February 5, 2025 • 31 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, my name is Matthew Carroll.
I am a actor, writer, director,producer.
I got to do it all.
I'm super excited to be a partof NOLA film scene and, yeah, I
can't wait to get this started.
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
So, Matt, thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me
man, I'm excited yeah man, ofcourse.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
buddy.
Hey look, I couldn't believeyou guys asked me to do this.
I'm honored to be a part ofthis.
I felt like it's a long timecoming, so I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, thanks to you.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
We've had some really fun projects in the past year
and I can't wait to tear intosome of those and see where it
goes.
Hopefully, all good places,fingers crossed.
Let's start with yourbeginnings.
How'd you get into the industry?
What inspired you?
Just a brief history.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So I started off when I was 12 years old.
I kind of fell into theindustry.
I started doing educationalvideos for a company down here
in New Orleans called Cinderstar.
I became one of their like toppeople and I do all their
educational videos aboutbullying and like God and all
those things.
And then after that I reallydelved into it pretty deep when
(01:13):
I went to college and I ended upgetting into NOCA.
So I went my senior year ofNOCA I went to the Unified
Professional Auditions inChicago.
I auditioned for 13 schools inthree days and got accepted to
10 of them.
Wow, I ended up not being ableto go to them because they were
40 grand a year and I justcouldn't swing it.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
My parents, weren't rich, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Guy had hit by a car and passedaway.
And because that happened Iended up coming back to New
Orleans and I ran into my oldmanager and agent.
They ended up putting me outthere again and I started
booking all these Disney movies.
And so I started doing theseDisney movies one after the
other and it was right therearound 2004, 2005.
(02:00):
And then after I did all that,I was feeling really good about
myself and everything you know,with my friends passing kind of
the grief I've gone.
I went through the grief andthen I was ready to go back to
school.
So I went back to school andover the summer I auditioned for
a film and I ended up gettingthe lead in it and then that
ended up pushing me out to LosAngeles and then I fell into
(02:21):
producing.
Just happenstance, I wasactually in a Carl's Jr when it
happened.
I moved out there and a friendhad this project I think it was
called Spirit Lake and I wentthere to audition and the guy
was like, well, let's see whatyou got.
And I was like man, we're in aCarl's Jr.
Like what do you mean?
Let's see what you got.
And he was like here's thescene.
And it was like my friend dyingin my arms and I was like, um,
(02:43):
and, mind you, I'm like 21, 22at the time.
And I was like, uh, all right.
So like I grabbed the script, Isaid give me like a couple of
minutes.
He gave me a few minutes.
I learned it immediately.
I said, okay, I'm ready.
He's like all right, wheneveryou're ready.
And he was like eating hisburger, right, and?
And I'm like crying and Carl'sJr, and I'm holding my friend
and I'm shaking and I'm doingall this stuff.
(03:05):
And then I finished and I'mthere and he goes that was
pretty good, man, you got somechops, you got the part.
I said, oh man, great.
And then right after that hegot an email saying that the fun
that they were in, which waslike this slush fun, from like
an edge company it all fellapart and I was like, oh, so the
part that I just got is nolonger available.
He's like no, no, it'savailable, it's available.
(03:31):
And I said, ok, so that's how Ifell into producing, because my
friend was on American Idol,and so I called him and I said,
hey, I'm looking for a producerthat's interested in doing
something like this.
He's like I got the perfect guyfor you.
So I'm driving down to VenturaBoulevard to go meet this guy
Right and pitch him on all theseideas.
Because he's like oh, let'shear what you got.
So I'm driving Right, I'mdriving down there, and as I'm
driving down there, I get thephone call from the director,
(03:52):
producer, whatever, of theSpirit Lake, and he's like I
don't want my movie in thatslate.
And I'm like well, this is thereason I'm going down here, you
don't want the movie.
And he's like no, no, I don'twant to mess up the slush fund
that we're in.
I'm like I don't, what do I do?
I'm already driving to VenturaBoulevard.
He's like, oh no, you'll figuresomething out.
I'm like, okay, so I calleverybody.
(04:13):
I know that wrote scripts and Iended up finding a script called
no Town from this guy named MaxTaylor that I met out there.
We ended up getting thatproduced and we were in the
throes of making it in Shanghaiand everything was going great.
And then we couldn't getsomebody to sign away the rights
.
We ended up not not doing thefilm.
Oh wow.
And then I ended up back inLouisiana and making my own
(04:35):
stuff and you ended up at acertain coffee shop.
Yeah, yeah, I did, and we satdown and we talked about this
soldier's heart.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yeah, what had happened, folks, is Matt and his
team had gone on social mediaasking if actors want to be a
part of a movie, and that wasNovember of 23.
A lot of us put in.
We got the email, we sent inour resumes and our headshots
and our reels and then we didn'thear anything.
So on my side I thought, ok, itjust fell apart you.
So on my side I thought, okay,it just fell apart, you can't
worry about it, you can't live.
You know, end of January,matt's like, hey, we got
(05:06):
pre-production done, want tomeet at coffee shop and talk?
Cool.
And for me, because I work sevendays a week cleaning a bar,
people are like hey, you want togo party?
Hey, you want to go this?
I don't really want to.
I'm a my fifties.
And we sat down, we startedtalking and you go, you're in
(05:29):
your fifties, but you don't comeacross like you're in your
fifties.
So you can't do the sheriff.
I said, okay, but I want you tobe the OBGYN.
I said I can get all up in thatrole and then, he and I started
talking.
Man, I started talking, well,I'd like to get this actor.
So I know, jeremy london okay,let me give, because he was one
(05:50):
of my teachers oh, that guy jimbleeson and billy slaughter, a
couple more of my teachers tj,we got.
You know, we were just throwingout names and then I talked to
hick sheremy and he's like, yeah, I talked to matt and you know
I thought he was gonna dosomething for me and he he
didn't have a role for me Nevercontacted me and you had told me
you wanted him in.
So I was like hold on.
So in that way, that was kindof my first job producing after
being at a restaurant, whoa yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
The idea behind that was, when I met you, you looked
way younger.
In my head the sheriff was morean older fella, more graying,
more Grizzled yeah, sam Elliotttype, right.
And you didn't strike me as SamElliott and I was like, ah no.
And I was like, but you knowwhat you could be the OBGYN.
(06:34):
I was like that could easily bea role that you can fit.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I was like okay, yeah .
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And I was on the fence about that because I was
like man.
I don't know if a lady wouldwant to go to a man with a beard
.
That's an OBGYN and have himlike you know, and I was like,
ah, that might be a little much.
But then I was like, no, it'sfine.
There's men OBGYN all over theplace and I was like I don't be
okay.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Hey, people like me, I'm comforting.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And I wasn't going to be like hi, I'm your doctor.
And then everybody else.
It was all about putting thepieces together.
It just kind of all fell intoplace and it was crazy.
Because I wanted Hick but Ididn't know what I wanted Hick
for and I knew I had a scenewhere there were all these
veterans and I wanted peoplethat look like veterans.
Right, I felt like he could doa role where, like, the camera
(07:23):
was coming in.
I saw the image.
I didn't really have the sceneyet, I didn't have anything.
I saw the image and I was like,okay, this is what we're going
to do.
And I wrote a monologue in fiveminutes.
I was like this is what you'regoing to say.
He read it.
He was like I love it.
I was like I just wrote it.
I was actually in the tubwriting, but I wrote it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
TMI, I know.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
TMI Five minutes.
I mean we saw your expeditiouswriting at work when we did the
48.
We sat down, we were all justkind of having a little sidebar
conversation and boom, you hadthe script.
I'm like wow.
I mean I don't think I couldhave thought of an entire script
that fast, much less type itout and have it roles assigned
and figured out.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It was a lot about.
When I drove from the placewhere we got the information to
when we got to Jana's place, Iknew kind of a rough idea of the
direction I wanted to go in andI just needed to see if
everybody else was on board.
If not, I could have switchedand went in a different way.
But when it came to you know,me throwing my idea out,
(08:24):
everybody was like oh yeah, Ilove it.
I was like okay.
Well then I guess I'll startwriting it and as as soon as I
started writing.
It was just, it was just rollingout as far as like the story
itself.
It was like, okay, well, weneed coffee, we'll have them
steal coffee, so that he lookslike the hero that brings cough.
And then I was like, okay, whatelse do we need in the scene?
Because she had to have thecoffee mug.
(08:44):
And then we had to have thescene where you said, um, oh,
what was?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
it.
Uh, the line was how did youfind it that we had to find it?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
yeah, yeah, yeah I knew something needed to be
missing, and then jake magicallybrings it into existence, you
know.
So we needed to make him thehero, and I thought it would.
The coolest part was that thatJake didn't even work there.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
He was the mail worker.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And you guys hated my character so much that the mail
worker was the guy that youknow like, all right, look,
we're going to make this dudelook like a hero and I felt like
that was, you know, hilarious.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It was yeah, yeah, agreed.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
And you had the same.
A similar writing explosion forthe seven and seven competition
.
Yeah, similar but different.
A similar writing explosion forthe 7 and 7 competition.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, similar but different.
I didn't really know where thestory was going for that.
When I wrote it I knew I wantedto have a gunfight.
I knew I wanted to have the twobrothers.
That was kind of an homage toAppaloosa.
Have you ever seen that film?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I have not.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So it's fantastic.
It's Viggo Mortensen and oh,who's the other gentleman?
It's a great film, mortensen,and oh, who's the other
gentleman?
It's a great film.
And what happens is they meetthe Cross brothers and the Cross
brothers come into town andthey're like real cordial and
smiling and he's like watch outfor them, they're good, he's
like as good as us.
He's like, yeah, just about.
So we know that those dudes aresome bad dudes and that's the
(09:59):
two brothers that I wanted tobring to the screen.
I was like, ok, so that's anhomage to that.
And then I wanted the sheriffto be this bumbling catalyst
that ended up at the end withthe money.
And everybody was like lookingevery way in the sheriff's, like
, oh, running away with themoney.
And then all the other stuffkind of fell into place with,
like, the tooth and all that,because that was part of what we
(10:22):
had to have had to have atoothbrush, yeah, and I had to
justify why, on camera, youshowing a toothbrush.
So I was like, okay, we'll giveyou an abscess.
And so the abscess now travelsthroughout the story and you
constantly bring this toothbrushout and people like, oh, he's
dealing with his abscess againyeah.
So yeah, ed harris and jeremyirons okay yeah, whether it were
(10:43):
two of the guys in that.
Wow, yeah, I had to pull it upbecause it was so yeah, ed
Harris and Jeremy Irons.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Two of the guys in that, wow, yeah, I had to pull
it up because it was killing me.
I couldn't remember, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Jeremy Irons was the main bad guy, but the two cross
brothers was the guy.
I want to say.
It was the guy from aliens andsome other guy, michael Bean.
No, I don't think it wasMichael Bean, timothy Murphy,
possibly.
Was he an alien?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
To me Timothy Murphy kind of looks like Ed Harris,
just a little younger.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Okay, is the guy in Aliens an older guy you're
thinking of?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I thought it was Lance Hendrickson.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Lance Hendrickson.
Is that who?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
it is.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
No, I think it's Timothy Murphy.
He kind of resembles, he kindof resembles that.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
That archetypal character.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, a lot of this will be cut out the podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
No no worries Sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
No, it's all, I mean it's all film related, right, I
mean yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Cool, I'll just cut out me saying it'll be cut out,
or I'll leave that in.
I don't know, we shall see.
So what you have demonstratedto us is that under pressure,
your creativity can thrive andyou can come up with a story.
And I say it like that, folks,because in the 48 hour
competition you find out onFriday what you have to do and
have to have in the movie.
You write it Friday night, filmit Saturday, edit it on Sunday,
(11:55):
turn it in on Sunday, and we'veseen others.
There are people did greatstuff too, but some people they
didn't understand the part aboutstory or couldn't get it done,
not even talking about technicalproblems.
That happened that weekend.
So where do you think yourunderstanding of story came from
?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I think it's actually the first time I started
writing.
Yeah, I started writing when,like, I sat down at a computer
I've never written anything aday in my life, right and I said
I want to start writing.
So I started writing.
Hey, how are you?
Oh, you seem like you're okay.
(12:32):
What's going on?
Is something bothering you?
Well, I went to a party lastnight and I started writing this
random script about a girlthat's sitting in her bedroom
and her mom walks through thedoor and you find out that she's
afraid that she might have gonetoo far with a boy in that
situation.
Right, and all it was, was froma hey, how are you?
Situation like that.
That was what I wrote and thatwas the very first thing.
And then I decided to write amonologue and I wrote a
(12:55):
monologue.
I watched Patch Adams and Ireally felt like Patch Adams was
this great film.
So I wrote this monologue aboutthis character, you know, given
Patch Adams as flowers, so tospeak.
And those were the first twothings and I believe that that
helped me realize that, justbecause the story starts
somewhere, it can always gosomewhere.
And at one point, when she wastalking to her, I was like well,
(13:18):
aliens can come in now andbreak through the ceiling and we
can go in so many differentdirections.
And I was like, if I keep it onthis linear path, it's more
interesting than this.
You know, absurdity where, likerhinoceros, where the rhinos
come through the wall and you'relike what was that?
But yeah those Ionesco plays,like that was the thing in that
(13:39):
time.
They wanted to try all thesethings.
And I get it, because in theseven and seven I almost had
like this Native American womanthat kept popping up in your
visions and I don't know why.
But I told, I told that toBoots and he was like I don't
think we need to do that.
I was like, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And if I can pause you, that's JB Boots.
That's his nickname.
You weren't just talking tocowboy boots sitting on the
shelf.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, sigler, jonathan Sigler.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Oh, I'm sorry, my bad .
I told him.
I said, oh man, it'd be reallycool if every now and again you
get this image of this lady inlike a red, like a red
background, and she's likewalking out and like I don't
know if we should do that inseven minutes.
He's like I think we shouldjust kind of stick to the story
(14:29):
itself and I was like, okay, allright, that makes sense but for
the feature exactly, and Ithink for the feature, it could
be a ghost, maybe, or it couldbe his wife.
It could be, you know, is it thesheriff's wife?
Well, so it was originally thesheriff's image, but now that
we're talking about the featureitself, I think it could be the
(14:50):
boxer's wife, or it could besomething to do with like an old
proverb or something, orsomething that the sheriff owes
money to, or something'shaunting him.
We could figure that out out.
It could be a curse, or itcould be a premonition, or it
could just be somebodyprotecting more, like an angel.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, I thought it was the sheriff.
It's the guilt of his wife,either losing his wife or her
leaving because he's such a goof.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Someone he failed to save because he was afraid.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Afraid to take action .
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Because we have to keep in mind that it's that time
period where guys were like,hey, and I'm supposed to be out
here being a lawman, you know,and it's like, okay, that's that
time period.
So we have to make sure we stayin that.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, I mean, that was the culture back then.
That's just how it was.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, that's what they were allowed to do, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Expected to do Exactly Expected.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So we don't really know what the feelings were,
because it was an everyday thing, you know.
Like it was like oh, this iswhat I got to do today.
And even like in farms andstuff and I'm not from a farm,
I'm from the city, I grew up inMarrero but like farms and stuff
, they have to wake up everymorning and they have the cows
and then they have to plow theland and all these things, but
(16:06):
they're used to that.
They're just like, ok, 3 am inthe morning, time to go milk
some cows.
It's like, wait, what, like youknow city life?
It's like 3 am in the morningI'm sleeping.
Yep, yeah, sorry, that was atangent.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I think you see the pitfalls of what could be I
don't want to say dangerous, butyou have to be cognizant of.
I don't have that experience,even if you were writing farm
life.
Neither one of us have been ona farm, so we would have to
investigate, talk to people onthe farm and learn that to
authentically represent thatlife.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
A hundred percent.
If you notice everything that Iwrite, I do my history, I do my
research because, like, I'venever had PTSD, I've never been
a soldier, I've never been youknow anywhere.
I've been in the States.
I haven't really traveled much,but I looked up all of these
things and I read tons ofarticles and, like I watched a
(17:00):
tons of video.
There were so many things thatI didn't know, Like I didn't
realize that the hero coin thatwe pass throughout the story, I
didn't realize that was a realthing.
I in my head was like we need acatalyst that makes this
interesting and I was like ha ha.
And then I found out it wasactually a thing that happens
(17:20):
and I was like, oh wow, that'spretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And your research, did you get the story of how it
started the hero?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
coin.
No, I didn't find out how itstarted.
Do you know how it started, mm?
Hmm?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Aha, do tell so.
Challenge coins is a thing, andkind of the loose rule is you
carry your challenge coin andyou can you challenge somebody
else that has a coin and whoeverhas the highest coin gets the
other one, in other words, thehigh a coin that they got from
the highest ranking person.
The way it started, they hadbuttons on their uniforms and
(17:54):
they carried these coins toidentify themselves.
There's variations of the story, but from what I remember, it
was paratroopers and they werebehind enemy lines and they
would have it started with abutton from their uniform that
they could confirm who they were.
And it grew into a thing thatunits developed these challenge
coins that's where it startedwas from the article from their
(18:17):
uniform to identify that theywere in fact a US soldier.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
That's pretty cool.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
So if you buy unit challenge coins, a lot of them
will actually come with a littlecard and it kind of explains
the history.
It's been a little bit sinceI've read the history, but
that's the gist of it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I talked to my buddy and he received one from his
commanding officer through aseries of things, and I was like
, oh, this really is an actualthing.
And then I looked it up and Isaw that it's not only in this
branch, it's in multiplebranches.
It's just called somethingdifferent, but it's the same
idea.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
A challenge coin is typically what it's called.
So say, we were out togetherand I had a challenge coin from
my skipper and he's an 06 andyour skipper is an 05 and we
challenged.
Technically my coin would win.
People don't really like ifyou're carrying one that you
earned.
I mean I'm not going to put oneup that I got from my skipper,
(19:13):
but you buy the other guy.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
A dream is kind of what it comes down to.
I was sitting there like man.
I wouldn't want to lose mychallenge coin, especially if I
had earned it first.
I was like I'm not playing thatgame.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
When the unit orders them, you can buy and have a
stack of them and usually if yougo to a school or you know you
have a gathering of people fromdifferent units together.
People exchange challenge coinsand they actually they get kind
of heavy to travel with whenyou have a sack full of these
coins, cause some of them arepretty hefty.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
You had a sack full of them.
Yours always won out, you hadlike the number one no no, no,
no.
You were like all right, let'ssee who's going to beat me this
time.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
No, no, no.
I mean like whenever I would goto a school I would take a
handful of them with me, becauseusually people were exchanging
coins from their units.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I don't mean that I won like I challenged people and
won their coins.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Bring it.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Would that be a picture like Santa with
challenge coins in his sack?
You get a coin, and you get acoin, and you get a coin.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I just had this picture of David Harbour.
What was the Santa movie wherehe was the Violent Knight?
Violent Knight, that's a goodone.
I just had a picture, an imageof David Harbour smacking
somebody with a sack full ofchallenge coins.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I was thinking when we did Soldier's Heart and I was
going to be the OBGYN but theER surgeon backed out that day.
So I got a promotion and thelady who came with me, who had
given me scrubs, she became theOBGYN.
So we were just giving outrules, but you were able to help
me ground myself in that role.
You know, I just did somethingrecently.
I've seen some clips and Ithought I was cool and collected
(20:45):
and when I see it I'm like, ohGod, I'm so stiff.
You know what I mean.
So the dance between a directorand an actor becomes more
apparent with each role I get.
What are your views?
How do you draw the bestperformance out of your actors?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
So my big thing is as an actor, I know I do research
on the character, on what theirbackground is and all these
things, so I know that I'mcoming to the table with
something right.
So the first take that I'mgoing to do from the director's
side, I'm going to see what theactor brings to the table,
because I don't want to negatetheir creativity right off the
bat.
(21:19):
And if they like jump on top ofthe table, I go okay, how do I
make this work?
No-transcript?
(21:47):
And so like when we were doingthe seven and seven and you were
brushing your teeth and it wasthe moment where you're supposed
to deliver that line, and I waslike do it again, do it again,
let's do it again, yeah.
But then you hit it.
I was like that's it, that wasit.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
It's that feeling where you can tell something
feels real.
It's not pandered to theaudience, it's not where you're
like I see you, it's more oflike I see you.
You break the actor, so tospeak, exactly.
No-transcript.
I have to stand this way.
I got to go walk this, I got tohit my mark, and you get caught
(22:31):
up in all that and making sureyou got your dialogue right and
you forget to just be and feeland what the motivations are.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And then, once we did , it felt so different, like the
skies open up and you hear theheavenly choir and it's the
hardest part for any actor,myself included, is listening,
because we tend to want to speakconsistently and we tend to go
OK, my line's coming up, myline's coming up, it's two away,
it's one away, ok, my line'shere.
Ah, and I say it right, andit's so forced If I'm just
(23:00):
listening to the conversationand I know my line, that's when
they say, hey, do you want somewine?
I go yes, absolutely I wouldlove some wine.
It's that moment where therubber meets.
I wasn't able to really workwith everybody like I wanted to
(23:26):
for certain performances, but Ifelt like the performances were
great because they were one aton kind of thing, right, like
it was like okay, that'sfantastic, You're that character
, okay, let's onto the next kindof thing because it was so fast
, but I felt like, being acomedy, it really lent itself to
that.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But if it was a drama I felt like we would have had
to take more time and reallykind of work with each piece and
like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So, yeah, we would have had to slow it down, for
sure, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
And everyone remarked on the 48 hour set that the
flow was fantastic.
You know what I mean.
Everybody felt like they werepart of the same team.
Yeah, don't even have to saythat we had divas, because we
rarely have that.
We've had a couple of incidents.
You know what I mean.
Tj, I'm talking to you, I don'tknow, exactly who you're
talking about.
I'm kidding TJ, you weren't adiva.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm just covering something I'm trying to think of
.
When?
What did I say?
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It was the coffee cups and the Keurigs, but that
was good.
Well, we're talking about folksthat I'm making a joke about,
and TJ wasn't a diva.
While we were moving coffeearound, the Keurig cups fell
down and it kind of made thisprocess.
Instead of a quick switch, hehad to stumble through it.
So that made it funnier becauseit was awkward.
(24:40):
And then the sound effects thatBoots put on it.
You know just, it wasincredible.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, kind of.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, yeah, almost the martial arts of coffee.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, like switching, between yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
That was my favorite scene in the entire, the entire
short film.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
I think that in the part where it's the triple tip
and when we go into this likethis, this conference room, and
everyone's sleeping.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I think that's funny too yeah, for me the funniest
part was when you came walkingout.
I think it was kind of a littlebit improv.
You're like manana and you didit a couple different ways.
Taco tuesday, baby, and you didit a couple of different ways.
Taco tuesday, baby, and youthrew up like the peace sign and
you're like strutting, wearingthe track suit.
It was hard to not laugh outloud when you did that.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I had to physically tell myself, okay, stay in the
moment, stay, stay in a moment,because that was a funny take
and what it did for you, becausewhen they zoom in on you you
have this confused.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Look like what the fuck is wrong with this yeah, no
, that was all because I wantedthe character leaving.
And boots was like, okay, well,we're just gonna shoot it from
here.
And I was like, okay, that'sfine, because we'll get the wall
in the background, that'll benice.
And so when I did it, he waslike just leave.
And I was like, okay, so howwould this douchebag leave?
And I was like he'd strut andhe'd walk and he'd do like more
(25:54):
of an ace ventura kind of thingand make like a big production
of it.
I'm leaving yeah, all right,appreciated my g's.
Yeah, that was fun man yeah andI had asked the makeup artist,
reina, if she would put morelike orange on me.
So that I, I looked like I aspray tan before the employee of
(26:15):
the month award ceremony andwhen I was talking to my
girlfriend she was like I justthought she just put a little
too much orange on you and shewas like I couldn't really tell
it was like a fake spray tan andI was like, oh, I wanted to
play more.
I should have did more orange.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
To me on film.
It looked like I mean because Iknow how you normally- look.
And when I saw it on film Iabsolutely thought yeah man,
that looks like spray tan, likehe looked orange.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
And it popped.
When you get into Jana's officeunexpectedly and you walk in,
you didn't know that he hiredthe camera crew in the movie and
he walks in to talk to the boss, he goes oh, hello there.
We'll put that in the commentswhen we share these, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And it's funny.
So I was doing a film calledcooked in 2002 and I wanted to
get people to donate to mygofundme right, so I played
kenny g and I have my.
I have a fireplace right butit's electric fireplace.
So I have my electric fireplace, it's going and it and it's
going through, and then it getson me and I go, oh, hello there.
(27:18):
And then I bring up wine and I'mlike you're probably wondering
what I'm doing here.
And then I went into askingpeople for money about coats and
that's where the oh hello therecame from.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Ah, it was nice, Aside from developing the 7 and
7 further into a feature.
What's next?
What's your next big plan?
And it's okay if it's somethingyou don't want to share,
Obviously don't share.
But what do you have in mind?
I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Okay, so I want to do a television series.
Right, I have a televisionseries that I optioned.
It's a really cool story abouta record executives that get
fired from a record company andgo start their own business.
And then I am currently tryingto.
I keep seeing these images of afilm that I want to write.
Like I see this person walkingpast this mural and I see this
(28:06):
person taking pictures of thingsand like, and I know roughly
that I want to do a story aboutsomeone that deals with an
ailment.
I won't say what it is but,deals with an ailment which
(28:27):
causes them to kind of revertback to who they used to be, and
that's kind of the story I'mplaying with.
Revert back to who they used tobe, and that's kind of the
story I'm playing with.
Plus, I'm dealing with a coupleof other things.
I got some other things ironsin the fire.
One is a story for a friendabout their life, and we talked
about kind of making it a friedgreen tomatoes kind of movie, or
(28:49):
we talked about actuallyturning it into a television
series as well, somethingdifferent.
So those are the things thatI'm kind of currently creating.
But then there's things that I'mactually going to be a part of
the one with you guys, the, theRiverhood, and then the and I
don't know if that's justproducing aspect.
If that is, that's fine orwhatever that may be or whatever
(29:09):
that may look like.
And then the immortalinvitation.
I'll be a part of that,producing in it and, I believe,
acting in it.
So there's a lot of things thatcould be happening for me
pretty soon.
Plus, I've already been cast insome things.
It's just not yet.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, understood.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I haven't signed paperwork yet, but one of them
could be a Hallmark movie, andthen one of them could be
something on Lifetime.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Sweet Very cool.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Not to mention a little bit of post-production on
some things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Post-production on a lot of things actually.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
The story for the Soldier's Heart.
The guy said and this is Iheard it from him today we may
have a trailer on Monday, whoa.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, he said don't get my hopes up, but we may have
a trailer on Monday.
Nice, I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I'm excited to see that yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
He said he sees a through line.
He watched it.
I see a through line, I see thetrailer.
I said okay.
He said I think I can have youa trailer by Monday.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
We've pre-recorded this, folks, so that trailer
will be links when we share.
Yeah, matt, it's been apleasure having you, love
hearing your stories, loveworking with you, love to work
with you in the future.
Thank you for coming my friend.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Thank you guys for having me.
I enjoyed every minute of this.
Any questions or commentsanybody has, if they post them
to you, I'm happy to answer them.
I'm an open book man.
If I can help anybody, pleaselet me know.
I believe we will be workingtogether in the future.
I enjoy working with both ofyou guys.
I consider both of you guys myfriends.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Likewise.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
If I can do anything to help anybody else get up to
where they need to be.
The one advice that I givesomebody is that start now.
Don't just say you're going todo it, just start doing it.
Just start making stuff.
It doesn't have to be good, itdoesn't have to be Oscar worthy,
just start making stuff andyou'll get better at along the
way.
And then you know, 10 yearslater you'll be like man I did.
(30:59):
I have a whole catalog ofthings because I started 10
years ago.
Just write something down.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That's right, all right.
Well, thanks, matt.
Hey everybody, my name is Matthew Carroll.
I am a actor, writer, director,producer.
I got to do it all.
I'm super excited to be a partof NOLA film scene and, yeah, I
can't wait to get this started.
Let's do it.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
So, Matt, thanks for joining us, Thanks for having me
man, I'm excited yeah man, ofcourse.
How about you?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
buddy.
Hey look, I couldn't believeyou guys asked me to do this.
I'm honored to be a part ofthis.
I felt like it's a long timecoming, so I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, thanks to you.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
We've had some really fun projects in the past year
and I can't wait to tear intosome of those and see where it
goes.
Hopefully, all good places,fingers crossed.
Let's start with yourbeginnings.
How'd you get into the industry?
What inspired you?
Just a brief history.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
So I started off when I was 12 years old.
I kind of fell into theindustry.
I started doing educationalvideos for a company down here
in New Orleans called Cinderstar.
I became one of their like toppeople and I do all their
educational videos aboutbullying and like God and all
those things.
And then after that I reallydelved into it pretty deep when
(01:13):
I went to college and I ended upgetting into NOCA.
So I went my senior year ofNOCA I went to the Unified
Professional Auditions inChicago.
I auditioned for 13 schools inthree days and got accepted to
10 of them.
Wow, I ended up not being ableto go to them because they were
40 grand a year and I justcouldn't swing it.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
My parents, weren't rich, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Yeah, that's a lot.
Guy had hit by a car and passedaway.
And because that happened Iended up coming back to New
Orleans and I ran into my oldmanager and agent.
They ended up putting me outthere again and I started
booking all these Disney movies.
And so I started doing theseDisney movies one after the
other and it was right therearound 2004, 2005.
(02:00):
And then after I did all that,I was feeling really good about
myself and everything you know,with my friends passing kind of
the grief I've gone.
I went through the grief andthen I was ready to go back to
school.
So I went back to school andover the summer I auditioned for
a film and I ended up gettingthe lead in it and then that
ended up pushing me out to LosAngeles and then I fell into
(02:21):
producing.
Just happenstance, I wasactually in a Carl's Jr when it
happened.
I moved out there and a friendhad this project I think it was
called Spirit Lake and I wentthere to audition and the guy
was like, well, let's see whatyou got.
And I was like man, we're in aCarl's Jr.
Like what do you mean?
Let's see what you got.
And he was like here's thescene.
And it was like my friend dyingin my arms and I was like, um,
(02:43):
and, mind you, I'm like 21, 22at the time.
And I was like, uh, all right.
So like I grabbed the script, Isaid give me like a couple of
minutes.
He gave me a few minutes.
I learned it immediately.
I said, okay, I'm ready.
He's like all right, wheneveryou're ready.
And he was like eating hisburger, right, and?
And I'm like crying and Carl'sJr, and I'm holding my friend
and I'm shaking and I'm doingall this stuff.
(03:05):
And then I finished and I'mthere and he goes that was
pretty good, man, you got somechops, you got the part.
I said, oh man, great.
And then right after that hegot an email saying that the fun
that they were in, which waslike this slush fun, from like
an edge company it all fellapart and I was like, oh, so the
part that I just got is nolonger available.
He's like no, no, it'savailable, it's available.
(03:31):
And I said, ok, so that's how Ifell into producing, because my
friend was on American Idol,and so I called him and I said,
hey, I'm looking for a producerthat's interested in doing
something like this.
He's like I got the perfect guyfor you.
So I'm driving down to VenturaBoulevard to go meet this guy
Right and pitch him on all theseideas.
Because he's like oh, let'shear what you got.
So I'm driving Right, I'mdriving down there, and as I'm
driving down there, I get thephone call from the director,
(03:52):
producer, whatever, of theSpirit Lake, and he's like I
don't want my movie in thatslate.
And I'm like well, this is thereason I'm going down here, you
don't want the movie.
And he's like no, no, I don'twant to mess up the slush fund
that we're in.
I'm like I don't, what do I do?
I'm already driving to VenturaBoulevard.
He's like, oh no, you'll figuresomething out.
I'm like, okay, so I calleverybody.
(04:13):
I know that wrote scripts and Iended up finding a script called
no Town from this guy named MaxTaylor that I met out there.
We ended up getting thatproduced and we were in the
throes of making it in Shanghaiand everything was going great.
And then we couldn't getsomebody to sign away the rights
.
We ended up not not doing thefilm.
Oh wow.
And then I ended up back inLouisiana and making my own
(04:35):
stuff and you ended up at acertain coffee shop.
Yeah, yeah, I did, and we satdown and we talked about this
soldier's heart.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
Yeah, what had happened, folks, is Matt and his
team had gone on social mediaasking if actors want to be a
part of a movie, and that wasNovember of 23.
A lot of us put in.
We got the email, we sent inour resumes and our headshots
and our reels and then we didn'thear anything.
So on my side I thought, ok, itjust fell apart you.
So on my side I thought, okay,it just fell apart, you can't
worry about it, you can't live.
You know, end of January,matt's like, hey, we got
(05:06):
pre-production done, want tomeet at coffee shop and talk?
Cool.
And for me, because I work sevendays a week cleaning a bar,
people are like hey, you want togo party?
Hey, you want to go this?
I don't really want to.
I'm a my fifties.
And we sat down, we startedtalking and you go, you're in
(05:29):
your fifties, but you don't comeacross like you're in your
fifties.
So you can't do the sheriff.
I said, okay, but I want you tobe the OBGYN.
I said I can get all up in thatrole and then, he and I started
talking.
Man, I started talking, well,I'd like to get this actor.
So I know, jeremy london okay,let me give, because he was one
(05:50):
of my teachers oh, that guy jimbleeson and billy slaughter, a
couple more of my teachers tj,we got.
You know, we were just throwingout names and then I talked to
hick sheremy and he's like, yeah, I talked to matt and you know
I thought he was gonna dosomething for me and he he
didn't have a role for me Nevercontacted me and you had told me
you wanted him in.
So I was like hold on.
So in that way, that was kindof my first job producing after
being at a restaurant, whoa yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
The idea behind that was, when I met you, you looked
way younger.
In my head the sheriff was morean older fella, more graying,
more Grizzled yeah, sam Elliotttype, right.
And you didn't strike me as SamElliott and I was like, ah no.
And I was like, but you knowwhat you could be the OBGYN.
(06:34):
I was like that could easily bea role that you can fit.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I was like okay, yeah .
Speaker 1 (06:45):
And I was on the fence about that because I was
like man.
I don't know if a lady wouldwant to go to a man with a beard
.
That's an OBGYN and have himlike you know, and I was like,
ah, that might be a little much.
But then I was like, no, it'sfine.
There's men OBGYN all over theplace and I was like I don't be
okay.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
Hey, people like me, I'm comforting.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And I wasn't going to be like hi, I'm your doctor.
And then everybody else.
It was all about putting thepieces together.
It just kind of all fell intoplace and it was crazy.
Because I wanted Hick but Ididn't know what I wanted Hick
for and I knew I had a scenewhere there were all these
veterans and I wanted peoplethat look like veterans.
Right, I felt like he could doa role where, like, the camera
(07:23):
was coming in.
I saw the image.
I didn't really have the sceneyet, I didn't have anything.
I saw the image and I was like,okay, this is what we're going
to do.
And I wrote a monologue in fiveminutes.
I was like this is what you'regoing to say.
He read it.
He was like I love it.
I was like I just wrote it.
I was actually in the tubwriting, but I wrote it, yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:41):
TMI, I know.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
TMI Five minutes.
I mean we saw your expeditiouswriting at work when we did the
48.
We sat down, we were all justkind of having a little sidebar
conversation and boom, you hadthe script.
I'm like wow.
I mean I don't think I couldhave thought of an entire script
that fast, much less type itout and have it roles assigned
and figured out.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
It was a lot about.
When I drove from the placewhere we got the information to
when we got to Jana's place, Iknew kind of a rough idea of the
direction I wanted to go in andI just needed to see if
everybody else was on board.
If not, I could have switchedand went in a different way.
But when it came to you know,me throwing my idea out,
(08:24):
everybody was like oh yeah, Ilove it.
I was like okay.
Well then I guess I'll startwriting it and as as soon as I
started writing.
It was just, it was just rollingout as far as like the story
itself.
It was like, okay, well, weneed coffee, we'll have them
steal coffee, so that he lookslike the hero that brings cough.
And then I was like, okay, whatelse do we need in the scene?
Because she had to have thecoffee mug.
(08:44):
And then we had to have thescene where you said, um, oh,
what was?
Speaker 3 (08:48):
it.
Uh, the line was how did youfind it that we had to find it?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
yeah, yeah, yeah I knew something needed to be
missing, and then jake magicallybrings it into existence, you
know.
So we needed to make him thehero, and I thought it would.
The coolest part was that thatJake didn't even work there.
Speaker 3 (09:05):
He was the mail worker.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
And you guys hated my character so much that the mail
worker was the guy that youknow like, all right, look,
we're going to make this dudelook like a hero and I felt like
that was, you know, hilarious.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It was yeah, yeah, agreed.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
And you had the same.
A similar writing explosion forthe seven and seven competition
.
Yeah, similar but different.
A similar writing explosion forthe 7 and 7 competition.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
Yeah, similar but different.
I didn't really know where thestory was going for that.
When I wrote it I knew I wantedto have a gunfight.
I knew I wanted to have the twobrothers.
That was kind of an homage toAppaloosa.
Have you ever seen that film?
Speaker 3 (09:37):
I have not.
Speaker 1 (09:39):
So it's fantastic.
It's Viggo Mortensen and oh,who's the other gentleman?
It's a great film, mortensen,and oh, who's the other
gentleman?
It's a great film.
And what happens is they meetthe Cross brothers and the Cross
brothers come into town andthey're like real cordial and
smiling and he's like watch outfor them, they're good, he's
like as good as us.
He's like, yeah, just about.
So we know that those dudes aresome bad dudes and that's the
(09:59):
two brothers that I wanted tobring to the screen.
I was like, ok, so that's anhomage to that.
And then I wanted the sheriffto be this bumbling catalyst
that ended up at the end withthe money.
And everybody was like lookingevery way in the sheriff's, like
, oh, running away with themoney.
And then all the other stuffkind of fell into place with,
like, the tooth and all that,because that was part of what we
(10:22):
had to have had to have atoothbrush, yeah, and I had to
justify why, on camera, youshowing a toothbrush.
So I was like, okay, we'll giveyou an abscess.
And so the abscess now travelsthroughout the story and you
constantly bring this toothbrushout and people like, oh, he's
dealing with his abscess againyeah.
So yeah, ed harris and jeremyirons okay yeah, whether it were
(10:43):
two of the guys in that.
Wow, yeah, I had to pull it upbecause it was so yeah, ed
Harris and Jeremy Irons.
Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
Two of the guys in that, wow, yeah, I had to pull
it up because it was killing me.
I couldn't remember, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Jeremy Irons was the main bad guy, but the two cross
brothers was the guy.
I want to say.
It was the guy from aliens andsome other guy, michael Bean.
No, I don't think it wasMichael Bean, timothy Murphy,
possibly.
Was he an alien?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
To me Timothy Murphy kind of looks like Ed Harris,
just a little younger.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Okay, is the guy in Aliens an older guy you're
thinking of?
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I thought it was Lance Hendrickson.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Lance Hendrickson.
Is that who?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
it is.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
No, I think it's Timothy Murphy.
He kind of resembles, he kindof resembles that.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
That archetypal character.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
Yeah, a lot of this will be cut out the podcast.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
No no worries Sorry.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
No, it's all, I mean it's all film related, right, I
mean yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
Cool, I'll just cut out me saying it'll be cut out,
or I'll leave that in.
I don't know, we shall see.
So what you have demonstratedto us is that under pressure,
your creativity can thrive andyou can come up with a story.
And I say it like that, folks,because in the 48 hour
competition you find out onFriday what you have to do and
have to have in the movie.
You write it Friday night, filmit Saturday, edit it on Sunday,
(11:55):
turn it in on Sunday, and we'veseen others.
There are people did greatstuff too, but some people they
didn't understand the part aboutstory or couldn't get it done,
not even talking about technicalproblems.
That happened that weekend.
So where do you think yourunderstanding of story came from
?
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I think it's actually the first time I started
writing.
Yeah, I started writing when,like, I sat down at a computer
I've never written anything aday in my life, right and I said
I want to start writing.
So I started writing.
Hey, how are you?
Oh, you seem like you're okay.
(12:32):
What's going on?
Is something bothering you?
Well, I went to a party lastnight and I started writing this
random script about a girlthat's sitting in her bedroom
and her mom walks through thedoor and you find out that she's
afraid that she might have gonetoo far with a boy in that
situation.
Right, and all it was, was froma hey, how are you?
Situation like that.
That was what I wrote and thatwas the very first thing.
And then I decided to write amonologue and I wrote a
(12:55):
monologue.
I watched Patch Adams and Ireally felt like Patch Adams was
this great film.
So I wrote this monologue aboutthis character, you know, given
Patch Adams as flowers, so tospeak.
And those were the first twothings and I believe that that
helped me realize that, justbecause the story starts
somewhere, it can always gosomewhere.
And at one point, when she wastalking to her, I was like well,
(13:18):
aliens can come in now andbreak through the ceiling and we
can go in so many differentdirections.
And I was like, if I keep it onthis linear path, it's more
interesting than this.
You know, absurdity where, likerhinoceros, where the rhinos
come through the wall and you'relike what was that?
But yeah those Ionesco plays,like that was the thing in that
(13:39):
time.
They wanted to try all thesethings.
And I get it, because in theseven and seven I almost had
like this Native American womanthat kept popping up in your
visions and I don't know why.
But I told, I told that toBoots and he was like I don't
think we need to do that.
I was like, okay, fair enough.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
And if I can pause you, that's JB Boots.
That's his nickname.
You weren't just talking tocowboy boots sitting on the
shelf.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, sigler, jonathan Sigler.
Speaker 1 (14:08):
Oh, I'm sorry, my bad .
I told him.
I said, oh man, it'd be reallycool if every now and again you
get this image of this lady inlike a red, like a red
background, and she's likewalking out and like I don't
know if we should do that inseven minutes.
He's like I think we shouldjust kind of stick to the story
(14:29):
itself and I was like, okay, allright, that makes sense but for
the feature exactly, and Ithink for the feature, it could
be a ghost, maybe, or it couldbe his wife.
It could be, you know, is it thesheriff's wife?
Well, so it was originally thesheriff's image, but now that
we're talking about the featureitself, I think it could be the
(14:50):
boxer's wife, or it could besomething to do with like an old
proverb or something, orsomething that the sheriff owes
money to, or something'shaunting him.
We could figure that out out.
It could be a curse, or itcould be a premonition, or it
could just be somebodyprotecting more, like an angel.
Speaker 3 (15:09):
Yeah, I thought it was the sheriff.
It's the guilt of his wife,either losing his wife or her
leaving because he's such a goof.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Someone he failed to save because he was afraid.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Afraid to take action .
Speaker 1 (15:20):
Because we have to keep in mind that it's that time
period where guys were like,hey, and I'm supposed to be out
here being a lawman, you know,and it's like, okay, that's that
time period.
So we have to make sure we stayin that.
I guess.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, I mean, that was the culture back then.
That's just how it was.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Yeah, that's what they were allowed to do, yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:40):
Expected to do Exactly Expected.
Yep.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
So we don't really know what the feelings were,
because it was an everyday thing, you know.
Like it was like oh, this iswhat I got to do today.
And even like in farms andstuff and I'm not from a farm,
I'm from the city, I grew up inMarrero but like farms and stuff
, they have to wake up everymorning and they have the cows
and then they have to plow theland and all these things, but
(16:06):
they're used to that.
They're just like, ok, 3 am inthe morning, time to go milk
some cows.
It's like, wait, what, like youknow city life?
It's like 3 am in the morningI'm sleeping.
Yep, yeah, sorry, that was atangent.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
I think you see the pitfalls of what could be I
don't want to say dangerous, butyou have to be cognizant of.
I don't have that experience,even if you were writing farm
life.
Neither one of us have been ona farm, so we would have to
investigate, talk to people onthe farm and learn that to
authentically represent thatlife.
Speaker 1 (16:38):
A hundred percent.
If you notice everything that Iwrite, I do my history, I do my
research because, like, I'venever had PTSD, I've never been
a soldier, I've never been youknow anywhere.
I've been in the States.
I haven't really traveled much,but I looked up all of these
things and I read tons ofarticles and, like I watched a
(17:00):
tons of video.
There were so many things thatI didn't know, Like I didn't
realize that the hero coin thatwe pass throughout the story, I
didn't realize that was a realthing.
I in my head was like we need acatalyst that makes this
interesting and I was like ha ha.
And then I found out it wasactually a thing that happens
(17:20):
and I was like, oh wow, that'spretty cool.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
And your research, did you get the story of how it
started the hero?
Speaker 1 (17:27):
coin.
No, I didn't find out how itstarted.
Do you know how it started, mm?
Hmm?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Aha, do tell so.
Challenge coins is a thing, andkind of the loose rule is you
carry your challenge coin andyou can you challenge somebody
else that has a coin and whoeverhas the highest coin gets the
other one, in other words, thehigh a coin that they got from
the highest ranking person.
The way it started, they hadbuttons on their uniforms and
(17:54):
they carried these coins toidentify themselves.
There's variations of the story, but from what I remember, it
was paratroopers and they werebehind enemy lines and they
would have it started with abutton from their uniform that
they could confirm who they were.
And it grew into a thing thatunits developed these challenge
coins that's where it startedwas from the article from their
(18:17):
uniform to identify that theywere in fact a US soldier.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
That's pretty cool.
I didn't know that.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
So if you buy unit challenge coins, a lot of them
will actually come with a littlecard and it kind of explains
the history.
It's been a little bit sinceI've read the history, but
that's the gist of it.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
I talked to my buddy and he received one from his
commanding officer through aseries of things, and I was like
, oh, this really is an actualthing.
And then I looked it up and Isaw that it's not only in this
branch, it's in multiplebranches.
It's just called somethingdifferent, but it's the same
idea.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
A challenge coin is typically what it's called.
So say, we were out togetherand I had a challenge coin from
my skipper and he's an 06 andyour skipper is an 05 and we
challenged.
Technically my coin would win.
People don't really like ifyou're carrying one that you
earned.
I mean I'm not going to put oneup that I got from my skipper,
(19:13):
but you buy the other guy.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
A dream is kind of what it comes down to.
I was sitting there like man.
I wouldn't want to lose mychallenge coin, especially if I
had earned it first.
I was like I'm not playing thatgame.
Speaker 2 (19:23):
When the unit orders them, you can buy and have a
stack of them and usually if yougo to a school or you know you
have a gathering of people fromdifferent units together.
People exchange challenge coinsand they actually they get kind
of heavy to travel with whenyou have a sack full of these
coins, cause some of them arepretty hefty.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
You had a sack full of them.
Yours always won out, you hadlike the number one no no, no,
no.
You were like all right, let'ssee who's going to beat me this
time.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
No, no, no.
I mean like whenever I would goto a school I would take a
handful of them with me, becauseusually people were exchanging
coins from their units.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
That's cool.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
I don't mean that I won like I challenged people and
won their coins.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Bring it.
Speaker 3 (20:01):
Would that be a picture like Santa with
challenge coins in his sack?
You get a coin, and you get acoin, and you get a coin.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
I just had this picture of David Harbour.
What was the Santa movie wherehe was the Violent Knight?
Violent Knight, that's a goodone.
I just had a picture, an imageof David Harbour smacking
somebody with a sack full ofchallenge coins.
Speaker 3 (20:22):
I was thinking when we did Soldier's Heart and I was
going to be the OBGYN but theER surgeon backed out that day.
So I got a promotion and thelady who came with me, who had
given me scrubs, she became theOBGYN.
So we were just giving outrules, but you were able to help
me ground myself in that role.
You know, I just did somethingrecently.
I've seen some clips and Ithought I was cool and collected
(20:45):
and when I see it I'm like, ohGod, I'm so stiff.
You know what I mean.
So the dance between a directorand an actor becomes more
apparent with each role I get.
What are your views?
How do you draw the bestperformance out of your actors?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
So my big thing is as an actor, I know I do research
on the character, on what theirbackground is and all these
things, so I know that I'mcoming to the table with
something right.
So the first take that I'mgoing to do from the director's
side, I'm going to see what theactor brings to the table,
because I don't want to negatetheir creativity right off the
bat.
(21:19):
And if they like jump on top ofthe table, I go okay, how do I
make this work?
No-transcript?
(21:47):
And so like when we were doingthe seven and seven and you were
brushing your teeth and it wasthe moment where you're supposed
to deliver that line, and I waslike do it again, do it again,
let's do it again, yeah.
But then you hit it.
I was like that's it, that wasit.
Speaker 3 (22:10):
It's that feeling where you can tell something
feels real.
It's not pandered to theaudience, it's not where you're
like I see you, it's more oflike I see you.
You break the actor, so tospeak, exactly.
No-transcript.
I have to stand this way.
I got to go walk this, I got tohit my mark, and you get caught
(22:31):
up in all that and making sureyou got your dialogue right and
you forget to just be and feeland what the motivations are.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
And then, once we did , it felt so different, like the
skies open up and you hear theheavenly choir and it's the
hardest part for any actor,myself included, is listening,
because we tend to want to speakconsistently and we tend to go
OK, my line's coming up, myline's coming up, it's two away,
it's one away, ok, my line'shere.
Ah, and I say it right, andit's so forced If I'm just
(23:00):
listening to the conversationand I know my line, that's when
they say, hey, do you want somewine?
I go yes, absolutely I wouldlove some wine.
It's that moment where therubber meets.
I wasn't able to really workwith everybody like I wanted to
(23:26):
for certain performances, but Ifelt like the performances were
great because they were one aton kind of thing, right, like
it was like okay, that'sfantastic, You're that character
, okay, let's onto the next kindof thing because it was so fast
, but I felt like, being acomedy, it really lent itself to
that.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
But if it was a drama I felt like we would have had
to take more time and reallykind of work with each piece and
like that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
So, yeah, we would have had to slow it down, for
sure, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
And everyone remarked on the 48 hour set that the
flow was fantastic.
You know what I mean.
Everybody felt like they werepart of the same team.
Yeah, don't even have to saythat we had divas, because we
rarely have that.
We've had a couple of incidents.
You know what I mean.
Tj, I'm talking to you, I don'tknow, exactly who you're
talking about.
I'm kidding TJ, you weren't adiva.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
I'm just covering something I'm trying to think of
.
When?
What did I say?
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It was the coffee cups and the Keurigs, but that
was good.
Well, we're talking about folksthat I'm making a joke about,
and TJ wasn't a diva.
While we were moving coffeearound, the Keurig cups fell
down and it kind of made thisprocess.
Instead of a quick switch, hehad to stumble through it.
So that made it funnier becauseit was awkward.
(24:40):
And then the sound effects thatBoots put on it.
You know just, it wasincredible.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Yeah, kind of.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Yeah, yeah, almost the martial arts of coffee.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
Yeah, like switching, between yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
That was my favorite scene in the entire, the entire
short film.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
I think that in the part where it's the triple tip
and when we go into this likethis, this conference room, and
everyone's sleeping.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
I think that's funny too yeah, for me the funniest
part was when you came walkingout.
I think it was kind of a littlebit improv.
You're like manana and you didit a couple different ways.
Taco tuesday, baby, and you didit a couple of different ways.
Taco tuesday, baby, and youthrew up like the peace sign and
you're like strutting, wearingthe track suit.
It was hard to not laugh outloud when you did that.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
I had to physically tell myself, okay, stay in the
moment, stay, stay in a moment,because that was a funny take
and what it did for you, becausewhen they zoom in on you you
have this confused.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Look like what the fuck is wrong with this yeah, no
, that was all because I wantedthe character leaving.
And boots was like, okay, well,we're just gonna shoot it from
here.
And I was like, okay, that'sfine, because we'll get the wall
in the background, that'll benice.
And so when I did it, he waslike just leave.
And I was like, okay, so howwould this douchebag leave?
And I was like he'd strut andhe'd walk and he'd do like more
(25:54):
of an ace ventura kind of thingand make like a big production
of it.
I'm leaving yeah, all right,appreciated my g's.
Yeah, that was fun man yeah andI had asked the makeup artist,
reina, if she would put morelike orange on me.
So that I, I looked like I aspray tan before the employee of
(26:15):
the month award ceremony andwhen I was talking to my
girlfriend she was like I justthought she just put a little
too much orange on you and shewas like I couldn't really tell
it was like a fake spray tan andI was like, oh, I wanted to
play more.
I should have did more orange.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
To me on film.
It looked like I mean because Iknow how you normally- look.
And when I saw it on film Iabsolutely thought yeah man,
that looks like spray tan, likehe looked orange.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
And it popped.
When you get into Jana's officeunexpectedly and you walk in,
you didn't know that he hiredthe camera crew in the movie and
he walks in to talk to the boss, he goes oh, hello there.
We'll put that in the commentswhen we share these, yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:56):
And it's funny.
So I was doing a film calledcooked in 2002 and I wanted to
get people to donate to mygofundme right, so I played
kenny g and I have my.
I have a fireplace right butit's electric fireplace.
So I have my electric fireplace, it's going and it and it's
going through, and then it getson me and I go, oh, hello there.
(27:18):
And then I bring up wine and I'mlike you're probably wondering
what I'm doing here.
And then I went into askingpeople for money about coats and
that's where the oh hello therecame from.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Ah, it was nice, Aside from developing the 7 and
7 further into a feature.
What's next?
What's your next big plan?
And it's okay if it's somethingyou don't want to share,
Obviously don't share.
But what do you have in mind?
I'm curious.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Okay, so I want to do a television series.
Right, I have a televisionseries that I optioned.
It's a really cool story abouta record executives that get
fired from a record company andgo start their own business.
And then I am currently tryingto.
I keep seeing these images of afilm that I want to write.
Like I see this person walkingpast this mural and I see this
(28:06):
person taking pictures of thingsand like, and I know roughly
that I want to do a story aboutsomeone that deals with an
ailment.
I won't say what it is but,deals with an ailment which
(28:27):
causes them to kind of revertback to who they used to be, and
that's kind of the story I'mplaying with.
Revert back to who they used tobe, and that's kind of the
story I'm playing with.
Plus, I'm dealing with a coupleof other things.
I got some other things ironsin the fire.
One is a story for a friendabout their life, and we talked
about kind of making it a friedgreen tomatoes kind of movie, or
(28:49):
we talked about actuallyturning it into a television
series as well, somethingdifferent.
So those are the things thatI'm kind of currently creating.
But then there's things that I'mactually going to be a part of
the one with you guys, the, theRiverhood, and then the and I
don't know if that's justproducing aspect.
If that is, that's fine orwhatever that may be or whatever
(29:09):
that may look like.
And then the immortalinvitation.
I'll be a part of that,producing in it and, I believe,
acting in it.
So there's a lot of things thatcould be happening for me
pretty soon.
Plus, I've already been cast insome things.
It's just not yet.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Yeah, understood.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I haven't signed paperwork yet, but one of them
could be a Hallmark movie, andthen one of them could be
something on Lifetime.
Speaker 3 (29:34):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Sweet Very cool.
Speaker 3 (29:35):
Not to mention a little bit of post-production on
some things.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Post-production on a lot of things actually.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
The story for the Soldier's Heart.
The guy said and this is Iheard it from him today we may
have a trailer on Monday, whoa.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
Interesting.
Speaker 1 (29:52):
Yeah, he said don't get my hopes up, but we may have
a trailer on Monday.
Nice, I'm excited about that.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
I'm excited to see that yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
He said he sees a through line.
He watched it.
I see a through line, I see thetrailer.
I said okay.
He said I think I can have youa trailer by Monday.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
We've pre-recorded this, folks, so that trailer
will be links when we share.
Yeah, matt, it's been apleasure having you, love
hearing your stories, loveworking with you, love to work
with you in the future.
Thank you for coming my friend.
Speaker 1 (30:24):
Thank you guys for having me.
I enjoyed every minute of this.
Any questions or commentsanybody has, if they post them
to you, I'm happy to answer them.
I'm an open book man.
If I can help anybody, pleaselet me know.
I believe we will be workingtogether in the future.
I enjoy working with both ofyou guys.
I consider both of you guys myfriends.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Likewise.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
If I can do anything to help anybody else get up to
where they need to be.
The one advice that I givesomebody is that start now.
Don't just say you're going todo it, just start doing it.
Just start making stuff.
It doesn't have to be good, itdoesn't have to be Oscar worthy,
just start making stuff andyou'll get better at along the
way.
And then you know, 10 yearslater you'll be like man I did.
(30:59):
I have a whole catalog ofthings because I started 10
years ago.
Just write something down.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
That's right, all right.
Well, thanks, matt.
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