Welcome to the Actor's Guide to the End of the World, Episode 23!
This episode is going to be little different than our past episodes - E-Kan will be doing some traveling so for a few weeks, we will mix together our best hits, a few of our favorite segments from past episodes - in case you missed it or if you're still catching up.
We have some a lot of new stuff coming for the podcast, follow us wherever you find your podcasts, Youtube, Substack, on all social media @actorsguidepodcast.
This episode, you'll hear about the time Rían almost got scammed by a big tech company that was, ahem, targeting the Irish? How dare they. Take care of your data, people!
Then an excerpt from Episode 10, the guys will dissect actors' tricky relationship with money, balancing side jobs with their passion, and E-Kan talks about how actors can learn from Silicon Valley tech entrepeneurs. Rían talks about his friend who "stopped asking his art to pay for his life" and why he used to not tell people he was an actor when he bartended, and E-Kan shares powerful words that his sister told him that he never forgot. They share personal stories about juggling odd end jobs over the years and lessons they’ve learned along the way. Desi Lydic's story about waiting to live your life. Actors, this might change how you look at your career.
Then, from Episode 3, the guys talk pivotal life changing moments, including how E-Kan first got past his ego and started creating things on YouTube. It was a big shift in mindset and changed everything for him, including his life and career. Rían also describes how a life event changed his mindset. They also discuss how fame has changed and been democratized with the internet in this new age of Hollywood.
Time stamps:
(00:00) Intro
(02:10) Rían almost gets scammed
(06:30) Stop asking your art to pay for his life
(07:30) What actors can learn from the tech world
(09:00) How an actor can be unstoppable
(10:55) Why Rían didn't tell people he was an actor
(13:20) The power of mindset work
(14:45) Being embarrassed being an actor
(16:58) Desi Lydic and why waiting is the worst
(20:10) Having big dreams
(22:30) Ride the horse in the direction it's going
(23:00) E-Kan changed his mind on YouTube
(26:30) Actors can do more than one thing
(30:15) Fame is not the same in the YouTube era
(33:15) How Rían's approach to life changed after a break up
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey all, this is the Actors Guide to the
Underworld podcast where we
talk about acting in Hollywood
in a way people understand.
I'm your host E-Kan Soong and if you're
listening to this or
watching this, this episode is
going to be a little
different than our previous episodes.
I'm going to be doing some traveling,
going on a big trip.
I can't wait to tell you
guys all about when I get back.
Until then, Rian and I decided to do a
(00:21):
few episodes of Best
Hits, our favorite segments
from previous episodes.
It'll give us a breather and some of you
are new here and might
have missed it the first
time or you still might
be catching up anyway.
I will say we have some new fun stuff
brewing for the podcast so stay tuned.
Follow us wherever you find your podcast.
We're on Substack.
We're on YouTube.
(00:41):
Follow us on all social
media at Actors Guide podcast.
So here's the plan for today.
You're going to hear the time that Rian
almost got scammed by a
big tech company, dare I
say, targeting the Irish.
Unbelievable.
So that was a hoot.
We also have a juicy bit from episode 10
where Rian and I talk about money,
(01:02):
finding that balance
between juggling your side hustle and
your passion and which is
extremely relevant today
and how mastering that might be unlocking
a superpower for actors.
So that's a good one.
We also have an oldie but goodie from
episode three where Rian
and I talk about aha moments.
We've had in our lives moments of clarity
(01:23):
or frustration that
got us to change our mind
or how we thought about something.
And in my case it was, well, you know,
honestly, I don't want to
spoil it, but I had to change
my mind on something and it
unlocked everything for me.
So this is a very special episode.
Hope you enjoy it.
And now a word from our sponsor.
(01:45):
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(02:06):
The only bad publicity is no publicity.
And I just, I forgot to mention this
before, but so I saw this
ad on, you know, these like
market research things that you see
sometimes and there was a
market research thing popped
up on Instagram, I think.
And it was basically,
are you an Apple user?
Are you Irish?
(02:27):
Are you an American, an
Irish person living in America?
You literally checked all the boxes.
I checked all the boxes.
So it was a $750 whatever like stipend
for participating in this thing.
And then I get a phone call from this guy
and he's screening me
and he talks me through
all these things.
Now I realize right after I did it, I was
(02:48):
like, I just gave
away a lot of information
on the phone.
You know where you know i'm
from ireland and in america.
income your income roughly
and how much photos is on an-
He goes, okay, you qualify for the study.
And he said, you can do it at this place.
(03:09):
It's four miles from
you next week or whatever.
And then I find out what the study is.
And he goes, okay.
So what, what'll happen is you'll come
and you'll just plug your phone.
You'll put your iTunes details in and
they will be able to.
(03:33):
and something else.
And I'm like--
That sounds, yeah, I believe that.
But included in it, because
he sent me the email then.
I didn't end up doing it, obviously.
But he sent me the email then, and in it
I was reading the consent form.
They can scan your biometric data from
your photos, like your
(03:53):
face and everything else.
So they would be scraping data
Wasn't just crazy.
I'm sure there would be--
And you actually read the fine train.
And they almost got you.
They almost got you.
(04:14):
That is crazy.
No, it's, but again, it's, I think it's,
I think all of this
AI stuff is just coming
out, imagine $750 for all of your data.
Everything.
Your whole life is on your phone.
If you're anything like me, your whole
life is on your phone.
Could have been just a scam, just taking
advantage of people.
It would have been a scam, but I looked
up him and I looked up
the companies involved.
And I actually, I think it.
(04:42):
As far as I know, he hinted that it was
Apple without saying it.
So it may not have
been, you know what I mean?
It might've been trying to let you
believe it was Apple
when it was somebody else.
Targeting the Irish.
Yeah.
Goalable Irish people
in America like myself.
Naive, looking for $750
to put in their pocket.
It's not hard enough being
(05:03):
in America, they're targeting.
We don't even have an idea of the
repercussions of this.
And now obviously we're really particular
about giving away our
email and social security.
What about DNA?
We have no idea.
We haven't even thought about that.
Yeah, I don't know where that goes.
I haven't thought about that until now.
So what happens when, you know, the small
studio has all your biometric data
(05:24):
and then goes out of
business, who are they selling it to?
How are they going to keep it secure?
How do you know some intern, some intern
out of film school is not, you know,
screwing around with it?
And I'm just looking up
stories about this 23andMe thing.
And it looks like it says, okay, if you
want to delete your data from 23andMe,
log into your account under settings, go
23andMe data, select delete your data.
(05:45):
Did anyone see that
Ashley Madison documentary?
Did you see that?
No, I didn't.
It was basically, they told people they
were deleting their data.
It was a site for
people to cheat basically.
There's a lot of it and the data was...
like, users could pay a premium,
(06:08):
apparently for like,
double deletion or whatever.
Like we're absolutely definitely not
keeping any of our data and they were
paying a premium for
this and they just lied.
Their security was crap, apparently.
And all of this.
And that's why everybody got.
Yeah, I can.
Do you remember the leak?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If they're not protecting your data, why
would you believe that
hitting delete on their website?
(06:28):
That's a good point.
A friend of mine who's an actor and a
very successful actor
said that a change for him
happened when he stopped asking his art
to pay for his life.
Where he, you know, he had something on
the side and he
stopped depending on, he said
(06:48):
it just took all the pressure off him.
He took all the pressure off his creative
work and that helped him.
For some people, I think
it's probably the opposite.
You know, it's when they do kind of
depend on it, maybe it
gives them the impetus to
double down.
I don't know, but it's just an
interesting idea that like
when art and money intersect,
it complicates it.
(07:10):
I don't know how you feel about that.
I feel like that could
be a whole nother episode.
But let's talk about that.
I think that's brilliant.
I found that to be the case for myself.
This woman just put it so brilliantly.
She's in computer,
she's in the tech world.
She basically said people don't realize
(07:33):
in the tech world
where everyone's trying to
create the next Facebook or the next
Uber, all those people
who are working tirelessly
to launch that business, their income is
coming from a different thing.
Their income is coming from something
that's not sexy, no one
(07:53):
knows and probably anonymous,
but their heart and their passion is
developing the next Facebook and Uber.
What she said, and it hit me right
between the eyes because I
was like, this is exactly
what actors need to know.
She basically said, Silicon Valley had no
problem making a
distinction between income
(08:16):
and I forget what the word she used, but
let's just use your passion.
They make a distinction between your
income and your passion.
If you can separate those
two, that's your superpower.
They are unstoppable because they had no
problem working on their Facebook.
(08:36):
Their income was coming from a crappy job
that made them a lot of
money, but they didn't
care about.
They didn't have any
conflicted feelings about that.
Guess what?
Actors, we have trouble
separating income and our passion.
It's a big surprise that actors feel a
(08:57):
lot more than Silicon Valley.
The point is, if we could control that,
if we could make our
money completely separate
from our passion and have no problem with
that, we would be unstoppable.
Our nine to five job that makes us money
and gets us comfortable
every month, we can make
(09:18):
that.
We feel no shame about it and we can
devote all our time and
our heart to our passion.
If we were able to do that, if we were
able to conquer that,
we'd be unstoppable.
There's a couple of
things that play into that.
I think one of them is self-esteem.
A lot of actors feel like if I'm not
making my living from
acting, I'm not an actor.
(09:38):
The other practical consideration is time
and the amount of energy you have.
Depending on the job you
work, you need it to be flexible.
If it's a part-time job or a survival
job, you need it to be
flexible because you need
to be able to drop it and pick it up as
needs be to take jobs, to do auditions.
I've been on both sides of it.
(09:59):
I currently don't have another job.
You know what I mean?
I'm currently just making my living from
acting, but I don't
know what the future holds.
For me, that's the mental battle of not
letting fear creep
into what I do creatively.
It's a tightrope.
It's a tightrope to walk because not
(10:20):
knowing where your next
paycheck is coming from is
tricky.
Right.
I just want to be
clear with what I'm saying.
I'm just saying to emotionally try to
remove ourselves from
the stigma or the shame of
needing a side job.
I just want to make
sure that that's clear.
No, I agree with that.
The stigma and the shame, but that's a
big thing for a lot of actors.
(10:41):
I think it can be reinforced by how
people react when you say
you're an actor, especially
if they see you in a work environment.
If it's at your side job.
When I was bartending, I would try not to
tell people I was an actor.
You know what I mean?
Because I didn't want to
invite the conversation.
If it came up, of course I would talk
(11:02):
about it, but I would never lead with it.
You know what I mean?
I would never be like,
"Well, I'm actually an actor."
Because to me, that seems like that was
rooted in low self-esteem.
I know I'm doing this, but
I'm actually something else.
You know what I mean?
To touch on something that's
really, really interesting.
I think you're a perfect example because
you have such a strong mindset.
(11:23):
You didn't just move out to LA or just
act five months ago.
You and me are both in the privileged
position of being in the game for a bit.
We've seen the highs and the lows.
We survived.
We've had side jobs.
We have dead-end jobs.
As positive and optimistic as you are,
you admit that it's
actually difficult to make
(11:44):
that emotional disconnection between your
income and your passion.
I don't know.
For me, it changed over time.
The work that I put into mindset and
stuff is now starting
to pay dividends now.
For a long time, I was
insecure about a lot of things.
I was insecure about the fact that I
(12:04):
never went to a full-time drama school.
I started to work and
did classes at night.
I was also in college.
I felt a shame with that for a while.
There's a lot of things that were so
unnecessary and were a
hindrance to my progress, but I
had to figure that out along the way.
(12:25):
I completely agree.
I was very similar, to be honest.
You say you figured it out.
Was there anything
concrete that you worked through?
When I say I figured it out, I don't
think I completely
figured it out, but I certainly
found a way to be...
(12:52):
Instead of seeing the lack of something,
I started to just feel
the joy of it, or the
abundance of it, without
trying to sound too wanky about it.
I focused on...
(13:13):
What happened and a funny thing happen
then it the job started to the acting
work started to really.
Kind of interfere with the job that i had
been doing in a very real way what
happened when i started to do the mindset
work was the acting
work i started to get.
Would take me away from the job for
longer it was harder and
harder for me to hold on to that.
So then it became a sort of a leap of
(13:34):
faith thing right now to go okay well if
i can keep this job i have to let this.
That's kind of like
what I was getting at.
I mean, this isn't going that far back,
because obviously this is the time
that we've known each other,
and then also the work that at the studio
when we met at Leslie Khan.
(13:55):
So this is actually fairly
recent to make that shift.
You're putting the work,
I don't wanna gloss over that,
because I think that's kind of like,
this is really great for me to hear,
but this is possibly
what a lot of other people
are trying to figure out for themselves.
It just so happens that
we're going to holidays.
It just so happens that it
can be a very dreary time
for a lot of actors.
This is what most of us have experienced.
(14:17):
Do you thrive on it?
Does it destroy you?
Where's your self-esteem fall?
And then hopefully
after years of grinding
and putting in work,
can we actually get in control of it?
I don't know if this
was ever gonna pop up,
but it just happened to be,
I was in my family's house,
and I had flashbacks of me growing up.
It was easier dealing with my family
(14:38):
when I was across the country.
I'm not gonna lie.
But I remember years back,
really early on in the game,
my sister said to me,
and I told you, my
dad came around, right?
He really wanted me to
go to a math grad school.
My sister literally said to me, she goes,
(15:00):
"Hey, I think dad's kind of embarrassed
to tell people you're an actor,
who I'm not even joking around."
Here's the thing, my
sister was watching out for me,
and I think she wanted to
watch out for me and protect me,
but also let me know.
This is the brilliance of
(15:20):
being incredibly stubborn
or just completely oblivious.
It had very little effect on me.
I had blinders.
It didn't matter.
I was working at Urban Outfitters.
I don't even know where I was working.
I was able to make
that emotional disconnect
between income and passion,
(15:40):
and whether it was dumb
luck or I was just stupid,
I was able to have those blinders on
and get through to the years
where we could grow up and mature
and be in a little more
control of our mindset
and leave it a little more positive.
Yeah, and I love that.
And I think a friend of
ours, someone who knows,
I'll put it beautifully,
(16:02):
when he's talked about waiting for the
job to come save him,
like waiting for that big role,
that series regular role, too.
(16:42):
No, I was listening to an interview, um,
of one of the Daily Show
hosts and she was talking
about Desi Lydic and she talked about how
she was, she got, she
was always lived her
life by like, I can't go on vacation
because I have to wait
and see the job might need
me.
And then she got pregnant.
She had auditioned for the Daily Show.
And then I think she'd auditioned a few
(17:03):
times and then, but then
she got pregnant and she
was like, you know
what, fuck it, whatever.
You know what I mean?
This is just how it's going to be.
And if they need me, they need me.
And she called her and she got the job
and she's like flew to
New York and she talked
to one of the producers and she's like,
um, just, you know, I'm, I'm pregnant.
But she was like, yep, cool.
Whatever, you know, but it was when she
let go of like, because I.
(18:17):
Alex is everything a little bit better.
I love that.
Just one thing because
I just realized this.
So for those tracking,
because my mind is
blown from this conversation
because I realized that
me and a lot of the stories
that we're talking about
are on polar sides of this.
(18:37):
Me having those
blinders on for so many years
helped me in so many ways.
But I realized having those blinders on
was the reason I was sitting around
waiting for so many years.
So for all those years, I realized,
because that ties
into a little bit about,
a handful of episodes back,
(18:58):
we talk about, we had a
few moments in our lives
that were life changing and I
decided to create more stuff
and get on YouTube and all that stuff.
I realized I had blinders on for years.
And that's what was
stopping me from creating stuff
and putting it on YouTube
and doing all that thing.
Because I was so keyed in
on, this is how I look at life.
I don't, this is what I
(19:19):
need, this is what I believe.
And I was so resistant to the forces
in the outside around me
that it was protecting me emotionally,
but I realized I was
missing a lot of things.
And so to put it on perspectives,
I needed to open up more.
Some people can protect
themselves a little bit more,
but either way, there's a spectrum here.
(19:39):
And I'm just, I think
that's what I learned after,
recently from these conversations.
That's, yeah, that's really interesting.
There's a phrase in Yale
here sometimes in recovery
where people say,
"I'm living a life
beyond my wildest dreams."
And when I was early on
in sobriety or whatever,
(20:02):
they used to drive me crazy.
Cause I was like, "What?
"You obviously just
don't have big dreams, Park,
"cause I've got these big dreams."
But I kind of understand it now
because like how I...
(20:40):
And I think that feels the kind of, that
feels the transition
away from feeling like the
part-time job is
dragging you down and you know.
(21:07):
while also holding down a part-time job
or sometimes a
full-time job that involves long
hours and shift work and trying to juggle
things. A lot of people have families and
kids and there are all these
considerations that go into
this thing. So it's such it's
so disingenuous to talk about, you know,
that kind of idea of
like actors being sort of
(21:28):
losers, the broke actor all waiting to
make and what have I
seen in that kind of ship
where you're like, you don't understand
what kind of tenacity
and what kind of heart it
takes to just stay in it.
I do feel like it's easy for other people
to criticize because
you were chasing after
a dream and they wish they could. If you
see comments on
YouTube, if you see comments on
(21:49):
Instagram, those are people at home
clicking away trying to
yeah, exactly. Something that
we often say is, is ride the horse in the
direction that it's going in and you kind
of have to be open to those, those signs.
And I think, yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, I'm agreeing. I think and I
(22:11):
probably lean into those
more than a lot of people
would. You know what I mean?
I.
For me, when I start to get in trouble is
when I start to sort of circumvent those
signs with with me thinking overthinking
it and applying logic to it because it
doesn't always logic doesn't
always work out well for me.
I don't know about you.
(22:32):
What about you?
Like, what's your how
do you make decisions?
Let me put the first decision you ever
made and then just go for it from there.
It's funny because it didn't hit me until
we were talking about last week.
Um, my whole last year was I basically
flipped the way I thought about acting,
(22:54):
internet, social media,
and my role as an actor.
I completely changed my mind last year.
Oh, I don't think I knew this.
I know exactly.
So kind of blew my mind.
So when we were talking about this idea
of identity as an actor and you had an
identity that maybe, you know, you want,
you're an actor in LA.
People were telling me, you know what?
Honestly, I think you should go on
(23:14):
YouTube, do something on YouTube.
Yeah.
So for all those years,
didn't think about it once.
I had one friend who I thought was, oh, I
incredibly value her opinion.
Um, highly intelligent.
I'm talking about like grad school at
UPenn, grad, you know, Ivy
league and all that stuff.
Worked at Google for years.
Yeah.
Um, she was a YouTube freak winner and I
(23:37):
was like quietly like,
you watch YouTube really?
Right.
Uh, so judgey.
I can only imagine you're telling me.
But I'm like, oh, you watch YouTube and I
just hold my tongue.
You too.
She goes, you have no
idea the depths of YouTube.
There's a range of everything.
There are a billion people on YouTube.
There are also silly imbeciles on
(23:58):
YouTube, but she goes,
YouTube is the future.
This is where the
youth are going to learn.
Uh, you really?
And she goes, I think
you should be on YouTube.
I think you have something to say and I
think people might want to hear it.
Not even watch.
I didn't even casually watch YouTube.
Yeah.
That moment the next
(24:18):
week, it changed my life.
Wow.
Literally started researching YouTube.
So I'll show you what
she was talking about.
By the way, I also
had experience editing.
I was editing things for years before
that I had all the skills to do it.
I just didn't want to do it.
I was also kind of scared.
The next month was the Superbowl.
I went to the Superbowl.
I documented everything and I made that I
(24:38):
made that into a V-glog.
And that was the first moment where I was
officially on YouTube
and it changed my life.
So it all just kind of snowballed from
there because I started
making videos for YouTube.
No one was really paying attention, but
it was fine because I was experimenting.
I figured I might as well throw them on
Instagram and social media because I was
making them anyway, the strike happened.
People started watching them and I was
(24:59):
pleasantly surprised.
And then someone asked me to host a
Hollywood live event.
And I'm like, I'm not a host.
I'm an actor, but I did it anyway.
Because I didn't have
any good reason not to.
And here we are hosting a podcast.
Never would have
considered a podcast two years ago.
(25:21):
Absolutely never.
And I'm completely indebted to my friend.
And my point is, is I was so stubborn.
Um, I, I needed one push over the edge
and it was also like
resentment as far as like,
Oh, well, what else am I doing?
That's so important that I
can't explore this, right?
It just, it just hit
me at the right time.
(25:42):
What was it about?
What was the judgment?
The idea of content creators or what have
you or YouTubers
versus actors, actors were
trained to act.
YouTubers were mostly personalities that
were producing content
and it also just happened.
They were becoming more
(26:03):
famous than all of us.
And so 100% I was resentful.
I didn't want to address it.
I didn't want to think about it.
After all these years, YouTube is
completely changing the world.
By the way, it's like I think it's number
two for streaming besides Netflix.
I buy it.
I look at YouTube all the
(26:24):
time now and I didn't used to.
My thing was like I thought
people only did one thing.
You know what I mean?
When I'd look at successful actors, I'd
go, oh, they're just actors.
As I've aged and as I've seen more and
more people do a
million things, even the most
successful, in fact, the most successful
people are more likely
to do a million things
because they diversify and they're
(26:45):
involved in this and
they're involved in that.
So I'm going to write books and they.
He's directed movies,
he's directed TV, but he's
Exactly. There you go. But he's just he
writes and he does
all these other things.
(27:06):
And they like they're curious and like,
so I've expanded my
narrow focus on that too.
Because I used to think, oh yeah, you
just do the one thing.
Exactly.
And anything, anything, anything is a
deviation from that is a
kind of a betrayal of the,
of your goal.
Exactly.
That's brilliant.
I didn't really know that.
And by YouTube, do you mean specifically
(27:27):
YouTube or do you mean all
forms of like short, like
social media?
Does that apply to social media for you?
Like, yeah, it's all kind
of lumped in the same thing.
A lot of most actors aren't
excited about social media.
Yeah.
The irony is, is we chose a profession to
be in front of the camera,
yet we feel uncomfortable
expressing ourselves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I kind of had
(27:48):
to get over that too.
And I was like, honestly, there's so many
things going out
there where it's like, do
people really care?
It's like, no one's focused on you.
Yeah.
And that's the thing about judgment.
You know, when people say no one's
judging, everybody's
judging you all the time.
That's what people do.
I judge.
That's how we relate to the world.
We judge it.
That's the secret.
Yeah, that's a good point.
(28:11):
And how much do we do we over value it
more than it needs to be totally yeah
it's it's it's overpowering sometimes.
One thing just the icing on the cake, I
also haven't drank in six months.
Incredible.
Obviously, that might come up later in
conversation about these things.
I know you've mentioned that, but I
wasn't sure where you're at.
(28:33):
one of those things where it's like,
hey, I'm busy enjoying
the things that I'm doing.
How about I just keep
doing it and say clear headed
while I'm at it?
Yeah, I mean, look, obviously I can test.
I've been sober now 13 years and--
That's amazing. It's my life.
You know, absolutely.
Um, and I would have loved to have heard
(28:54):
your, I've seen your face when you were
like, Oh, YouTube, you watch YouTube.
It reminds me of years and years ago in
Dublin on Talbot Street in Dublin.
I was in a shop and there was a guy there
with his girlfriend and he had a kind of
a long black coat and a scarf like thrown
about, you know, over his neck and his
girlfriend or wife, but I think
girlfriend like was buying chocolate.
(29:15):
Hey, you gave her the
most disapproving look.
He just goes, Oh, chocolate.
She, she.
chocolate she she had
or something like that and he just
thought it was pet man
and he's like, that just made it for me.
(29:36):
I was like, there you go dude.
Wow.
Judgey.
Sure.
But I was thinking because I, in Ireland
at the moment, there's a number of, um,
young, I say young cause they're younger
than me, but like, they're probably in
their thirties, actors, uh, who do, who
(29:57):
just do, I knew them first from like
doing sort of front facing camera
sketches, but now
they're all starting to work.
Now they're all starting to work on TV.
I've seen them pop up in shows, but I've
admired their content for a long time.
And I follow a bunch of them, like, uh,
to shout them out in case they ever,
you know, come across this, but it's like
Peter McGahn, John Doran, Tony
(30:18):
Cantrell, all of these guys, and I'm
Amalie, so I worked with on a short
film and a pile of mine.
And, uh, I got, I, when I was home, I did
a sketch with a friend of mine, Paul,
and, and, um, John Doran, one of these
guys, I was, this is so embarrassing.
I already knew this go through like how
(30:38):
many sketches and I was so...
That's amazing.
You know, I think that
brings up a great point,
but I remember a long time ago,
a friend who watched
more YouTube than I did,
and I kinda, not
surprisingly, I kinda judged him.
(30:59):
(laughs) So he said all these
YouTube people that was like,
"Oh God, yeah, whatever."
And he told me years ago, he goes,
"Well, I feel like
fame is different now."
It's-
Yeah, it's like the
democratization of fame.
Exactly, that had to
be six, seven years ago.
And now look at where we are.
I have to eat grow
(31:19):
because I was like, "Wow."
He was right.
You're right, I
hadn't thought about that,
but the nature of fame has changed.
You remember like,
first concert I ever
saw was Michael Jackson.
Oh wow, that's a good way to start out.
Yeah, I was 10 years old,
it was 1992, I think in,
92 or 94, I think it was 92.
I think it was 10 years old,
it was in Lansdowne Road in Dublin.
And I begged my parents to let me go,
(31:39):
"Michael Jackson and Madonna,
these people at that time were megastars.
They were untouchable.
There was a mistake about them
that I don't think there
is a bear on anyone anymore
because it's-
Michael Moynihan.
in the world in ter-
(32:08):
Oh, 100%. We can have another podcast
about that for sure.
Not only is it all spread around, just
imagine how many
influencers on TikTok and Instagram
that have a bajillion
followers that you never heard of.
Not only has fame spread around, it's
going to quickly shorten
where everyone's fame went from
(32:31):
15 minutes to three. It's going to live
and die much quicker than it used to be.
So I think the main point of what I
realized and learned,
being able to change your mind
despite how resistant we are, whether
it's fear, fear of change or the unknown,
(32:53):
I think that's what I just got rid of.
And at this point, I'm
looking for the other things
that I can change my mind. I think it's
incredible that like,
somebody said something to you that
changed your worldview.
of my life have been entirely different
from any other year before that.
Wow.
And that began for me with, among other
(33:14):
things, with a breakup of a relationship
and just, and it's not a comment on the
relationship at all,
but like that breakup
just changed something in me along with a
lot of other things I had
started with Leslie Kahn
and her class and stuff.
(33:39):
for the gift to me and go.
And the universe spoke
and then you received.
Oh my god, what a
different way of living.
And I've had the most amazing two years.
It's been ups and downs and
whatever, but it's been amazing.
That's awesome.
I've worked a lot more and I'm enjoying
the work a lot more.
(34:01):
That's amazing.
Exactly. But it's...
You know, that's a mezcal.
And I'm not preaching this
(34:22):
from a perch of, you know,
no, you're preaching from experience.
I agree.
I like living this way a lot more and I
like this version of me a lot more.
So that's amazing. Yeah. Well, that's a
great place to to pin it there. Yeah.
Well, that's our show.
Everyone. Hope you enjoyed it. If you get
a chance, please leave
(34:42):
a review, leave a like,
maybe even subscribe. It really helps the
podcast. And as always,
we're wherever you find your
podcast. We're on YouTube. We're on sub
stack. We're on all social media at
Actors Guide podcast.
See you next week.
Hey all, this is the Actors Guide to the
Underworld podcast where we
talk about acting in Hollywood
in a way people understand.
I'm your host E-Kan Soong and if you're
listening to this or
watching this, this episode is
going to be a little
different than our previous episodes.
I'm going to be doing some traveling,
going on a big trip.
I can't wait to tell you
guys all about when I get back.
Until then, Rian and I decided to do a
(00:21):
few episodes of Best
Hits, our favorite segments
from previous episodes.
It'll give us a breather and some of you
are new here and might
have missed it the first
time or you still might
be catching up anyway.
I will say we have some new fun stuff
brewing for the podcast so stay tuned.
Follow us wherever you find your podcast.
We're on Substack.
We're on YouTube.
(00:41):
Follow us on all social
media at Actors Guide podcast.
So here's the plan for today.
You're going to hear the time that Rian
almost got scammed by a
big tech company, dare I
say, targeting the Irish.
Unbelievable.
So that was a hoot.
We also have a juicy bit from episode 10
where Rian and I talk about money,
(01:02):
finding that balance
between juggling your side hustle and
your passion and which is
extremely relevant today
and how mastering that might be unlocking
a superpower for actors.
So that's a good one.
We also have an oldie but goodie from
episode three where Rian
and I talk about aha moments.
We've had in our lives moments of clarity
(01:23):
or frustration that
got us to change our mind
or how we thought about something.
And in my case it was, well, you know,
honestly, I don't want to
spoil it, but I had to change
my mind on something and it
unlocked everything for me.
So this is a very special episode.
Hope you enjoy it.
And now a word from our sponsor.
(01:45):
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a club onto the sidewalk.
Getting a Bieber smoothie at Air One.
Uber ROTC.
(02:06):
The only bad publicity is no publicity.
And I just, I forgot to mention this
before, but so I saw this
ad on, you know, these like
market research things that you see
sometimes and there was a
market research thing popped
up on Instagram, I think.
And it was basically,
are you an Apple user?
Are you Irish?
(02:27):
Are you an American, an
Irish person living in America?
You literally checked all the boxes.
I checked all the boxes.
So it was a $750 whatever like stipend
for participating in this thing.
And then I get a phone call from this guy
and he's screening me
and he talks me through
all these things.
Now I realize right after I did it, I was
(02:48):
like, I just gave
away a lot of information
on the phone.
You know where you know i'm
from ireland and in america.
income your income roughly
and how much photos is on an-
He goes, okay, you qualify for the study.
And he said, you can do it at this place.
(03:09):
It's four miles from
you next week or whatever.
And then I find out what the study is.
And he goes, okay.
So what, what'll happen is you'll come
and you'll just plug your phone.
You'll put your iTunes details in and
they will be able to.
(03:33):
and something else.
And I'm like--
That sounds, yeah, I believe that.
But included in it, because
he sent me the email then.
I didn't end up doing it, obviously.
But he sent me the email then, and in it
I was reading the consent form.
They can scan your biometric data from
your photos, like your
(03:53):
face and everything else.
So they would be scraping data
Wasn't just crazy.
I'm sure there would be--
And you actually read the fine train.
And they almost got you.
They almost got you.
(04:14):
That is crazy.
No, it's, but again, it's, I think it's,
I think all of this
AI stuff is just coming
out, imagine $750 for all of your data.
Everything.
Your whole life is on your phone.
If you're anything like me, your whole
life is on your phone.
Could have been just a scam, just taking
advantage of people.
It would have been a scam, but I looked
up him and I looked up
the companies involved.
And I actually, I think it.
(04:42):
As far as I know, he hinted that it was
Apple without saying it.
So it may not have
been, you know what I mean?
It might've been trying to let you
believe it was Apple
when it was somebody else.
Targeting the Irish.
Yeah.
Goalable Irish people
in America like myself.
Naive, looking for $750
to put in their pocket.
It's not hard enough being
(05:03):
in America, they're targeting.
We don't even have an idea of the
repercussions of this.
And now obviously we're really particular
about giving away our
email and social security.
What about DNA?
We have no idea.
We haven't even thought about that.
Yeah, I don't know where that goes.
I haven't thought about that until now.
So what happens when, you know, the small
studio has all your biometric data
(05:24):
and then goes out of
business, who are they selling it to?
How are they going to keep it secure?
How do you know some intern, some intern
out of film school is not, you know,
screwing around with it?
And I'm just looking up
stories about this 23andMe thing.
And it looks like it says, okay, if you
want to delete your data from 23andMe,
log into your account under settings, go
23andMe data, select delete your data.
(05:45):
Did anyone see that
Ashley Madison documentary?
Did you see that?
No, I didn't.
It was basically, they told people they
were deleting their data.
It was a site for
people to cheat basically.
There's a lot of it and the data was...
like, users could pay a premium,
(06:08):
apparently for like,
double deletion or whatever.
Like we're absolutely definitely not
keeping any of our data and they were
paying a premium for
this and they just lied.
Their security was crap, apparently.
And all of this.
And that's why everybody got.
Yeah, I can.
Do you remember the leak?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
If they're not protecting your data, why
would you believe that
hitting delete on their website?
(06:28):
That's a good point.
A friend of mine who's an actor and a
very successful actor
said that a change for him
happened when he stopped asking his art
to pay for his life.
Where he, you know, he had something on
the side and he
stopped depending on, he said
(06:48):
it just took all the pressure off him.
He took all the pressure off his creative
work and that helped him.
For some people, I think
it's probably the opposite.
You know, it's when they do kind of
depend on it, maybe it
gives them the impetus to
double down.
I don't know, but it's just an
interesting idea that like
when art and money intersect,
it complicates it.
(07:10):
I don't know how you feel about that.
I feel like that could
be a whole nother episode.
But let's talk about that.
I think that's brilliant.
I found that to be the case for myself.
This woman just put it so brilliantly.
She's in computer,
she's in the tech world.
She basically said people don't realize
(07:33):
in the tech world
where everyone's trying to
create the next Facebook or the next
Uber, all those people
who are working tirelessly
to launch that business, their income is
coming from a different thing.
Their income is coming from something
that's not sexy, no one
(07:53):
knows and probably anonymous,
but their heart and their passion is
developing the next Facebook and Uber.
What she said, and it hit me right
between the eyes because I
was like, this is exactly
what actors need to know.
She basically said, Silicon Valley had no
problem making a
distinction between income
(08:16):
and I forget what the word she used, but
let's just use your passion.
They make a distinction between your
income and your passion.
If you can separate those
two, that's your superpower.
They are unstoppable because they had no
problem working on their Facebook.
(08:36):
Their income was coming from a crappy job
that made them a lot of
money, but they didn't
care about.
They didn't have any
conflicted feelings about that.
Guess what?
Actors, we have trouble
separating income and our passion.
It's a big surprise that actors feel a
(08:57):
lot more than Silicon Valley.
The point is, if we could control that,
if we could make our
money completely separate
from our passion and have no problem with
that, we would be unstoppable.
Our nine to five job that makes us money
and gets us comfortable
every month, we can make
(09:18):
that.
We feel no shame about it and we can
devote all our time and
our heart to our passion.
If we were able to do that, if we were
able to conquer that,
we'd be unstoppable.
There's a couple of
things that play into that.
I think one of them is self-esteem.
A lot of actors feel like if I'm not
making my living from
acting, I'm not an actor.
(09:38):
The other practical consideration is time
and the amount of energy you have.
Depending on the job you
work, you need it to be flexible.
If it's a part-time job or a survival
job, you need it to be
flexible because you need
to be able to drop it and pick it up as
needs be to take jobs, to do auditions.
I've been on both sides of it.
(09:59):
I currently don't have another job.
You know what I mean?
I'm currently just making my living from
acting, but I don't
know what the future holds.
For me, that's the mental battle of not
letting fear creep
into what I do creatively.
It's a tightrope.
It's a tightrope to walk because not
(10:20):
knowing where your next
paycheck is coming from is
tricky.
Right.
I just want to be
clear with what I'm saying.
I'm just saying to emotionally try to
remove ourselves from
the stigma or the shame of
needing a side job.
I just want to make
sure that that's clear.
No, I agree with that.
The stigma and the shame, but that's a
big thing for a lot of actors.
(10:41):
I think it can be reinforced by how
people react when you say
you're an actor, especially
if they see you in a work environment.
If it's at your side job.
When I was bartending, I would try not to
tell people I was an actor.
You know what I mean?
Because I didn't want to
invite the conversation.
If it came up, of course I would talk
(11:02):
about it, but I would never lead with it.
You know what I mean?
I would never be like,
"Well, I'm actually an actor."
Because to me, that seems like that was
rooted in low self-esteem.
I know I'm doing this, but
I'm actually something else.
You know what I mean?
To touch on something that's
really, really interesting.
I think you're a perfect example because
you have such a strong mindset.
(11:23):
You didn't just move out to LA or just
act five months ago.
You and me are both in the privileged
position of being in the game for a bit.
We've seen the highs and the lows.
We survived.
We've had side jobs.
We have dead-end jobs.
As positive and optimistic as you are,
you admit that it's
actually difficult to make
(11:44):
that emotional disconnection between your
income and your passion.
I don't know.
For me, it changed over time.
The work that I put into mindset and
stuff is now starting
to pay dividends now.
For a long time, I was
insecure about a lot of things.
I was insecure about the fact that I
(12:04):
never went to a full-time drama school.
I started to work and
did classes at night.
I was also in college.
I felt a shame with that for a while.
There's a lot of things that were so
unnecessary and were a
hindrance to my progress, but I
had to figure that out along the way.
(12:25):
I completely agree.
I was very similar, to be honest.
You say you figured it out.
Was there anything
concrete that you worked through?
When I say I figured it out, I don't
think I completely
figured it out, but I certainly
found a way to be...
(12:52):
Instead of seeing the lack of something,
I started to just feel
the joy of it, or the
abundance of it, without
trying to sound too wanky about it.
I focused on...
(13:13):
What happened and a funny thing happen
then it the job started to the acting
work started to really.
Kind of interfere with the job that i had
been doing in a very real way what
happened when i started to do the mindset
work was the acting
work i started to get.
Would take me away from the job for
longer it was harder and
harder for me to hold on to that.
So then it became a sort of a leap of
(13:34):
faith thing right now to go okay well if
i can keep this job i have to let this.
That's kind of like
what I was getting at.
I mean, this isn't going that far back,
because obviously this is the time
that we've known each other,
and then also the work that at the studio
when we met at Leslie Khan.
(13:55):
So this is actually fairly
recent to make that shift.
You're putting the work,
I don't wanna gloss over that,
because I think that's kind of like,
this is really great for me to hear,
but this is possibly
what a lot of other people
are trying to figure out for themselves.
It just so happens that
we're going to holidays.
It just so happens that it
can be a very dreary time
for a lot of actors.
This is what most of us have experienced.
(14:17):
Do you thrive on it?
Does it destroy you?
Where's your self-esteem fall?
And then hopefully
after years of grinding
and putting in work,
can we actually get in control of it?
I don't know if this
was ever gonna pop up,
but it just happened to be,
I was in my family's house,
and I had flashbacks of me growing up.
It was easier dealing with my family
(14:38):
when I was across the country.
I'm not gonna lie.
But I remember years back,
really early on in the game,
my sister said to me,
and I told you, my
dad came around, right?
He really wanted me to
go to a math grad school.
My sister literally said to me, she goes,
(15:00):
"Hey, I think dad's kind of embarrassed
to tell people you're an actor,
who I'm not even joking around."
Here's the thing, my
sister was watching out for me,
and I think she wanted to
watch out for me and protect me,
but also let me know.
This is the brilliance of
(15:20):
being incredibly stubborn
or just completely oblivious.
It had very little effect on me.
I had blinders.
It didn't matter.
I was working at Urban Outfitters.
I don't even know where I was working.
I was able to make
that emotional disconnect
between income and passion,
(15:40):
and whether it was dumb
luck or I was just stupid,
I was able to have those blinders on
and get through to the years
where we could grow up and mature
and be in a little more
control of our mindset
and leave it a little more positive.
Yeah, and I love that.
And I think a friend of
ours, someone who knows,
I'll put it beautifully,
(16:02):
when he's talked about waiting for the
job to come save him,
like waiting for that big role,
that series regular role, too.
(16:42):
No, I was listening to an interview, um,
of one of the Daily Show
hosts and she was talking
about Desi Lydic and she talked about how
she was, she got, she
was always lived her
life by like, I can't go on vacation
because I have to wait
and see the job might need
me.
And then she got pregnant.
She had auditioned for the Daily Show.
And then I think she'd auditioned a few
(17:03):
times and then, but then
she got pregnant and she
was like, you know
what, fuck it, whatever.
You know what I mean?
This is just how it's going to be.
And if they need me, they need me.
And she called her and she got the job
and she's like flew to
New York and she talked
to one of the producers and she's like,
um, just, you know, I'm, I'm pregnant.
But she was like, yep, cool.
Whatever, you know, but it was when she
let go of like, because I.
(18:17):
Alex is everything a little bit better.
I love that.
Just one thing because
I just realized this.
So for those tracking,
because my mind is
blown from this conversation
because I realized that
me and a lot of the stories
that we're talking about
are on polar sides of this.
(18:37):
Me having those
blinders on for so many years
helped me in so many ways.
But I realized having those blinders on
was the reason I was sitting around
waiting for so many years.
So for all those years, I realized,
because that ties
into a little bit about,
a handful of episodes back,
(18:58):
we talk about, we had a
few moments in our lives
that were life changing and I
decided to create more stuff
and get on YouTube and all that stuff.
I realized I had blinders on for years.
And that's what was
stopping me from creating stuff
and putting it on YouTube
and doing all that thing.
Because I was so keyed in
on, this is how I look at life.
I don't, this is what I
(19:19):
need, this is what I believe.
And I was so resistant to the forces
in the outside around me
that it was protecting me emotionally,
but I realized I was
missing a lot of things.
And so to put it on perspectives,
I needed to open up more.
Some people can protect
themselves a little bit more,
but either way, there's a spectrum here.
(19:39):
And I'm just, I think
that's what I learned after,
recently from these conversations.
That's, yeah, that's really interesting.
There's a phrase in Yale
here sometimes in recovery
where people say,
"I'm living a life
beyond my wildest dreams."
And when I was early on
in sobriety or whatever,
(20:02):
they used to drive me crazy.
Cause I was like, "What?
"You obviously just
don't have big dreams, Park,
"cause I've got these big dreams."
But I kind of understand it now
because like how I...
(20:40):
And I think that feels the kind of, that
feels the transition
away from feeling like the
part-time job is
dragging you down and you know.
(21:07):
while also holding down a part-time job
or sometimes a
full-time job that involves long
hours and shift work and trying to juggle
things. A lot of people have families and
kids and there are all these
considerations that go into
this thing. So it's such it's
so disingenuous to talk about, you know,
that kind of idea of
like actors being sort of
(21:28):
losers, the broke actor all waiting to
make and what have I
seen in that kind of ship
where you're like, you don't understand
what kind of tenacity
and what kind of heart it
takes to just stay in it.
I do feel like it's easy for other people
to criticize because
you were chasing after
a dream and they wish they could. If you
see comments on
YouTube, if you see comments on
(21:49):
Instagram, those are people at home
clicking away trying to
yeah, exactly. Something that
we often say is, is ride the horse in the
direction that it's going in and you kind
of have to be open to those, those signs.
And I think, yeah, go ahead.
Yeah, I'm agreeing. I think and I
(22:11):
probably lean into those
more than a lot of people
would. You know what I mean?
I.
For me, when I start to get in trouble is
when I start to sort of circumvent those
signs with with me thinking overthinking
it and applying logic to it because it
doesn't always logic doesn't
always work out well for me.
I don't know about you.
(22:32):
What about you?
Like, what's your how
do you make decisions?
Let me put the first decision you ever
made and then just go for it from there.
It's funny because it didn't hit me until
we were talking about last week.
Um, my whole last year was I basically
flipped the way I thought about acting,
(22:54):
internet, social media,
and my role as an actor.
I completely changed my mind last year.
Oh, I don't think I knew this.
I know exactly.
So kind of blew my mind.
So when we were talking about this idea
of identity as an actor and you had an
identity that maybe, you know, you want,
you're an actor in LA.
People were telling me, you know what?
Honestly, I think you should go on
(23:14):
YouTube, do something on YouTube.
Yeah.
So for all those years,
didn't think about it once.
I had one friend who I thought was, oh, I
incredibly value her opinion.
Um, highly intelligent.
I'm talking about like grad school at
UPenn, grad, you know, Ivy
league and all that stuff.
Worked at Google for years.
Yeah.
Um, she was a YouTube freak winner and I
(23:37):
was like quietly like,
you watch YouTube really?
Right.
Uh, so judgey.
I can only imagine you're telling me.
But I'm like, oh, you watch YouTube and I
just hold my tongue.
You too.
She goes, you have no
idea the depths of YouTube.
There's a range of everything.
There are a billion people on YouTube.
There are also silly imbeciles on
(23:58):
YouTube, but she goes,
YouTube is the future.
This is where the
youth are going to learn.
Uh, you really?
And she goes, I think
you should be on YouTube.
I think you have something to say and I
think people might want to hear it.
Not even watch.
I didn't even casually watch YouTube.
Yeah.
That moment the next
(24:18):
week, it changed my life.
Wow.
Literally started researching YouTube.
So I'll show you what
she was talking about.
By the way, I also
had experience editing.
I was editing things for years before
that I had all the skills to do it.
I just didn't want to do it.
I was also kind of scared.
The next month was the Superbowl.
I went to the Superbowl.
I documented everything and I made that I
(24:38):
made that into a V-glog.
And that was the first moment where I was
officially on YouTube
and it changed my life.
So it all just kind of snowballed from
there because I started
making videos for YouTube.
No one was really paying attention, but
it was fine because I was experimenting.
I figured I might as well throw them on
Instagram and social media because I was
making them anyway, the strike happened.
People started watching them and I was
(24:59):
pleasantly surprised.
And then someone asked me to host a
Hollywood live event.
And I'm like, I'm not a host.
I'm an actor, but I did it anyway.
Because I didn't have
any good reason not to.
And here we are hosting a podcast.
Never would have
considered a podcast two years ago.
(25:21):
Absolutely never.
And I'm completely indebted to my friend.
And my point is, is I was so stubborn.
Um, I, I needed one push over the edge
and it was also like
resentment as far as like,
Oh, well, what else am I doing?
That's so important that I
can't explore this, right?
It just, it just hit
me at the right time.
(25:42):
What was it about?
What was the judgment?
The idea of content creators or what have
you or YouTubers
versus actors, actors were
trained to act.
YouTubers were mostly personalities that
were producing content
and it also just happened.
They were becoming more
(26:03):
famous than all of us.
And so 100% I was resentful.
I didn't want to address it.
I didn't want to think about it.
After all these years, YouTube is
completely changing the world.
By the way, it's like I think it's number
two for streaming besides Netflix.
I buy it.
I look at YouTube all the
(26:24):
time now and I didn't used to.
My thing was like I thought
people only did one thing.
You know what I mean?
When I'd look at successful actors, I'd
go, oh, they're just actors.
As I've aged and as I've seen more and
more people do a
million things, even the most
successful, in fact, the most successful
people are more likely
to do a million things
because they diversify and they're
(26:45):
involved in this and
they're involved in that.
So I'm going to write books and they.
He's directed movies,
he's directed TV, but he's
Exactly. There you go. But he's just he
writes and he does
all these other things.
(27:06):
And they like they're curious and like,
so I've expanded my
narrow focus on that too.
Because I used to think, oh yeah, you
just do the one thing.
Exactly.
And anything, anything, anything is a
deviation from that is a
kind of a betrayal of the,
of your goal.
Exactly.
That's brilliant.
I didn't really know that.
And by YouTube, do you mean specifically
(27:27):
YouTube or do you mean all
forms of like short, like
social media?
Does that apply to social media for you?
Like, yeah, it's all kind
of lumped in the same thing.
A lot of most actors aren't
excited about social media.
Yeah.
The irony is, is we chose a profession to
be in front of the camera,
yet we feel uncomfortable
expressing ourselves.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I kind of had
(27:48):
to get over that too.
And I was like, honestly, there's so many
things going out
there where it's like, do
people really care?
It's like, no one's focused on you.
Yeah.
And that's the thing about judgment.
You know, when people say no one's
judging, everybody's
judging you all the time.
That's what people do.
I judge.
That's how we relate to the world.
We judge it.
That's the secret.
Yeah, that's a good point.
(28:11):
And how much do we do we over value it
more than it needs to be totally yeah
it's it's it's overpowering sometimes.
One thing just the icing on the cake, I
also haven't drank in six months.
Incredible.
Obviously, that might come up later in
conversation about these things.
I know you've mentioned that, but I
wasn't sure where you're at.
(28:33):
one of those things where it's like,
hey, I'm busy enjoying
the things that I'm doing.
How about I just keep
doing it and say clear headed
while I'm at it?
Yeah, I mean, look, obviously I can test.
I've been sober now 13 years and--
That's amazing. It's my life.
You know, absolutely.
Um, and I would have loved to have heard
(28:54):
your, I've seen your face when you were
like, Oh, YouTube, you watch YouTube.
It reminds me of years and years ago in
Dublin on Talbot Street in Dublin.
I was in a shop and there was a guy there
with his girlfriend and he had a kind of
a long black coat and a scarf like thrown
about, you know, over his neck and his
girlfriend or wife, but I think
girlfriend like was buying chocolate.
(29:15):
Hey, you gave her the
most disapproving look.
He just goes, Oh, chocolate.
She, she.
chocolate she she had
or something like that and he just
thought it was pet man
and he's like, that just made it for me.
(29:36):
I was like, there you go dude.
Wow.
Judgey.
Sure.
But I was thinking because I, in Ireland
at the moment, there's a number of, um,
young, I say young cause they're younger
than me, but like, they're probably in
their thirties, actors, uh, who do, who
(29:57):
just do, I knew them first from like
doing sort of front facing camera
sketches, but now
they're all starting to work.
Now they're all starting to work on TV.
I've seen them pop up in shows, but I've
admired their content for a long time.
And I follow a bunch of them, like, uh,
to shout them out in case they ever,
you know, come across this, but it's like
Peter McGahn, John Doran, Tony
(30:18):
Cantrell, all of these guys, and I'm
Amalie, so I worked with on a short
film and a pile of mine.
And, uh, I got, I, when I was home, I did
a sketch with a friend of mine, Paul,
and, and, um, John Doran, one of these
guys, I was, this is so embarrassing.
I already knew this go through like how
(30:38):
many sketches and I was so...
That's amazing.
You know, I think that
brings up a great point,
but I remember a long time ago,
a friend who watched
more YouTube than I did,
and I kinda, not
surprisingly, I kinda judged him.
(30:59):
(laughs) So he said all these
YouTube people that was like,
"Oh God, yeah, whatever."
And he told me years ago, he goes,
"Well, I feel like
fame is different now."
It's-
Yeah, it's like the
democratization of fame.
Exactly, that had to
be six, seven years ago.
And now look at where we are.
I have to eat grow
(31:19):
because I was like, "Wow."
He was right.
You're right, I
hadn't thought about that,
but the nature of fame has changed.
You remember like,
first concert I ever
saw was Michael Jackson.
Oh wow, that's a good way to start out.
Yeah, I was 10 years old,
it was 1992, I think in,
92 or 94, I think it was 92.
I think it was 10 years old,
it was in Lansdowne Road in Dublin.
And I begged my parents to let me go,
(31:39):
"Michael Jackson and Madonna,
these people at that time were megastars.
They were untouchable.
There was a mistake about them
that I don't think there
is a bear on anyone anymore
because it's-
Michael Moynihan.
in the world in ter-
(32:08):
Oh, 100%. We can have another podcast
about that for sure.
Not only is it all spread around, just
imagine how many
influencers on TikTok and Instagram
that have a bajillion
followers that you never heard of.
Not only has fame spread around, it's
going to quickly shorten
where everyone's fame went from
(32:31):
15 minutes to three. It's going to live
and die much quicker than it used to be.
So I think the main point of what I
realized and learned,
being able to change your mind
despite how resistant we are, whether
it's fear, fear of change or the unknown,
(32:53):
I think that's what I just got rid of.
And at this point, I'm
looking for the other things
that I can change my mind. I think it's
incredible that like,
somebody said something to you that
changed your worldview.
of my life have been entirely different
from any other year before that.
Wow.
And that began for me with, among other
(33:14):
things, with a breakup of a relationship
and just, and it's not a comment on the
relationship at all,
but like that breakup
just changed something in me along with a
lot of other things I had
started with Leslie Kahn
and her class and stuff.
(33:39):
for the gift to me and go.
And the universe spoke
and then you received.
Oh my god, what a
different way of living.
And I've had the most amazing two years.
It's been ups and downs and
whatever, but it's been amazing.
That's awesome.
I've worked a lot more and I'm enjoying
the work a lot more.
(34:01):
That's amazing.
Exactly. But it's...
You know, that's a mezcal.
And I'm not preaching this
(34:22):
from a perch of, you know,
no, you're preaching from experience.
I agree.
I like living this way a lot more and I
like this version of me a lot more.
So that's amazing. Yeah. Well, that's a
great place to to pin it there. Yeah.
Well, that's our show.
Everyone. Hope you enjoyed it. If you get
a chance, please leave
(34:42):
a review, leave a like,
maybe even subscribe. It really helps the
podcast. And as always,
we're wherever you find your
podcast. We're on YouTube. We're on sub
stack. We're on all social media at
Actors Guide podcast.
See you next week.
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