June 17, 2025 • 37 mins
Welcome to Episode 33 of the Actor's Guide to the End of the World! This week the guys discuss the massive layoffs happening throughout Hollywood, including WB Discovery, Paramount, Disney, and many more. Looks like the actors and crew aren't the only ones looking for work. E-Kan and Rían find a little comfort in this turbulent time in the industry and talk about the only real thing to do right now - make your own stuff!
This is just skimming the surface and part two will come, but E-Kan talks about his experience directing, producing, writing, and starring in award-winning web series and short films (links below). They talk about their experiences collaborating with others, gems like don’t let great be the enemy of good, how creating your own work will make you a better actor, and how to prioritize starting a production from the ground up with limited resources.
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to creating your own projects, this is the episode for you.
https://deadline.com/feature/hollywood-media-layoffs-list-1236007845/
Web series "Born Losers"
https://www.youtube.com/@bornloserstv2995
Short Film - "No Laughing Matter: Tears of a Clown" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sleaN1b0og8&t=141s
"How to Book with Lesly Kahn" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzSg6Q03W4o&t=22s
Hidden Gems:
Ci Siamo (NYC) https://www.cisiamo.com/menus/
Time stamps
(0:00) Intro
(2:50) Layoffs at the studios
(7:15) The only thing you can do as an actor
(11:25) Don't let Great be the Enemy of Good
(13:25) Making your own stuff
(15:50) How do you start?
(17:50) The freedom in making your own work
(19:37) Minimizing expectations and the real purpose
(29:00) Where it all started
(29:50) The importance of finding the right partner
(32:50) Hidden Gems
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
And then I have other conversations where
they're like, "Hey, I'm friends with some
kind of well-known, borderline famous
actors. They're
hanging out at the dog park
all day because it's so slow and they're
freaking out like, "Oh my
god, it's slow even for them."
I just had an image of all these
A-listers just leaning
against the fence at the dog park,
watching their dogs and
(00:20):
just commisering each other.
I did not have official video camera. I
shot the first three,
four episodes on iPhones.
We were like, "Oh, let's pitch Apple and
see if we'll get sponsored,"
which was a brilliant idea.
Apple did not respond to us. It doesn't
matter because we had the
last laugh. We bought iPhones
(00:43):
and then we shot it in two weeks and then
returned them afterwards.
Oh, there you go.
So that's almost as good.
Essentially, they did sponsor you.
All right. Welcome to the Actors Guide to
the End of the World podcast,
where we talk about acting in Hollywood
in a way people understand.
I'm E-Kan Soong and this is...
Rían Sheehy Kelly, what's happening?
What's up, buddy? Follow us wherever you
(01:04):
find your podcast. We
have video on YouTube,
on Substack, at Actors Guide Podcast.
Follow us on all social
media at Actors Guide Podcast.
We're even on TikTok, folks. We're on
TikTok. All the TikTokers, get on it.
Get on it, guys. Every time you say that,
I forget that we're on TikTok.
And then every week you're like, "Oh my
god, we're on TikTok."
(01:25):
I'm really just trying to remind Rian
that we're on TikTok.
It's a really good talk. So leave us a
like, leave us a
review if you get a chance.
It really helps the podcast. It's a great
way to support the podcast.
So we really appreciate all the feedback
we've gotten so far.
All the show for today. We talk about the
massive layoffs that are
happening in the studios,
Disney, Paramount. We get all the bad
news out and in one
(01:46):
quick, easy swoop, bing-bong.
We're not the only ones out of work. Come
on in. The water's fine.
An honest look at the industry right now.
Good news. It's not just you.
Great news is everybody's out of work.
It's cool, guys. That is the good news.
We also talk about creating our own
projects. It's never been a better time.
(02:08):
We talk about the first
couple steps to get started.
And we talk about our past experiences
creating things and
collaborating with others.
Yes, we do. I don't know
what... Yeah, that was good.
Yeah, that was... That's correct.
And our sponsor this week is AI
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(02:29):
And our sponsor this week is... Oh my
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There you go. Jesus.
Word around town, we got a little more
(02:51):
bad news for the Hollywood industry. We
got massive layoffs.
We got Paramount. We got Warner Brothers
Discovery. We got
Disney. We got ABC Disney.
Now here's the thing. We're going to give
a little bit of just
pure, hard, cold medicine.
Let's see. Paramount, 3.5% of its
domestic workforce. Warner
(03:11):
Brothers Discovery, another
round of cuts. Disney, several hundred
employees were cut. By the way, I just
want to add this in.
Deb Aquila, this was pointed out to us
recently, the head of
casting for CBS, casting director
for the studio. There's few jobs that are
this safe. She's been
casting for decades, laid off.
(03:33):
Also, I will add David Zaslav just got a
$52 million salary from last year.
60% of the shareholders voted it down his
pay package. Okay. So
obviously at no point am I
asking you guys to feel sorry for David
Zaslav, but my point is, is
(03:55):
this is the industry right now.
It's kind of nice to know that it's not
just the actors and the
crew. It's really quiet for.
Is it? Is it nice? I don't know.
Well, okay. Let's get
into that. So go ahead.
I don't know. It'd be nice to
know that somebody's working.
(04:15):
I keep hearing. I keep hearing the same
thing. Everybody I've
talked to lately is just like,
yeah, dead, dead, dead, dead. I feel like
there's some version of that
I've heard forever. You know
what I mean? You talk to actors and
you'll always hear something about your
head slow, you know,
because sometimes at periods of time it's
slow for some people
and not for other people,
but lately it just seems to be, I'm
hearing that across the board.
There are a few people I know
who are working. Few over here, few back
(04:38):
home. I'm delighted for
them, but it is not the norm.
Yeah, you're right. You know, I think
everyone's in there. Everyone's career
kind of goes in waves,
but hear me out. When I talk to my actor
friends, they say similar things and a
conversation usually
goes, well, I have a lot of other actor
(05:01):
friends and they're
usually working all the time.
And it's even slow for them. And then I
have other conversations
where they're like, hey,
I'm friends with some kind of well-known
borderline famous actors and they're
hanging out at the dog
park all day because it's so slow and
(05:23):
they're freaking out like,
oh my God, it's slow even for
them. So I, I've just had, when you said
that, I just had an image
of all these A-listers just
leaning against the fence at the dog
park, watching their dogs
and just commisering each
other. That's what that's called. We're
saying where you and I have
the pleasure of doing this
and have plenty of things to keep us
fairly busy during this time. When you
(05:45):
actually, I, I wish I
could talk to all my actor friends all
the time, all day. I wish I
could. All these conversations
are happening. And when I talk to my
actor friends in these conversations,
they say to me, you know,
I kind of feel a lot better that it's not
just me. I kind of feel a
lot better than I'm not,
(06:06):
that I'm not alone. Yeah. I'm just going
to say, I mean, yes. Okay. It
is a couple of things. It is
comforting to know that it's not you
because it's sometimes, I
sometimes feel like I have felt
certainly in the past that everybody's
working and it's just me,
you know, I'm the only one not
working, which is never true. And social
media doesn't help either
because because a lot of times
you see highlights of other people and
(06:26):
then if they're working and
it makes us feel worse. Yeah.
People don't post about when they're not
working. You know what I
mean? They're like, still no job.
You know, I just want to, I just want to
add, it's like we try
to keep things positive.
It's not all, it's not all roses for us.
So we're going to be honest
with you of what we think the
industry is and try to be as clear as
(06:48):
informed, but also cut away the
distractions and the BS.
And we're going to try to be honest with
you guys. Yeah. It's, it's
only mostly roses for us. It's
only 98% roses, 2% thorns. I think what's
helped me with that kind
of stuff is it's just doing
things like this podcast or being in
(07:08):
class or, you know, I look at people,
there's so many people
around me making stuff, making their own
stuff at the moment. I
think that's probably the key,
you know, I think that's probably the
solution there because
it's grand to say, oh yeah,
nobody's working. It's very slow, but
it's not super helpful. And
I don't say that because I'm
brilliant at making my own stuff at all.
(07:31):
But I do, I know when I'm
doing something creative,
I feel a bit better. And I think that
probably gives me a
better shot at getting whatever
little work is out there, you know. I
love that. I think that, that, that
brings up a great point.
If it is slow, this is the time to write
that short film. This is
the time to start writing.
This is this time to start creating. So
(07:51):
that, I mean, we could
talk about this episode, but I
definitely want to talk about that
eventually. Ultimately, it's
what do you do with that time
and you still need to move forward and
actually do something.
I, you know, and I think the enemy of
that sometimes for me
certainly is the weight of
expectation I put on myself. I'm like,
well, if I'm going to write
something, it has to be great.
It does not have to be great. It's
(08:11):
anything I've written, you know, the
first time not great,
you know, or anything I've written with
someone else, you just find it.
So I, I'm totally guilty of this. And
that's what I'm
saying. It is like, I will
put this expectation on myself where like
this has to be good and
it's not worth doing if it's
not good. It's, it's just starting, you
know, I'm hearing this again
(08:32):
and again. We talked about it
in class the other night where people are
like just starting
something. That's where the,
you know, that's where the real momentum
is. That's where the real power is
starting it and sticking
with it as opposed to going, Oh, you
know, you know, I'm not good at writing
or I don't know how to
or, or, um, and I'm, this is sort of a
self pep talker. Like
(08:54):
I'll be great at saying, Oh,
I'd love to do this. And then not
following through like I'd
love to write a short film and
make it my overall happiness increases
when I'm engaged in some
kind of creative projects. And
I don't know, my life just feels better.
You know, it's so funny
because we didn't plan this out.
I was wondering if we were actually going
(09:15):
to dive into this. Never
planned anything out in my life.
I know exactly. Yeah, not surprisingly,
you didn't plan this out, but
I actually wanted to dive into
creating something. Honestly, I don't
know if we have the time today.
That's a classic excuse. So you can, this
is just what's wrong.
We're going to get into that this
episode. Um, so yeah, now that we're
(09:39):
going to write a short film
in this episode, as we go by the end of
this episode, we'll
have written a whole short
film improvised it for you. Okay. Let me,
let me just finish.
Let me just finish this.
God, let me finish this point here.
There's not a lot of
(10:00):
things to be comforted by
with the industry, the way it is, but
it's a small comfort. If
you're an actor and you say,
it's not you, it's not your talent. This
is not a judgment on
all the work you put in.
And it's purely the industry. Why it's
slow. You, you, you, you texted the girl
or you texted the guy.
They didn't get back to you. You assume
(10:22):
they're not into you. The
reality of the situation is,
is, oh, maybe they're, they're, they're,
uh, Grammy was sick in the hospital and
they were tending to
her bedside. And that's why they didn't
get back to you for three
weeks. And you just didn't know.
And you're like, Oh my God. Oh, well, of
course that I'm so glad that they were
by their Grammy side. It's not me at all.
(10:43):
You still waiting for the
text or still no response.
But my point is, is it's not you. Are you
in a fight in a foggy
storm, just a haze where you
can't see the enemy or are you looking at
the industry and you know
exactly what it is? This
is what's happening. Try to look at it
objectively and be like, okay, this is
(11:06):
where I'm going to put
my efforts and this is where the work
needs to be done. And this is not a
judgment on me and my
talent. So let's, let's talk about
creating, you know, the
phrase, and I had to look it up just
to make sure I was saying it right, but
like, don't let the great
be the enemy of the good.
Don't not do something because you don't
think it's going to be
great. You might make something
decent or half decent or good. But what's
(11:28):
funny is when I was looking
up that phrase to confirm,
I was saying it the right way. I had
don't let the, and the first
one of the suggested Google
searches was don't let the pigeon drive
the bus, which is also good
advice. I think don't let the
pigeon drive the bus guys. Wait, hold on.
What? I need to know what
that phrase is even saying.
I know why there don't let the, it's a
(11:50):
children's book. There you
go. That's my hidden jam. Don't
let the pigeon drive the bus written and
illustrated by Mo Willems is a children's
picture book about a demanding pigeon who
volunteers to replace
a bus driver on break.
This is a horrible weekend vouch for
this. I don't want to be
inappropriate here, but is that
an Irish book? No, it's a Google search.
(12:11):
Okay. Okay. Okay. No, I wasn't sure
whether your algorithm
was skewed. I wasn't sure whether your
algorithm was skewed. I do have to add
for another non-sequitur
on top of a non-sequitur. It just so
happens in New York. It's
pigeon fest. I have no idea what
it means. I've been to New York every day
is pigeon fest in New
York. All right. So let's get
back on track here. I've made a few
(12:33):
things in the past. I know
looking back on it, there are a
couple of things that I massively made
mistakes. There are many things that I
did right, but there
are huge things that I didn't know I was
doing wrong until now. And
it's not wrong or right. It's
just like things that could have done
(12:55):
better. I produced a web series. It's
online and this is not
just a shameless plug. I think it holds
up. It's called Born
Losers. You can see it on YouTube.
A buddy comedy, a mix of always sunny in
Philadelphia with broad
city. It was me and my
good friend and also a fellow Leslie
(13:16):
Connor. I love it. I edited everything I
directed and produced
a short film in 2019 that I'm incredibly
proud of. Now I'm making
stuff on YouTube and this
podcast is a new evolution of just making
things. I feel like we both have
different perspectives
on what it means to say, I'm going to
(13:37):
create something and maybe
we can help each other out
talking this through. And then if you're
a listener, maybe this helps you get
started or come up with
ideas, decide what you want to make. I
will say, and you just
touched upon this. Everyone says,
just get started. And a lot of people say
the hardest thing is getting started. No,
(13:59):
the hardest thing is finishing. That is
absolutely way harder than getting
started. What I'm trying
to get at is getting started is really
hard. And then we'll worry
about the 10, 15, 50, 100 steps
later to producing your final product
short film web series. Okay.
(14:20):
So let's just start from the
beginning. What was really important for
us and I kind of, I think
that kind of goes across the
board with how I look at creating things.
We were going to try to make
it as simple as possible. And
when I say simple, I mean low budget and
low resistance. By the
way, I did not have official
(14:42):
video camera. I shot the first three,
four episodes on
iPhones. Okay. Now keep in mind,
it wasn't that revolutionary, but this
was seven or eight
years. And we were like,
how do we make this so simple? And even
though it's shot on
iPhones, and we actually did have
a proper DP, director of photography,
(15:03):
doing the camera work while we were
acting and shooting it,
we ran this like a real TV show. We were
like, oh, let's pitch Apple and see if
we'll get sponsored,
which was a brilliant idea. Apple did not
respond to us. It doesn't
matter because we had the last
laugh. We bought iPhones and then we shot
it in two weeks and then
(15:24):
returned them afterwards.
Oh, there you go. So that's almost as
good. Essentially, they
did sponsor you. Exactly.
Exactly. They just didn't know it. So
keep in mind, that's our
attitude. Now here's the thing,
feed your crew and actors. Well, you guys
know, I love to eat. Happy
set is a well fed set. We're
not skimming on the necessities of treat
(15:49):
your crew and actors well.
We want to have a tight set,
but that's how we looked at it. How do we
make this as cheap as
possible and as smooth as possible,
where we all have a good time? And I will
say our web series, we
filled out SAG paperwork. This was
a SAG project. It's not that hard. Sure.
(16:10):
It's another thing you have
to fill out, but we filled
out SAG paperwork. So these are the
things that we prioritize.
By the way, I will admit this,
this was all SAG. We deferred our pay.
Now I will, I am not going
to lie about that saying,
(16:32):
I wish that we were paying everyone. I
guess with new media,
it's a little different,
but I don't want to get into the weeds,
but we could have paid
actors on those days.
We deferred it. Basically deferred is in
the contract, you would
pay actors a negotiated
(16:53):
amount if the web series makes money
later on. So say, for
example, if you sell it to YouTube,
if you sell it to blah, blah, blah, and
you make money, then
the actors would get paid.
So this is a way to make something that's
unique because this is
interesting. So this is,
if you want to make something and use
union actors and you want
to make something with your
friends for cheap or nothing, and if you
(17:14):
want to go the union
route, this is what you can do.
You can do like a deferred payment, fill
out the paperwork. Does it
cost? Is there a cost involved
in that? No, there's no cost. Great. This
is good info. Years ago, I
was part of a web series with a
bunch of people that we knew each other
from second city. We were all in class
together in second city
years ago. It was great. It was so much
(17:36):
fun. We did six episodes, I think.
I think we were punching above our weight
for what it was. And it put
it, there was a real freedom in
us to just play. I feel like that's a
big, a big benefit of making
your own work is that you do
have that freedom because you don't
really get that freedom in other jobs in
(17:56):
the same way. Certainly
not until you're at such a level as
people will tolerate it and
encourage it from you because
that's why they hired you. Oftentimes,
particularly with TV, you're brought in
to do a job and then
you leave. You don't have time to
experiment and try things
(18:17):
because it doesn't fit into
what everybody else is doing. I love
that. If you listened
to our episode last week,
you dropped a gem. You were talking about
an acting auditioning
workshop and Michael Kostrov,
this mantra that he had before every
audition, you're not
going to get the fucking job.
(18:38):
It released the pressure off of him. And
it's funny because I was
thinking about creating stuff.
And to piggyback off of that, what I
realized is this idea that if you're
going to create something
or let's say a web series or a short
film, no one's going to
watch your shit. It felt like the
(18:59):
same thing. There's kind of a freedom in
that. You mean that in a
good way, right? Yeah, exactly.
There's no scrutiny. Yeah. So there's a
lot of freedom in that
because if you're scared of being
judged, if you're scared about being
scrutinized, if you're scared about
putting yourself out there,
it could be social media in some sense,
get away from the
(19:20):
expectation that you're going to go
viral, create the thing and do the work.
And maybe you'll enjoy
the pleasure of working and
collaborating with your friends. And that
might be enough and get
away from that expectation.
No one's going to watch your shit. If
someone watches it, it's
a pleasant surprise. Yeah.
(19:40):
Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think
there's anything wrong with
thinking, oh, this might be
good for real or to use it to market
yourself. But I think you're
absolutely right. You can't
go in with that attitude. And I think, or
it doesn't serve you to
go in with that attitude,
I don't think, because it doesn't sort of
engender that
freedom. And I also think the
ideal is to take the attitude that you're
(20:01):
talking about here with all
this stuff, like no one's,
no one's going to watch this. No one's
going to scrutinize this and
take that forward into stuff
that people might actually watch or, you
know, into bigger jobs. I
think, I think the ideal is to
cultivate that sort of creative freedom
in whatever you do and
bring it to wherever you go.
Because, and I've talked to a number of
(20:21):
friends about this and
some of them, I think we'll
probably have on the podcast and I'd love
to talk to them about it a
bit further, but it's the idea
of, Emmett talks about it a bit, my pal,
going into a show with the
attitude of being, you know,
maybe you're number three on the call
(20:42):
sheet, but going in with
the attitude of a number 17,
where you can play and it doesn't really
matter to give yourself that
freedom, whatever it is that
gets you to that, that, that place of
freedom and play, because, and
this, this is going to sound a
little morbid, but sometimes the way I
try and get out of my own way with that
stuff is when I find
(21:02):
myself worrying about how it's going to
be seen or I'm watching
myself through other people's
imagined eyes, not their actual eyes,
because it's me imagining somebody
looking at me with a
critical eye, I think, well, all of these
people, including myself,
will be dead someday and none of
this has got to matter anyway. It's not,
it's never as serious as you
think it is. Like the stakes,
(21:23):
it's never everything is riding on this
or, you know, this is make
or break. And the other thing
about breaks is about things that, you
know, this is my big break. I've talked
to so many people who,
who, who've told me that like, it's never
the thing that you think
it's going to be. It's never,
sometimes the job they thought was going
to change their life didn't
(21:44):
and, and then something came out
of left field that they just didn't think
about at all. And then that
changed their whole careers.
How many times have you heard that story?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. I love all that. And,
and to think that we're in control or we
can mastermind those
type of things, we're,
we're lying to ourselves. And also to
bring it back to this, if you think
something's great for
(22:04):
your real, a lot of times it's not. And
if you do something, you're like, Oh,
that's not going to go
on my reel. And you're like, Oh my God,
that was actually really good. You will
always be surprised,
be open to the surprise. That thing you
said about Emmet, it's so
funny that you said that.
I love that. I feel like the switching,
the reframing, if you're number three,
pretend like your number 17 or imagine
(22:25):
that you're, there's
less pressure on you.
Oh, I can see value in, if you're number
17, pretend you're number three.
Now that does not, that does not mean
that pretend you're the
executive producer show
runner, that you're the boss. But what
I'm saying is, is, is,
(22:46):
is you are a peer on set.
You want to be professional, you want to
be civil, but you can hold space.
Your favorite phrase, my favorite phrase,
you can have the status of
being a professional actor
who's in charge of your job. And I can
(23:08):
kind of almost, I can, I
almost might have more freedom
if I'm number three on the call sheet.
Maybe, Hey, can I, can I do one more take
something like that?
And I could see both ways. It might be,
it might be beneficial. I
certainly think you have more
power. And it's easier, I found to be a
bigger part of something than
a smaller part of something,
(23:28):
but it depends. It depends what helps you
get there. And I know for him, it was
that attitude of like,
you know, it doesn't, he's the freedom to
play. He brings that
freedom to sort of play into it
based on an experience that he had with
being a number 17 or
whatever, where he was just completely
free. So it's whatever gets you there. If
that helps you the opposite
(23:49):
way, do it too. But I think
you're right. You should never apologize
for being there. Never
apologize for sort of, you know,
you're there. You deserve to be there. If
you're there, you deserve
to be there. You have a right
to be there. So just enjoy that. Getting
back to the nuts and
bolts, what do you have at your
disposal? We had a camera or we had
cameras. We tried to make, uh, uh, the
(24:11):
series and the TV show
utilizing locations that we had. So we
shot in our apartments.
Uh, we shot on street corners
that we, we scoped out. How do you make
this stupid, simple of what
would make a good TV show?
Now in a perfect world, you're renting
out an airplane hangar, starting out
small. We were like,
(24:32):
we believe in the show. We believe in the
situations that we're
writing. We believe in
the characters and the relationship. We
tried to make a great show
and maybe it would be good on
our real. But ultimately the goal was
this is a five, six minute
episode that is funny. And the
other thing we had at our disposal was
great actors that we were
(24:53):
friends with that we could trust
who wanted to be in our show. And they
also worked for essentially
no pay. I'm not saying you run
around working for everyone, no pay. Uh,
but there was a trust there
where we had great actors who
wanted to be a part of it and everyone
had a great time. So I
just want to throw that out.
No, I love that. I love that we did. Um,
(25:14):
it's, that's, I think the
ideas you go in with like
trying to make it like a real TV show,
treat it professionally, filling out
paperwork, doing all
this stuff is great. Cause it's great
practice. You know what I mean? And it
kind of, it sets the
tone for everybody. We, me and a few
friends of mine made, um, a
sort of a, we wrote this thing
in three days, um, to be shot on new
(25:36):
year's eve. This is
different than the second city.
This is different than the web series.
Yeah. This, this was in 2019.
This was, um, New Year's Eve,
2019 myself and a couple of piles of
mine, uh, on Macon and,
uh, Jeff Doyle and a few.
(26:15):
God, I can't remember the name of it.
Jerry Ray and a dog named Winston or
something like that.
So anyway, the premise was, you know,
there was somebody had kidnapped my dog
and it was the night of my
standup, my comeback gig.
You know, I'd been a standup.
So the way we, it was
a very ambitious idea,
but the way we did was we shot it
in the streets of Dublin overnight.
(26:36):
We started off at the venue
where the gig was gonna be.
And then we shot it walking
through the streets of Dublin.
And we had people
meet us at certain points
and shot a kind of guerrilla style,
mockumentary style
and made it on the fly.
And it was almost really, really good.
Like I think had we had a
little more time to prep,
there were some bits of
(26:56):
it that are very funny
and some bits of it that are great.
Why were you showing on time?
To write it.
I mean, like we'd,
we'd a few days to prep
and write the entire thing.
We wrote it basically in three days,
wrote it, put it together
and shot it within a three day period.
It just, it proved to me what you can do
if you just have the willingness
(27:18):
and a bit of the drive.
And while it didn't turn out exactly the
way we wanted it to,
there was bits of it
that have real value.
And I think knowing that and going back,
I would do it slightly differently,
but it just proved to me
that, yeah, you can make things.
It just so happened that
you're on the streets of Dublin.
(27:39):
Hey, if you're wherever you are,
it's actually really hard to shoot in LA.
It really is.
If you're in a smaller
city, use that to your advantage
because you probably can
run around with a camera
and shoot a bunch of stuff
and not get flagged for
permits, not get in trouble.
And like, you know, if
I was in another city
or in a smaller city,
(28:00):
oh, I would take advantage.
If anything, bars and
restaurants would love for you
to be in their place
because you could actually do a little
advertising for them.
So I just wanna pin that,
let me just bring it back
to you even way beyond 2018.
I first learned how to edit.
I taught myself how to
edit off a free program.
(28:21):
And it was all
because Leslie Kahn in class
and at the studio, she made up a contest.
This is so back in the day
when everyone was
saying create your own thing.
I know, I never told you.
I completely lost, forgot about it.
Years before everyone was
saying create your own content,
(28:41):
she made us all create something.
And me and my buddy, who I later on
created the web series,
he's basically my writing partner
that I wrote with for eight, 10 years.
It was a sketch about the studio.
I think it still holds up.
If you Google it, it's called "How to
Book with Leslie Kahn."
Okay.
By the way, we did win that contest.
(29:03):
She loved the sketch.
Actually, we could put it
in the show description.
If you're at Leslie Kahn,
you might get a kick out of it
because it's a lot of inside jokes.
Even if you're not at Leslie Kahn,
you probably might get a kick out of it.
And without that contest,
I don't know when I would have started.
That is the freedom to play.
And then later on, me and
him, me and my buddy Nate,
we created things years later
(29:26):
just from that random little contest.
So I just wanna give her a shout out.
Chill off that, chill off that.
Yeah, one thing,
and we're actually a little short on time
because we're gonna have
to do a part two on this.
Now, and I wanna give you a shout out
because this is very much a part of it.
Choosing who you want to work with, okay?
(29:49):
Finding a really good working partner,
it's very similar to dating.
It might be harder than dating.
(laughing)
Find like-minded people
who have a similar drive.
If you hitch a wagon
to someone who's flaky,
(30:10):
doesn't show up, is
irresponsible, not professional,
you're gonna learn really quick.
You have to find
someone that you're willing to
spend hours with writing,
crafting, producing, crisis.
People don't show up,
you're problem solving.
And then on top of it,
you're also acting with each other
(30:31):
and then possibly producing and maybe
directing each other.
You need to have a great relationship.
And then also I wanna
give you a shout out here
because you're a great partner.
And I just wanna give you a shout out
that this is no different than creating
any other short film, TV series, or
(30:52):
produce a film together
because the audience has to know
it is not easy to talk to
me for hours every week.
So I think everyone needs to
applaud Rian for showing up.
That it's been
essentially 30 some episodes here.
We need to applaud
Rian for, it's not easy.
(31:12):
It's easy, it's easy.
He makes it look easy.
It's easy, he's post-chotic.
No, but to be fair, I wouldn't have,
I wouldn't have started
this podcast on my own.
There's no way, you know?
You're the driving force behind this.
And to be fair, you do a
lot of the heavy lifting
and putting it together.
Like I didn't know
anything about podcasting at all.
(31:34):
I didn't know anything about a podcast.
I didn't, you know, I
listen to the same two podcasts
every week.
That's Stick to Football and Smartless.
So, you know, but it's been a real,
it's been a really
enjoyable experience doing this.
And it hasn't been, hasn't
felt like work, you know,
most of the time it's felt
(31:55):
like fun and interesting.
And sometimes I don't
feel like, you know,
there's days when I'm like,
I don't feel like I have anything to say,
a value, you know,
where I just don't feel
like I have anything to offer.
But we always find
something in a conversation
and I appreciate that too.
So, and you take a lot of, you know,
you should take a lot of credit for that
because it's, you know,
(32:16):
I don't feel like I'm the
driving force behind this at all.
I'm sort of like a willing participant
where I'm like, yeah,
great, this is cool.
Let's go.
And as I go, I'm learning more about it,
but it's been really fun, you know?
And I didn't, like when you said,
you know, like the
first week or whatever,
you're like, I'm
talking about 30 episodes.
I was like, 30 fucking episodes?
(32:37):
Jesus Christ, like that's so far away.
And here we are at 33 or whatever.
I know exactly, exactly.
Let's pin it there.
And we're gonna pick up with part two
about creating next time.
All right, so let's do Hidded Gems.
I've been trying to think of a hidden gem
all fucking morning.
I haven't done anything.
All I've done is work.
(32:57):
All I've done is work.
I haven't been anywhere.
I haven't done anything
that's not work related.
You know, this is a good practice
because I was trying
to think of a hidden gem
and it's, is there anything
in your week that was useful?
Is there anything in your
week that your friend told you,
hey, this was nice, blah, blah, blah.
Did you talk to anybody at any point?
(33:19):
That's a good idea.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll leave this in the recording
because this is helpful for us
to have people
understand what hidden gems are.
But is there anything
that was ever useful
in your life recently that just,
hey, this actually made
my day a little bit better.
(33:41):
Yeah, I suppose it could be advice.
That's a good, okay.
That's a good qualifier.
Yeah, it could be a mantra.
It could be a word of advice.
It could be a million things.
It could be a joke.
There you go.
There you go.
I know you got plenty of them.
I don't know that I do.
I've never been a joke person.
I've always just been,
I try and be funny if I can,
but like I don't have a
lot of jokes stored up.
(34:02):
Really?
I thought you actually did.
You know what?
I've one great joke that was told to me
by a guy I used to
work with many years ago.
A guy called Jim,
when I worked in a publishing company
and Jim would sit across the desk from me
and this is my hidden gem by the way.
One time Jim turns
around to me and he goes,
(34:23):
"Rian, there's a man in your garden
"with a pointy heart and a fishing rod."
Do you know him?
Wow.
There was a transatlantic delay there.
Oh man, okay.
Well, I'm glad that I got it
and I thought it was funny.
So that's great.
(34:44):
I'm glad you did too.
It only took us the
entire time difference
from the East coast to
the West coast for tonight.
I don't think the delay was due
to the internet connection.
All right, cool.
So that'll be your hidden gem.
I wasn't sure where to
go with this hidden gem,
but the hidden gem this week.
So it was my birthday this week.
(35:06):
That's not the hidden
gem, but thank you everyone.
So here's the thing.
Thank you.
Round of applause.
I'll try to get through this quick.
I have a old tradition with a buddy.
We treat each other
out for our birthdays.
It's a little different now
because he lives in a different city.
I'm also happy to be in New York,
(35:26):
but he was in New York for work.
I did some research.
I tried to pick the perfect
restaurant in all of New York.
Now, if you know New York,
picking a perfect
restaurant is nearly impossible.
I went through infatuation.
I went through Reddit.
I was looking for the perfect--
What's infatuation?
Infatuation is a very
(35:47):
popular blog about food recs,
mostly restaurants.
So you should get on that.
They have one for every city.
And needless to say,
that's a lot about New York.
No one agrees.
You're gonna have a huge own debate
about what the best
Italian restaurant is,
where their blah,
blah, blah, all this thing.
So New Yorkers are very snooty.
I love you all.
They're very snooty, but I was like,
I'm not gonna go with
the traditional steakhouse.
(36:08):
I'm gonna go with Italian.
I'm gonna go for a change of pace.
So just imagine trying to pick
the perfect Italian restaurant.
Perfect ambiance.
Not too expensive,
but also not too cheap.
Anyway, I pick a restaurant.
It's Sisiamo.
I don't know how to
pronounce that in Italian.
Let's just imagine.
Sisiamo, I don't know.
Something of that, right?
(36:28):
Brilliant.
It was a great restaurant.
So authentic.
It was a great restaurant.
I wanna say the
reviews, for the most part,
were spot on.
Very rich, very creamy.
The pastas are amazing.
Entrees are pretty
good, but get the pastas,
get the onion torta.
Well, I'll put pictures in the video.
Pastas will blow your mind.
(36:48):
It also may destroy your stomach.
Anyway, all the reviews I went through,
this is exactly what I was expecting,
but this is spot on.
I stand behind my pick.
The restaurant was great.
And who do I see is
also in the restaurant?
Jada de Laurentiis.
Now, I'm not assuming you
know who Jada de Laurentiis is.
(37:09):
I do not.
I wish you did.
Jada de Laurentiis,
the gorgeous, beautiful
chef, TV, personnel.
Anyway, for all the foodies out there,
Jada de Laurentiis was in the restaurant
and I've never been more validated.
So that's it.
Sisiamo, everyone.
Sisiamo.
Well, that's our show, everyone.
(37:30):
Hope you enjoyed it.
If you get a chance,
please leave a review.
We're on YouTube, we're on Substack,
we're on all social
media, at Actors Guide Podcast.
See you next week.
And then I have other conversations where
they're like, "Hey, I'm friends with some
kind of well-known, borderline famous
actors. They're
hanging out at the dog park
all day because it's so slow and they're
freaking out like, "Oh my
god, it's slow even for them."
I just had an image of all these
A-listers just leaning
against the fence at the dog park,
watching their dogs and
(00:20):
just commisering each other.
I did not have official video camera. I
shot the first three,
four episodes on iPhones.
We were like, "Oh, let's pitch Apple and
see if we'll get sponsored,"
which was a brilliant idea.
Apple did not respond to us. It doesn't
matter because we had the
last laugh. We bought iPhones
(00:43):
and then we shot it in two weeks and then
returned them afterwards.
Oh, there you go.
So that's almost as good.
Essentially, they did sponsor you.
All right. Welcome to the Actors Guide to
the End of the World podcast,
where we talk about acting in Hollywood
in a way people understand.
I'm E-Kan Soong and this is...
Rían Sheehy Kelly, what's happening?
What's up, buddy? Follow us wherever you
(01:04):
find your podcast. We
have video on YouTube,
on Substack, at Actors Guide Podcast.
Follow us on all social
media at Actors Guide Podcast.
We're even on TikTok, folks. We're on
TikTok. All the TikTokers, get on it.
Get on it, guys. Every time you say that,
I forget that we're on TikTok.
And then every week you're like, "Oh my
god, we're on TikTok."
(01:25):
I'm really just trying to remind Rian
that we're on TikTok.
It's a really good talk. So leave us a
like, leave us a
review if you get a chance.
It really helps the podcast. It's a great
way to support the podcast.
So we really appreciate all the feedback
we've gotten so far.
All the show for today. We talk about the
massive layoffs that are
happening in the studios,
Disney, Paramount. We get all the bad
news out and in one
(01:46):
quick, easy swoop, bing-bong.
We're not the only ones out of work. Come
on in. The water's fine.
An honest look at the industry right now.
Good news. It's not just you.
Great news is everybody's out of work.
It's cool, guys. That is the good news.
We also talk about creating our own
projects. It's never been a better time.
(02:08):
We talk about the first
couple steps to get started.
And we talk about our past experiences
creating things and
collaborating with others.
Yes, we do. I don't know
what... Yeah, that was good.
Yeah, that was... That's correct.
And our sponsor this week is AI
Headshots. Want to look like Brad Pitt?
(02:29):
And our sponsor this week is... Oh my
God, I don't know if I'm
going to be able to say this.
Want to look like Brad Pitt? Would you
look like an armpit?
AI Headshots got you covered. Maybe it's
Maybelline. Maybe you're fugly,
but thankfully there's an app for that.
AI Headshots, it's
like you, but way better.
There you go. Jesus.
Word around town, we got a little more
(02:51):
bad news for the Hollywood industry. We
got massive layoffs.
We got Paramount. We got Warner Brothers
Discovery. We got
Disney. We got ABC Disney.
Now here's the thing. We're going to give
a little bit of just
pure, hard, cold medicine.
Let's see. Paramount, 3.5% of its
domestic workforce. Warner
(03:11):
Brothers Discovery, another
round of cuts. Disney, several hundred
employees were cut. By the way, I just
want to add this in.
Deb Aquila, this was pointed out to us
recently, the head of
casting for CBS, casting director
for the studio. There's few jobs that are
this safe. She's been
casting for decades, laid off.
(03:33):
Also, I will add David Zaslav just got a
$52 million salary from last year.
60% of the shareholders voted it down his
pay package. Okay. So
obviously at no point am I
asking you guys to feel sorry for David
Zaslav, but my point is, is
(03:55):
this is the industry right now.
It's kind of nice to know that it's not
just the actors and the
crew. It's really quiet for.
Is it? Is it nice? I don't know.
Well, okay. Let's get
into that. So go ahead.
I don't know. It'd be nice to
know that somebody's working.
(04:15):
I keep hearing. I keep hearing the same
thing. Everybody I've
talked to lately is just like,
yeah, dead, dead, dead, dead. I feel like
there's some version of that
I've heard forever. You know
what I mean? You talk to actors and
you'll always hear something about your
head slow, you know,
because sometimes at periods of time it's
slow for some people
and not for other people,
but lately it just seems to be, I'm
hearing that across the board.
There are a few people I know
who are working. Few over here, few back
(04:38):
home. I'm delighted for
them, but it is not the norm.
Yeah, you're right. You know, I think
everyone's in there. Everyone's career
kind of goes in waves,
but hear me out. When I talk to my actor
friends, they say similar things and a
conversation usually
goes, well, I have a lot of other actor
(05:01):
friends and they're
usually working all the time.
And it's even slow for them. And then I
have other conversations
where they're like, hey,
I'm friends with some kind of well-known
borderline famous actors and they're
hanging out at the dog
park all day because it's so slow and
(05:23):
they're freaking out like,
oh my God, it's slow even for
them. So I, I've just had, when you said
that, I just had an image
of all these A-listers just
leaning against the fence at the dog
park, watching their dogs
and just commisering each
other. That's what that's called. We're
saying where you and I have
the pleasure of doing this
and have plenty of things to keep us
fairly busy during this time. When you
(05:45):
actually, I, I wish I
could talk to all my actor friends all
the time, all day. I wish I
could. All these conversations
are happening. And when I talk to my
actor friends in these conversations,
they say to me, you know,
I kind of feel a lot better that it's not
just me. I kind of feel a
lot better than I'm not,
(06:06):
that I'm not alone. Yeah. I'm just going
to say, I mean, yes. Okay. It
is a couple of things. It is
comforting to know that it's not you
because it's sometimes, I
sometimes feel like I have felt
certainly in the past that everybody's
working and it's just me,
you know, I'm the only one not
working, which is never true. And social
media doesn't help either
because because a lot of times
you see highlights of other people and
(06:26):
then if they're working and
it makes us feel worse. Yeah.
People don't post about when they're not
working. You know what I
mean? They're like, still no job.
You know, I just want to, I just want to
add, it's like we try
to keep things positive.
It's not all, it's not all roses for us.
So we're going to be honest
with you of what we think the
industry is and try to be as clear as
(06:48):
informed, but also cut away the
distractions and the BS.
And we're going to try to be honest with
you guys. Yeah. It's, it's
only mostly roses for us. It's
only 98% roses, 2% thorns. I think what's
helped me with that kind
of stuff is it's just doing
things like this podcast or being in
(07:08):
class or, you know, I look at people,
there's so many people
around me making stuff, making their own
stuff at the moment. I
think that's probably the key,
you know, I think that's probably the
solution there because
it's grand to say, oh yeah,
nobody's working. It's very slow, but
it's not super helpful. And
I don't say that because I'm
brilliant at making my own stuff at all.
(07:31):
But I do, I know when I'm
doing something creative,
I feel a bit better. And I think that
probably gives me a
better shot at getting whatever
little work is out there, you know. I
love that. I think that, that, that
brings up a great point.
If it is slow, this is the time to write
that short film. This is
the time to start writing.
This is this time to start creating. So
(07:51):
that, I mean, we could
talk about this episode, but I
definitely want to talk about that
eventually. Ultimately, it's
what do you do with that time
and you still need to move forward and
actually do something.
I, you know, and I think the enemy of
that sometimes for me
certainly is the weight of
expectation I put on myself. I'm like,
well, if I'm going to write
something, it has to be great.
It does not have to be great. It's
(08:11):
anything I've written, you know, the
first time not great,
you know, or anything I've written with
someone else, you just find it.
So I, I'm totally guilty of this. And
that's what I'm
saying. It is like, I will
put this expectation on myself where like
this has to be good and
it's not worth doing if it's
not good. It's, it's just starting, you
know, I'm hearing this again
(08:32):
and again. We talked about it
in class the other night where people are
like just starting
something. That's where the,
you know, that's where the real momentum
is. That's where the real power is
starting it and sticking
with it as opposed to going, Oh, you
know, you know, I'm not good at writing
or I don't know how to
or, or, um, and I'm, this is sort of a
self pep talker. Like
(08:54):
I'll be great at saying, Oh,
I'd love to do this. And then not
following through like I'd
love to write a short film and
make it my overall happiness increases
when I'm engaged in some
kind of creative projects. And
I don't know, my life just feels better.
You know, it's so funny
because we didn't plan this out.
I was wondering if we were actually going
(09:15):
to dive into this. Never
planned anything out in my life.
I know exactly. Yeah, not surprisingly,
you didn't plan this out, but
I actually wanted to dive into
creating something. Honestly, I don't
know if we have the time today.
That's a classic excuse. So you can, this
is just what's wrong.
We're going to get into that this
episode. Um, so yeah, now that we're
(09:39):
going to write a short film
in this episode, as we go by the end of
this episode, we'll
have written a whole short
film improvised it for you. Okay. Let me,
let me just finish.
Let me just finish this.
God, let me finish this point here.
There's not a lot of
(10:00):
things to be comforted by
with the industry, the way it is, but
it's a small comfort. If
you're an actor and you say,
it's not you, it's not your talent. This
is not a judgment on
all the work you put in.
And it's purely the industry. Why it's
slow. You, you, you, you texted the girl
or you texted the guy.
They didn't get back to you. You assume
(10:22):
they're not into you. The
reality of the situation is,
is, oh, maybe they're, they're, they're,
uh, Grammy was sick in the hospital and
they were tending to
her bedside. And that's why they didn't
get back to you for three
weeks. And you just didn't know.
And you're like, Oh my God. Oh, well, of
course that I'm so glad that they were
by their Grammy side. It's not me at all.
(10:43):
You still waiting for the
text or still no response.
But my point is, is it's not you. Are you
in a fight in a foggy
storm, just a haze where you
can't see the enemy or are you looking at
the industry and you know
exactly what it is? This
is what's happening. Try to look at it
objectively and be like, okay, this is
(11:06):
where I'm going to put
my efforts and this is where the work
needs to be done. And this is not a
judgment on me and my
talent. So let's, let's talk about
creating, you know, the
phrase, and I had to look it up just
to make sure I was saying it right, but
like, don't let the great
be the enemy of the good.
Don't not do something because you don't
think it's going to be
great. You might make something
decent or half decent or good. But what's
(11:28):
funny is when I was looking
up that phrase to confirm,
I was saying it the right way. I had
don't let the, and the first
one of the suggested Google
searches was don't let the pigeon drive
the bus, which is also good
advice. I think don't let the
pigeon drive the bus guys. Wait, hold on.
What? I need to know what
that phrase is even saying.
I know why there don't let the, it's a
(11:50):
children's book. There you
go. That's my hidden jam. Don't
let the pigeon drive the bus written and
illustrated by Mo Willems is a children's
picture book about a demanding pigeon who
volunteers to replace
a bus driver on break.
This is a horrible weekend vouch for
this. I don't want to be
inappropriate here, but is that
an Irish book? No, it's a Google search.
(12:11):
Okay. Okay. Okay. No, I wasn't sure
whether your algorithm
was skewed. I wasn't sure whether your
algorithm was skewed. I do have to add
for another non-sequitur
on top of a non-sequitur. It just so
happens in New York. It's
pigeon fest. I have no idea what
it means. I've been to New York every day
is pigeon fest in New
York. All right. So let's get
back on track here. I've made a few
(12:33):
things in the past. I know
looking back on it, there are a
couple of things that I massively made
mistakes. There are many things that I
did right, but there
are huge things that I didn't know I was
doing wrong until now. And
it's not wrong or right. It's
just like things that could have done
(12:55):
better. I produced a web series. It's
online and this is not
just a shameless plug. I think it holds
up. It's called Born
Losers. You can see it on YouTube.
A buddy comedy, a mix of always sunny in
Philadelphia with broad
city. It was me and my
good friend and also a fellow Leslie
(13:16):
Connor. I love it. I edited everything I
directed and produced
a short film in 2019 that I'm incredibly
proud of. Now I'm making
stuff on YouTube and this
podcast is a new evolution of just making
things. I feel like we both have
different perspectives
on what it means to say, I'm going to
(13:37):
create something and maybe
we can help each other out
talking this through. And then if you're
a listener, maybe this helps you get
started or come up with
ideas, decide what you want to make. I
will say, and you just
touched upon this. Everyone says,
just get started. And a lot of people say
the hardest thing is getting started. No,
(13:59):
the hardest thing is finishing. That is
absolutely way harder than getting
started. What I'm trying
to get at is getting started is really
hard. And then we'll worry
about the 10, 15, 50, 100 steps
later to producing your final product
short film web series. Okay.
(14:20):
So let's just start from the
beginning. What was really important for
us and I kind of, I think
that kind of goes across the
board with how I look at creating things.
We were going to try to make
it as simple as possible. And
when I say simple, I mean low budget and
low resistance. By the
way, I did not have official
(14:42):
video camera. I shot the first three,
four episodes on
iPhones. Okay. Now keep in mind,
it wasn't that revolutionary, but this
was seven or eight
years. And we were like,
how do we make this so simple? And even
though it's shot on
iPhones, and we actually did have
a proper DP, director of photography,
(15:03):
doing the camera work while we were
acting and shooting it,
we ran this like a real TV show. We were
like, oh, let's pitch Apple and see if
we'll get sponsored,
which was a brilliant idea. Apple did not
respond to us. It doesn't
matter because we had the last
laugh. We bought iPhones and then we shot
it in two weeks and then
(15:24):
returned them afterwards.
Oh, there you go. So that's almost as
good. Essentially, they
did sponsor you. Exactly.
Exactly. They just didn't know it. So
keep in mind, that's our
attitude. Now here's the thing,
feed your crew and actors. Well, you guys
know, I love to eat. Happy
set is a well fed set. We're
not skimming on the necessities of treat
(15:49):
your crew and actors well.
We want to have a tight set,
but that's how we looked at it. How do we
make this as cheap as
possible and as smooth as possible,
where we all have a good time? And I will
say our web series, we
filled out SAG paperwork. This was
a SAG project. It's not that hard. Sure.
(16:10):
It's another thing you have
to fill out, but we filled
out SAG paperwork. So these are the
things that we prioritize.
By the way, I will admit this,
this was all SAG. We deferred our pay.
Now I will, I am not going
to lie about that saying,
(16:32):
I wish that we were paying everyone. I
guess with new media,
it's a little different,
but I don't want to get into the weeds,
but we could have paid
actors on those days.
We deferred it. Basically deferred is in
the contract, you would
pay actors a negotiated
(16:53):
amount if the web series makes money
later on. So say, for
example, if you sell it to YouTube,
if you sell it to blah, blah, blah, and
you make money, then
the actors would get paid.
So this is a way to make something that's
unique because this is
interesting. So this is,
if you want to make something and use
union actors and you want
to make something with your
friends for cheap or nothing, and if you
(17:14):
want to go the union
route, this is what you can do.
You can do like a deferred payment, fill
out the paperwork. Does it
cost? Is there a cost involved
in that? No, there's no cost. Great. This
is good info. Years ago, I
was part of a web series with a
bunch of people that we knew each other
from second city. We were all in class
together in second city
years ago. It was great. It was so much
(17:36):
fun. We did six episodes, I think.
I think we were punching above our weight
for what it was. And it put
it, there was a real freedom in
us to just play. I feel like that's a
big, a big benefit of making
your own work is that you do
have that freedom because you don't
really get that freedom in other jobs in
(17:56):
the same way. Certainly
not until you're at such a level as
people will tolerate it and
encourage it from you because
that's why they hired you. Oftentimes,
particularly with TV, you're brought in
to do a job and then
you leave. You don't have time to
experiment and try things
(18:17):
because it doesn't fit into
what everybody else is doing. I love
that. If you listened
to our episode last week,
you dropped a gem. You were talking about
an acting auditioning
workshop and Michael Kostrov,
this mantra that he had before every
audition, you're not
going to get the fucking job.
(18:38):
It released the pressure off of him. And
it's funny because I was
thinking about creating stuff.
And to piggyback off of that, what I
realized is this idea that if you're
going to create something
or let's say a web series or a short
film, no one's going to
watch your shit. It felt like the
(18:59):
same thing. There's kind of a freedom in
that. You mean that in a
good way, right? Yeah, exactly.
There's no scrutiny. Yeah. So there's a
lot of freedom in that
because if you're scared of being
judged, if you're scared about being
scrutinized, if you're scared about
putting yourself out there,
it could be social media in some sense,
get away from the
(19:20):
expectation that you're going to go
viral, create the thing and do the work.
And maybe you'll enjoy
the pleasure of working and
collaborating with your friends. And that
might be enough and get
away from that expectation.
No one's going to watch your shit. If
someone watches it, it's
a pleasant surprise. Yeah.
(19:40):
Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think
there's anything wrong with
thinking, oh, this might be
good for real or to use it to market
yourself. But I think you're
absolutely right. You can't
go in with that attitude. And I think, or
it doesn't serve you to
go in with that attitude,
I don't think, because it doesn't sort of
engender that
freedom. And I also think the
ideal is to take the attitude that you're
(20:01):
talking about here with all
this stuff, like no one's,
no one's going to watch this. No one's
going to scrutinize this and
take that forward into stuff
that people might actually watch or, you
know, into bigger jobs. I
think, I think the ideal is to
cultivate that sort of creative freedom
in whatever you do and
bring it to wherever you go.
Because, and I've talked to a number of
(20:21):
friends about this and
some of them, I think we'll
probably have on the podcast and I'd love
to talk to them about it a
bit further, but it's the idea
of, Emmett talks about it a bit, my pal,
going into a show with the
attitude of being, you know,
maybe you're number three on the call
(20:42):
sheet, but going in with
the attitude of a number 17,
where you can play and it doesn't really
matter to give yourself that
freedom, whatever it is that
gets you to that, that, that place of
freedom and play, because, and
this, this is going to sound a
little morbid, but sometimes the way I
try and get out of my own way with that
stuff is when I find
(21:02):
myself worrying about how it's going to
be seen or I'm watching
myself through other people's
imagined eyes, not their actual eyes,
because it's me imagining somebody
looking at me with a
critical eye, I think, well, all of these
people, including myself,
will be dead someday and none of
this has got to matter anyway. It's not,
it's never as serious as you
think it is. Like the stakes,
(21:23):
it's never everything is riding on this
or, you know, this is make
or break. And the other thing
about breaks is about things that, you
know, this is my big break. I've talked
to so many people who,
who, who've told me that like, it's never
the thing that you think
it's going to be. It's never,
sometimes the job they thought was going
to change their life didn't
(21:44):
and, and then something came out
of left field that they just didn't think
about at all. And then that
changed their whole careers.
How many times have you heard that story?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly. I love all that. And,
and to think that we're in control or we
can mastermind those
type of things, we're,
we're lying to ourselves. And also to
bring it back to this, if you think
something's great for
(22:04):
your real, a lot of times it's not. And
if you do something, you're like, Oh,
that's not going to go
on my reel. And you're like, Oh my God,
that was actually really good. You will
always be surprised,
be open to the surprise. That thing you
said about Emmet, it's so
funny that you said that.
I love that. I feel like the switching,
the reframing, if you're number three,
pretend like your number 17 or imagine
(22:25):
that you're, there's
less pressure on you.
Oh, I can see value in, if you're number
17, pretend you're number three.
Now that does not, that does not mean
that pretend you're the
executive producer show
runner, that you're the boss. But what
I'm saying is, is, is,
(22:46):
is you are a peer on set.
You want to be professional, you want to
be civil, but you can hold space.
Your favorite phrase, my favorite phrase,
you can have the status of
being a professional actor
who's in charge of your job. And I can
(23:08):
kind of almost, I can, I
almost might have more freedom
if I'm number three on the call sheet.
Maybe, Hey, can I, can I do one more take
something like that?
And I could see both ways. It might be,
it might be beneficial. I
certainly think you have more
power. And it's easier, I found to be a
bigger part of something than
a smaller part of something,
(23:28):
but it depends. It depends what helps you
get there. And I know for him, it was
that attitude of like,
you know, it doesn't, he's the freedom to
play. He brings that
freedom to sort of play into it
based on an experience that he had with
being a number 17 or
whatever, where he was just completely
free. So it's whatever gets you there. If
that helps you the opposite
(23:49):
way, do it too. But I think
you're right. You should never apologize
for being there. Never
apologize for sort of, you know,
you're there. You deserve to be there. If
you're there, you deserve
to be there. You have a right
to be there. So just enjoy that. Getting
back to the nuts and
bolts, what do you have at your
disposal? We had a camera or we had
cameras. We tried to make, uh, uh, the
(24:11):
series and the TV show
utilizing locations that we had. So we
shot in our apartments.
Uh, we shot on street corners
that we, we scoped out. How do you make
this stupid, simple of what
would make a good TV show?
Now in a perfect world, you're renting
out an airplane hangar, starting out
small. We were like,
(24:32):
we believe in the show. We believe in the
situations that we're
writing. We believe in
the characters and the relationship. We
tried to make a great show
and maybe it would be good on
our real. But ultimately the goal was
this is a five, six minute
episode that is funny. And the
other thing we had at our disposal was
great actors that we were
(24:53):
friends with that we could trust
who wanted to be in our show. And they
also worked for essentially
no pay. I'm not saying you run
around working for everyone, no pay. Uh,
but there was a trust there
where we had great actors who
wanted to be a part of it and everyone
had a great time. So I
just want to throw that out.
No, I love that. I love that we did. Um,
(25:14):
it's, that's, I think the
ideas you go in with like
trying to make it like a real TV show,
treat it professionally, filling out
paperwork, doing all
this stuff is great. Cause it's great
practice. You know what I mean? And it
kind of, it sets the
tone for everybody. We, me and a few
friends of mine made, um, a
sort of a, we wrote this thing
in three days, um, to be shot on new
(25:36):
year's eve. This is
different than the second city.
This is different than the web series.
Yeah. This, this was in 2019.
This was, um, New Year's Eve,
2019 myself and a couple of piles of
mine, uh, on Macon and,
uh, Jeff Doyle and a few.
(26:15):
God, I can't remember the name of it.
Jerry Ray and a dog named Winston or
something like that.
So anyway, the premise was, you know,
there was somebody had kidnapped my dog
and it was the night of my
standup, my comeback gig.
You know, I'd been a standup.
So the way we, it was
a very ambitious idea,
but the way we did was we shot it
in the streets of Dublin overnight.
(26:36):
We started off at the venue
where the gig was gonna be.
And then we shot it walking
through the streets of Dublin.
And we had people
meet us at certain points
and shot a kind of guerrilla style,
mockumentary style
and made it on the fly.
And it was almost really, really good.
Like I think had we had a
little more time to prep,
there were some bits of
(26:56):
it that are very funny
and some bits of it that are great.
Why were you showing on time?
To write it.
I mean, like we'd,
we'd a few days to prep
and write the entire thing.
We wrote it basically in three days,
wrote it, put it together
and shot it within a three day period.
It just, it proved to me what you can do
if you just have the willingness
(27:18):
and a bit of the drive.
And while it didn't turn out exactly the
way we wanted it to,
there was bits of it
that have real value.
And I think knowing that and going back,
I would do it slightly differently,
but it just proved to me
that, yeah, you can make things.
It just so happened that
you're on the streets of Dublin.
(27:39):
Hey, if you're wherever you are,
it's actually really hard to shoot in LA.
It really is.
If you're in a smaller
city, use that to your advantage
because you probably can
run around with a camera
and shoot a bunch of stuff
and not get flagged for
permits, not get in trouble.
And like, you know, if
I was in another city
or in a smaller city,
(28:00):
oh, I would take advantage.
If anything, bars and
restaurants would love for you
to be in their place
because you could actually do a little
advertising for them.
So I just wanna pin that,
let me just bring it back
to you even way beyond 2018.
I first learned how to edit.
I taught myself how to
edit off a free program.
(28:21):
And it was all
because Leslie Kahn in class
and at the studio, she made up a contest.
This is so back in the day
when everyone was
saying create your own thing.
I know, I never told you.
I completely lost, forgot about it.
Years before everyone was
saying create your own content,
(28:41):
she made us all create something.
And me and my buddy, who I later on
created the web series,
he's basically my writing partner
that I wrote with for eight, 10 years.
It was a sketch about the studio.
I think it still holds up.
If you Google it, it's called "How to
Book with Leslie Kahn."
Okay.
By the way, we did win that contest.
(29:03):
She loved the sketch.
Actually, we could put it
in the show description.
If you're at Leslie Kahn,
you might get a kick out of it
because it's a lot of inside jokes.
Even if you're not at Leslie Kahn,
you probably might get a kick out of it.
And without that contest,
I don't know when I would have started.
That is the freedom to play.
And then later on, me and
him, me and my buddy Nate,
we created things years later
(29:26):
just from that random little contest.
So I just wanna give her a shout out.
Chill off that, chill off that.
Yeah, one thing,
and we're actually a little short on time
because we're gonna have
to do a part two on this.
Now, and I wanna give you a shout out
because this is very much a part of it.
Choosing who you want to work with, okay?
(29:49):
Finding a really good working partner,
it's very similar to dating.
It might be harder than dating.
(laughing)
Find like-minded people
who have a similar drive.
If you hitch a wagon
to someone who's flaky,
(30:10):
doesn't show up, is
irresponsible, not professional,
you're gonna learn really quick.
You have to find
someone that you're willing to
spend hours with writing,
crafting, producing, crisis.
People don't show up,
you're problem solving.
And then on top of it,
you're also acting with each other
(30:31):
and then possibly producing and maybe
directing each other.
You need to have a great relationship.
And then also I wanna
give you a shout out here
because you're a great partner.
And I just wanna give you a shout out
that this is no different than creating
any other short film, TV series, or
(30:52):
produce a film together
because the audience has to know
it is not easy to talk to
me for hours every week.
So I think everyone needs to
applaud Rian for showing up.
That it's been
essentially 30 some episodes here.
We need to applaud
Rian for, it's not easy.
(31:12):
It's easy, it's easy.
He makes it look easy.
It's easy, he's post-chotic.
No, but to be fair, I wouldn't have,
I wouldn't have started
this podcast on my own.
There's no way, you know?
You're the driving force behind this.
And to be fair, you do a
lot of the heavy lifting
and putting it together.
Like I didn't know
anything about podcasting at all.
(31:34):
I didn't know anything about a podcast.
I didn't, you know, I
listen to the same two podcasts
every week.
That's Stick to Football and Smartless.
So, you know, but it's been a real,
it's been a really
enjoyable experience doing this.
And it hasn't been, hasn't
felt like work, you know,
most of the time it's felt
(31:55):
like fun and interesting.
And sometimes I don't
feel like, you know,
there's days when I'm like,
I don't feel like I have anything to say,
a value, you know,
where I just don't feel
like I have anything to offer.
But we always find
something in a conversation
and I appreciate that too.
So, and you take a lot of, you know,
you should take a lot of credit for that
because it's, you know,
(32:16):
I don't feel like I'm the
driving force behind this at all.
I'm sort of like a willing participant
where I'm like, yeah,
great, this is cool.
Let's go.
And as I go, I'm learning more about it,
but it's been really fun, you know?
And I didn't, like when you said,
you know, like the
first week or whatever,
you're like, I'm
talking about 30 episodes.
I was like, 30 fucking episodes?
(32:37):
Jesus Christ, like that's so far away.
And here we are at 33 or whatever.
I know exactly, exactly.
Let's pin it there.
And we're gonna pick up with part two
about creating next time.
All right, so let's do Hidded Gems.
I've been trying to think of a hidden gem
all fucking morning.
I haven't done anything.
All I've done is work.
(32:57):
All I've done is work.
I haven't been anywhere.
I haven't done anything
that's not work related.
You know, this is a good practice
because I was trying
to think of a hidden gem
and it's, is there anything
in your week that was useful?
Is there anything in your
week that your friend told you,
hey, this was nice, blah, blah, blah.
Did you talk to anybody at any point?
(33:19):
That's a good idea.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll leave this in the recording
because this is helpful for us
to have people
understand what hidden gems are.
But is there anything
that was ever useful
in your life recently that just,
hey, this actually made
my day a little bit better.
(33:41):
Yeah, I suppose it could be advice.
That's a good, okay.
That's a good qualifier.
Yeah, it could be a mantra.
It could be a word of advice.
It could be a million things.
It could be a joke.
There you go.
There you go.
I know you got plenty of them.
I don't know that I do.
I've never been a joke person.
I've always just been,
I try and be funny if I can,
but like I don't have a
lot of jokes stored up.
(34:02):
Really?
I thought you actually did.
You know what?
I've one great joke that was told to me
by a guy I used to
work with many years ago.
A guy called Jim,
when I worked in a publishing company
and Jim would sit across the desk from me
and this is my hidden gem by the way.
One time Jim turns
around to me and he goes,
(34:23):
"Rian, there's a man in your garden
"with a pointy heart and a fishing rod."
Do you know him?
Wow.
There was a transatlantic delay there.
Oh man, okay.
Well, I'm glad that I got it
and I thought it was funny.
So that's great.
(34:44):
I'm glad you did too.
It only took us the
entire time difference
from the East coast to
the West coast for tonight.
I don't think the delay was due
to the internet connection.
All right, cool.
So that'll be your hidden gem.
I wasn't sure where to
go with this hidden gem,
but the hidden gem this week.
So it was my birthday this week.
(35:06):
That's not the hidden
gem, but thank you everyone.
So here's the thing.
Thank you.
Round of applause.
I'll try to get through this quick.
I have a old tradition with a buddy.
We treat each other
out for our birthdays.
It's a little different now
because he lives in a different city.
I'm also happy to be in New York,
(35:26):
but he was in New York for work.
I did some research.
I tried to pick the perfect
restaurant in all of New York.
Now, if you know New York,
picking a perfect
restaurant is nearly impossible.
I went through infatuation.
I went through Reddit.
I was looking for the perfect--
What's infatuation?
Infatuation is a very
(35:47):
popular blog about food recs,
mostly restaurants.
So you should get on that.
They have one for every city.
And needless to say,
that's a lot about New York.
No one agrees.
You're gonna have a huge own debate
about what the best
Italian restaurant is,
where their blah,
blah, blah, all this thing.
So New Yorkers are very snooty.
I love you all.
They're very snooty, but I was like,
I'm not gonna go with
the traditional steakhouse.
(36:08):
I'm gonna go with Italian.
I'm gonna go for a change of pace.
So just imagine trying to pick
the perfect Italian restaurant.
Perfect ambiance.
Not too expensive,
but also not too cheap.
Anyway, I pick a restaurant.
It's Sisiamo.
I don't know how to
pronounce that in Italian.
Let's just imagine.
Sisiamo, I don't know.
Something of that, right?
(36:28):
Brilliant.
It was a great restaurant.
So authentic.
It was a great restaurant.
I wanna say the
reviews, for the most part,
were spot on.
Very rich, very creamy.
The pastas are amazing.
Entrees are pretty
good, but get the pastas,
get the onion torta.
Well, I'll put pictures in the video.
Pastas will blow your mind.
(36:48):
It also may destroy your stomach.
Anyway, all the reviews I went through,
this is exactly what I was expecting,
but this is spot on.
I stand behind my pick.
The restaurant was great.
And who do I see is
also in the restaurant?
Jada de Laurentiis.
Now, I'm not assuming you
know who Jada de Laurentiis is.
(37:09):
I do not.
I wish you did.
Jada de Laurentiis,
the gorgeous, beautiful
chef, TV, personnel.
Anyway, for all the foodies out there,
Jada de Laurentiis was in the restaurant
and I've never been more validated.
So that's it.
Sisiamo, everyone.
Sisiamo.
Well, that's our show, everyone.
(37:30):
Hope you enjoyed it.
If you get a chance,
please leave a review.
We're on YouTube, we're on Substack,
we're on all social
media, at Actors Guide Podcast.
See you next week.
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