December 1, 2025 • 42 mins
Welcome to Episode 57, the Actor’s Guide to the End of the World Podcast!
In the spirit of the holidays, we thought we’d thank all of our incredible guests from this past year with this holiday sampler of the best moments from their interviews.
If you want to review or go do a deep dive into the full interview - links are below.
E-Kan and Rían will discuss with Oscar-nominated writer Kirsten Sheridan about how she developed her directing process and why her maternal instincts kicks in on a set, as well as what It was like working with a 24-year old Cillian Murphy.
Patrick Massett (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Friday Night Lights, and the Blacklist) will talk about taking risks and how it has played such a key role in his career. You’ll see why there’s a photo of Mick Jagger hanging in his living room.
Kevin Walsh (Criminal Minds) is a former pro football player and takes the guys into the mind of a pro athlete and why they say athletes make great actors.
Timothy Davis (Billions, The Girlfriend Experience) with an in-depth look at how the Actor’s Studio, along with its shortcomings, have shaped him into the actor he is today.
Shaan Sharma will break down his game-changing practical approach to building a career and building relationships through being of service.
Brandon Finn takes us behind the scenes getting his first series regular opposite Jason Momoa on Apple TV’s Chief of War and what helped him step up to the challenge.
Brian Stepanek will share how he became a beloved cult character to 20 and 30-somethings everywhere, despite his agent telling him not to take it. You’ll also hear the most incredible Gene Wilder story..
This is a special one, thanks again for coming along for the ride with us.
Follow @actorsguidepodcast wherever you find your podcast, and on all social media.
@ekansoong @riansheehykelly
Full interview links:
Kirsten Sheridan: https://youtu.be/0Ltd3qxgsQI?si=s2tp8y7x-F3PhdaO
Patrick Massett: https://youtu.be/ZxkStpVz8Rk?si=hxmmmRQre6USkkXH
Kevin Walsh: https://youtu.be/Qdwqk4WdZGw?si=4zIbXgok3CJQMGj-
Timothy Davis: https://youtu.be/RoXxiv0B66o?si=N0kPNchSWr-rr2CE
Shaan Sharma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVcU1eMet00
Brandon Finn: https://youtu.be/ne32qRxy-ks?si=UhNlPQuK3-PH4-Yz
Brian Stepanek: https://youtu.be/lUdymwTQMnQ?si=eA5VRlSfNMWc4Di5
Hidden Gems:
Mickey O’Sullivan’s in person Acting Classes in Chicago and remote
Gianino’s Pastries (South Jersey) 508 Hurffville CrossKeys Rd, Sewell, NJ
Time Stamps:
(00:00) Intro
(01:30) Kirsten Sheridan on what makes a great director
(06:40) What working with Cillian Murphy was really like
(08:34) Patrick Massett why he gravitated towards writing
(11:40) Studios aren’t taking risks like they used to
(12:50) How they got Angelina Jolie to be in Lara Croft Tomb Raider
(16:26) Kevin Walsh how storytelling and acting followed him through the years
(19:00) Why pro athletes make great actors
(22:18) Timothy Davis on the shortcomings of acting programs
(26:07) Shaan Sharma how there’s room for success for everyone
(28:12) The old school mentality of the union is a problem
(29:00) The power of focusing your goals as an actor
(33:15) Brandon Finn landing his series regular role opposite Jason Momoa
(38:03) Brian Stepanek on the role he is most known for
(39:59) The best Gene Wilder story
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello, 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 a very special episode.
We were in the holiday spirit.
We thought we'd give thanks to all of our
great guests this past year.
This is a compilation of some highlights
from our guest interviews.
(00:20):
Look at this as a sampler platter, a
buffet, if you will, of
practical wisdom, advice,
and a lot of inspiration.
We'll hear from a range of lovely and
talented people, an
Oscar-nominated writer, series
regulars, successful showrunner, and
whether you're celebrating
a holiday or not, wherever
you're listening, thanks for joining us.
(00:43):
Enjoy the show.
Kirsten Sheridan was our very first
guest, Oscar nominee for In America.
Other credits include Say Nothing for
Hulu and Disco Pigs where
she directed a 24-year-old
Killian Murphy.
The trick for me, and it's not even a
trick, it's just kind
of like a happy accident.
I kind of feel, and this is an actor's
podcast, so you're going to
(01:04):
think that I'm making this
up to kind of make actors seem like the
best thing ever, but I
truly believe that actors
are out on such a limb and it's a
terrifying place to be.
I kind of feel like my maternal instinct
really kicks in and I feel
like I just want to support
them and not make them feel like they're
(01:25):
doing the most
terrifyingly vulnerable thing
in the world, which they are.
I totally just forget
about my own worries in that.
Number one, I had end a script and I
adored end as a person,
as a writer, everything.
I only felt like, "Jesus, I better get up
and make sure I do the
(01:46):
best for the script."
And when I'd be on set, it never really
occurred to me like, "How
do I feel being 26 or 23
or whatever?"
I was on set because I
was like, "Is Elaine okay?
Is Killian okay?
Is the little kid okay?"
It's kind of handy to have
that mother thing going on.
Can you talk a little bit more about,
(02:08):
when you said the
maternal instinct, is that kind
of how you feel the relationship is
yourself as a director
when you're on your set?
Yes and no.
I mean, I've spoken to
Rean about this before.
I kind of feel like,
depending on the actor.
Some actors want you to be, yes,
(02:28):
absolutely, the mother hen.
Other actors want you to push them.
Other actors might push you back and it's
all part of the actual process.
Even sometimes they're not conscious that
it's part of the
process, but you better be
conscious that it's part of
the process as a director.
I've had actors start fights with me
because they want to see
that I can be like, "Nope.
(02:51):
We're going to go for
another take and that's it."
That's not my normal happy
place, but I'm like, "Oh."
You kind of have to be a chameleon and
whatever is required, I
feel, is like sometimes you
have to be the dad, sometimes you have to
be the mom, sometimes
you have to be the best
friend.
Sometimes you leave them alone.
It really is, for me, just chameleon.
(03:15):
Yeah.
It requires a great deal of skill and
just emotional
intelligence to be able to read
people and to be able to
work with them in that way.
Right.
Kirsten, would you say, because going
back to Disco Pigs,
because that was like mid-20s,
did you feel like you had that skill and
you knew that that was
a skill even back then
(03:35):
on directing Disco Pigs?
Did it need to be a chameleon and work
with specific actors and
hone certain things depending
on what they needed?
I think looking back now, this is where
you see the mistakes as a director.
I think I almost made the mistake of
almost giving line readings in my 20s.
I was so specific to In the Weeds.
(03:59):
Now when I think of it, I'm like, "I
would never be that in the weeds."
I think that is just a learning curve of
age and craft that you learn.
That is not how
someone wants to be directed.
Yeah.
I think as an actor too, you kind of
learn, but just as you
go, you get less precious
about it because you're like, "Oh, it's
not as ... I don't have
(04:20):
to be as specific as that
in that way."
Yeah.
Then if an actor does want a line
reading, that's fine.
I would do that.
I think in the bigger scheme, the one
thing, everyone always
is like, "What's it like
having a dad being a director?"
The one thing that I can really say I did
learn by osmosis is
(04:41):
that it's so okay as the
director to be like, "I have no idea.
I don't know.
What do you think?"
Then suddenly the crew are all like, "I
think this," and the
actors like, "I think that,"
and everyone's kind of involved and
there's an energy going,
and then you might be like,
"Oh, that's exactly it.
(05:03):
What you just said mixed with this and
let's put 10% on it,
that's what we need."
I think that was really helpful because I
think so many young
directors are terrified
that they need to have all the answers,
and the more they let go
of that, the better director
they are.
I love that.
Those are the type of sets that I love
being on because in the
(05:23):
moment the director might
not always have the answer, but as a
collaboration everyone is
trying to solve the problem at
hand and everyone
together can get through it.
I think there's nothing worse I can
imagine as an actor.
Again, I think actors are out on a limb,
so they're kind of like
kids to me, like two-year-olds,
but in a good way.
You know the way you
can't lie to a two-year-old?
(05:45):
If you're lying to an actor pretending
you know the answer to
everything, I think it's
nothing more terrifying for the actor
because they're like,
"Oh, they're having a clue."
They're acting all like, "Put this there.
Do that."
Oh no, they're
pretending to be the director.
You worked with Killian
Murphy in his mid-20s.
(06:07):
Were you ever
surprised that he won an Oscar?
Nope.
No way.
Absolutely zero surprise.
Okay.
So written on the cards.
At the same time though, there's a lot of
people I would feel
that way about who haven't
yet.
There's a lot of actors I've worked with.
I think Killian though takes the craft
(06:29):
incredibly seriously.
You can tell from day one, he was vicious
in a good way about
pushing back, but in a
great way.
He was the opposite of,
"Okay, whatever you say."
I remember being like,
"Wow, that keeps me on my toes."
(06:51):
But it's part of the reason I think why
that drive is very strong.
Sorry, I have to ask.
In what way, because both of you were
fairly young, in what way
was he able to viciously
protect his art and his craft but also
not throw you off or offend you?
(07:12):
Yeah, good question.
It's kind of like the way I would be
like, "I wake up in the
morning and I think I have
to not fail and as words."
I think I was aware, I was so aware that
Killian did not want to
fail Pig, the character.
(07:33):
So it's got nothing to do with Killian's
ego versus my ego
versus what the director and
the actor are.
It was not that.
It was Pig saying
like, "I can't do that."
And me being like, "Oh shit, right.
Okay, I have to listen to this."
So it was coming from that place and I
guess that's the difference.
When it comes from an ego place, it's a
(07:54):
whole different story.
And I'm sure you guys, you can smell that
a mile away, it's all horseshit.
If we have to do that
stupid dance, then fine.
I think if you cast properly, that's my
whole thing, cast
properly and you won't be in that
stupid waste of space.
(08:15):
Yeah.
Because I think that ego space is
underpinned by self-centered fear.
Always.
It's always fear.
But sometimes covered
in so many layers that...
Yeah.
You're wasting hours of the crew's time
and the money and
you're going, "Oh my God."
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's tricky.
Patrick Masset is a hit
(08:35):
writer and show runner.
The original Lara Crofton writer with
Angelina Jolie, Friday
Night Lights and The Blacklist
are just a few of his credits.
When did you think that, "Oh, being a
writer could be a viable career?"
I don't know, man.
It's just like, I never felt like it was
a good business model.
I never felt like, "Oh,
this is a great career move.
I'm going to go right and get into
(08:56):
Hollywood because I feel
like it's a great way to make
a living and make
money and be successful."
It was more like, it was just a passion.
I just really wanted to pursue...
I was so curious about the
business and the industry.
But he landed in LA without knowing
anybody and having any contacts, zero.
Actually, there was one.
His name was Val Kilmer, who I had done a
(09:18):
play with in Colorado
when he had become friend
with Abraham. No.
Wait, you did a play
with Val Kilmer in Colorado?
I did a play and a movie, two movies.
Wow.
So anyway, to answer your question, Rian,
it wasn't a business thing.
It was just my heart, my passion, a lot
of ignorance, a lot of
naivete, I would say,
more than ignorance.
And also growing up in
Nebraska was hard, man.
(09:39):
It was tough.
We did not have a lot.
We were farmers and it was hard slogging.
And it just seemed like that, being able
to escape into those
other worlds just seemed
like a way of...
Just a better way of living, just to get
out of my own head in a way.
Yeah.
I get really lucky.
I was at a bar one
night and a guy hands me...
(10:00):
Guy was telling me,
he was a screenwriter.
He goes, "Oh, you got to
listen to these tapes."
This was free cell phone.
So I called him on a payphone the next
day because I didn't have a phone.
And he said, "Yeah, come over to my house
and I'll give you these tapes."
And they were the Robert McKee tapes, a
live lecture on the
story, the book called Story.
(10:22):
And it was that live lecture.
And that was like, that's
how I learned structure.
And then from there, I
picked up two other books.
Then I wrote two screenplays
and I got an agent from that.
So it was just like, it was all this
self-generated sort of bouncing around
following my instinct
kind of thing.
Yeah.
And then I wrote my
first script that I sold.
I happened to share it with John
(10:43):
Zinneman, who was at a
theater company that I had seen.
And he gave me some notes and I sold it.
And at the time, my wife Mary, and we had
three kids and I was completely broke.
We hadn't paid our rent in three months.
I had a crazy landlord who was
threatening to chop down our
door with a chainsaw, telling
(11:03):
us we had to get over this movie habit
bullshit and get a real job.
And have you?
No.
And then I sold this movie to MGM.
It paid all of our bills.
It got us to zero, basically.
It was just out of fact to where we could
begin to like breathe a little bit.
And then after that, I met John and then
(11:24):
we did Tomb Raider
pretty quickly after that.
But when we say these stories, that's
what I miss when today
everything and any information
is online.
And when people take risks, they're
scared of making that social media post.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
We're kind of losing that
excitement and that danger.
(11:45):
That's a really good point.
This guy behind me here in this picture,
this photograph is so
amazing because it's Mick
Jagger watching
himself on, can you see that?
It's Mick Jagger laying on bed watching
himself on The Ed Sullivan Show.
If you read his biography, he was going
(12:07):
to the London School of
Economics and he still
hadn't decided if he was going to do this
musical bullshit or if he was going to go
to the London School and finish and
become a great accountant
because he was so smart.
And so he's again, it's
like he took that risk.
He said he made that leap, pulled away
from his parents and
his future and said, fuck
(12:29):
it, I'm going to try this thing with
these guys called the
Rolling Stones, I guess.
And he became the
greatest rock star in the world.
But in that moment, if you read the
biography, he still hadn't
made a decision whether or
not he was going to do music.
He was like, fully enough.
What he's watching is like,
is this going to work or not?
I still think that sometimes.
(12:49):
Yeah, I know.
I love that idea of like,
not is this going to work?
You know, we were trying to get Angelina
Jolie on the Tomb Raider.
We can move on to other stuff, but
there's just so much in
that thing where she, you
know, we were sitting around in Larry
Orton's office and we
have the script and we've got
the green light.
We've got to get an actor.
If we get the actor,
(13:09):
we go into production.
And we can't, you know, we all wanted
Angelina, but everybody
kept saying, you know, she's
not doing well right now.
She's with Billy Bobb.
She's partying a lot.
You know, everybody knew that it wasn't
like a secret, but, you
know, she was like, but
we basically, you know, John and I
basically said, said, go
(13:30):
call her manager back and say,
we're going to get her in
the best shape of her life.
We're going to do ropes courses and she's
going to get a trainer
and a nutrition list.
She's going to ride
motorcycles and fight Bob McGraw.
She's going to be in three months before
she starts a real frame
of film, she's going to
be a super badass in the
best shape of her life.
And we're like, so he called her back.
He called the manager back,
(13:51):
couldn't get ahold of the agent.
And the manager called him back in an
hour after that pitch
and said she'll do it.
And she signed a three
picture deal based on that.
And if you look at her physically before
Tomb Raider and then
what she looked like in the
movie, it's a different
she's a different person.
So we actually did that for her and she
did that for herself.
And she's an amazing human being.
(14:12):
And I love her.
And I didn't really get to know her that
well, to be honest with you.
But I do know that that was something
that we had suggested.
And she went for it again.
I think she took that.
It's like you have it's
everything that I've ever done.
Riding that light black blisters.
I can tell you stories, stories of people
just going let the dice fly high.
Man, let's just go for it.
If you told me that you were going to
pitch Lara Croft, Tomb
(14:33):
Raider and early video game
adaptation and Angelina Jolie was going
to have hesitations, I
wouldn't have assumed it
was the physicality.
I would have assumed that maybe an actor
would judge a video
game adaptation before that
they're proven.
That's a great point.
Yeah.
It's like there's a million reasons why
(14:53):
actors could be hesitating.
That's also a credit to her.
I've heard amazing things about her work
ethic and her passion for her craft.
So.
And yeah, and she, you know, that's a
really good point, man,
because she was an artist
and she was doing she was doing a lot of
indie work and some
studio things, but more
things that were leaning
more towards straight drama.
So for her to jump into a big action
(15:13):
genre piece like that,
just I think again, she just
let the dice fly high.
She said, why not?
Let's give it a try.
You get into Friday Night Lights.
We got, you know, Friday Night Lights, we
got canceled every year for five years.
We'll always find a way we would either
cut the budget or we
would go work with direct TV
or we would do whatever we had to do to
figure out a way to stay on the air.
(15:34):
And it was always just, you know, that
was just a thing of passion.
You know, our budget went down every
single year where
we're so successful shows.
You know, we would get it got to be so
bad that we were
shooting without lighting.
We walk into a house, we'd move
everybody's shit around, put a few
pictures that looked
(15:55):
like Coach and Tammy's.
We would, you know, we would we'd go in
and shoot with three
cameras, 16 millimeter
bullies, and then be on the move again
before the lighting truck even showed up.
You know, that's the
fast we had to do it.
Because it was just passion.
Let's just get this made.
This is if we can just keep going, we
will create something
that everybody will love.
(16:15):
And eventually the passion and hard work
that we put into it
and the overcoming of the
obstacles paid off, you know, and people
began to really find the show.
Kevin Walsh is a former pro football
player turned actor,
worked on Criminal Minds.
He's also produced and starred in a play
recently in Los Angeles.
And I live with all
that's that play football.
(16:37):
We're all in the Gao United ranks.
One of my closest friends, Alan Murphy,
he's one of the top
Gao United players of all
time in League of Ireland.
And I'd be like living with them and we
were just training every day.
And then I'd be going into school and I
wouldn't go to classes and I'd be sitting
this they'd walk by the library and I'm
sitting there watching
(16:57):
like Nosferatu like on
TV. And they're like, what are you doing?
I'm like, Nosferatu?
I'm like, sure. Great for them.
They're like, whatever.
I do that. I don't see a train.
You know, so like I think there was
always that thing about me.
There was a stage there where my football
career was over and I'm
like telling my father,
I was like, yeah, I think I'm going to
(17:19):
give football a quit and
I'm going to do something
more realistic like acting.
Yeah. Yeah.
He's just like, OK, yeah, whatever.
Call me when you need money.
Two notoriously stable career choices,
football and acting.
I mean, I still I
still like what am I doing?
Like I have a baby.
I'm working in a pub at night trying to
(17:41):
make make the bills and
like auditioning and for
like non-union jobs
that are just paying crap.
But it's like, all right,
today, that's like an extra.
I still struggle with that.
Like I still struggle
with that every day.
I don't know what is wrong in my head
that doesn't tell me just
(18:01):
you have a college degree.
You're pretty awful.
You can meet you can
get a job at anything.
I don't know. I can't I can't escape it.
So I think I have some sort of
deniability in me like that.
I'm like, no, I can sit in a room and I
don't care if it's
(18:22):
whoever I'm going to say the
craziest names. It's Al Pacino.
If it's Bradley Cooper, if it's Killion
Murphy, I have no problem
sitting in the room with
these people. I have no problem.
I'll be in I'll be, you know, in honest
in a way like all these guys are amazing.
They're someone goes, oh,
yeah, Walsh can do that scene.
I would be able to step up pretty.
(18:44):
But I have I'm not
I'm not shy about that.
Like I think I can sit in the room with
them and do my thing.
And that's a weird
confidence that comes from somewhere.
I don't think I'm very cocky.
You don't come across as very cocky.
But we talk about this a lot, this
parallel between athletes and actors.
I think there's a lot of
(19:04):
commonalities between the two.
Can you kind of talk about how that that
experience as a
professional athlete kind of
helped you in in this
crazy world as an actor?
He comes coming with the good ones, man.
He's the Barbara Walters of this podcast.
No, I know it's a really good question.
There is. I mean, every acting teacher
(19:26):
I've ever spoken to, I'm told about my
sports background and they're all like
athletes make really good actors.
You know, I think there's the discipline,
obviously, the kind
of like, you know, like
in training, the amount of.
Mundane stuff we do over and over again,
like touches like in
(19:47):
football, I can take free
kicks, I would take free kicks, a lot of
corner kicks or just touches of the ball.
Like we do that over and over.
And I think acting sometimes you need to
do those things over
and over and you remind
yourself about certain stuff.
I also think the travel is a big one.
I got to meet people
from all walks of life.
I hope it makes me like, you know, Howard
(20:09):
would say this and I
think he got this from
OODA is like at the end of your career as
an actor, you should
be the most empathetic
person because you've met or you've
played these people
from all walks of life.
I think, you know, that that's the goal.
And I think, you know, I think I'm
naturally empathetic,
(20:29):
you know, catch me on a bad
night at the bar and I'm not like, and
you're being an asshole,
I'm going to rip you to
shreds. But like, I'll
probably feel bad about it tomorrow.
You know, I'm like, I probably should
have gone easier than
that guy last night.
You know, but I think like with the
sports and, you know, and
how it ties into acting, I
think it's it's literally just like grit.
(20:51):
Also, you imagine going down to the lake.
I played soccer in the west of Ireland in
December and it's
fucking Baltic and there's
rain pelting and like I remember asking
like we get hailstones
and smack into the back
of your legs and I'm like, take me off.
And he's like, fucking stay
(21:11):
on your score to like stay on.
And I'm like, this game's shite.
I have no problem, you
know, doing something crazy.
Or going to some weird depths or throwing
myself in a river for
a shot, you know, and I
think it's also team.
It's the team stuff.
Like, I think a lot of actors forget that
(21:31):
this is such a big team job.
Like, it's a huge team job.
You know, there's just so many facets to
this business that
have all you have to do is
come, you know, do your job, be cool, see
what you got, you know.
And I think the sports have really helped
me that it's perseverance.
It's like I hate to use the crazy sports.
(21:51):
So you're down to nil, you know, and
there's like 20 minutes
left and everyone's injured
or you got to you're down a man.
It's like, all right, what can what what
can you do to bring to this?
What how can you win this match?
And I think like in acting, it's it's
kind of like that a lot of the time.
I love that.
(22:12):
Timothy Davis is an actor, teacher,
playwright, appeared on
Billions and is also an
actor studio graduate.
You know, and obviously, you know, we can
talk about our common
experience of of training
at Leslie's. But one of the things that I
want to be grateful
for with Leslie was that
level of clarity, because my experience
early on as an actor
(22:34):
was, again, I have that
fragility of wanting to be great at this
thing, but having so
little experience at it.
Right. And the way a lot of teachers
would talk to me was
in this very poetical,
beautiful, but completely sort of oblique
cadence and vocabulary
where again, at 2021,
(22:56):
I'm too terrified. Right.
I'm so dedicated. I
want to be great at this.
I'm too terrified to just go like, I
don't know what the
fuck you're talking about.
I don't know what you want me to do.
I didn't get half your references.
Wait, you don't think when the tiger
drinks the water, he knows
not whether the butterfly
is watching his health.
Yeah, I and so you wind
up going like, yeah, man.
Yeah, I just think there's such a
(23:17):
temptation because when
you're young, you want to be
an artist. And like when you use imagery
like that, when you
talk in political fashion,
of course, a young kid like me who's like
in New York for the
first time is going to
be like, that's beautiful.
I don't know what the fuck you're talking
about, but I want to be part of this.
So, yeah, I agree.
But then you walk in your next rehearsal
for, you know, Dan in
the deep blue sea or early
(23:37):
Burley or David Mamet, whatever you're
doing and you're like,
I have no idea what they
want me to do. I guess
I'll just rehearse harder.
You know, I think that's the other thing
about, you know, at
that level of like novice
and trying to learn how to improve is
that so much of my
experience was showing up and
like getting a part in a play or doing a
(23:59):
scene and you basically
showed up and you did.
Your first rehearsal was basically doing
your best performance possible with no
rehearsal. And then you showed up your
second rehearsal and
basically did the best
performance you could
possibly do with one rehearsal.
And that was sort of the evolution of
putting that character
(24:19):
together and that scene
together. And, you know, through osmosis
and through sort of through slow glacial
evolution, you might
learn a couple of things.
But I think one, that
process of learning is really slow.
And then what I also found is the
application of whatever
I learned in that first
experience, very little bit translated to
the next experience I had.
(24:40):
And all I knew, you know, was when I
first started acting,
the actors I responded to
all seemed to have one thing in common,
which is they were they
were trained at the studio
or people associated with the studio.
So it was Mickey
Rourke. It was Robert De Niro.
It was Harvey Keitel.
It was Ellen Burstyn.
It was Al Pacino. It
was, you know, Newman.
And so I was in that
(25:01):
program for three years.
I had very complicated feelings about it.
There's a lot about it that
for which I am very grateful.
There's a lot about it
for which I am enraged.
These days, I think with more distance,
I'm more grateful for it than enraged.
But I went through a period
where I was quite enraged.
But it's been my experience of being in
the business that most
of those institutions that
charge a exorbitant fee for you to learn
(25:26):
the skills of acting
do a relatively terrible
job at preparing actors to go
work in the professional world.
And I know often the educators at those
institutions will say,
like, hey, that's that's not
our job. You know, we
are not a trade school.
Yeah, we're not a trade school.
We are teaching you a craft, which, you
know, the difference
(25:47):
between that is too fine for
me to appreciate. I just think if you're
taking, you know,
money from young kids and
money in the, you know, that are in the
five figures, you have a
responsibility to prepare
them for the professional world as long
as we're going to
live in this capitalistic
knife out of a country that we live in.
That's a great that's a
(26:07):
great description of it.
Sean Sharma is an actor, teacher,
SAG-AFTRA national board
member and series regular on
the worldwide hit The Chosen.
I'll just have random people come up to
me and share the most lovely things.
And now on the show that I'm on The
Chosen, which is touching
people's lives in such an
amazing way around the world, like we
want to be telling stories
(26:27):
that make a difference in
the world and touch people's lives.
And generally because we were touched in
a way by film and
television in a way that, you
know, made us want to
do this for a living.
And so so, yeah, it's
really something special.
And it comes from adding value to other
people, not trying to
be stingy and hold it to
yourself. We're giving
of ourselves to others.
(26:47):
And it's a cup that
replenishes on the daily.
It's not something that ever runs dry.
There's a we did an event at the at the
union years ago, 2017
ish, something like that.
I think it was the showrunner of the
show, Army Wives, that
was on around that time.
And she said something, she was a
producer or something.
And she said, I used to think that there
was a box called Success.
And if somebody took some out of that
(27:09):
box, it was less for everybody else.
And she's like, I realized that there's
no bottom to that box.
There's plenty of room
for success for everybody.
You don't have to be jealous or envious
of other people's success.
You can celebrate it with them.
And you're probably going to attract more
success in your own
life if you behave that way
anyway. So the staff were including me in
initiatives to bring more commercial work
(27:30):
back to the union because we were losing
it hand over fist to
social media and non-union
stuff. And that's when I was approached
by the political factions.
It's not something that I seek out.
I was never like I want to
be on the board of the union.
It was like, in fact, when they when they
approached me, I went
to our staff and Serena
Kung, who's our local
executive director, will tell you this.
She was like, why
(27:50):
would I want to do that?
That sounds horrible.
I'm having fun teaching my
classes in the conservatory.
Why would I want to get
into that like rat's nest?
And she and Ileane, who was our executive
director of L.A. at the
time, were like, Sean, if you
want to move resources towards education,
then you have to be
in the room where those
decisions are made. And
(28:10):
true, I was so devoted.
There's this old school mentality that
some of the old school
leaders of our union have,
which is it's not the
union's job to help you get work.
It's only there to help
you when you're working.
And when less than 10 percent of our
membership qualify for
health insurance and can't make a
living doing this, I think the union owes
(28:31):
it to the 90 percent to
do more to help them get
work and help them succeed.
At least that's what I would want from my
union and what I wanted
from my union before I was
making a living as a performer.
So I don't really get down with the idea
that all of these people
are supposed to pay dues to
something that shouldn't try to help them
until they actually succeed.
(28:52):
That doesn't really make sense to me.
And I think a lot of
members agree with me on that.
When you were doing all these other
things, when you were a
session director, did you have an
end goal of mine? Like, I want this.
Yeah, you touch on
something really important.
I started to work consistently, but it
was so hodgepodge and
random because I didn't have a
unified vision of what I
was trying to accomplish.
(29:12):
And this is what I find is true for most
actors that I now educate,
which is like, what's your
goal? Where are you
actually trying to end up?
And like, oh, I just want to work.
I'm like, OK, well, that's like going
into a grocery store and
saying, I just want to eat.
It's like you've got a billion options in
here and I won't even
know what aisle to direct you
to until you tell me,
are you want cereal?
You want fruit? Like, what do you
actually want out of this business?
(29:33):
Because you can't be in
every aisle all the time.
You've got to direct your time towards
the places where you
want to get something.
So, for example, if somebody's like, OK,
well, if you really ask me
that I want to be in like, you
know, like Game of Thrones type of stuff,
it's like, have you reached
out to Nina Gold's office?
Are you reaching out to the directors
that direct those episodes?
Have you been reaching out to the writers
(29:53):
who write those episodes
and looked at what other
projects they're doing?
Are you reaching out to the agents that
represent the actors on
those shows that have those
relationships with those casting offices?
Like you only have so
much time in the day.
So if you actually get laser focused on a
goal, you can start
to move energy in that
direction. And it's not only that you're
going to move your own
energy in that direction, but
(30:13):
because all of these people around you
love you and want to
help you, if they have any
connections that can move you towards
that place, they'll be
like, hey, I know this director.
Hey, I worked with this actor.
Hey, I know this thing.
And now you've got the universe pushing
you towards where you want to go.
So until I actually declared and decided
what I wanted, I was
booking, but I was it wasn't in
(30:34):
any particular direction.
I was doing, you know, multi cam over
here, single cam comedy over
there, drama over here, just
trying to make the job
book in a commercial.
But I wasn't building a momentum in a
direction until I
decided that I wanted to be a
series regular on a TV series.
And I like, OK, who controls television?
The writers. They're the ones who are the
(30:54):
showrunners, the creators, et cetera.
What can I do to build relationships with
writers in the Writers Guild?
Table reads. Why don't I just start
inviting writers with amazing
unproduced scripts to send me
their scripts and then I will cast
amazing actors because I work in casting.
I know all these people.
I'll just bring great actors
to a table read of the script.
And then because I don't just do anything
(31:17):
half ass, normally when we
do a table read, it's just
people bring their iPads or they print
out a script and we sit in
full dot chairs at a room
and we read a script.
That sounds really like a
underutilization of the opportunity.
Here's this writer who spent God knows
how many months or
years writing this story.
And this is their one opportunity to hear
(31:37):
it come to life by
professional actors, because the
chance that it's actually going to get
produced into a movie are almost none.
And so why don't we get food that's
inspired by the story?
So if somebody's eating lasagna in the
script, we're going to have
lasagna at the table read.
Why don't we design a custom trailer so
that there's something cool
on the on the screens when
they come in the room?
Why don't we get props from a
(31:57):
professional prop house is like a
centerpiece to kind of bring you
into the world of the story.
We'll have table tents.
We'll have, you know, custom artwork
cover sheets on every binder.
We'll pre-highlight all of the lines for
all the actors so that they
can easily find their role
and find their multiple characters.
Well, you know, we're like, where can we
make it so that when the writer comes
into this room, they
(32:18):
are like, who are you people?
Why are you so cool when
you don't even know me?
I'm just a nerdy writer who sits in my
room alone all the
time, imagining the day that
something will sell.
And you've just invested all of this love
and care into every
detail of this experience.
Our goal was that they
would never forget that.
And they would always associate SAG-AFTRA
(32:39):
with that kind of
attention to detail and passion for
storytelling.
And I started doing those in 2017.
And now I've done something like 400
table reads across my podcast
across for the Writers Guild
Foundation for SAG-AFTRA, for my own
studio, for other
production companies, etc.
I've kind of become the table read guy.
But a year later, after saying I wanted
(33:00):
to be a series
regular, I booked The Chosen.
Now, whether that's coincidence or
whether it was the law of attraction,
whether it was like the
universe helping move me in a direction,
as soon as I got serious
about what I was trying to
accomplish, that's when
that came into my life.
Brandon Finn is currently starring in
Apple TV's Chief of War
opposite Jason Momoa and Cliff
(33:21):
Curtis.
This is his very first series regular
playing Prince Kapule.
And I auditioned for the role Nahe, which
was Jason Momoa's youngest brother.
The initial breakdown for that character
was that he was supposed to
be the young hothead who hadn't
had as much war experience
as his two older brothers.
And so he had something to prove.
(33:44):
And I I tapped into that.
And I remember maybe about two or three
weeks later, they said,
hey, we'd love your tape.
We'd like to do a Zoom
callback with the producers.
And I did the notes
and three weeks go by.
I think it's not me.
(34:04):
It's not, you know, I get it.
I'm five feet, nine inches tall.
Jason's six, four Greek God.
It's whatever.
And we get an email saying,
hey, Jason's watch the tapes.
He thinks the role that you're you
currently audition for is not
going to work, but we'd like
(34:25):
your work. We'd love to give you a
different role to audition for.
And so I got a different Zoom callback.
I didn't have to send in another tape.
I just went to another callback with
different sides, different character.
And now I'm auditioning for the Prince of
Maui, Prince Kalanikoupule.
And Justin Chun, I
(34:47):
remember, was a big fan of the work.
They wanted to make sure the actor could
portray the relationship
between father and son.
And I find out later, maybe about a month
later, that I get network approved.
And my ignorant, innocent mind had no
idea what that meant.
(35:07):
I said, what does that mean?
Do I did I get the job?
Do I not get the job?
She goes, you have the job.
They're just waiting
for the contracts now.
And I start crying.
I started crying.
This was June, June 2nd, I think of 2022.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just crazy.
But more specificity with
the audition process itself.
(35:29):
Talk about moving
pieces and this and that.
They initially had Cliff
Curtis playing that role.
Wait, the role that you did?
Yes, that was the initial.
Wow.
And it was Cliff's idea, from what I'm
told with Thomas Pothrzibit
and some of the other producers that
Prince Kupule should be a younger guy.
(35:52):
And so, like, you know, my
work can speak for itself.
And also the cards kind of
have to fold out correctly.
You know, it was this it was this
perfect, perfect setup
where I found a place among
this cast of legends to share this story
about the Hawaiian Islands.
How brilliant.
Did you find that sort of like stepping
(36:12):
up to a roll of that
magnitude with everything
involved there? Was that
did that feel natural for you?
Was it was it daunting in any way?
Did you feel, you know, what were your
thoughts going into
to a roll of that size?
Yeah, I the scale of which we were
dealing with was menacing at first.
It might sound cocky.
(36:33):
It might sound overly confident.
And truth be told, I have the utmost
confidence in myself with whatever scale
it is. And truthfully, I kind of had to
with Jason Elm, let
alone a guy like Cliff
Curtis. Cliff Curtis is insane.
He's a comedian.
(36:53):
Absolutely insane.
And he kind of walks this this line where
you're not too sure how method he goes.
You know, like, is it is it not?
I think it is. He's going to
throw the kitchen sink on you
and then he's going to
not apologize for it after.
That's just, you know, the
legend that we're dealing with.
And so that being said, I'm very much a
(37:14):
product of my environment.
If I'm surrounded by these murderers,
these killers, I will do my part.
I didn't have any I didn't
have any issue with that.
And I think that's a mentality that we
all need to have,
especially when we start
to get to that tear up, you know, if
we're going to make the move,
you got to be ready for that move.
Regardless, if you haven't seen the show,
which is Momoa is
(37:36):
almost completely naked.
Last showing a shark.
This is what you're going up against.
He's a tall task. It's a tall task.
That's a lot. That scene.
It's that scene in
particular, that sequence.
Let's be honest.
Nobody's looking at the shark.
Nobody's looking at J.P.
We all know what everybody's looking at.
No matter what you are. Yeah.
(37:57):
100 percent.
I will say Jason Momoa is the one person
where I'm like, yeah, I buy that.
Yeah, I buy that. He can do that.
And last but not least, Brian Stepanek,
actor, teacher,
director and cult favorite
known for playing Arwen in
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
In addition to many commercials,
blockbuster films and
TV shows under his belt,
(38:19):
they did ninety nine
episodes of The Suite Life.
I was in twenty seven.
Oh, and I was a guest star.
And that is what I've been most
recognized for my entire life.
And and when I booked it, my manager or
my agent at the time
told me not to take it.
Wow.
It was the first time that I had the
writers on that show
take me aside and go,
(38:40):
you need your own show because I came in.
So I'll tell that story.
So when I auditioned for that role, they
originally had it broke big,
burly, fat, hairy Hagrid type.
That's who that
character was supposed to be.
A big kind of oath.
And they weren't finding it.
And so I get cold because
the casting kind of knew me.
I probably auditioned for him a few times
(39:02):
and I walked into the
waiting room and I'm
looking around going,
what am I doing here?
I don't look like these guys.
I wonder what conditioner that guy uses.
These are the thoughts
going through my head.
And so I go into the room and instead of
making him kind of a lumbering oath,
I made him a hyper savant.
I made him super high
energy and kind of crazed.
And and I remember finishing the audition
(39:23):
for the head writer and another writer.
And it was dead silent and they looked at
each other and one said to the other,
can we do that?
And the other one was like, yes.
And that's how I got that role.
And then when I got in there, that first
episode, they literally while I was
taking the episode, you
need to have your own show.
(39:43):
And, you know, a year and a half later,
we were shooting Housebroken.
We were shooting
this, the spinoff that we
shot a pilot and Selena
Gomez played my my niece.
It really was something that's been a
wonderful memory and led to a lot of
opportunities and and has given me an
audience of, you know, 20 somethings and
30 somethings that all know me.
I was in and out yesterday.
They're really gay.
So I'm over the hedge.
(40:04):
They had a character that was an owl and
they cast Gene Wilder.
So I'm like, what the fudge?
And he comes in and he says, so
I did a little research on
owls and I wrote a little poem
that I thought we might be able to use
and everybody's like, OK,
(40:24):
I'm changing Wilder.
And I just happened to have it.
The reason I have it is
because he finished that poem.
And we all were crying
because it was about Gilda.
(40:47):
And we were all like, oh,
my God, it was beautiful.
Well, he finishes it and
I may read this for you.
I don't know that I should
cut to about three years ago.
I'm talking to my friend Tim
Johnson who directed that film.
And he goes, man, I wish somebody, you
know, had picked up that piece of paper
on that that music stand. I was like,
yeah, I know, I know.
(41:07):
And so I was cleaning out my files, I
think, over the pandemic.
And I found a file called Over the Hedge.
And this was in it.
I wow, I had picked it up.
So you don't remember taking it?
Nope. You just. Yeah.
I took it, put it in the
file and I forgot about it.
So it is dated January 26, 2003.
(41:32):
So I know the date that we did it.
It has
his handwriting in the margins.
And the gist of it is he's talking, it's
a poem about him talking about his mate
for life, his owl mate for life.
And he basically says, in one day, some
kid shot her with a BB gun.
And now I'm alone.
(41:53):
And I just sit in the tree by myself and
all the other animals say,
well, don't worry,
there'll be someone else.
And I just say, who, who?
Wow.
And the last line is people think I'm
such a wise old owl, but I'm really not.
I just keep my mouth shut.
That is incredible.
(42:15):
Yeah, crazy.
And that is our episode for this week.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Stay safe and see you next time.
Hello, 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 a very special episode.
We were in the holiday spirit.
We thought we'd give thanks to all of our
great guests this past year.
This is a compilation of some highlights
from our guest interviews.
(00:20):
Look at this as a sampler platter, a
buffet, if you will, of
practical wisdom, advice,
and a lot of inspiration.
We'll hear from a range of lovely and
talented people, an
Oscar-nominated writer, series
regulars, successful showrunner, and
whether you're celebrating
a holiday or not, wherever
you're listening, thanks for joining us.
(00:43):
Enjoy the show.
Kirsten Sheridan was our very first
guest, Oscar nominee for In America.
Other credits include Say Nothing for
Hulu and Disco Pigs where
she directed a 24-year-old
Killian Murphy.
The trick for me, and it's not even a
trick, it's just kind
of like a happy accident.
I kind of feel, and this is an actor's
podcast, so you're going to
(01:04):
think that I'm making this
up to kind of make actors seem like the
best thing ever, but I
truly believe that actors
are out on such a limb and it's a
terrifying place to be.
I kind of feel like my maternal instinct
really kicks in and I feel
like I just want to support
them and not make them feel like they're
(01:25):
doing the most
terrifyingly vulnerable thing
in the world, which they are.
I totally just forget
about my own worries in that.
Number one, I had end a script and I
adored end as a person,
as a writer, everything.
I only felt like, "Jesus, I better get up
and make sure I do the
(01:46):
best for the script."
And when I'd be on set, it never really
occurred to me like, "How
do I feel being 26 or 23
or whatever?"
I was on set because I
was like, "Is Elaine okay?
Is Killian okay?
Is the little kid okay?"
It's kind of handy to have
that mother thing going on.
Can you talk a little bit more about,
(02:08):
when you said the
maternal instinct, is that kind
of how you feel the relationship is
yourself as a director
when you're on your set?
Yes and no.
I mean, I've spoken to
Rean about this before.
I kind of feel like,
depending on the actor.
Some actors want you to be, yes,
(02:28):
absolutely, the mother hen.
Other actors want you to push them.
Other actors might push you back and it's
all part of the actual process.
Even sometimes they're not conscious that
it's part of the
process, but you better be
conscious that it's part of
the process as a director.
I've had actors start fights with me
because they want to see
that I can be like, "Nope.
(02:51):
We're going to go for
another take and that's it."
That's not my normal happy
place, but I'm like, "Oh."
You kind of have to be a chameleon and
whatever is required, I
feel, is like sometimes you
have to be the dad, sometimes you have to
be the mom, sometimes
you have to be the best
friend.
Sometimes you leave them alone.
It really is, for me, just chameleon.
(03:15):
Yeah.
It requires a great deal of skill and
just emotional
intelligence to be able to read
people and to be able to
work with them in that way.
Right.
Kirsten, would you say, because going
back to Disco Pigs,
because that was like mid-20s,
did you feel like you had that skill and
you knew that that was
a skill even back then
(03:35):
on directing Disco Pigs?
Did it need to be a chameleon and work
with specific actors and
hone certain things depending
on what they needed?
I think looking back now, this is where
you see the mistakes as a director.
I think I almost made the mistake of
almost giving line readings in my 20s.
I was so specific to In the Weeds.
(03:59):
Now when I think of it, I'm like, "I
would never be that in the weeds."
I think that is just a learning curve of
age and craft that you learn.
That is not how
someone wants to be directed.
Yeah.
I think as an actor too, you kind of
learn, but just as you
go, you get less precious
about it because you're like, "Oh, it's
not as ... I don't have
(04:20):
to be as specific as that
in that way."
Yeah.
Then if an actor does want a line
reading, that's fine.
I would do that.
I think in the bigger scheme, the one
thing, everyone always
is like, "What's it like
having a dad being a director?"
The one thing that I can really say I did
learn by osmosis is
(04:41):
that it's so okay as the
director to be like, "I have no idea.
I don't know.
What do you think?"
Then suddenly the crew are all like, "I
think this," and the
actors like, "I think that,"
and everyone's kind of involved and
there's an energy going,
and then you might be like,
"Oh, that's exactly it.
(05:03):
What you just said mixed with this and
let's put 10% on it,
that's what we need."
I think that was really helpful because I
think so many young
directors are terrified
that they need to have all the answers,
and the more they let go
of that, the better director
they are.
I love that.
Those are the type of sets that I love
being on because in the
(05:23):
moment the director might
not always have the answer, but as a
collaboration everyone is
trying to solve the problem at
hand and everyone
together can get through it.
I think there's nothing worse I can
imagine as an actor.
Again, I think actors are out on a limb,
so they're kind of like
kids to me, like two-year-olds,
but in a good way.
You know the way you
can't lie to a two-year-old?
(05:45):
If you're lying to an actor pretending
you know the answer to
everything, I think it's
nothing more terrifying for the actor
because they're like,
"Oh, they're having a clue."
They're acting all like, "Put this there.
Do that."
Oh no, they're
pretending to be the director.
You worked with Killian
Murphy in his mid-20s.
(06:07):
Were you ever
surprised that he won an Oscar?
Nope.
No way.
Absolutely zero surprise.
Okay.
So written on the cards.
At the same time though, there's a lot of
people I would feel
that way about who haven't
yet.
There's a lot of actors I've worked with.
I think Killian though takes the craft
(06:29):
incredibly seriously.
You can tell from day one, he was vicious
in a good way about
pushing back, but in a
great way.
He was the opposite of,
"Okay, whatever you say."
I remember being like,
"Wow, that keeps me on my toes."
(06:51):
But it's part of the reason I think why
that drive is very strong.
Sorry, I have to ask.
In what way, because both of you were
fairly young, in what way
was he able to viciously
protect his art and his craft but also
not throw you off or offend you?
(07:12):
Yeah, good question.
It's kind of like the way I would be
like, "I wake up in the
morning and I think I have
to not fail and as words."
I think I was aware, I was so aware that
Killian did not want to
fail Pig, the character.
(07:33):
So it's got nothing to do with Killian's
ego versus my ego
versus what the director and
the actor are.
It was not that.
It was Pig saying
like, "I can't do that."
And me being like, "Oh shit, right.
Okay, I have to listen to this."
So it was coming from that place and I
guess that's the difference.
When it comes from an ego place, it's a
(07:54):
whole different story.
And I'm sure you guys, you can smell that
a mile away, it's all horseshit.
If we have to do that
stupid dance, then fine.
I think if you cast properly, that's my
whole thing, cast
properly and you won't be in that
stupid waste of space.
(08:15):
Yeah.
Because I think that ego space is
underpinned by self-centered fear.
Always.
It's always fear.
But sometimes covered
in so many layers that...
Yeah.
You're wasting hours of the crew's time
and the money and
you're going, "Oh my God."
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's tricky.
Patrick Masset is a hit
(08:35):
writer and show runner.
The original Lara Crofton writer with
Angelina Jolie, Friday
Night Lights and The Blacklist
are just a few of his credits.
When did you think that, "Oh, being a
writer could be a viable career?"
I don't know, man.
It's just like, I never felt like it was
a good business model.
I never felt like, "Oh,
this is a great career move.
I'm going to go right and get into
(08:56):
Hollywood because I feel
like it's a great way to make
a living and make
money and be successful."
It was more like, it was just a passion.
I just really wanted to pursue...
I was so curious about the
business and the industry.
But he landed in LA without knowing
anybody and having any contacts, zero.
Actually, there was one.
His name was Val Kilmer, who I had done a
(09:18):
play with in Colorado
when he had become friend
with Abraham. No.
Wait, you did a play
with Val Kilmer in Colorado?
I did a play and a movie, two movies.
Wow.
So anyway, to answer your question, Rian,
it wasn't a business thing.
It was just my heart, my passion, a lot
of ignorance, a lot of
naivete, I would say,
more than ignorance.
And also growing up in
Nebraska was hard, man.
(09:39):
It was tough.
We did not have a lot.
We were farmers and it was hard slogging.
And it just seemed like that, being able
to escape into those
other worlds just seemed
like a way of...
Just a better way of living, just to get
out of my own head in a way.
Yeah.
I get really lucky.
I was at a bar one
night and a guy hands me...
(10:00):
Guy was telling me,
he was a screenwriter.
He goes, "Oh, you got to
listen to these tapes."
This was free cell phone.
So I called him on a payphone the next
day because I didn't have a phone.
And he said, "Yeah, come over to my house
and I'll give you these tapes."
And they were the Robert McKee tapes, a
live lecture on the
story, the book called Story.
(10:22):
And it was that live lecture.
And that was like, that's
how I learned structure.
And then from there, I
picked up two other books.
Then I wrote two screenplays
and I got an agent from that.
So it was just like, it was all this
self-generated sort of bouncing around
following my instinct
kind of thing.
Yeah.
And then I wrote my
first script that I sold.
I happened to share it with John
(10:43):
Zinneman, who was at a
theater company that I had seen.
And he gave me some notes and I sold it.
And at the time, my wife Mary, and we had
three kids and I was completely broke.
We hadn't paid our rent in three months.
I had a crazy landlord who was
threatening to chop down our
door with a chainsaw, telling
(11:03):
us we had to get over this movie habit
bullshit and get a real job.
And have you?
No.
And then I sold this movie to MGM.
It paid all of our bills.
It got us to zero, basically.
It was just out of fact to where we could
begin to like breathe a little bit.
And then after that, I met John and then
(11:24):
we did Tomb Raider
pretty quickly after that.
But when we say these stories, that's
what I miss when today
everything and any information
is online.
And when people take risks, they're
scared of making that social media post.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
We're kind of losing that
excitement and that danger.
(11:45):
That's a really good point.
This guy behind me here in this picture,
this photograph is so
amazing because it's Mick
Jagger watching
himself on, can you see that?
It's Mick Jagger laying on bed watching
himself on The Ed Sullivan Show.
If you read his biography, he was going
(12:07):
to the London School of
Economics and he still
hadn't decided if he was going to do this
musical bullshit or if he was going to go
to the London School and finish and
become a great accountant
because he was so smart.
And so he's again, it's
like he took that risk.
He said he made that leap, pulled away
from his parents and
his future and said, fuck
(12:29):
it, I'm going to try this thing with
these guys called the
Rolling Stones, I guess.
And he became the
greatest rock star in the world.
But in that moment, if you read the
biography, he still hadn't
made a decision whether or
not he was going to do music.
He was like, fully enough.
What he's watching is like,
is this going to work or not?
I still think that sometimes.
(12:49):
Yeah, I know.
I love that idea of like,
not is this going to work?
You know, we were trying to get Angelina
Jolie on the Tomb Raider.
We can move on to other stuff, but
there's just so much in
that thing where she, you
know, we were sitting around in Larry
Orton's office and we
have the script and we've got
the green light.
We've got to get an actor.
If we get the actor,
(13:09):
we go into production.
And we can't, you know, we all wanted
Angelina, but everybody
kept saying, you know, she's
not doing well right now.
She's with Billy Bobb.
She's partying a lot.
You know, everybody knew that it wasn't
like a secret, but, you
know, she was like, but
we basically, you know, John and I
basically said, said, go
(13:30):
call her manager back and say,
we're going to get her in
the best shape of her life.
We're going to do ropes courses and she's
going to get a trainer
and a nutrition list.
She's going to ride
motorcycles and fight Bob McGraw.
She's going to be in three months before
she starts a real frame
of film, she's going to
be a super badass in the
best shape of her life.
And we're like, so he called her back.
He called the manager back,
(13:51):
couldn't get ahold of the agent.
And the manager called him back in an
hour after that pitch
and said she'll do it.
And she signed a three
picture deal based on that.
And if you look at her physically before
Tomb Raider and then
what she looked like in the
movie, it's a different
she's a different person.
So we actually did that for her and she
did that for herself.
And she's an amazing human being.
(14:12):
And I love her.
And I didn't really get to know her that
well, to be honest with you.
But I do know that that was something
that we had suggested.
And she went for it again.
I think she took that.
It's like you have it's
everything that I've ever done.
Riding that light black blisters.
I can tell you stories, stories of people
just going let the dice fly high.
Man, let's just go for it.
If you told me that you were going to
pitch Lara Croft, Tomb
(14:33):
Raider and early video game
adaptation and Angelina Jolie was going
to have hesitations, I
wouldn't have assumed it
was the physicality.
I would have assumed that maybe an actor
would judge a video
game adaptation before that
they're proven.
That's a great point.
Yeah.
It's like there's a million reasons why
(14:53):
actors could be hesitating.
That's also a credit to her.
I've heard amazing things about her work
ethic and her passion for her craft.
So.
And yeah, and she, you know, that's a
really good point, man,
because she was an artist
and she was doing she was doing a lot of
indie work and some
studio things, but more
things that were leaning
more towards straight drama.
So for her to jump into a big action
(15:13):
genre piece like that,
just I think again, she just
let the dice fly high.
She said, why not?
Let's give it a try.
You get into Friday Night Lights.
We got, you know, Friday Night Lights, we
got canceled every year for five years.
We'll always find a way we would either
cut the budget or we
would go work with direct TV
or we would do whatever we had to do to
figure out a way to stay on the air.
(15:34):
And it was always just, you know, that
was just a thing of passion.
You know, our budget went down every
single year where
we're so successful shows.
You know, we would get it got to be so
bad that we were
shooting without lighting.
We walk into a house, we'd move
everybody's shit around, put a few
pictures that looked
(15:55):
like Coach and Tammy's.
We would, you know, we would we'd go in
and shoot with three
cameras, 16 millimeter
bullies, and then be on the move again
before the lighting truck even showed up.
You know, that's the
fast we had to do it.
Because it was just passion.
Let's just get this made.
This is if we can just keep going, we
will create something
that everybody will love.
(16:15):
And eventually the passion and hard work
that we put into it
and the overcoming of the
obstacles paid off, you know, and people
began to really find the show.
Kevin Walsh is a former pro football
player turned actor,
worked on Criminal Minds.
He's also produced and starred in a play
recently in Los Angeles.
And I live with all
that's that play football.
(16:37):
We're all in the Gao United ranks.
One of my closest friends, Alan Murphy,
he's one of the top
Gao United players of all
time in League of Ireland.
And I'd be like living with them and we
were just training every day.
And then I'd be going into school and I
wouldn't go to classes and I'd be sitting
this they'd walk by the library and I'm
sitting there watching
(16:57):
like Nosferatu like on
TV. And they're like, what are you doing?
I'm like, Nosferatu?
I'm like, sure. Great for them.
They're like, whatever.
I do that. I don't see a train.
You know, so like I think there was
always that thing about me.
There was a stage there where my football
career was over and I'm
like telling my father,
I was like, yeah, I think I'm going to
(17:19):
give football a quit and
I'm going to do something
more realistic like acting.
Yeah. Yeah.
He's just like, OK, yeah, whatever.
Call me when you need money.
Two notoriously stable career choices,
football and acting.
I mean, I still I
still like what am I doing?
Like I have a baby.
I'm working in a pub at night trying to
(17:41):
make make the bills and
like auditioning and for
like non-union jobs
that are just paying crap.
But it's like, all right,
today, that's like an extra.
I still struggle with that.
Like I still struggle
with that every day.
I don't know what is wrong in my head
that doesn't tell me just
(18:01):
you have a college degree.
You're pretty awful.
You can meet you can
get a job at anything.
I don't know. I can't I can't escape it.
So I think I have some sort of
deniability in me like that.
I'm like, no, I can sit in a room and I
don't care if it's
(18:22):
whoever I'm going to say the
craziest names. It's Al Pacino.
If it's Bradley Cooper, if it's Killion
Murphy, I have no problem
sitting in the room with
these people. I have no problem.
I'll be in I'll be, you know, in honest
in a way like all these guys are amazing.
They're someone goes, oh,
yeah, Walsh can do that scene.
I would be able to step up pretty.
(18:44):
But I have I'm not
I'm not shy about that.
Like I think I can sit in the room with
them and do my thing.
And that's a weird
confidence that comes from somewhere.
I don't think I'm very cocky.
You don't come across as very cocky.
But we talk about this a lot, this
parallel between athletes and actors.
I think there's a lot of
(19:04):
commonalities between the two.
Can you kind of talk about how that that
experience as a
professional athlete kind of
helped you in in this
crazy world as an actor?
He comes coming with the good ones, man.
He's the Barbara Walters of this podcast.
No, I know it's a really good question.
There is. I mean, every acting teacher
(19:26):
I've ever spoken to, I'm told about my
sports background and they're all like
athletes make really good actors.
You know, I think there's the discipline,
obviously, the kind
of like, you know, like
in training, the amount of.
Mundane stuff we do over and over again,
like touches like in
(19:47):
football, I can take free
kicks, I would take free kicks, a lot of
corner kicks or just touches of the ball.
Like we do that over and over.
And I think acting sometimes you need to
do those things over
and over and you remind
yourself about certain stuff.
I also think the travel is a big one.
I got to meet people
from all walks of life.
I hope it makes me like, you know, Howard
(20:09):
would say this and I
think he got this from
OODA is like at the end of your career as
an actor, you should
be the most empathetic
person because you've met or you've
played these people
from all walks of life.
I think, you know, that that's the goal.
And I think, you know, I think I'm
naturally empathetic,
(20:29):
you know, catch me on a bad
night at the bar and I'm not like, and
you're being an asshole,
I'm going to rip you to
shreds. But like, I'll
probably feel bad about it tomorrow.
You know, I'm like, I probably should
have gone easier than
that guy last night.
You know, but I think like with the
sports and, you know, and
how it ties into acting, I
think it's it's literally just like grit.
(20:51):
Also, you imagine going down to the lake.
I played soccer in the west of Ireland in
December and it's
fucking Baltic and there's
rain pelting and like I remember asking
like we get hailstones
and smack into the back
of your legs and I'm like, take me off.
And he's like, fucking stay
(21:11):
on your score to like stay on.
And I'm like, this game's shite.
I have no problem, you
know, doing something crazy.
Or going to some weird depths or throwing
myself in a river for
a shot, you know, and I
think it's also team.
It's the team stuff.
Like, I think a lot of actors forget that
(21:31):
this is such a big team job.
Like, it's a huge team job.
You know, there's just so many facets to
this business that
have all you have to do is
come, you know, do your job, be cool, see
what you got, you know.
And I think the sports have really helped
me that it's perseverance.
It's like I hate to use the crazy sports.
(21:51):
So you're down to nil, you know, and
there's like 20 minutes
left and everyone's injured
or you got to you're down a man.
It's like, all right, what can what what
can you do to bring to this?
What how can you win this match?
And I think like in acting, it's it's
kind of like that a lot of the time.
I love that.
(22:12):
Timothy Davis is an actor, teacher,
playwright, appeared on
Billions and is also an
actor studio graduate.
You know, and obviously, you know, we can
talk about our common
experience of of training
at Leslie's. But one of the things that I
want to be grateful
for with Leslie was that
level of clarity, because my experience
early on as an actor
(22:34):
was, again, I have that
fragility of wanting to be great at this
thing, but having so
little experience at it.
Right. And the way a lot of teachers
would talk to me was
in this very poetical,
beautiful, but completely sort of oblique
cadence and vocabulary
where again, at 2021,
(22:56):
I'm too terrified. Right.
I'm so dedicated. I
want to be great at this.
I'm too terrified to just go like, I
don't know what the
fuck you're talking about.
I don't know what you want me to do.
I didn't get half your references.
Wait, you don't think when the tiger
drinks the water, he knows
not whether the butterfly
is watching his health.
Yeah, I and so you wind
up going like, yeah, man.
Yeah, I just think there's such a
(23:17):
temptation because when
you're young, you want to be
an artist. And like when you use imagery
like that, when you
talk in political fashion,
of course, a young kid like me who's like
in New York for the
first time is going to
be like, that's beautiful.
I don't know what the fuck you're talking
about, but I want to be part of this.
So, yeah, I agree.
But then you walk in your next rehearsal
for, you know, Dan in
the deep blue sea or early
(23:37):
Burley or David Mamet, whatever you're
doing and you're like,
I have no idea what they
want me to do. I guess
I'll just rehearse harder.
You know, I think that's the other thing
about, you know, at
that level of like novice
and trying to learn how to improve is
that so much of my
experience was showing up and
like getting a part in a play or doing a
(23:59):
scene and you basically
showed up and you did.
Your first rehearsal was basically doing
your best performance possible with no
rehearsal. And then you showed up your
second rehearsal and
basically did the best
performance you could
possibly do with one rehearsal.
And that was sort of the evolution of
putting that character
(24:19):
together and that scene
together. And, you know, through osmosis
and through sort of through slow glacial
evolution, you might
learn a couple of things.
But I think one, that
process of learning is really slow.
And then what I also found is the
application of whatever
I learned in that first
experience, very little bit translated to
the next experience I had.
(24:40):
And all I knew, you know, was when I
first started acting,
the actors I responded to
all seemed to have one thing in common,
which is they were they
were trained at the studio
or people associated with the studio.
So it was Mickey
Rourke. It was Robert De Niro.
It was Harvey Keitel.
It was Ellen Burstyn.
It was Al Pacino. It
was, you know, Newman.
And so I was in that
(25:01):
program for three years.
I had very complicated feelings about it.
There's a lot about it that
for which I am very grateful.
There's a lot about it
for which I am enraged.
These days, I think with more distance,
I'm more grateful for it than enraged.
But I went through a period
where I was quite enraged.
But it's been my experience of being in
the business that most
of those institutions that
charge a exorbitant fee for you to learn
(25:26):
the skills of acting
do a relatively terrible
job at preparing actors to go
work in the professional world.
And I know often the educators at those
institutions will say,
like, hey, that's that's not
our job. You know, we
are not a trade school.
Yeah, we're not a trade school.
We are teaching you a craft, which, you
know, the difference
(25:47):
between that is too fine for
me to appreciate. I just think if you're
taking, you know,
money from young kids and
money in the, you know, that are in the
five figures, you have a
responsibility to prepare
them for the professional world as long
as we're going to
live in this capitalistic
knife out of a country that we live in.
That's a great that's a
(26:07):
great description of it.
Sean Sharma is an actor, teacher,
SAG-AFTRA national board
member and series regular on
the worldwide hit The Chosen.
I'll just have random people come up to
me and share the most lovely things.
And now on the show that I'm on The
Chosen, which is touching
people's lives in such an
amazing way around the world, like we
want to be telling stories
(26:27):
that make a difference in
the world and touch people's lives.
And generally because we were touched in
a way by film and
television in a way that, you
know, made us want to
do this for a living.
And so so, yeah, it's
really something special.
And it comes from adding value to other
people, not trying to
be stingy and hold it to
yourself. We're giving
of ourselves to others.
(26:47):
And it's a cup that
replenishes on the daily.
It's not something that ever runs dry.
There's a we did an event at the at the
union years ago, 2017
ish, something like that.
I think it was the showrunner of the
show, Army Wives, that
was on around that time.
And she said something, she was a
producer or something.
And she said, I used to think that there
was a box called Success.
And if somebody took some out of that
(27:09):
box, it was less for everybody else.
And she's like, I realized that there's
no bottom to that box.
There's plenty of room
for success for everybody.
You don't have to be jealous or envious
of other people's success.
You can celebrate it with them.
And you're probably going to attract more
success in your own
life if you behave that way
anyway. So the staff were including me in
initiatives to bring more commercial work
(27:30):
back to the union because we were losing
it hand over fist to
social media and non-union
stuff. And that's when I was approached
by the political factions.
It's not something that I seek out.
I was never like I want to
be on the board of the union.
It was like, in fact, when they when they
approached me, I went
to our staff and Serena
Kung, who's our local
executive director, will tell you this.
She was like, why
(27:50):
would I want to do that?
That sounds horrible.
I'm having fun teaching my
classes in the conservatory.
Why would I want to get
into that like rat's nest?
And she and Ileane, who was our executive
director of L.A. at the
time, were like, Sean, if you
want to move resources towards education,
then you have to be
in the room where those
decisions are made. And
(28:10):
true, I was so devoted.
There's this old school mentality that
some of the old school
leaders of our union have,
which is it's not the
union's job to help you get work.
It's only there to help
you when you're working.
And when less than 10 percent of our
membership qualify for
health insurance and can't make a
living doing this, I think the union owes
(28:31):
it to the 90 percent to
do more to help them get
work and help them succeed.
At least that's what I would want from my
union and what I wanted
from my union before I was
making a living as a performer.
So I don't really get down with the idea
that all of these people
are supposed to pay dues to
something that shouldn't try to help them
until they actually succeed.
(28:52):
That doesn't really make sense to me.
And I think a lot of
members agree with me on that.
When you were doing all these other
things, when you were a
session director, did you have an
end goal of mine? Like, I want this.
Yeah, you touch on
something really important.
I started to work consistently, but it
was so hodgepodge and
random because I didn't have a
unified vision of what I
was trying to accomplish.
(29:12):
And this is what I find is true for most
actors that I now educate,
which is like, what's your
goal? Where are you
actually trying to end up?
And like, oh, I just want to work.
I'm like, OK, well, that's like going
into a grocery store and
saying, I just want to eat.
It's like you've got a billion options in
here and I won't even
know what aisle to direct you
to until you tell me,
are you want cereal?
You want fruit? Like, what do you
actually want out of this business?
(29:33):
Because you can't be in
every aisle all the time.
You've got to direct your time towards
the places where you
want to get something.
So, for example, if somebody's like, OK,
well, if you really ask me
that I want to be in like, you
know, like Game of Thrones type of stuff,
it's like, have you reached
out to Nina Gold's office?
Are you reaching out to the directors
that direct those episodes?
Have you been reaching out to the writers
(29:53):
who write those episodes
and looked at what other
projects they're doing?
Are you reaching out to the agents that
represent the actors on
those shows that have those
relationships with those casting offices?
Like you only have so
much time in the day.
So if you actually get laser focused on a
goal, you can start
to move energy in that
direction. And it's not only that you're
going to move your own
energy in that direction, but
(30:13):
because all of these people around you
love you and want to
help you, if they have any
connections that can move you towards
that place, they'll be
like, hey, I know this director.
Hey, I worked with this actor.
Hey, I know this thing.
And now you've got the universe pushing
you towards where you want to go.
So until I actually declared and decided
what I wanted, I was
booking, but I was it wasn't in
(30:34):
any particular direction.
I was doing, you know, multi cam over
here, single cam comedy over
there, drama over here, just
trying to make the job
book in a commercial.
But I wasn't building a momentum in a
direction until I
decided that I wanted to be a
series regular on a TV series.
And I like, OK, who controls television?
The writers. They're the ones who are the
(30:54):
showrunners, the creators, et cetera.
What can I do to build relationships with
writers in the Writers Guild?
Table reads. Why don't I just start
inviting writers with amazing
unproduced scripts to send me
their scripts and then I will cast
amazing actors because I work in casting.
I know all these people.
I'll just bring great actors
to a table read of the script.
And then because I don't just do anything
(31:17):
half ass, normally when we
do a table read, it's just
people bring their iPads or they print
out a script and we sit in
full dot chairs at a room
and we read a script.
That sounds really like a
underutilization of the opportunity.
Here's this writer who spent God knows
how many months or
years writing this story.
And this is their one opportunity to hear
(31:37):
it come to life by
professional actors, because the
chance that it's actually going to get
produced into a movie are almost none.
And so why don't we get food that's
inspired by the story?
So if somebody's eating lasagna in the
script, we're going to have
lasagna at the table read.
Why don't we design a custom trailer so
that there's something cool
on the on the screens when
they come in the room?
Why don't we get props from a
(31:57):
professional prop house is like a
centerpiece to kind of bring you
into the world of the story.
We'll have table tents.
We'll have, you know, custom artwork
cover sheets on every binder.
We'll pre-highlight all of the lines for
all the actors so that they
can easily find their role
and find their multiple characters.
Well, you know, we're like, where can we
make it so that when the writer comes
into this room, they
(32:18):
are like, who are you people?
Why are you so cool when
you don't even know me?
I'm just a nerdy writer who sits in my
room alone all the
time, imagining the day that
something will sell.
And you've just invested all of this love
and care into every
detail of this experience.
Our goal was that they
would never forget that.
And they would always associate SAG-AFTRA
(32:39):
with that kind of
attention to detail and passion for
storytelling.
And I started doing those in 2017.
And now I've done something like 400
table reads across my podcast
across for the Writers Guild
Foundation for SAG-AFTRA, for my own
studio, for other
production companies, etc.
I've kind of become the table read guy.
But a year later, after saying I wanted
(33:00):
to be a series
regular, I booked The Chosen.
Now, whether that's coincidence or
whether it was the law of attraction,
whether it was like the
universe helping move me in a direction,
as soon as I got serious
about what I was trying to
accomplish, that's when
that came into my life.
Brandon Finn is currently starring in
Apple TV's Chief of War
opposite Jason Momoa and Cliff
(33:21):
Curtis.
This is his very first series regular
playing Prince Kapule.
And I auditioned for the role Nahe, which
was Jason Momoa's youngest brother.
The initial breakdown for that character
was that he was supposed to
be the young hothead who hadn't
had as much war experience
as his two older brothers.
And so he had something to prove.
(33:44):
And I I tapped into that.
And I remember maybe about two or three
weeks later, they said,
hey, we'd love your tape.
We'd like to do a Zoom
callback with the producers.
And I did the notes
and three weeks go by.
I think it's not me.
(34:04):
It's not, you know, I get it.
I'm five feet, nine inches tall.
Jason's six, four Greek God.
It's whatever.
And we get an email saying,
hey, Jason's watch the tapes.
He thinks the role that you're you
currently audition for is not
going to work, but we'd like
(34:25):
your work. We'd love to give you a
different role to audition for.
And so I got a different Zoom callback.
I didn't have to send in another tape.
I just went to another callback with
different sides, different character.
And now I'm auditioning for the Prince of
Maui, Prince Kalanikoupule.
And Justin Chun, I
(34:47):
remember, was a big fan of the work.
They wanted to make sure the actor could
portray the relationship
between father and son.
And I find out later, maybe about a month
later, that I get network approved.
And my ignorant, innocent mind had no
idea what that meant.
(35:07):
I said, what does that mean?
Do I did I get the job?
Do I not get the job?
She goes, you have the job.
They're just waiting
for the contracts now.
And I start crying.
I started crying.
This was June, June 2nd, I think of 2022.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just crazy.
But more specificity with
the audition process itself.
(35:29):
Talk about moving
pieces and this and that.
They initially had Cliff
Curtis playing that role.
Wait, the role that you did?
Yes, that was the initial.
Wow.
And it was Cliff's idea, from what I'm
told with Thomas Pothrzibit
and some of the other producers that
Prince Kupule should be a younger guy.
(35:52):
And so, like, you know, my
work can speak for itself.
And also the cards kind of
have to fold out correctly.
You know, it was this it was this
perfect, perfect setup
where I found a place among
this cast of legends to share this story
about the Hawaiian Islands.
How brilliant.
Did you find that sort of like stepping
(36:12):
up to a roll of that
magnitude with everything
involved there? Was that
did that feel natural for you?
Was it was it daunting in any way?
Did you feel, you know, what were your
thoughts going into
to a roll of that size?
Yeah, I the scale of which we were
dealing with was menacing at first.
It might sound cocky.
(36:33):
It might sound overly confident.
And truth be told, I have the utmost
confidence in myself with whatever scale
it is. And truthfully, I kind of had to
with Jason Elm, let
alone a guy like Cliff
Curtis. Cliff Curtis is insane.
He's a comedian.
(36:53):
Absolutely insane.
And he kind of walks this this line where
you're not too sure how method he goes.
You know, like, is it is it not?
I think it is. He's going to
throw the kitchen sink on you
and then he's going to
not apologize for it after.
That's just, you know, the
legend that we're dealing with.
And so that being said, I'm very much a
(37:14):
product of my environment.
If I'm surrounded by these murderers,
these killers, I will do my part.
I didn't have any I didn't
have any issue with that.
And I think that's a mentality that we
all need to have,
especially when we start
to get to that tear up, you know, if
we're going to make the move,
you got to be ready for that move.
Regardless, if you haven't seen the show,
which is Momoa is
(37:36):
almost completely naked.
Last showing a shark.
This is what you're going up against.
He's a tall task. It's a tall task.
That's a lot. That scene.
It's that scene in
particular, that sequence.
Let's be honest.
Nobody's looking at the shark.
Nobody's looking at J.P.
We all know what everybody's looking at.
No matter what you are. Yeah.
(37:57):
100 percent.
I will say Jason Momoa is the one person
where I'm like, yeah, I buy that.
Yeah, I buy that. He can do that.
And last but not least, Brian Stepanek,
actor, teacher,
director and cult favorite
known for playing Arwen in
The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.
In addition to many commercials,
blockbuster films and
TV shows under his belt,
(38:19):
they did ninety nine
episodes of The Suite Life.
I was in twenty seven.
Oh, and I was a guest star.
And that is what I've been most
recognized for my entire life.
And and when I booked it, my manager or
my agent at the time
told me not to take it.
Wow.
It was the first time that I had the
writers on that show
take me aside and go,
(38:40):
you need your own show because I came in.
So I'll tell that story.
So when I auditioned for that role, they
originally had it broke big,
burly, fat, hairy Hagrid type.
That's who that
character was supposed to be.
A big kind of oath.
And they weren't finding it.
And so I get cold because
the casting kind of knew me.
I probably auditioned for him a few times
(39:02):
and I walked into the
waiting room and I'm
looking around going,
what am I doing here?
I don't look like these guys.
I wonder what conditioner that guy uses.
These are the thoughts
going through my head.
And so I go into the room and instead of
making him kind of a lumbering oath,
I made him a hyper savant.
I made him super high
energy and kind of crazed.
And and I remember finishing the audition
(39:23):
for the head writer and another writer.
And it was dead silent and they looked at
each other and one said to the other,
can we do that?
And the other one was like, yes.
And that's how I got that role.
And then when I got in there, that first
episode, they literally while I was
taking the episode, you
need to have your own show.
(39:43):
And, you know, a year and a half later,
we were shooting Housebroken.
We were shooting
this, the spinoff that we
shot a pilot and Selena
Gomez played my my niece.
It really was something that's been a
wonderful memory and led to a lot of
opportunities and and has given me an
audience of, you know, 20 somethings and
30 somethings that all know me.
I was in and out yesterday.
They're really gay.
So I'm over the hedge.
(40:04):
They had a character that was an owl and
they cast Gene Wilder.
So I'm like, what the fudge?
And he comes in and he says, so
I did a little research on
owls and I wrote a little poem
that I thought we might be able to use
and everybody's like, OK,
(40:24):
I'm changing Wilder.
And I just happened to have it.
The reason I have it is
because he finished that poem.
And we all were crying
because it was about Gilda.
(40:47):
And we were all like, oh,
my God, it was beautiful.
Well, he finishes it and
I may read this for you.
I don't know that I should
cut to about three years ago.
I'm talking to my friend Tim
Johnson who directed that film.
And he goes, man, I wish somebody, you
know, had picked up that piece of paper
on that that music stand. I was like,
yeah, I know, I know.
(41:07):
And so I was cleaning out my files, I
think, over the pandemic.
And I found a file called Over the Hedge.
And this was in it.
I wow, I had picked it up.
So you don't remember taking it?
Nope. You just. Yeah.
I took it, put it in the
file and I forgot about it.
So it is dated January 26, 2003.
(41:32):
So I know the date that we did it.
It has
his handwriting in the margins.
And the gist of it is he's talking, it's
a poem about him talking about his mate
for life, his owl mate for life.
And he basically says, in one day, some
kid shot her with a BB gun.
And now I'm alone.
(41:53):
And I just sit in the tree by myself and
all the other animals say,
well, don't worry,
there'll be someone else.
And I just say, who, who?
Wow.
And the last line is people think I'm
such a wise old owl, but I'm really not.
I just keep my mouth shut.
That is incredible.
(42:15):
Yeah, crazy.
And that is our episode for this week.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Stay safe and see you next time.
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