It's difficult to know where my, what
kind of influence I
can have or not, or, you
know, what are my responsibilities?
It is hard.
There's an awful lot of stuff out there.
This is nothing to do with acting, but
just in the world, there's a lot of stuff
going on.
Yeah, of course.
And it's hard to choose
what to really care about.
I find that difficult.
(27:48):
But no matter what I do, I try to not get
swept away in it all
and neglect the things
that are close to home.
Like I think a sense of
serenity and sort of peace is vital.
I think a lot of what I've learned about
how to get there is
(28:10):
what I've learned, you
know, sort of in sobriety and through
recovery and stuff like that.
I think I'm more equipped to deal with
life certainly than I used to be.
And some of that is age as well.
Like you kind of heard the phrase one
time that enlightenment
is not learning things,
(28:31):
but letting go of what's not important.
That's spot on with
what we're talking about.
Yeah, it's not about acquiring knowledge,
but sort of letting go of what's not
important.
I want to give a shout out
because this book came to mind.
This is a classic best seller, the subtle
art of not giving a fuck.
First of all, that's a
great, that's a great title.
(28:51):
It is a great title.
It's Mark Manson.
I might have it.
I'm just looking at my bookshelf here.
I'm trying to see if I have it.
Yeah.
I have a similar book, which my pal,
Emmett gave me when I
was at his house one time,
which I'm just going to grab now.
And it's just called Fuck It.
The ultimate, the tagline is
the ultimate spiritual way.
(29:12):
The ultimate spiritual way.
Fuck it.
The ultimate spiritual way.
Let me just drop a
couple gems from this book.
Mark Manson will put a
link in the description.
And if you go around giving a fuck about
everything and everyone without
conscious thought or choice, well, then
you're going to get fucked.
Ah, the key to a good life is
not giving a fuck about more.
(29:32):
It's giving a fuck about less, giving a
fuck about only what is true and
immediate and important.
And the last one, the desire for more
positive experience is itself a negative
experience and paradoxically the
acceptance of one's negative experience
is itself a positive experience.
We could probably do a
whole nother podcast on that.
(29:53):
Anyway, so there you go.
So a hidden gem that I want
to drop this small bakery.
It's called Radio Bakery.
There's a couple in
Brooklyn, but it's Radio Bakery.
Line out the door before they open
because they
basically, I think they close at
three, but also they have limited
supplies, great sandwiches.
They also have a variety of different
(30:14):
flavors of croissants.
I'll throw a couple of pictures if you're
watching this on video.
Anyway, I had a smoked salmon sandwich
one time with cream cheese on it.
It's just really top notch.
There you go.
That's my hidden gem.
Hidden gem.
Great hidden gem.
I actually have two today, but I'm going
to, uh, I'll just give them both away.
I'll just, I'll just, here you go.
Here's a bonus, a bonus gem.
One of them is a bit more, uh, localized.
(30:37):
But, uh, the first one is, and I know
this should be not the
first thing you do, but
probably the last thing you do, but an
app called line
learner where you record your
lines and you record the other person's
lines, or you can just record the other
person's lines in a scene and just leave
a gap for your own lines.
And you just, you
determine how long the gap is.
So you can actually practice
(30:57):
your lines with another voice.
That's great.
So I find that that to me is more helpful
than trying to do it in a
vacuum and practice on my own.
So the app is called line learner.
I think there is a premium version, but
the version I use is free and, um, it
really helped me out the other day when I
was trying to learn the other one is
local to Santa Monica or the LA area.
(31:17):
There's a, I just got my car back from
Anthony's body shop in Santa Monica.
It's on 14th street and they could not
have been nicer to that.
They did a phenomenal job.
They were fast.
They were polite.
They were communicative.
Uh, they, they were so reasonable.
They were really honest about everything.
I had a phenomenal experience.
I've got great recruit
reviews across the board.
(31:37):
I just picked them off Yelp because I was
looking for a body shop for my car.
And, uh, they are.
So that's Anthony's body and paint shop
in Santa Monica or paint and body shop.
I'm not sure, but they're fantastic.
So if you're looking for any work done on
your car, there you go.
Anthony's shout out to Reuben.
Shout out to Reuben at Anthony's.
It was super, super nice.
(31:57):
Oh, that's great.
Great hit and jam.
Uh, so that's our show everyone enjoy.
Have a good week and we'll be back.
We'll be back with a
special episode next week.
See you next week.
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