Welcome to Episode 34 of the Actor's Guide to the End of the World! This week, the guys talk about why Disney and Universal is suing AI powerhouse Midjourney. It's time to root for Disney this time, and E-Kan and Rían talk about why it's a big deal for creators and the future of AI regulations. They dig into what Midjourney does exactly and the tricky debate about whose at fault if a copyrighted image is created - the user or the tool? Is Midjourney like using other tools like Photoshop?
E-Kan also opens up about AI tools he's scared to use and why we need to look into the terms of service for these sites. Can we trust anyone? So far, it's unclear. They discuss the importance of AI regulations and the power of unions which gets them onto Tyler Perry and his tricky relationship with unions in the past.
And a side tangent- what does it mean when we say someone's intense? Is E-Kan intense?
We then get into a conversation about Tom Cruise, how he's saving the movies, and what makes him, according to us, possibly the best movie star we have today. The dedication he has to working on camera and what actors need to learn from him. E-Kan then shares a story about how he did background on a Tom Cruise film back in the day which thrills Rían. This is a fun one, folks.
New episodes every Monday, wherever you find your podcasts, including video on YouTube and Substack. Follow us on social media at @actorsguidepodcast!
Disney vs Midjourney Dain Walker post - https://www.instagram.com/p/DK0pmxdTupE/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/business/media/disney-universal-midjourney-ai.html
https://blavity.com/entertainment/heres-why-tyler-perry-could-get-in-trouble-with-labor-unions-again-with-new-play-madeas-farewell
Hidden Gems:
The Artist's Way (Julia Cameron) https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252
Magnesium L-Threonate (I'm not a doctor, shocker, please do your research)
Time stamps
(2:17) Disney sues Midjourney
(5:37) Who’s at fault?
(10:33) Tyler Perry and Unions
(15:10) We’re scared to use certain AI tools
(20:08) Tom Cruise is saving movies
(22:40) How well Tom Cruise understands the lens
(25:47) The intensity of Tom Cruise
(30:48) When E-Kan worked on a Tom Cruise movie
(40:09) Hidden Gems
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I haven't shared this story.
(00:02):
This is an actor's guide to the end of
the world exclusive.
Breaking news.
One of my first couple years in LA, I did
background on a Tom Cruise movie.
Jesus Christ, dude.
You gotta tell me more.
So I did background on Tom Cruise movie.
It was collateral.
Dude, I love that movie.
(00:24):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Round of applause, everyone.
The reputation that Michael Mann has is
he just burns through money.
The casting call, or at least the word on
the streets, they were
looking for authentic
Asians.
They were paying top dollar.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the actor's guide to the end
of the world podcast
where we talk about acting
(00:45):
in Hollywood in a way people understand.
I'm E-Kan Soong, and this is...
Rían Sheehy Kelly
How's it going?
What's up, buddy?
Follow us wherever you find your podcasts
at actor's guide podcast.
We're on YouTube.
Subscribe on sub stack and follow us on
all social media at
actor's guide podcast.
Leave us a review.
Leave us a like if you get a chance.
(01:05):
Greatly helps the podcast.
So on the show for today, we have Disney
and Universal suing
Mid-Journey and AI program
over licensing and
copyright infringement.
The mouse is not happy, everyone.
Oh, boy.
And we're going to dig into what the
lawsuit is about and why this
is a huge deal for creators.
(01:26):
We also talk about why Tom Cruise is the
quintessential movie star and what actors
can learn from him
about acting on camera.
And then Econ peels back another layer of
the mysterious onion
that he is and reveals
to us a story about
working with Tom Cruise.
Yes.
The mystery continues.
(01:48):
And as always, kick back, relax, and
enjoy the episode on with the show.
And our sponsor for today's show,
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(02:08):
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So word around town.
Let's get into this
Mid-Journey Disney lawsuit.
Tell me more about this because you
mentioned this and I
don't, yeah, I'm not familiar
with this story.
This is actually perfect because if we
(02:29):
can dissect and talk about
this and make it understandable
to the common person, we're successful.
I am the common person in
this particular instance.
Make me understand.
No, to be fair, it's like I'm still
wrapping my head around this.
For those that don't know, Mid-Journey is
a tool that creates an
image based on a text
(02:51):
prompt that you type in.
Apparently it's pretty powerful.
It's crazy.
It creates all types of things, including
sometimes copy written material.
It's trained on data from the
internet, just scraping away.
And according to the lawsuit, Disney
calls it a bottomless pit
of plagiarism, generating
endless unauthorized copies of Disney's
(03:12):
and Universal's famous characters.
We see there's Shrek,
Elsa, the Minions, Iron Man.
As far as the lawsuit, how much they
amounted it to
$150,000 per infringed work.
Yikes.
So it's not cheap, everyone.
(03:33):
Mid-Journey has not given a comment.
The general defense for these AI players
is fair use, saying
that if it's copy written
material, are they
transforming into something new?
And that is the main defense.
So we'll see how that goes.
I should note that just in a week after
(03:55):
the lawsuit,
Mid-Journey just launched their
video tool.
So you pop in an image and
it'll pop out a short animation.
So it just started
launching their videos.
Supposedly there's some AI guardrails as
far as if you tried to
put in an image of Elsa
from Frozen that it
might bounce back or deny it.
(04:18):
But from what I heard, the guardrails
aren't hard to work around.
So it's not really much protection, but
that's where it stands right now.
A couple of years ago, we were striking
against the studios.
It was easy to demonize
them and make them the enemy.
That being said, we're in the Hollywood
industry for a reason.
And ultimately at some point, we all hope
(04:38):
to work with each other.
Yeah.
We're not getting
employed by AI companies.
That's for sure.
They're not looking to hire a bunch of
actors except to train their AI models.
I'm very pro-creator and I
believe in AI regulations.
And I'm saying that we actually need
Disney and all the big players.
(05:00):
I mean, New York Times
tried to sue, I believe, OpenAI.
I don't know how their lawsuit went.
But we need these big players
to step up and hopefully win.
This is kind of a landmark lawsuit that
would actually help all of us.
So I just want to be fair, where
sometimes we can make fun
of and demonize some of these
(05:20):
studios.
But we actually really,
really need them to win.
It would be really great for us.
Yeah.
So if there's a GoFundMe that Disney is
having to fund their
legal fees, maybe you could
chip in a Seed and Spark campaign.
Yeah.
We're not going to dive
into the weeds with this.
But part of the reason why I was saying
that this is super
complicated is there's this
one post by a notable creator.
(05:42):
He's the one that is just starting a
conversation about this.
And his comments did light up.
I'm going to put the link to
his post in the description.
Now it is unclear who's in
the right when it comes to this.
Disney believes that it's piracy.
Mid-Journey is a tool that you use
(06:04):
possibly to infringe on
those copyrights and patents.
So basically if I create an image that's
a beautiful replica of
a Marvel product, who's
in the wrong?
Is it the user or is it Mid-Journey?
Interesting.
Okay.
(06:24):
And this is where it gets complicated.
So I'm going to just dive into the weeds.
If you ever used Photoshop or any of
those tools to edit or create, the
argument is Mid-Journey
is a tool that can create something, but
is it a tool like using Photoshop?
I can create a beautiful photo and make
(06:47):
you look like Iron Man or whatever.
And I paid Photoshop to use that tool.
And me as a user, I'm liable.
I can't sell that property.
I'm infringing on copyrights.
Yeah.
And I understand that, but I think it's
slightly different in the
fact that if you use Photoshop,
it requires some kind of skill on your
(07:08):
part to manipulate a
photo to do something.
Whereas with any of these AI tools,
you're just writing in a prompt.
You're just throwing in a sentence and it
is using all of the
technology and experience
and scraping of data that it has built up
over however long it's been in existence
to generate something like that.
(07:30):
So there's no real skill
on the part of the user.
You can't...
That's a great point.
You can't create it on your own.
They're doing it.
That's a great point.
And that's actually one of the top
comments and complaints.
The issue with that is that
doesn't hold up in a lawsuit.
Interesting.
(07:50):
The difference in, well, one uses skill
and one doesn't, then
that doesn't hold up in
the court of law because it's relative
also, that's not what's
being questioned here.
Is because you have one tool that uses
more skill than the other.
(08:12):
That's kind of gray area.
You know what I mean?
But that is a great point.
For artists, that's where artists go and
that's what artists
believe, which is fair.
Like say, for example, devil's advocate,
there are people
training and teaching people how
to use AI better.
(08:32):
So obviously you're not handcrafting
beautiful images, but some
people are making a lot of
money teaching people how
to prompt mid-journey better.
So there is a little skill, but obviously
this is devil's advocate.
Mid-journey is also
charging to use this service.
(08:52):
So they are business.
They are not a free tool.
They are a paid tool.
And on top of it, the bonuses, they are
being able to train on everyone's
previously established
work and art.
It's really unclear.
You see all these AI experts just chiming
(09:12):
and chomping at the
bit and getting back at
each other on these comments.
And we're going to see.
It's going to be really interesting.
But like I said, we want Disney to win.
We're going to hope
that Disney wins, I think.
We're all rooting for the most.
I think it's very easy to just say AI is
all bad or whatever,
(09:33):
you know, as it relates to
this industry.
It's not as simple as that.
But I think you're right about the
protections that need to be put in place,
like the regulations
to protect creativity, to protect, you
know, artists, to protect doctors.
But at the same point,
I am pretty optimistic.
I don't believe that AI will ever
(09:57):
replace, you know, art
in any kind of real way.
I don't think people will swallow it.
I think it will probably take a chunk of
market share, maybe in
movies, but I actually
don't think that people will accept it as
a primary form of entertainment.
(10:17):
Because I think there's
something that it can't replicate.
And so I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe it's stupid, but I'm sort of
blindly optimistic that,
you know, movies and TV and
art and everything
will prevail over this.
You know, this does remind me of Tyler
Perry nixing his studio.
(10:38):
Tyler Perry was going to expand his
studio in Atlanta and
he saw the power of AI.
Keep in mind, this was a year ago and he
nixed the expansion.
So you know, film and TV and you can
imagine that Tyler Perry
is still going to continue
to produce film and TV yet it's going to
change the landscape of how we produce.
(11:00):
Yeah.
Hasn't there been some controversy about
Tyler Perry and union
productions or union
regulations?
Yeah, exactly.
We were definitely.
Yeah.
He was definitely polarizing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, here's the thing.
I think actually I don't know.
I mean, I think we've
talked a lot about this stuff.
(11:20):
It's easy to just kind of
black and white call someone out.
Yet there are so many things that he
believes and obviously he's very
successful in creating
his empire.
There are a lot of things that creators
can learn from, you know,
building from the ground
up and establishing his
niche and his audience.
(11:41):
Yet I guess no one's perfect.
No, but I still believe if you benefit
from being like he's
obviously a member of the
union.
And I think it was more earlier in his
career where he got in
trouble for, you know, using
not not not using union
contracts in his movies.
And I don't know if
that's the case anymore.
But I think if you benefit from the
union, then, you know,
(12:02):
it would behoove you to to
to put those contracts in place when
you're producing your own stuff.
And I understand you may not want to and
it's probably cheaper to
not do that, but I don't
know.
I think it's just for the greater good.
I don't know.
I'm very pro union anyway.
And I understand that the issues people
have with unions and the
(12:22):
problems there, but like
it's the only power we have, you know,
the only power we have
is collective bargaining,
really.
And and also the goal
of it is to protect.
The goal of it is to
protect your members.
We're not going to do this
this time, but I'm always tempted.
If you go on cruise stories every so
(12:44):
often, I mean, to be
honest, it's probably more than
than we would hope.
They'll go through a story of behind the
scenes of certain
productions of incredibly
dangerous, inappropriate things.
Like to be honest, it's like that's
almost it's almost too
much for us to really cover.
But one of these days, we'll just throw
out a couple of their stories.
(13:05):
We're talking about, you know, this is
after the the
disaster and tragedy of Rust.
I forget the movie where it was on.
There was another accident.
I forget the the title of it.
We've had numerous accidents where union
regulations are to
protect crew members and actors.
And yet still to this
(13:27):
day, they are being violated.
It's like some of these stories you're
like, I can't even believe it.
I can't even believe that
this stuff is happening.
Yeah, we talked about I talked to someone
recently who was saying that they were on
a film and there was guns involved.
You know, there was weapons and they.
(13:47):
They got handed a weapon and I think it
was a dummy gun or whatever.
I think it was a non firing.
You know, I don't think blanks were being
used or anything, but
they checked it and whoever
the armorer was or whoever was in charge
of handling the weapons
and took that as a personal
slight and sort of berated them.
It was like, I already checked that.
Whereas I've been on productions where
there are non firing
(14:07):
weapons that are not capable
of firing and everybody checks them
because the protocol has
to be, you know, across the
board.
There has to be because if there are
weapons on set, like
there are rules in place for
a very, very good reason.
And as we saw in Rust, the consequences
of not following those
rules are catastrophic.
(14:28):
So, you know, it's when people start to
skirt around these rules
and I understand that not
every rule is convenient or even helpful
sometimes and can be a hindrance.
But overall, you know, without unions,
there's no real power there.
You're kind of at the mercy of production
of studios of, you
(14:49):
know, whoever's in charge.
All right.
So we got Disney suing mid journey.
Oh, one, one last
little thing about that.
This idea of protecting
your rights and using AI.
Now, if anyone's creating or using apps
that use captions, any
(15:09):
of the video tools, I am
actually wondering if some tools that we
use to edit our videos,
if I should be more worried
about using.
So this might be an interesting
conversation because as much
as we talk about AI and blah,
blah, blah, I've had conversations with
friends about using tools
and the things that I've
been using and it's been clear to me that
(15:29):
I perhaps can't trust it.
And also you, me, our likenesses are
actually training the AI.
Oh, I've no, I've no doubt.
Also the other thing is like in a lot of,
a lot of services, I know
certainly like Instagram
and Facebook and stuff, I think in the
terms of service, they
claim ownership to what you
(15:50):
put on their site.
So any video that you put
up, they claim ownership to.
And a lot of people you'll see the
Facebook statuses that
people put up every so often
where they'll have this
like copy and paste thing.
Like I do not give Facebook permission to
use my, you know, not
realizing that by using
the service, they have already agreed to
those terms and their
status is meaningless.
So I don't agree.
(16:10):
It's incredibly difficult and vague and
that brings up a great point.
So let's say for example, there's a
platform that creates
captions and I do the due diligence
of looking at their use of AI and what
you can and cannot opt out.
It is very clear in this 2025, this
(16:31):
language that you can opt out.
And me possibly naively is
thinking, oh, I can trust them.
And if I opt out, I can opt out.
It gets murky.
I still have to talk to the people over
there just to see what
really they have use of,
whether they can use any of that data or
(16:57):
they just have it
sitting on a hard drive.
It's like really, it's
like it's the age old thing.
How can you really trust them?
The difference between them and meta is
if you go into the
Facebook settings and Instagram
settings, if you even can manage to opt
out through all their
settings, it's probably
BS and you can't even opt out.
(17:18):
So that's the difference of how horrible
meta and Instagram and Facebook are.
So just to put it in perspective where
it's like, well, at least
they're in their disclaimer,
they're at least being honest with you
and you can opt out of
something and with meta
you can't.
So either way, we're getting screwed so
(17:38):
many different ways.
But if you are using, so I'm going to
look into CapCut, I'm
going to look into all those
things.
It's just me putting my money where my
mouth is to be like, if
our likenesses and our voice
is this valuable and we're actually
fighting for these
protections, well, we should probably
be a little concerned about where we're
putting all of our video and data.
(17:59):
So I'm just, if there's any times to talk
about it, well, this
is an ongoing thing for
me.
I'm trying to figure it out.
It adds a whole new layer to that because
I think, you know, a
phrase that I heard a
long time ago was like, if a service is
free, you know, if the
product is free, you are
the product, like your data, your
likeness, information that
they collect about you, that's
why it's free.
Otherwise there's no way to pay for it.
(18:21):
So they, and now AI has added another
layer to that where they
can use you to train AI
models.
Whereas before it was just
before AI, it was just your data.
It was, you know, information about you
used to typically sell
things back to you, you
know, to drive advertising, to drive
sales, to drive commerce.
So but they, I would imagine that there,
(18:44):
there was a very, very
detailed profile of me and
my, all of my shopping habits,
my online activity somewhere.
You know what I mean?
So I don't trust any of these things.
I assume there's some risk, some inherent
risk assumed, I think
in using any of them,
but how deep it goes, I don't know, but I
(19:05):
don't trust, you
know, I don't trust that,
that you can truly opt out of all this
stuff or that they, that
they are careful with your,
with your, with your data or that they
protect it the way they say they do.
Because I just, I don't buy it.
And that's other, one of the, one of the
things where it's like,
if you opt out, I forget
(19:26):
how they phrase it, but
something weird and awkward.
It's no humans will have access to it.
No humans will have access to it.
So have faith that all this AI, you know,
what's, what's these
duties in the background?
Don't worry.
No one, no one can touch that.
Yeah.
No janitor's going to open the locker of
your likeness and videos
and have a gander through
(19:48):
it, but AI will be
right there scraping away.
It just flies out like ghosts.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, so yeah, just, you know, things
that keep me up at night.
So you know, like we said last week, the
news cycle and the news
coming out of entertainment
and Hollywood is not
(20:09):
exactly the funnest right now.
There are some bright spots, obviously
Mission Impossible 2 did really well.
But Superman is looks
like it's going to do.
Mission Impossible 2?
Oh, I'm sorry.
What did I say?
Mission Impossible 2?
Mission Impossible, whatever.
Mission Impossible 9.
789?
I don't even know.
That says, that says a lot about me.
(20:31):
I am, I am still living
in Mission Impossible 2.
That's like a Freudian slip there.
That's just where my mind.
Did you think Tom Cruise had performed
all those stunts in the
one movie where he jumped
out of a plane and.
Yeah.
I feel like those movies get overshadowed
by the one crazy stunt
that Tom Cruise does.
That's all I kind of know from a lot of
(20:52):
them is that he does
this and this one and then
he does this and this one or he drives a
motorbike off a cliff.
Throwing a little love to, I mean, for
good reason, because he's
invigorating the theaters
and film box office.
Cruise has just got announced.
Tom Cruise will receive an honorary Oscar
at the Governor Awards.
(21:14):
So good for him.
Now, here's the thing.
You're completely right.
It's centered around a spectacle.
There's going to be one
huge, incredible stunt.
Now have you heard of any of these clips
that have been going on
with this press junket,
this recent press junket?
And I will throw out there, if you're
ever in New York, I
talked about this before, but
(21:34):
the Museum of Moving Image is a museum
dedicated to
entertainment and the film world.
They have an exhibit for
the latest Mission Impossible.
It is incredible.
I didn't realize how much I appreciate
and get excited for all
those Mission Impossible
movies, even though I can't
remember any of the titles.
They have a set up, a breakdown of each
(21:58):
spectacle stunt in all of the films.
A lot of the memorabilia, a
lot of the actual real props.
I mean, here's the thing.
If you actually hear Tom Cruise talk
about how much work he
puts in, how much thought
he puts in, breaking
down the producing of it.
(22:18):
He's essentially an
assistant director on the film.
I mean, aside of what people think about
Tom Cruise in his
personal life, he's freaking
badass.
I can't deny it.
He's incredible.
And he gets people in the movie theaters,
which is hard to do.
Yeah, it is.
He does dollar stones
(22:39):
better than anybody.
It is incredible.
One thing I've loved hearing him talk
about in interviews
recently is his understanding
of the camera and how that works, because
in a lot of these
stunts, he also has to be
the cameraman,
depending on what the stunt is.
So he has to completely understand focus
and depth of field and
how much he has to be so
(23:01):
precise.
He talked about one of the stunts, I
think it was coming out
of a plane where he had
to get the distance between him and the
lens within, you know,
he's talking, they're talking
millimeters.
He had to understand where he would be
exactly in focus and
where you'd be slightly out of
focus.
And anybody who understands sort of focus
pulling, it's a really precise science.
I mean, you're talking millimeters either
(23:22):
way can change where the focus is.
Like if your eye has to be in sharp focus
and you move it slightly, it could be the
top of your cheek that's now in sharp
focus and your eye is slightly blurry.
So it's his understanding of that.
And he talks about how it's important for
actors to understand
the camera and really
work with it as a tool, like to really
(23:42):
understand how that works,
which I don't know how you've,
you know, how are you, what your
experience of that is, but
it's something that I'm starting
to really look into a little bit more is,
is, is that sort of
the science of that and
how the camera works, because I always, I
(24:04):
think I was focused on trying to just not
worry about it too much.
There is a technical aspect.
I mean, you have to do all of these
performance related, you
know, put all this work into
performance, but you also have to
understand a certain amount
of technical, you know, there's
a certain amount of technical knowledge
there when you're
(24:25):
working on screen in terms of
hitting a mark, you know, finding your
light, all of that stuff
that people talk about that
also has to go alongside all of the
performance related stuff.
So I'm, it sort of inspired me to really
look into a bit more, you
(24:45):
know, the cinematography
and how the camera
interacts with certain things.
I don't know.
Oh, that's a great point.
No, I love that.
I love that.
Let's talk about this a little bit more.
So yeah, a lot of things come to mind.
First off, just so back to the, when you
were saying about how Tom
Cruise knows the camera,
you're completely right.
(25:05):
And that goes to how incredible an actor
he is, but also as a
producer and director.
So I believe we're talking about the same
story, but just
imagine when Tom Cruise is
flying a plane, it's just him in the
plane and for him to get
the proper distance, it's
him flying the plane
and guiding the plane.
(25:26):
So he's in the
perfect spot for that shot.
So when we talk about us actors and, you
know, we joke around
about, you know, sometimes
we can't hit a mark.
He's flying a plane while also nailing
wherever his mark is.
(25:46):
That's just next level.
The intensity of that man like comes
across in everything he does.
I mean, and I don't mean that in a bad
way necessarily, but he is
laser focused and intense
about everything.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It's really intense.
I never thought that that was a negative
at all, but it's funny
how you caveatted that.
Well it depends.
I think some people can
be put off by intensity.
(26:08):
You know, I think some people find it a
bit, uh, I don't know.
I just wanted to clarify that.
I think would you ever say that about me?
Uh, no.
No, I don't think you're intense.
You think you're intense?
It looked like you were giving a proper
answer because you were on
video and being recorded.
No, you're not.
(26:28):
I don't.
Did you find yourself intense?
Do you think you're intense?
I am.
I think I am absolutely
very, very, very intense.
Do you?
I would describe you as earnest.
I wouldn't describe you
as intense in any way.
Okay, cool.
Cool.
I have my intense moments.
I think intensity implies some serious, a
(26:50):
more serious
demeanor, like a more focused,
serious demeanor.
And I think, I think you're quite
earnest, but you're also good natured.
I mean, it's not like,
are you quite, I don't know.
I find you pretty easy going.
I don't know.
You think you're intense?
I didn't try to derail this into a
therapy session, but you
know, if you'll indulge me.
(27:10):
I don't want to do it, but just tell me
about your childhood for a minute.
I, and this is part of the
reason why I love acting.
I love creating is because I, I found an
outlet to explore all
these different things.
And in a way, acting and art is in a way,
a nice way to theropize ourselves.
Whether we know it or not.
(27:31):
Is it word?
Yeah. Did you just come up with that?
I just, I don't even know that.
I think I did, but I probably
created it from someone else.
Therapize yourself.
I think the best way to describe this is
my life started out fairly intense.
My childhood, my dad
was a math professor.
It was clear to me at a young age that if
I didn't know how to
multiply, I was an utter
(27:51):
failure.
And I saw it how he looked at kids my age
and we were five, all
other, other failures.
If we didn't know how to multiply, I
started playing piano at
seven, started training in
tennis around nine,
competed through high school.
And I did start to enjoy it, but those
are just things that I did.
I don't remember anything really except,
(28:13):
you know, I started to enjoy it.
My mom loves piano.
So I started to like playing that, but
those are really intense things.
I didn't study in
school, but I got good grades.
I got the highest SAT
score in my high school.
This is not a flex.
I'm trying to work
away from all that stuff.
I was looking for an outlet.
(28:34):
I was getting in trouble in school.
I was acting out.
And so ultimately, I try to keep a
balance away from being
so luck, intensely focused
on something because I feel like you need
a balance to actually,
to be honest, I think
it's bad for acting.
I feel like there's a balance between
locked in, focused and
(28:56):
working towards something
and then also letting go.
I think that's where I'm getting at.
I'm still learning at letting go.
I'm still learning at letting go in
acting and I'm still
learning letting go in life.
Yeah.
So that's kind of how I look at intensity
with, I never thought
intensity means that
you weren't a nicer, good nature.
No, I don't mean that.
(29:17):
That wasn't a great description.
I like having levels.
Like say for example, if I'm locked in
editing something, I am
not in a sociable mood.
It's like I am very much in my world.
Don't talk to me.
But it's one of those nice things because
as an actor, it's like
(29:38):
actors have their version
of that too, where it's like when you're
doing something and
you're creating something, you
kind of need the focus and you kind of
need to be by yourself and it's fine.
But at no point do I feel like I'm not
civil or social, like
nice to people around me.
No, no, I'm not.
Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that.
I think a phrase is poorly.
But yeah, I don't know.
(29:58):
I don't know if I have
that intensity in me.
I can be very, I think I'm a lot more
focused on certain
things than I would often give
myself credit for.
I mean, I've persisted with acting in a
sort of a pretty focused way.
I've pretty, I've, you know, very much
(30:22):
structured my, a lot of my
life around it in many ways.
But I don't know.
There's a difference when it comes to
personality and demeanor, and I would not
consider you intense.
So I think you and me are
maybe in the same world.
Yeah, probably.
(30:42):
Probably. Not super intense.
Let's go back to Tom Cruise here. I
haven't shared this story.
This is an actor's guide to the end of
the world exclusive. Breaking news.
So, you know, we did have that old Tom
Hanks story a couple episodes ago, but
this is kind of, I mean
(31:02):
this is just kind of fun.
One of my first couple years in LA, I did
background on a Tom Cruise movie.
Jesus Christ, dude.
You gotta tell me more.
Okay, alright. Go on.
I didn't want to oversell it, so I did
background on Tom Cruise movie.
It was freaking the greatest thing ever.
(31:24):
It was collateral. He was nominated.
Actually, I'm sorry, Jamie Foxx.
What a movie. Michael Mann.
Round of applause, everyone.
Round of applause, everyone.
So, if you know the
movie, you would love it.
Oh, I know the movie.
My scene was in the nightclub that Jamie
Foxx and Tom Cruise are both at.
It's a huge fight scene, etc.
(31:46):
Great scene. I can't believe this, man. I
can't believe you've
never heard this before.
At this point, this is just going to be a
Tom Cruise little love fest,
and then we'll call it here.
So, background on the set. To
give you an idea, Michael Mann.
Now, for better or for worse, the
reputation that Michael Mann has is he
(32:07):
just burns through money.
Literally burns through money.
Love it.
The casting call, or at least the word on
the streets, was there's
an Asian nightclub scene.
They were looking for authentic Asians.
Okay.
Okay. Whatever that means to you.
Because for those that don't know, I'm
not Korean, but I can
(32:28):
play one on TV. Thank you.
So, they're looking for authentic Asians.
And this is where it
comes to burning money.
They were paying top dollar and a premium
amount for background
for authentic Asians.
What's top dollar in background?
Off the top of my head, back then, a
(32:51):
non-union background
would be 80-some dollars.
It's not great, but at least you're on
set, and you can get
fed and all that stuff.
Union would have been
essentially double that, right?
Now, keep in mind, I was not in Union, so
I was non-union background.
They just need non-union
background to fill out the set.
I mean, I want to say $250.
Not bad. Not bad.
(33:12):
So, just put it in, yeah,
just put it in protective.
You're essentially getting three times
what you normally would get paid.
Yeah.
And I do want to know, for this paying
attention, I say authentic Asians.
Because to give you an idea of how far
entertainment has gone as
far as Asian representation,
usually background on TV and film, and I
(33:34):
say this not jokingly,
usually Asian people in background were
actually Hispanic
people made to look Asian.
Okay. Made to look Asian.
I just want to achieve that.
Well, I mean, I don't
want to misrepresent that.
If you go back to the 80s, it was
literally Hispanic people
being dressed up as Asian,
(33:54):
which is incredibly offensive and
obviously not right.
To everybody, really.
But, exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So, I don't want to, like, obviously
there's a lot of horrible Asian
representation in Hollywood
if you go back farther enough.
But, in general, if you have an Asian
nightclub scene, you know,
there would be a lot of
(34:15):
non-Asian people in the background,
and people would just go with it.
You know what I mean?
Back to Michael Mann, he wanted top
dollar for real Asians
in this nightclub scene.
So, that's the one fun memory.
The other thing I will say, from what I
remember and from what I, like,
Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are
(34:37):
literally a foot away from me.
And, of course, me
just so enraptured by it.
I'm just curious. What
are they talking about?
What are the stories real?
Tom Cruise, 100%,
remembers everyone's name,
and this is going back to
the whole intense thing.
When you go back to intense, and it's
easy to misrepresent that,
(34:58):
he very well could be
intense and focused,
but if you're having a
conversation with him,
he's going to make you
feel like you're a movie star.
When you're having a
conversation with him,
he's always going to be
paying attention to you,
which is actually very presidential and
not off-putting, right?
So, he really is the
quintessential movie star,
and supposedly he
(35:18):
remembers everyone's name on set.
Yeah. I've heard he makes you feel like
the only person in the world
when you're talking to him, like the
laser focus of, like,
you are the most important person in the
room when he's talking to you.
Yeah. Matt Damon tells that story about
him when he asked him about the stunt.
It might have been the Burj Khalifa one,
but he turns to him and he says,
"I've got to ask you
how to do the stunts."
He goes, "Yeah. So, you know, we're
(35:40):
talking through with the stunt guy.
We're going to do this and this and this.
The stunt guy says, "No
way. You can't do it."
So, I get a new stunt guy.
[laughter] Yeah, I love that
story. And Matt Damon's like,
"Wow. I mean, you
don't have to twist my arm.
I would have been out
with the first stunt guy."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
For people that needed the money, my
(36:01):
roommate was not an actor.
He was Asian. Oh, sure enough, he was on
that set working his ass off,
and we were playing cards. We were, you
know, joking around with everyone.
It was a party every day, 16 hours.
We were getting paid out to wazoo, and it
helped him stay in LA.
He didn't have a job, but
he needed that side job.
We worked weeks on edge.
I remember it was Thanksgiving.
(36:23):
It was Thanksgiving
morning. We got out at 10 a.m.
And that was just our life for that set.
One day, it very well might have been
Thanksgiving or the day before.
Tom Cruise got in and out for all of us.
He made an announcement. Of course, Tom
Cruise and his movie star, Way,
he made an announcement, and he was like,
"Guys, I'm so thankful that
(36:44):
you guys are sticking it out,
and, you know, we're
just a little bit longer."
He got everyone in and out and, you know,
kept our spirits up.
Dude, it was such a great time.
So the last thing I will say, he was with
a essentially famous stuntman.
Of course, Tom Cruise is the star.
He's choking out people who are, you
(37:06):
know, very established stuntmen.
I want to say there was one time, and if
you know the scene, you would remember,
the main guy that he's
choking on in that fight scene,
he literally almost put him out.
Not ideal.
[LAUGHTER]
That's the downside
of intensity, I think.
I want to say, I don't want to
misrepresent that he
was not safe to be around,
(37:27):
but then again, I think it's an
indication of you have one of the most
established stuntmen
in the past 20 years, a legend,
and Tom Cruise was strong
enough to make it uncomfortable.
Anyway, that's all I'll say about that.
(37:47):
If you go on IMDB, the only thing that
I've solved myself is there's a shot of
Jamie Foxx with his hands up.
I want to see, it's my
noggin right behind his hands.
Nice.
The IMDB shot.
So yeah, you might spot that.
We'll put that in the show description.
(38:08):
In the show notes?
Yeah.
That scene, it was a very impactful and
great scene and so on and so forth.
I want to say it was 15 seconds.
Yeah, I remember the scene.
I want to say it was no more than 15
seconds and we shot
and made so much money.
We shot for three weeks.
(38:30):
I was still working urban outfitters, so
I was bouncing back
and forth and doubling.
But that was part of my
life and it was a great time.
Let's wrap up with this
actors working for camera.
Kind of like what you're saying, both you
and I do feel
comfortable doing self tapes.
(38:50):
I feel like this is the push in, hey, if
actors didn't realize acting for camera
was important, well, I sure hope you do
now, now that we're doing self tapes
almost exclusively for film and TV.
I also want to add, being curious about
the lens, knowing how it looks, knowing
how the framing, knowing how to properly
(39:10):
act for camera, knowing
where your eye lines are.
All of those things I'm really fascinated
by, which is part of the
reason why I love self tapes.
We talked about this before, but even the
puzzle of how do I show this in a small
frame without showing too much, learning
the power of stillness on
camera and how that works.
(39:31):
I think I watch TV and film in a slightly
different way now, since getting deeper
and deeper into self tapes and doing more
and more of them, more or
less since the pandemic.
Yeah, it's just really interesting.
Leslie talks about it being
100% organic and 100% technical.
There is a really technical side to any
kind of screen acting that has to feel
(39:54):
and look effortless.
You're not trying or you're not aware of
it, but it's there, you
know, it's always there.
Oh, yeah, hidden gems.
Oh, yeah, yeah, hidden gems.
So in a sparse week for...
Another joke?
Nope, not a joke this week.
You know what?
It's not a hidden gem.
It's not very hidden, but we were talking
about this in class the other day and a
(40:15):
few people hadn't heard of it.
So I just wanted to
give it another shout out.
Not another shout out.
I just wanted to give a shout out for the
first time in this podcast to the
artist's way, which I think is a fantastic part of it.
It is a fantastic book for anybody who is
interested in being more creative.
It doesn't have to be... You don't have
to be an artist or an
actor or anything like it.
(40:35):
We've talked about art
this way a little bit before.
Have we?
Okay, well, then I just want to give
another shout out to the artist's way.
Like I said, it's by Julia Cameron.
There's a lot of practices in that which
have helped me a lot, like
the morning pages, for example.
I do that.
I still do that to this day.
There's loads of great stuff in there,
(40:56):
but it's for anybody who is interested in
being more creative, whether or not they
work in a creative industry or not.
And I found it has been
really, really helpful to me.
So I'd recommend it to anybody.
Nice.
I also think that's
also a nod to last week.
Last week, we did part one of talking
about how to create your own work.
(41:17):
I think artist's way is probably the most
straightforward and the
best way to get started.
Like you said, if you're not a writer,
get on, do morning pages.
We talked about that
in a previous episode.
But also, it's a great way to explore
practicing not having judgment and being
open to play with whatever you want to
(41:39):
create or whatever is inside of you.
So I think artist's way is a
great time, especially now.
That's a great thing to do this summer.
There you go.
Nice hitting gem.
All right.
So my my hidden gem.
So basically, this is this is so random,
but I actually enjoy it.
I don't know if anyone's on this
magnesium train, but apparently people
(42:01):
are I don't know whether it
was on TikTok or whatever.
I think people are stressing the need for
magnesium as a supplement like a vitamin.
So I actually did a little digging.
I should preface this.
I am not a doctor.
Oh, OK.
Just be aware.
I am not a doctor.
I know.
You didn't know that.
So there are many
different uses for magnesium.
(42:22):
One of the big ones is actually sleep.
Now, I will encourage you to research and
look at the different types of magnesium.
Maybe I'll put a link in the description.
Some of them are specifically people take
before they go to bed.
And some of them I I'm
not joking when I say this.
Some of them have laxative properties.
(42:45):
Now, be careful which type you get.
In general, magnesium helps with brain
function, stress, memory, all that stuff.
The type that I got is L3O8, but it is
supposed to help sleep.
It is supposed to help
(43:05):
brain function, help memory.
And this might be me just imagining
things, but I've been
sleeping incredibly well.
So I mean, take it with a grain of salt.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not the first one to talk about
magnesium L3O8, but that's my hidden gem.
If you try it, I won't
(43:27):
do your own research.
If there's a particular
type, I'm not here to sell pills.
There you go.
That's my hidden gem.
Thanks for listening to the show.
Enjoy the week, everyone,
and we'll be back next week.
See you next week. [static] [static] [static]
I haven't shared this story.
(00:02):
This is an actor's guide to the end of
the world exclusive.
Breaking news.
One of my first couple years in LA, I did
background on a Tom Cruise movie.
Jesus Christ, dude.
You gotta tell me more.
So I did background on Tom Cruise movie.
It was collateral.
Dude, I love that movie.
(00:24):
Thank you.
Thank you.
Round of applause, everyone.
The reputation that Michael Mann has is
he just burns through money.
The casting call, or at least the word on
the streets, they were
looking for authentic
Asians.
They were paying top dollar.
Hey, everyone.
Welcome to the actor's guide to the end
of the world podcast
where we talk about acting
(00:45):
in Hollywood in a way people understand.
I'm E-Kan Soong, and this is...
Rían Sheehy Kelly
How's it going?
What's up, buddy?
Follow us wherever you find your podcasts
at actor's guide podcast.
We're on YouTube.
Subscribe on sub stack and follow us on
all social media at
actor's guide podcast.
Leave us a review.
Leave us a like if you get a chance.
(01:05):
Greatly helps the podcast.
So on the show for today, we have Disney
and Universal suing
Mid-Journey and AI program
over licensing and
copyright infringement.
The mouse is not happy, everyone.
Oh, boy.
And we're going to dig into what the
lawsuit is about and why this
is a huge deal for creators.
(01:26):
We also talk about why Tom Cruise is the
quintessential movie star and what actors
can learn from him
about acting on camera.
And then Econ peels back another layer of
the mysterious onion
that he is and reveals
to us a story about
working with Tom Cruise.
Yes.
The mystery continues.
(01:48):
And as always, kick back, relax, and
enjoy the episode on with the show.
And our sponsor for today's show,
Indestructor trailer.
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(02:08):
entourage, a reality show star
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Indestructor trailer has got you covered.
And now comes with a
bidet for the raccoons.
So word around town.
Let's get into this
Mid-Journey Disney lawsuit.
Tell me more about this because you
mentioned this and I
don't, yeah, I'm not familiar
with this story.
This is actually perfect because if we
(02:29):
can dissect and talk about
this and make it understandable
to the common person, we're successful.
I am the common person in
this particular instance.
Make me understand.
No, to be fair, it's like I'm still
wrapping my head around this.
For those that don't know, Mid-Journey is
a tool that creates an
image based on a text
(02:51):
prompt that you type in.
Apparently it's pretty powerful.
It's crazy.
It creates all types of things, including
sometimes copy written material.
It's trained on data from the
internet, just scraping away.
And according to the lawsuit, Disney
calls it a bottomless pit
of plagiarism, generating
endless unauthorized copies of Disney's
(03:12):
and Universal's famous characters.
We see there's Shrek,
Elsa, the Minions, Iron Man.
As far as the lawsuit, how much they
amounted it to
$150,000 per infringed work.
Yikes.
So it's not cheap, everyone.
(03:33):
Mid-Journey has not given a comment.
The general defense for these AI players
is fair use, saying
that if it's copy written
material, are they
transforming into something new?
And that is the main defense.
So we'll see how that goes.
I should note that just in a week after
(03:55):
the lawsuit,
Mid-Journey just launched their
video tool.
So you pop in an image and
it'll pop out a short animation.
So it just started
launching their videos.
Supposedly there's some AI guardrails as
far as if you tried to
put in an image of Elsa
from Frozen that it
might bounce back or deny it.
(04:18):
But from what I heard, the guardrails
aren't hard to work around.
So it's not really much protection, but
that's where it stands right now.
A couple of years ago, we were striking
against the studios.
It was easy to demonize
them and make them the enemy.
That being said, we're in the Hollywood
industry for a reason.
And ultimately at some point, we all hope
(04:38):
to work with each other.
Yeah.
We're not getting
employed by AI companies.
That's for sure.
They're not looking to hire a bunch of
actors except to train their AI models.
I'm very pro-creator and I
believe in AI regulations.
And I'm saying that we actually need
Disney and all the big players.
(05:00):
I mean, New York Times
tried to sue, I believe, OpenAI.
I don't know how their lawsuit went.
But we need these big players
to step up and hopefully win.
This is kind of a landmark lawsuit that
would actually help all of us.
So I just want to be fair, where
sometimes we can make fun
of and demonize some of these
(05:20):
studios.
But we actually really,
really need them to win.
It would be really great for us.
Yeah.
So if there's a GoFundMe that Disney is
having to fund their
legal fees, maybe you could
chip in a Seed and Spark campaign.
Yeah.
We're not going to dive
into the weeds with this.
But part of the reason why I was saying
that this is super
complicated is there's this
one post by a notable creator.
(05:42):
He's the one that is just starting a
conversation about this.
And his comments did light up.
I'm going to put the link to
his post in the description.
Now it is unclear who's in
the right when it comes to this.
Disney believes that it's piracy.
Mid-Journey is a tool that you use
(06:04):
possibly to infringe on
those copyrights and patents.
So basically if I create an image that's
a beautiful replica of
a Marvel product, who's
in the wrong?
Is it the user or is it Mid-Journey?
Interesting.
Okay.
(06:24):
And this is where it gets complicated.
So I'm going to just dive into the weeds.
If you ever used Photoshop or any of
those tools to edit or create, the
argument is Mid-Journey
is a tool that can create something, but
is it a tool like using Photoshop?
I can create a beautiful photo and make
(06:47):
you look like Iron Man or whatever.
And I paid Photoshop to use that tool.
And me as a user, I'm liable.
I can't sell that property.
I'm infringing on copyrights.
Yeah.
And I understand that, but I think it's
slightly different in the
fact that if you use Photoshop,
it requires some kind of skill on your
(07:08):
part to manipulate a
photo to do something.
Whereas with any of these AI tools,
you're just writing in a prompt.
You're just throwing in a sentence and it
is using all of the
technology and experience
and scraping of data that it has built up
over however long it's been in existence
to generate something like that.
(07:30):
So there's no real skill
on the part of the user.
You can't...
That's a great point.
You can't create it on your own.
They're doing it.
That's a great point.
And that's actually one of the top
comments and complaints.
The issue with that is that
doesn't hold up in a lawsuit.
Interesting.
(07:50):
The difference in, well, one uses skill
and one doesn't, then
that doesn't hold up in
the court of law because it's relative
also, that's not what's
being questioned here.
Is because you have one tool that uses
more skill than the other.
(08:12):
That's kind of gray area.
You know what I mean?
But that is a great point.
For artists, that's where artists go and
that's what artists
believe, which is fair.
Like say, for example, devil's advocate,
there are people
training and teaching people how
to use AI better.
(08:32):
So obviously you're not handcrafting
beautiful images, but some
people are making a lot of
money teaching people how
to prompt mid-journey better.
So there is a little skill, but obviously
this is devil's advocate.
Mid-journey is also
charging to use this service.
(08:52):
So they are business.
They are not a free tool.
They are a paid tool.
And on top of it, the bonuses, they are
being able to train on everyone's
previously established
work and art.
It's really unclear.
You see all these AI experts just chiming
(09:12):
and chomping at the
bit and getting back at
each other on these comments.
And we're going to see.
It's going to be really interesting.
But like I said, we want Disney to win.
We're going to hope
that Disney wins, I think.
We're all rooting for the most.
I think it's very easy to just say AI is
all bad or whatever,
(09:33):
you know, as it relates to
this industry.
It's not as simple as that.
But I think you're right about the
protections that need to be put in place,
like the regulations
to protect creativity, to protect, you
know, artists, to protect doctors.
But at the same point,
I am pretty optimistic.
I don't believe that AI will ever
(09:57):
replace, you know, art
in any kind of real way.
I don't think people will swallow it.
I think it will probably take a chunk of
market share, maybe in
movies, but I actually
don't think that people will accept it as
a primary form of entertainment.
(10:17):
Because I think there's
something that it can't replicate.
And so I don't know.
I don't know.
Maybe it's stupid, but I'm sort of
blindly optimistic that,
you know, movies and TV and
art and everything
will prevail over this.
You know, this does remind me of Tyler
Perry nixing his studio.
(10:38):
Tyler Perry was going to expand his
studio in Atlanta and
he saw the power of AI.
Keep in mind, this was a year ago and he
nixed the expansion.
So you know, film and TV and you can
imagine that Tyler Perry
is still going to continue
to produce film and TV yet it's going to
change the landscape of how we produce.
(11:00):
Yeah.
Hasn't there been some controversy about
Tyler Perry and union
productions or union
regulations?
Yeah, exactly.
We were definitely.
Yeah.
He was definitely polarizing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, here's the thing.
I think actually I don't know.
I mean, I think we've
talked a lot about this stuff.
(11:20):
It's easy to just kind of
black and white call someone out.
Yet there are so many things that he
believes and obviously he's very
successful in creating
his empire.
There are a lot of things that creators
can learn from, you know,
building from the ground
up and establishing his
niche and his audience.
(11:41):
Yet I guess no one's perfect.
No, but I still believe if you benefit
from being like he's
obviously a member of the
union.
And I think it was more earlier in his
career where he got in
trouble for, you know, using
not not not using union
contracts in his movies.
And I don't know if
that's the case anymore.
But I think if you benefit from the
union, then, you know,
(12:02):
it would behoove you to to
to put those contracts in place when
you're producing your own stuff.
And I understand you may not want to and
it's probably cheaper to
not do that, but I don't
know.
I think it's just for the greater good.
I don't know.
I'm very pro union anyway.
And I understand that the issues people
have with unions and the
(12:22):
problems there, but like
it's the only power we have, you know,
the only power we have
is collective bargaining,
really.
And and also the goal
of it is to protect.
The goal of it is to
protect your members.
We're not going to do this
this time, but I'm always tempted.
If you go on cruise stories every so
(12:44):
often, I mean, to be
honest, it's probably more than
than we would hope.
They'll go through a story of behind the
scenes of certain
productions of incredibly
dangerous, inappropriate things.
Like to be honest, it's like that's
almost it's almost too
much for us to really cover.
But one of these days, we'll just throw
out a couple of their stories.
(13:05):
We're talking about, you know, this is
after the the
disaster and tragedy of Rust.
I forget the movie where it was on.
There was another accident.
I forget the the title of it.
We've had numerous accidents where union
regulations are to
protect crew members and actors.
And yet still to this
(13:27):
day, they are being violated.
It's like some of these stories you're
like, I can't even believe it.
I can't even believe that
this stuff is happening.
Yeah, we talked about I talked to someone
recently who was saying that they were on
a film and there was guns involved.
You know, there was weapons and they.
(13:47):
They got handed a weapon and I think it
was a dummy gun or whatever.
I think it was a non firing.
You know, I don't think blanks were being
used or anything, but
they checked it and whoever
the armorer was or whoever was in charge
of handling the weapons
and took that as a personal
slight and sort of berated them.
It was like, I already checked that.
Whereas I've been on productions where
there are non firing
(14:07):
weapons that are not capable
of firing and everybody checks them
because the protocol has
to be, you know, across the
board.
There has to be because if there are
weapons on set, like
there are rules in place for
a very, very good reason.
And as we saw in Rust, the consequences
of not following those
rules are catastrophic.
(14:28):
So, you know, it's when people start to
skirt around these rules
and I understand that not
every rule is convenient or even helpful
sometimes and can be a hindrance.
But overall, you know, without unions,
there's no real power there.
You're kind of at the mercy of production
of studios of, you
(14:49):
know, whoever's in charge.
All right.
So we got Disney suing mid journey.
Oh, one, one last
little thing about that.
This idea of protecting
your rights and using AI.
Now, if anyone's creating or using apps
that use captions, any
(15:09):
of the video tools, I am
actually wondering if some tools that we
use to edit our videos,
if I should be more worried
about using.
So this might be an interesting
conversation because as much
as we talk about AI and blah,
blah, blah, I've had conversations with
friends about using tools
and the things that I've
been using and it's been clear to me that
(15:29):
I perhaps can't trust it.
And also you, me, our likenesses are
actually training the AI.
Oh, I've no, I've no doubt.
Also the other thing is like in a lot of,
a lot of services, I know
certainly like Instagram
and Facebook and stuff, I think in the
terms of service, they
claim ownership to what you
(15:50):
put on their site.
So any video that you put
up, they claim ownership to.
And a lot of people you'll see the
Facebook statuses that
people put up every so often
where they'll have this
like copy and paste thing.
Like I do not give Facebook permission to
use my, you know, not
realizing that by using
the service, they have already agreed to
those terms and their
status is meaningless.
So I don't agree.
(16:10):
It's incredibly difficult and vague and
that brings up a great point.
So let's say for example, there's a
platform that creates
captions and I do the due diligence
of looking at their use of AI and what
you can and cannot opt out.
It is very clear in this 2025, this
(16:31):
language that you can opt out.
And me possibly naively is
thinking, oh, I can trust them.
And if I opt out, I can opt out.
It gets murky.
I still have to talk to the people over
there just to see what
really they have use of,
whether they can use any of that data or
(16:57):
they just have it
sitting on a hard drive.
It's like really, it's
like it's the age old thing.
How can you really trust them?
The difference between them and meta is
if you go into the
Facebook settings and Instagram
settings, if you even can manage to opt
out through all their
settings, it's probably
BS and you can't even opt out.
(17:18):
So that's the difference of how horrible
meta and Instagram and Facebook are.
So just to put it in perspective where
it's like, well, at least
they're in their disclaimer,
they're at least being honest with you
and you can opt out of
something and with meta
you can't.
So either way, we're getting screwed so
(17:38):
many different ways.
But if you are using, so I'm going to
look into CapCut, I'm
going to look into all those
things.
It's just me putting my money where my
mouth is to be like, if
our likenesses and our voice
is this valuable and we're actually
fighting for these
protections, well, we should probably
be a little concerned about where we're
putting all of our video and data.
(17:59):
So I'm just, if there's any times to talk
about it, well, this
is an ongoing thing for
me.
I'm trying to figure it out.
It adds a whole new layer to that because
I think, you know, a
phrase that I heard a
long time ago was like, if a service is
free, you know, if the
product is free, you are
the product, like your data, your
likeness, information that
they collect about you, that's
why it's free.
Otherwise there's no way to pay for it.
(18:21):
So they, and now AI has added another
layer to that where they
can use you to train AI
models.
Whereas before it was just
before AI, it was just your data.
It was, you know, information about you
used to typically sell
things back to you, you
know, to drive advertising, to drive
sales, to drive commerce.
So but they, I would imagine that there,
(18:44):
there was a very, very
detailed profile of me and
my, all of my shopping habits,
my online activity somewhere.
You know what I mean?
So I don't trust any of these things.
I assume there's some risk, some inherent
risk assumed, I think
in using any of them,
but how deep it goes, I don't know, but I
(19:05):
don't trust, you
know, I don't trust that,
that you can truly opt out of all this
stuff or that they, that
they are careful with your,
with your, with your data or that they
protect it the way they say they do.
Because I just, I don't buy it.
And that's other, one of the, one of the
things where it's like,
if you opt out, I forget
(19:26):
how they phrase it, but
something weird and awkward.
It's no humans will have access to it.
No humans will have access to it.
So have faith that all this AI, you know,
what's, what's these
duties in the background?
Don't worry.
No one, no one can touch that.
Yeah.
No janitor's going to open the locker of
your likeness and videos
and have a gander through
(19:48):
it, but AI will be
right there scraping away.
It just flies out like ghosts.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, so yeah, just, you know, things
that keep me up at night.
So you know, like we said last week, the
news cycle and the news
coming out of entertainment
and Hollywood is not
(20:09):
exactly the funnest right now.
There are some bright spots, obviously
Mission Impossible 2 did really well.
But Superman is looks
like it's going to do.
Mission Impossible 2?
Oh, I'm sorry.
What did I say?
Mission Impossible 2?
Mission Impossible, whatever.
Mission Impossible 9.
789?
I don't even know.
That says, that says a lot about me.
(20:31):
I am, I am still living
in Mission Impossible 2.
That's like a Freudian slip there.
That's just where my mind.
Did you think Tom Cruise had performed
all those stunts in the
one movie where he jumped
out of a plane and.
Yeah.
I feel like those movies get overshadowed
by the one crazy stunt
that Tom Cruise does.
That's all I kind of know from a lot of
(20:52):
them is that he does
this and this one and then
he does this and this one or he drives a
motorbike off a cliff.
Throwing a little love to, I mean, for
good reason, because he's
invigorating the theaters
and film box office.
Cruise has just got announced.
Tom Cruise will receive an honorary Oscar
at the Governor Awards.
(21:14):
So good for him.
Now, here's the thing.
You're completely right.
It's centered around a spectacle.
There's going to be one
huge, incredible stunt.
Now have you heard of any of these clips
that have been going on
with this press junket,
this recent press junket?
And I will throw out there, if you're
ever in New York, I
talked about this before, but
(21:34):
the Museum of Moving Image is a museum
dedicated to
entertainment and the film world.
They have an exhibit for
the latest Mission Impossible.
It is incredible.
I didn't realize how much I appreciate
and get excited for all
those Mission Impossible
movies, even though I can't
remember any of the titles.
They have a set up, a breakdown of each
(21:58):
spectacle stunt in all of the films.
A lot of the memorabilia, a
lot of the actual real props.
I mean, here's the thing.
If you actually hear Tom Cruise talk
about how much work he
puts in, how much thought
he puts in, breaking
down the producing of it.
(22:18):
He's essentially an
assistant director on the film.
I mean, aside of what people think about
Tom Cruise in his
personal life, he's freaking
badass.
I can't deny it.
He's incredible.
And he gets people in the movie theaters,
which is hard to do.
Yeah, it is.
He does dollar stones
(22:39):
better than anybody.
It is incredible.
One thing I've loved hearing him talk
about in interviews
recently is his understanding
of the camera and how that works, because
in a lot of these
stunts, he also has to be
the cameraman,
depending on what the stunt is.
So he has to completely understand focus
and depth of field and
how much he has to be so
(23:01):
precise.
He talked about one of the stunts, I
think it was coming out
of a plane where he had
to get the distance between him and the
lens within, you know,
he's talking, they're talking
millimeters.
He had to understand where he would be
exactly in focus and
where you'd be slightly out of
focus.
And anybody who understands sort of focus
pulling, it's a really precise science.
I mean, you're talking millimeters either
(23:22):
way can change where the focus is.
Like if your eye has to be in sharp focus
and you move it slightly, it could be the
top of your cheek that's now in sharp
focus and your eye is slightly blurry.
So it's his understanding of that.
And he talks about how it's important for
actors to understand
the camera and really
work with it as a tool, like to really
(23:42):
understand how that works,
which I don't know how you've,
you know, how are you, what your
experience of that is, but
it's something that I'm starting
to really look into a little bit more is,
is, is that sort of
the science of that and
how the camera works, because I always, I
(24:04):
think I was focused on trying to just not
worry about it too much.
There is a technical aspect.
I mean, you have to do all of these
performance related, you
know, put all this work into
performance, but you also have to
understand a certain amount
of technical, you know, there's
a certain amount of technical knowledge
there when you're
(24:25):
working on screen in terms of
hitting a mark, you know, finding your
light, all of that stuff
that people talk about that
also has to go alongside all of the
performance related stuff.
So I'm, it sort of inspired me to really
look into a bit more, you
(24:45):
know, the cinematography
and how the camera
interacts with certain things.
I don't know.
Oh, that's a great point.
No, I love that.
I love that.
Let's talk about this a little bit more.
So yeah, a lot of things come to mind.
First off, just so back to the, when you
were saying about how Tom
Cruise knows the camera,
you're completely right.
(25:05):
And that goes to how incredible an actor
he is, but also as a
producer and director.
So I believe we're talking about the same
story, but just
imagine when Tom Cruise is
flying a plane, it's just him in the
plane and for him to get
the proper distance, it's
him flying the plane
and guiding the plane.
(25:26):
So he's in the
perfect spot for that shot.
So when we talk about us actors and, you
know, we joke around
about, you know, sometimes
we can't hit a mark.
He's flying a plane while also nailing
wherever his mark is.
(25:46):
That's just next level.
The intensity of that man like comes
across in everything he does.
I mean, and I don't mean that in a bad
way necessarily, but he is
laser focused and intense
about everything.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
It's really intense.
I never thought that that was a negative
at all, but it's funny
how you caveatted that.
Well it depends.
I think some people can
be put off by intensity.
(26:08):
You know, I think some people find it a
bit, uh, I don't know.
I just wanted to clarify that.
I think would you ever say that about me?
Uh, no.
No, I don't think you're intense.
You think you're intense?
It looked like you were giving a proper
answer because you were on
video and being recorded.
No, you're not.
(26:28):
I don't.
Did you find yourself intense?
Do you think you're intense?
I am.
I think I am absolutely
very, very, very intense.
Do you?
I would describe you as earnest.
I wouldn't describe you
as intense in any way.
Okay, cool.
Cool.
I have my intense moments.
I think intensity implies some serious, a
(26:50):
more serious
demeanor, like a more focused,
serious demeanor.
And I think, I think you're quite
earnest, but you're also good natured.
I mean, it's not like,
are you quite, I don't know.
I find you pretty easy going.
I don't know.
You think you're intense?
I didn't try to derail this into a
therapy session, but you
know, if you'll indulge me.
(27:10):
I don't want to do it, but just tell me
about your childhood for a minute.
I, and this is part of the
reason why I love acting.
I love creating is because I, I found an
outlet to explore all
these different things.
And in a way, acting and art is in a way,
a nice way to theropize ourselves.
Whether we know it or not.
(27:31):
Is it word?
Yeah. Did you just come up with that?
I just, I don't even know that.
I think I did, but I probably
created it from someone else.
Therapize yourself.
I think the best way to describe this is
my life started out fairly intense.
My childhood, my dad
was a math professor.
It was clear to me at a young age that if
I didn't know how to
multiply, I was an utter
(27:51):
failure.
And I saw it how he looked at kids my age
and we were five, all
other, other failures.
If we didn't know how to multiply, I
started playing piano at
seven, started training in
tennis around nine,
competed through high school.
And I did start to enjoy it, but those
are just things that I did.
I don't remember anything really except,
(28:13):
you know, I started to enjoy it.
My mom loves piano.
So I started to like playing that, but
those are really intense things.
I didn't study in
school, but I got good grades.
I got the highest SAT
score in my high school.
This is not a flex.
I'm trying to work
away from all that stuff.
I was looking for an outlet.
(28:34):
I was getting in trouble in school.
I was acting out.
And so ultimately, I try to keep a
balance away from being
so luck, intensely focused
on something because I feel like you need
a balance to actually,
to be honest, I think
it's bad for acting.
I feel like there's a balance between
locked in, focused and
(28:56):
working towards something
and then also letting go.
I think that's where I'm getting at.
I'm still learning at letting go.
I'm still learning at letting go in
acting and I'm still
learning letting go in life.
Yeah.
So that's kind of how I look at intensity
with, I never thought
intensity means that
you weren't a nicer, good nature.
No, I don't mean that.
(29:17):
That wasn't a great description.
I like having levels.
Like say for example, if I'm locked in
editing something, I am
not in a sociable mood.
It's like I am very much in my world.
Don't talk to me.
But it's one of those nice things because
as an actor, it's like
(29:38):
actors have their version
of that too, where it's like when you're
doing something and
you're creating something, you
kind of need the focus and you kind of
need to be by yourself and it's fine.
But at no point do I feel like I'm not
civil or social, like
nice to people around me.
No, no, I'm not.
Yeah, I wasn't suggesting that.
I think a phrase is poorly.
But yeah, I don't know.
(29:58):
I don't know if I have
that intensity in me.
I can be very, I think I'm a lot more
focused on certain
things than I would often give
myself credit for.
I mean, I've persisted with acting in a
sort of a pretty focused way.
I've pretty, I've, you know, very much
(30:22):
structured my, a lot of my
life around it in many ways.
But I don't know.
There's a difference when it comes to
personality and demeanor, and I would not
consider you intense.
So I think you and me are
maybe in the same world.
Yeah, probably.
(30:42):
Probably. Not super intense.
Let's go back to Tom Cruise here. I
haven't shared this story.
This is an actor's guide to the end of
the world exclusive. Breaking news.
So, you know, we did have that old Tom
Hanks story a couple episodes ago, but
this is kind of, I mean
(31:02):
this is just kind of fun.
One of my first couple years in LA, I did
background on a Tom Cruise movie.
Jesus Christ, dude.
You gotta tell me more.
Okay, alright. Go on.
I didn't want to oversell it, so I did
background on Tom Cruise movie.
It was freaking the greatest thing ever.
(31:24):
It was collateral. He was nominated.
Actually, I'm sorry, Jamie Foxx.
What a movie. Michael Mann.
Round of applause, everyone.
Round of applause, everyone.
So, if you know the
movie, you would love it.
Oh, I know the movie.
My scene was in the nightclub that Jamie
Foxx and Tom Cruise are both at.
It's a huge fight scene, etc.
(31:46):
Great scene. I can't believe this, man. I
can't believe you've
never heard this before.
At this point, this is just going to be a
Tom Cruise little love fest,
and then we'll call it here.
So, background on the set. To
give you an idea, Michael Mann.
Now, for better or for worse, the
reputation that Michael Mann has is he
(32:07):
just burns through money.
Literally burns through money.
Love it.
The casting call, or at least the word on
the streets, was there's
an Asian nightclub scene.
They were looking for authentic Asians.
Okay.
Okay. Whatever that means to you.
Because for those that don't know, I'm
not Korean, but I can
(32:28):
play one on TV. Thank you.
So, they're looking for authentic Asians.
And this is where it
comes to burning money.
They were paying top dollar and a premium
amount for background
for authentic Asians.
What's top dollar in background?
Off the top of my head, back then, a
(32:51):
non-union background
would be 80-some dollars.
It's not great, but at least you're on
set, and you can get
fed and all that stuff.
Union would have been
essentially double that, right?
Now, keep in mind, I was not in Union, so
I was non-union background.
They just need non-union
background to fill out the set.
I mean, I want to say $250.
Not bad. Not bad.
(33:12):
So, just put it in, yeah,
just put it in protective.
You're essentially getting three times
what you normally would get paid.
Yeah.
And I do want to know, for this paying
attention, I say authentic Asians.
Because to give you an idea of how far
entertainment has gone as
far as Asian representation,
usually background on TV and film, and I
(33:34):
say this not jokingly,
usually Asian people in background were
actually Hispanic
people made to look Asian.
Okay. Made to look Asian.
I just want to achieve that.
Well, I mean, I don't
want to misrepresent that.
If you go back to the 80s, it was
literally Hispanic people
being dressed up as Asian,
(33:54):
which is incredibly offensive and
obviously not right.
To everybody, really.
But, exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So, I don't want to, like, obviously
there's a lot of horrible Asian
representation in Hollywood
if you go back farther enough.
But, in general, if you have an Asian
nightclub scene, you know,
there would be a lot of
(34:15):
non-Asian people in the background,
and people would just go with it.
You know what I mean?
Back to Michael Mann, he wanted top
dollar for real Asians
in this nightclub scene.
So, that's the one fun memory.
The other thing I will say, from what I
remember and from what I, like,
Tom Cruise and Jamie Foxx are
(34:37):
literally a foot away from me.
And, of course, me
just so enraptured by it.
I'm just curious. What
are they talking about?
What are the stories real?
Tom Cruise, 100%,
remembers everyone's name,
and this is going back to
the whole intense thing.
When you go back to intense, and it's
easy to misrepresent that,
(34:58):
he very well could be
intense and focused,
but if you're having a
conversation with him,
he's going to make you
feel like you're a movie star.
When you're having a
conversation with him,
he's always going to be
paying attention to you,
which is actually very presidential and
not off-putting, right?
So, he really is the
quintessential movie star,
and supposedly he
(35:18):
remembers everyone's name on set.
Yeah. I've heard he makes you feel like
the only person in the world
when you're talking to him, like the
laser focus of, like,
you are the most important person in the
room when he's talking to you.
Yeah. Matt Damon tells that story about
him when he asked him about the stunt.
It might have been the Burj Khalifa one,
but he turns to him and he says,
"I've got to ask you
how to do the stunts."
He goes, "Yeah. So, you know, we're
(35:40):
talking through with the stunt guy.
We're going to do this and this and this.
The stunt guy says, "No
way. You can't do it."
So, I get a new stunt guy.
[laughter] Yeah, I love that
story. And Matt Damon's like,
"Wow. I mean, you
don't have to twist my arm.
I would have been out
with the first stunt guy."
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
For people that needed the money, my
(36:01):
roommate was not an actor.
He was Asian. Oh, sure enough, he was on
that set working his ass off,
and we were playing cards. We were, you
know, joking around with everyone.
It was a party every day, 16 hours.
We were getting paid out to wazoo, and it
helped him stay in LA.
He didn't have a job, but
he needed that side job.
We worked weeks on edge.
I remember it was Thanksgiving.
(36:23):
It was Thanksgiving
morning. We got out at 10 a.m.
And that was just our life for that set.
One day, it very well might have been
Thanksgiving or the day before.
Tom Cruise got in and out for all of us.
He made an announcement. Of course, Tom
Cruise and his movie star, Way,
he made an announcement, and he was like,
"Guys, I'm so thankful that
(36:44):
you guys are sticking it out,
and, you know, we're
just a little bit longer."
He got everyone in and out and, you know,
kept our spirits up.
Dude, it was such a great time.
So the last thing I will say, he was with
a essentially famous stuntman.
Of course, Tom Cruise is the star.
He's choking out people who are, you
(37:06):
know, very established stuntmen.
I want to say there was one time, and if
you know the scene, you would remember,
the main guy that he's
choking on in that fight scene,
he literally almost put him out.
Not ideal.
[LAUGHTER]
That's the downside
of intensity, I think.
I want to say, I don't want to
misrepresent that he
was not safe to be around,
(37:27):
but then again, I think it's an
indication of you have one of the most
established stuntmen
in the past 20 years, a legend,
and Tom Cruise was strong
enough to make it uncomfortable.
Anyway, that's all I'll say about that.
(37:47):
If you go on IMDB, the only thing that
I've solved myself is there's a shot of
Jamie Foxx with his hands up.
I want to see, it's my
noggin right behind his hands.
Nice.
The IMDB shot.
So yeah, you might spot that.
We'll put that in the show description.
(38:08):
In the show notes?
Yeah.
That scene, it was a very impactful and
great scene and so on and so forth.
I want to say it was 15 seconds.
Yeah, I remember the scene.
I want to say it was no more than 15
seconds and we shot
and made so much money.
We shot for three weeks.
(38:30):
I was still working urban outfitters, so
I was bouncing back
and forth and doubling.
But that was part of my
life and it was a great time.
Let's wrap up with this
actors working for camera.
Kind of like what you're saying, both you
and I do feel
comfortable doing self tapes.
(38:50):
I feel like this is the push in, hey, if
actors didn't realize acting for camera
was important, well, I sure hope you do
now, now that we're doing self tapes
almost exclusively for film and TV.
I also want to add, being curious about
the lens, knowing how it looks, knowing
how the framing, knowing how to properly
(39:10):
act for camera, knowing
where your eye lines are.
All of those things I'm really fascinated
by, which is part of the
reason why I love self tapes.
We talked about this before, but even the
puzzle of how do I show this in a small
frame without showing too much, learning
the power of stillness on
camera and how that works.
(39:31):
I think I watch TV and film in a slightly
different way now, since getting deeper
and deeper into self tapes and doing more
and more of them, more or
less since the pandemic.
Yeah, it's just really interesting.
Leslie talks about it being
100% organic and 100% technical.
There is a really technical side to any
kind of screen acting that has to feel
(39:54):
and look effortless.
You're not trying or you're not aware of
it, but it's there, you
know, it's always there.
Oh, yeah, hidden gems.
Oh, yeah, yeah, hidden gems.
So in a sparse week for...
Another joke?
Nope, not a joke this week.
You know what?
It's not a hidden gem.
It's not very hidden, but we were talking
about this in class the other day and a
(40:15):
few people hadn't heard of it.
So I just wanted to
give it another shout out.
Not another shout out.
I just wanted to give a shout out for the
first time in this podcast to the
artist's way, which I think is a fantastic part of it.
It is a fantastic book for anybody who is
interested in being more creative.
It doesn't have to be... You don't have
to be an artist or an
actor or anything like it.
(40:35):
We've talked about art
this way a little bit before.
Have we?
Okay, well, then I just want to give
another shout out to the artist's way.
Like I said, it's by Julia Cameron.
There's a lot of practices in that which
have helped me a lot, like
the morning pages, for example.
I do that.
I still do that to this day.
There's loads of great stuff in there,
(40:56):
but it's for anybody who is interested in
being more creative, whether or not they
work in a creative industry or not.
And I found it has been
really, really helpful to me.
So I'd recommend it to anybody.
Nice.
I also think that's
also a nod to last week.
Last week, we did part one of talking
about how to create your own work.
(41:17):
I think artist's way is probably the most
straightforward and the
best way to get started.
Like you said, if you're not a writer,
get on, do morning pages.
We talked about that
in a previous episode.
But also, it's a great way to explore
practicing not having judgment and being
open to play with whatever you want to
(41:39):
create or whatever is inside of you.
So I think artist's way is a
great time, especially now.
That's a great thing to do this summer.
There you go.
Nice hitting gem.
All right.
So my my hidden gem.
So basically, this is this is so random,
but I actually enjoy it.
I don't know if anyone's on this
magnesium train, but apparently people
(42:01):
are I don't know whether it
was on TikTok or whatever.
I think people are stressing the need for
magnesium as a supplement like a vitamin.
So I actually did a little digging.
I should preface this.
I am not a doctor.
Oh, OK.
Just be aware.
I am not a doctor.
I know.
You didn't know that.
So there are many
different uses for magnesium.
(42:22):
One of the big ones is actually sleep.
Now, I will encourage you to research and
look at the different types of magnesium.
Maybe I'll put a link in the description.
Some of them are specifically people take
before they go to bed.
And some of them I I'm
not joking when I say this.
Some of them have laxative properties.
(42:45):
Now, be careful which type you get.
In general, magnesium helps with brain
function, stress, memory, all that stuff.
The type that I got is L3O8, but it is
supposed to help sleep.
It is supposed to help
(43:05):
brain function, help memory.
And this might be me just imagining
things, but I've been
sleeping incredibly well.
So I mean, take it with a grain of salt.
I'm not a doctor.
I'm not the first one to talk about
magnesium L3O8, but that's my hidden gem.
If you try it, I won't
(43:27):
do your own research.
If there's a particular
type, I'm not here to sell pills.
There you go.
That's my hidden gem.
Thanks for listening to the show.
Enjoy the week, everyone,
and we'll be back next week.
See you next week. [static] [static] [static]
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