November 4, 2025 • 36 mins
In this episode of The Entertainment Zone with Paul Amadeus Lane, we explore the inspiring journey of Kristina Denton — a writer, actress, producer, and director whose career has been defined by courage, creativity, and reinvention. Kristina opens up about her path in Hollywood, the challenges she’s faced, and the lessons she’s learned while building a name for herself in an industry that doesn’t always make it easy for women to thrive.
She also dives into her newest projects: 🎬 Hollywood Grit — a gripping crime thriller she co-wrote with Ryan Curtis, starring Max Martini, Tyrese Gibson, Patrick Duffy, and Linda Purl, now in select theaters. 📖 You Don’t Know Dick — her forthcoming memoir that mixes humor and honesty as she reflects on her time working at a men’s erectile dysfunction clinic and the deeper conversations it sparked about grief, identity, and masculinity.
Tune in for a raw, real, and inspirational conversation about resilience, reinvention, and the power of storytelling in Hollywood.
She also dives into her newest projects: 🎬 Hollywood Grit — a gripping crime thriller she co-wrote with Ryan Curtis, starring Max Martini, Tyrese Gibson, Patrick Duffy, and Linda Purl, now in select theaters. 📖 You Don’t Know Dick — her forthcoming memoir that mixes humor and honesty as she reflects on her time working at a men’s erectile dysfunction clinic and the deeper conversations it sparked about grief, identity, and masculinity.
Tune in for a raw, real, and inspirational conversation about resilience, reinvention, and the power of storytelling in Hollywood.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The flow.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Ain't your average entertainment show more to entertainment than what's
on the screen, connecting dots on what you see. Have
y'all ever wondered how we do all begin the idea?
How they started to play xx actors the whole team
man props to those behind the scene.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Why did the person get into the bus?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Something inside when they were of a kid who helped
them out when they were wanted to quit, went about
the family, gave them rocks to kick How well the
haters they left shaman alone? Find out in the Entertainment
Zone with Paul Amadea's Lane.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello, and welcome to the Entertainment Zone. What is up?
It's me Paul Amadea's Lane, and I'm so delighted to
have you on our show today. We have an amazing
actress and a writer who's going to join us to
talk about her new project, Hollywood Grit, so you don't
want to miss that before we bring her on. Remember
you can always connect with me Paul Amadea's Lane, dot Com,
(00:58):
all social media platforms. It's Paul lama Day's Lane even
LinkedIn because I am a business man. Because I'm all
about that businessman. We welcome you who are watching and
listening on k e T ABC news radio affiliate here
in southern California. Can't forget about you. We're watching on
our Amazon Prime It's fire Stick Channel, ro Code channel.
(01:23):
Those who are listening on our podcast. iHeart Spotify so
many I can't remember. We're Apple all of them. The
Entertainment Zone with Paulama Day Slane. Thank you so much,
so like light, Subscribe, subscribed, scribe, comic comic comment, hit
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all the episodes of the Entertainment Zone. What if I
(01:47):
told you that a young girl's dream at two years
old would find her to now being an actress, writing
movie scripts and also being on top of the world.
So without any further delay, let's welcome her on right now. Mom,
(02:08):
please don't open the door. I recording. Okay, okay, okay,
thank you. I am so delighted to have me right now. Actor, writer, producer,
all around, great person, great individual. Christina Denton. What's going on, Christina?
How are you?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I'm good. It's so good to be here and I'm
happy to chat with you. And yeah, it's exciting. Listen.
We're in autumn now. So I feel like, you know,
we got seasons changing things are good.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You know. It kind of reminds me of an old
Expose a song, remember that Seasons.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I love that song. Oh yeah, yeah, that's totally my jam,
right that. I'm just like, yeah, that's kind of like
where you want to be in autumn, just like chilling, relaxing,
get ready for just like you know, bulking season where
you get to cuddle and eat, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It's like it's great, definitely. You know, I'm trying to
be on a lifestyle modification now, Okay, I can't. I
can't do the eating like I used to.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I know, listen, trust me, I know, I'm just I know.
I hit forty and I went, wait a minute, wait,
wait a minute, to start making safe choices and careful choices.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I know. And when we were younger, we could you know.
You know. I grew up in the in the in
the Compton Long Beach area, so I would always hang
out like in Hollywood, go to Tommy Burgers, the original one. Right,
So when I was a teenager, this is what I
could do, Christina, and this is gonna blow you away.
I used to I used to do two double cheeseburgers
and a chili cheese hot dog. And back then Tommy
(03:40):
didn't have fries. They had bags of chips. I would
do two bags of chips and two canceldas. I was
crazy back then.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
But it's like it's like I used to I would
talk about and go play volleyball game. Like it was
like we were there was nothing phasing us, like we
had all these wonderful genetics on our side. It was
no big deal, you know what I mean. So I
live in Long Beach my first two years of college,
so I know that area pretty well. Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah cool. So are you Are you a University of
Lombies Caslate Lombies.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah? I was dancing there. I had. I went in
their dance program for a couple of years. Yeah, I know.
I was a very good program back then. It was
real like third of the nation or something. It was
a really good, hard and competitive school to get into. Yeah,
it was exciting.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So you and I were neighbors. Didn't even know about it.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
I know, right, that's it. That's it.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Dancer, produce your actor. I mean, what can't you do? Christina?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You know what I've been calling myself lately is a storyteller.
Like that feels more because like, now I'm an author,
I'm like, what is this? Like, I guess when you're
a writer and an author, they have to separate them
because what kind of writing, you know? But uh, yeah,
it's like storytelling, right and whatever shape it takes, it's
I think this is storytelling right here. So there's absolutely
lots of different forms.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And since you and I follow each other on I
g now, I know you saw my description storytellers, So
that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Exactly, yeah, so you under stand.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, yeah, great, great minds think of Like, so what
I wanted to do Christina before we talked about your
your latest project. Take me to the origin story of
Christina Denton And when you were growing up, what did
you see yourself doing?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Well, apparently, my mom loves to tell the story. When
I was two years old, I told her I want
to be an actress, and I thought, Mom, what could
I have been exposed to at that young of an age.
I would have even known what that was, right, But
somehow it came out of my mouth. She swears by it.
She's told me since I was you know, I can
remember she told me that story. And so the performer
(05:38):
sort of I think was always in me and I was,
you know, making up plays and dances. I was put
into dance when I was very young. So there was
this this dream of storytelling. And I think I have
vivid memories of sitting in my living room floor as
a little girl, in front of you know, the big
box TVs that were on the floor. Let's be real
about how old I am, and you know, so just
(06:00):
sitting on my knees watching movies and just being transported
into these different worlds and I just felt this magic, right,
and even just the intro songs of these you know,
the twentieth Century Fox and the Lion with MGM, and
you sort of get transported into this realm that is
so different than you see every day. And I loved
(06:20):
that escapism. And then on top of that, I think
when I would meet characters in TV shows or movies
that I identified with, and I would feel like, oh,
they understand me, they get me. I feel less alone,
I feel seen. And I was like I want to
be a part of that process, Like I want to
help people feel like they belong the way I feel. Right,
you can be misunderstood and your youth, you could be bullied.
(06:42):
You can have periods of time you have no friends,
Like I went through all of those times and something
about you know, the characters on TV. I just felt
so connected to them, and I just remember saying, I
want to be a part of this process. And so
it's been in me for a long time, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, did you kind of take that leap of
faith and try to pursue this?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Well, it took a long time, you know, growing up,
I'm from a very small town in rural California. So Hollywood,
as much as it's only what five hours of a
drive away, could not have been further from what I
grew up around. And you know, cow courses.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, you know what you gonna have to tell me.
We're part of California. I'm California, guys. So part of California.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
It's called Hollister and it's kind of central coast by Gilroy, Monterey.
It's like an hour inland from Monterey and Santa Cruz
and an hour south of like San Jose. So people
go like San Francisco. I go two hours south, you know.
So it's really in the middle of nowhere. It's it's
stunningly beautiful, but it's it's farmland, right, There's there's tons
of agriculture and cows and you know, just it's it's
(07:49):
farm country. And you know, I always tell people, like most
of our food comes from California. People just don't realize that.
When you're in La, you think the whole state looks
like this, it does not. It is a very desolate
and rural, so you know, it's almost like hauntingly quiet
at night. Now I go back and I'm like, where
is there no hum of traffic? Like it's crickets. You know,
it's just crickets everywhere. So it's beautiful to go plug
(08:11):
back into it. But growing up I knew I was
like I need to get out of here, like I
need more. I need to be around like creative energy
and that kind of thing. So it, uh, yeah, it's
just it couldn't have been more different for me. Okay,
remember remind me what your original question was. Now I
got transported to that.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Because when you say that my mother and father they
grew up like in central like Fowler, Fresno and everything. Yeah,
you get and uh, And whenever I go up north
to do some work, you know, you know, I passed
by San.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Gil Gil, Yeah, you take the Pacheco Pass and everything.
Yeah said that.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I was like, yeah, and I was saying, when the
leap of faith. Now you know you are growing up
in a small town, no doubt, you know, airboy, I
know your business in a small town. And when I'm
sure when they found out that that little Christine wanted
to want to get into acting, you.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Know it sure yeah, yeah, So it was I was
very shy about it. I mean, I grew up dancing
and then our dance teacher moved out of town. It
was like, well, you can't dance anymore, just go play sports,
which I love sports of course, so I did both,
but it was it was very much something that I
kept to myself, like I didn't do drama. I think
we had one drama class or something in high school
(09:24):
and it was like, oh yeah, if you're a job,
you don't really hang out with those people. Like it
was just like, you know, identity crisis. But I always
knew I was going to do it, so I wanted to,
like at eighteen, go pursue it. And my parents were like, look,
you've got to get a college degree in something, even
if it's just a backup plan. Like have an insurance policy, right,
They're they're projecting their own like academic you know, safety
net of get a college degree. So I wanted to
(09:46):
drop out of college so many times to go pursue acting.
I didn't know I could major in film. I had
no idea that was something I could do, so I
never pursued that in college, and I ended up getting
a degree in exercise science. But the day, I mean
I'm telling my bags were packed, my car was packed.
I ended up finishing up at San Jose State and
my car was packed ready to move to LA my
(10:08):
last day of classes. So I finished my last class,
I got in my car, and I drove to LA
to go pursue acting finally. So it wasn't until after
college and I jumped right into a two year acting program.
So I always called that like my master's And it
was way harder than any college course I ever took,
because it was just requiring you to just excavate and
mine your whole psyche and emotional history and put it
(10:31):
out there. So that was Yeah, it took me a
long time. I felt like I taught here late. I
felt like I started pretty late in the game because
I waited to finish college.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, and do you feel that that kind of sets
you up to be more focus and centered? So when
you got the opportunity, you knew exactly what you wanted,
knew exactly what you wanted to do, and and it
kind of helped you out.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah. I think if I would have really come here
as the naive small town girl at eighteen, I mean
I would have been eaten alive, Like I would have
been eaten alive because I was just so green and
naive to the world, right, And then if I would
have come home, I would have been proud of been
a whole thing. But yeah, I'm actually looking back, of course,
I think it was. It was all designed the way
it was supposed to be. And you know, I think
(11:16):
I was in my mid twenties when I got here,
and even then I was still quite naive. And even
then I fell, you know, pray to a lot of
scams and things. You know, there were a lot of
people here, at least back then that were ready to
pray off your dreams, you know, and take this workshop
and pay me this money and I'll coach you and
I'll help you. And I'm a manager, But pay me
money and you know, all these like different sort of
things where they were setting you up, uh to pray
(11:38):
on your dreams. Really, and so I'm glad I was
a little older and a little wiser, but still I
felt like I had a lot to learn when I
got here, just how the industry. I didn't know anybody
involved in the industry. I didn't know anything, and I would.
I got into the school, but it didn't start for
a couple months, and I remember sitting on forums because
they didn't have Facebook had just started. I was on
(12:00):
forums every day trying to read blogs of just to
teach me the industry terminology, who the players were, Like,
I didn't know anything, so it was almost like a
self taught thing the moment I moved here of just
consuming as much as I could because it was like,
finally I can do this. You know, I made the
parents happy with college and now I'm doing what I
want to do. So I dove really hard into just
(12:22):
educating myself as much as I could. Yeah, it's so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
One thing one thing I love about just your story
and how your career started and how it took off,
was that you went to an international route.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Well, yeah, talk about why that was so so interesting
to what drew you to that?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, So the very first job I actually booked is
was a music video for a pop star in Mexico.
And what was so cool about that for me is
I studied Spanish and college. I grew up around a
predominantly Mexican, you know community, Mexican American community, my friends,
my boyfriends in high school. Like so I feel very
connected to the Mexican culture, the food, the music, and
(13:04):
then the language. And I started studying in high school
and you know, went all through college with it, studied
abroad in Spain. So for me to have my first
acting job, it was it was they directed me in
Spanish and I could and I could understand, and it
was so cool for me because I'm like, oh, I'm
blending my world, you know. And so I think that
kind of started it. And then I ended up working
with just like some grad students from other countries on
(13:27):
their thesis projects, one specifically from China, and he he
put me as a lead in his graduate thesis, took
that film back to China with him and somehow it
launched his career over there. And then he calls me
a few years later is like, Hey, I've got this
huge TV show that I'm shooting in Vegas and there's
a few American parts and I want to maybe I
can put you in one of them. And I was
(13:48):
like what, And so yeah, I ended up working with
him and then we we took the project. It moved
from Vegas over to Saipan, which is a very small
island north of Guam. I was amazing to be a
part of that. And then and then yeah, the show
became a big hit in China, and they're interesting how
they do their shows of it. I don't know much,
you know, but it's basically play everything like two episodes
(14:10):
a night, and so it's like you get this crazy
twenty six episodes in a very short amount of time
and then they're on to the next thing, right, So
they just they are pumping things out. At least a
few years ago, that's how they were doing it. So
it was like a big hit for like the short
amount of time, and then it went away. I mean so,
and I don't think they were ever able to get
it over here because there was some who knows, like
lawsuits with the American production company they worked with. I
(14:32):
don't know, you know, but but yeah, so I love it.
Like it's so fun to just be a part of
a different culture and still telling stories. And like how
they tell stories differently than we do. And you know,
maybe there's more drama or you know, more action or
more healing. I don't even know, so, but it's yeah,
it's been fun to just kind of dip my toe
(14:52):
into different different ways of telling stories from different cultural perspectives. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Thank you so much for sharing that, Kiki. You know,
you know I did my research on you. Yeah, yeah,
I thought that was awesome. You know, man, you know
you one thing, one thing, one thing I really admire
about you, just our short interaction right now. I really
(15:23):
admire your authenticity. You know, you come across as someone
who is just really likable, really amazing. But when it
comes down to do some business, it's time to do
some business and and and and I'm sure people people
can respect that. And now talk about how where we're
at today. You have a new project, amazing project. Yes,
(15:45):
I'm amazing talent in this project. Now, one question before
I ask you about about the project and everything, did
Tyree sing on set for you?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Guys? He would I think he would? He would uh.
He was always I feel like he was always singing,
you know, he was always like humming or mumbling like
he's a singer.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
And he told me when he first when I first
met him, he was one listen he was. I had
a huge crush on him. When I was like, okay,
like I told him, like look, oh like growing up,
I'm like he was on my wall, like straight up,
I had three crushes. I had Tyrese, Tyson Begfort, and
Teddy Diggs. Those were my three t's okay, like this
is like a very serious and when I foundly he
(16:27):
did work on a movie, I went, oh, this is
just full circle hilarious to me. Right, And when he
first met me, I was like, all right, be cool,
you know, be cool, like be real cool. You know
you're the writer, like you got it like this business.
And he stared tells me He's like, you know, I'm
a singer, like not really an actres I'm a singer.
And I was like, you know what I mean, but
I just trying to set me up, like I'm like
(16:48):
you lowering my bar like you know, and he's great
in our movie, like he did such a good job
in our film. But yeah, he's a singer through and through.
I think, like I always say, like I was a
dancer first, I think he's a singer first. Like that's
just his soul. Like he'll never not be a singer, right,
no matter what he does. So yeah, he definitely I
heard I heard little little things here and there on
set between takes. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You know, my my favorite Tyrese moment is the Coca
Cola co marcial. That's that's where we met him.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
He introduced to the world. That's right, and it's just like.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And then and then we needed the video. Sweet Lady
kind of played homage to that, you know on the
bus that. Yeah, but you know n f B fanboy.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Right now, crush aside for me, tell me, tell.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Me tell you about the movie, the concept of it,
what made you want to want to work on this
project and creating all this.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
You know, it's just a really interesting way this was
put together because you know, in Hollywood, traditionally, you know,
you start with a script and then you go try
to find money, and then you start getting all the
people involved. We had money, and we had like a
support like a producer who wanted to support the director's
first feature, and he had funded a project we had
written before, a pilot, and we shopped it around for
(18:04):
a couple of you know, a couple of years, and
then at the high writer strikes and all these things.
So we're like, all right, it's time to make a film.
He said, all I'm gonna give you this much money.
Shoot in LA. But I want a few of my
actor friends in it. So we almost had. We had
like half of our cast was already involved or the
producer wanted them involved, so I had to write for them.
(18:24):
So it's a very backwards way to do this. It's like, hey,
there's money. We know. Where we're shooting is in LA
and we have some actors. And one of the actors
happened to be a singer, and I said, well can
she act? Oh, my dog's gonna bring me a squeaky toy.
Here we go. I'm gonna take it away from it.
But I didn't know if she could act. So she's
a singer. And I said, well is she is she
an actor? And they said, well, we're not quite sure.
(18:45):
So and I said, well, I can't risk her being bad.
Maybe I'll get her kidnapped. When I tell you that
is how the plot of the movie was born. I said, oh,
she's a singer. It'd be funded center the whole thing.
Because I have this fantasy that if nothing ever happens
in my life, I'll be a become a jazz singer
outside of Reno. I have no idea why that's always
been a thing for me, but here comes this movie.
(19:06):
I grew up singing with my dad, so like, I
love singing, but I I I love and I love
jazz and blues and like that's just like my soul.
And so I get, you know, this movie idea comes
about and I'm like, well, at the time, I didn't
know Linda Pearl could sing. And I was like, you know,
I know the producer is friends with her. He wants
to put her and Patrick in the movie. That's really cool.
And Patrick is like the dad from Step by Step.
(19:27):
You know that's me and okay, and so.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I know, you know what you know, get you get
your dog to the tonight.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
This is Jack's and he's very bored because he did
not get to run this morning at the park because
the sprinklers were on. So he's decided that today, at
this moment, currently we're gonna we're gonna play on the interview.
He's a nine month old pit bull puppy. Give me
say hi? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Are being s.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Far from protect? Everyone is his friend and nothing is
a threat, and that's that can be good and bad, right, Yeah,
So it was it was really fun for me to
you know, have almost like a puzzle that I was
given to put together into to make the script happen.
And so I just took my background in love of singing,
and I decided we're going to get this girl kidnapped.
(20:21):
We knew we wanted to do an action thriller, and
so I came up with this concept. My co writer
was like, let's run with it, and we just we
created this script very very quickly, and our lead, Max Martini,
he had a very strict schedule with shooting because he
had he was on the show Lioness, and so once
he did, he didn't know we were writing a script
(20:42):
for him, and so we were like, Okay, let's get
it to a place where it's good enough that he
will you know, he'll sign on, and we gave it
to him about beginning of January. He had an opening
to shoot in the month of February only so we
were in pre production, like as soon as January hit,
we started planning the movie and it was like shooting
in February. So it came together in a couple of months.
(21:02):
Like it was very very quick. I think I only
had I think I finished the first draft in three
weeks and then we did notes back and forth and
we started casting in January. I mean, it was it
was wild, like it was such an insane process. And
so you know, here we are almost two years after
you know, the project was first brought to me, and
you know it's about to be on on demand. So
(21:22):
I'm just like, I can't believe it. It's not traditionally the
way movies get put together in Hollywood, or or the
timeline that Hollywood movies get put together. So yeah, we
got really lucky.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
How'd you come up with the name Hollyood Grit?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
So I think I think Ryan wanted the movie. We
wanted to give the character's name to be called to
his nickname to be Grit and originally was called l
A Grit. And I think I'm sure Scott, the executive producer,
decided we should put the word Hollywood in it because
it hits this element of you know, the theme sort
of seeing what's the price of fame and what will
(21:59):
people do to sort of you know, you know, risk
their whole lives to save their career. Like it's it's
pretty pretty intense, those those themes and definitely pulled from
some experiences in my life for that. So yeah, I
think that's how originally the Hollywood part got in there.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
That it sounds amazing, you know, when you when you're
going through the process shooting, getting everything together, you know,
how the sausage is being made and everything.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Were there times when you were like, we in a
way in the world, we will get this done.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
You know, how we do it and how one hundred percent.
I mean, there were so many times where it felt
like it was going to fall apart. And I have
to say, you know, I'm just the writer, right. As
much as I did help with some casting and I
help with a lot of things and I do have
an EP credit on it, I was kept out of
a lot of the like day to day you know
(22:52):
grind and I've I've produced films before, so I know
what that involves. But yeah, I mean I feel I
always say every movie is a miracle that it was
finished and it should be celebrated no matter how good
or bad it is. I think you have to celebrate
the fact that they were able to complete it because
it's just a miracle. There's so many things that fall apart.
We lost locations, we had all the typical stories happen.
(23:15):
We had, I think we had to do a couple pickups.
The weather was you know, it was kind of cool
because we have a sort of noir vibe in the
movie and it rained a lot that winter and spring,
so we had, you know, weather delays we had. I mean,
there were just so many things that were out of
our control. And like I said, it was a miracle
that it got finished. But one of the coolest elements
(23:35):
I will say that that it was the first time
for me, was we had original music written for the movie.
And because it's so music centric, being centered around this
jazz club, you know, we had an option of like, okay,
do we purchase music, which can cost a lot of
money depending on you know what you're going for, or
do we get original music. And Ryan has this these
great relationships with some musicians he was working with, and
(23:55):
he said, we're writing original songs. So these musicians had
two and a half weeks to create ten songs for
a movie speaking of quick you know, and they did it.
They pulled it out because obviously the actors, they had
to perform the songs in the movie, so we needed
those songs ready to go by by the time we
started shooting. It was just it was incredible the way
things pulled were pulled together like it it's yeah, like,
(24:17):
I don't know how they did it. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, awesome, awesome, And when you when you sit down,
sit out the right for this project, I'm sure there
were things that were left on the cutting room floor
which you could, you know, expound on and everything. How
do you kind of in your mind think about, Okay,
we didn't tell this story. So if this gets a sequel,
I'll be able to do somebody's flashbacks with some of
these ideas.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, yeah, no. We actually been approached to do a
TV series already about it, by a couple of different people,
which is so cool. I think there's there's interest in
expanding the story around this club, you know, and making
you know, really understanding kind of the inner workings. And
once you see the film, you'll see that there's a
(25:01):
lot more you can kind of dig into of how
it started, how they kind of, you know, bring in
the girls to sing, and then what are they doing
to kind of keep their jobs? Is it all?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
You know?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Are they putting themselves in harm harm's way to sort
of stay relevant? And so you know, there's definitely things
there that we are excited to explore because you know,
when you have usion, when you have such an ensemble cast, right,
you want to give each character it's their own arc,
their own backstory, you know, their own you know, just
(25:34):
like so you feel really satisfied that they started in
one place and they ended up in another place. But
it's hard to do when you have so many characters
right to really fully give everybody their moment. And we
did the best that we could. Ryan and I have
written a lot of projects together and we tend to
and I don't know if this is my fault or
his fault, but we we love to have a lot
of characters, and so I think we both come from
(25:55):
really big, wild families and so we put ourselves together.
It's like, ah, like this is what we know. We
know chaos, We know lots of different personalities coming together
and just making messy, messiness and that's what comes out
in our projects. So yeah, I think we have characters
we'd love to see a little bit more from, maybe
understand their origin story a little better. So yeah, it
(26:16):
should be if we get to do it, it should
be a lot of fun to kind of expand yeah,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
What do you what are you most excited for once
to experience about this film?
Speaker 3 (26:29):
I think you know in terms of so now that
it'll be coming out, we just found out I can
share this actually the first time I've shared this, but
it's October twenty first. It will be available online for Apple, Google,
and I believe Amazon. I think it's I think it'll
start as on demand for rent or for purchase, and
then you know, we'll see where it goes from there.
But finally it's going to be out there. It was
(26:50):
it had a short run in the theater, which is great.
But I think the thing that I feel the most
excited about is is the music. I don't know why
I keep saying that, but the score is a character
in the movie, and you know, music teaches us how
to feel. Right if you put somebody said comedy and
horror the same thing with different music, And I thought
(27:12):
that's really interesting if you think about it that way,
because you have these high stakes and this kind of
like oh, but then the music is kind of like,
oh no, this we're supposed to feel funny. This is
funny as an audience, right, even though this is a
crazy thing happening. Oh wait, this is scary because so
the music is such a character in our movie, and
our our composer, Nick Gomez, it's such a fantastic job.
He's a really talented jazz musician. He had this crazy
(27:34):
amazing band come in and just record all this music,
and when you see it, you'll see like how incredibly
valuable the music is for this film. When you have
low budgets and you don't have money to make these big,
fantastical action sequences or special effects, you rely on character
and music to really kind of make the movie come
to life. And I think we did that in a
(27:55):
very incredible way. And I'm really proud of that, really
really proud of that. And so I think that's the
thing that I probably would say first, and then the characters.
I think there's some really unique characters and incredible performances
in this movie that I'm just so proud of. Our
actors for especially Linna Pearl is probably still my favorite character.
She just definitely unlike anything you've ever seen her do,
(28:17):
and like anything you've ever seen Patrick Duffy do. These
these are two kind of almost like career reviving roles
for them. Yeah, yeah, so true.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, off ball question, how did you get the nickname Kiki.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
When I was very little? I can't remember exactly. I
don't know if it's that my sister couldn't say my
name and my young my sister. I have three younger sisters,
and I want to say one of them couldn't really
say my full name, so they just my my aunt
started I think it, or my dad and so yeah,
it's something. And all my nieces and my nephews call
me Kiky now like so it's just like my whole
(28:53):
my cousin's still call me Kiki. Yeah, it's still there.
It's still there very much.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
So now you know, if you're ever looking for actors
in wheelchairs kind of kind of kind of nice looking,
kind of sexy.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Kind of smooth, good personality.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, Kiky holler at your boy.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
And and that's one thing I'm so glad we have
like different platforms like streaming and everything where we're able
to see great projects like this. You know, back in
the days when you and I were growing up, it's
like you would never see like other different projects that
people were doing because there were not a lot of
platforms to do it. But to have platforms like this now,
(29:42):
I mean, it's really really, really gratifying. And yeah, and
I don't want to get you in trouble or anything,
but something tells me you're working on something. You can't
tell me, But what's in the pipeline for you?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I well, I do have a book coming out and
I can't talk about that. It's it's h it's a memoir.
It's a pretty wild it's a pretty wild story. And
uh yeah, it's called you Don't Know Dick, which is
a wild title, low racing and provocative, but it's it's
about the year that I spent working at an erect
(30:14):
syl dysfunction clinic in la is one of my day
jobs on the heat I know, yep, yep, yep, And
I did not I did not apply for the job. Okay.
I was an office manager of a wellness clinic and
they brought in this service and said, you're our only employee,
so you're clearly qualified to do this. And I was like,
the comedy writer in me was like, did you just
(30:35):
did you just ask me to be a dick fixer?
Because uh, that's hilarious and I have a lot of
I have a lot of opinions about it, but also curiosity,
and so I I get certified in this. In this technique,
it uses a machine that has sound wave technology that
you could use to break up scar tissue in your muscles.
Some doctor decided to use it on, you know, for
(30:57):
the men, and it absolutely helps with blood flow and
it works. It's not a you know, forever cure, but
it's something that can help, and it's better than pills
and injections and surgeries. So you know, I knew nothing
about that world beforehand, but I learned quite a lot.
And the story, you know, covers my whole year doing
this job, but also the most important sort of heart
(31:19):
of the story, like the gimmick of course pulls people
in right. It's like she was a but and she
did what where? But it was on the heels of
my dad passed away right at the beginning of me
starting a job, and I had a really rough relationship
with him. He was an alcoholic, he was verbally abusive.
Being the oldest of four girls, you know, I was
kind of the protector and the one that kind of
you know, went to bat with him a little bit
(31:40):
and had just a complicated relationship. And so the job,
you know, when I started it, it was very funny. Obviously,
I learned a lot of funny stories. I heard a
lot of great Then I started seeing men's shame, their vulnerability,
how emotional they are but they just can't show it
in public. And I it completely flipped my narrative because
my dad taught me men weren't safe, men couldn't be trusted.
(32:03):
That was my foundation. And then all of my clients
started giving me this completely different side. And so not
only did it help heal my relationship with men and
help me trust men, but it healed my relationship with
my dad after he died, because I learned to see
him from a different perspective and see how much pain
he was in without resources and without tools, and so
ultimately it helped me forgive him. So the tag to
(32:24):
the title of the book, you Don't Know Dick, is
how I healed my daddy issues by fixing broke indicts,
and so it's this very wild rollercoaster kind of intersection
between humor and heartbreak, grief, you know, healing that relationship.
And so it's got a little bit of everything. But
it's finished and it should be coming out in sometime
in January, February, March. I haven't gotten the exact date yet,
(32:46):
but yeah, so that's like the most personal thing I've
ever written, the most you know, raw and exposed of
my own story. But I think probably the most important
important thing I'll ever do in my life in terms
of a healing story. And then, and my family has
started to read the book and they are crying and
crying and crying and sobbing, and I just had no
(33:06):
idea how much healing it would offer to them as well.
So it's been this beautiful journey for me. I highly
recommend everyone tell their story, because it's as difficult as
it is, I think it's it's extremely important and cathartic
to do.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, I'm about to pick your brain because I've been
Yeah it's been been thirty two years for me since
I've I've been a quadriplegic, and yeah, I've always you know,
I got to do this. I did it, and all
these all these decades and years keep passing. So yeah,
and you can tell me just do it, you know,
(33:41):
qu quit from around.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yes, Yeah, it's there's so many there's so many things available,
you know, and and and in terms of like outlets
for story now, and it's it's like, you know, if
you you have your story, it's time to tell it,
you know what I mean, And you know you're going
to get that. Like for me, it was like the
itch just like I just was like and I would
do another project, and then I got to write this
book and I do know thres and I wrote it
(34:05):
as a pilot first because I'm a screenwriter. I'm not
an author. I've never written a book. This was a
totally new format for writing for me. But I something
just kept saying like this is very important to do.
And once the strikes happen in COVID, I was like,
all right, what if I just create IP and then
from the book, you know, I can hand it to
an executive producer, I can hand it to an actor
(34:25):
and they can really understand my story more so than
just a pilot script, because a pilot script is just surface.
It's just a very small portion of the story. And
so yeah, the goal is still for me, is that
to make a TV series out of this, because obviously,
you know, there's just so many cool things to explore
in that story. But yeah, I think I think you know,
you'll know, like you'll know when it's time because it
(34:47):
just won't leave you alone, you know what I mean.
And so once it becomes the loudest thing in your mind,
like you'll know like, Okay, it's time, I try to
do it.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah that makes sense, That makes sense. So any other
things you can tell us about that you might be
wor canon. Do I have to have you back, you know,
in a few months talking?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I mean, I think we definitely have to come back
for sure. This is very too much fun for me.
But I uh, yeah, there's a couple Brian and I
have another project, a big kind of political thriller about
the weaponization of AI. That's our next collaboration together, which
is pretty pretty intense and very relevant. So yeah, that
should be really fun.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah that sounds good. Definitely for that. And every time
you came back on the show, you gotta bring Jack.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Well, yes, yeah, my husband's home, so he's regulating the dog.
Now he's a good guy. He's a good guy.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, that's well, Christina, thank you so much. Great chatting
with you. Anything else before we let you.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Go, No, I think that's Thank you so much for
having me. It was so nice to talk to you.
You're such a great you know uh person to chat
with like you you ought to talk about authenticity. I felt,
you know, very this was easy and fun, so I'm
happy to come back anytime.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Well, thank you so much much success on this latest
project to and thank.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
You so much, so good to meet you, Paul. Take care.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
A huge shout out to the amazing Christina Denton Key.
Keith love talking to her about Hollywood Grit. Some of
the stars and that behind the scenes about Tyrese humming
around and the other ones are in this film. Check
it out. Let me know what you think. I'm sure
she would like it too, so make sure you would
(36:24):
definitely keep your eye out for Hollywood Grit. Well, it's
time for me to get out of here. Until next time,
stay healthy, stay safe, and remember I love you all
of life. Take care.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Everyone intro LESCo with another flow. Ain't your average in
the team and show more than theer tainment. Then what's
on the screen. Connect than dots on what you see
The flow.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
Ain't your average entertainment show more to entertainment than what's
on the screen, connecting dots on what you see. Have
y'all ever wondered how we do all begin the idea?
How they started to play xx actors the whole team
man props to those behind the scene.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Why did the person get into the bus?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Something inside when they were of a kid who helped
them out when they were wanted to quit, went about
the family, gave them rocks to kick How well the
haters they left shaman alone? Find out in the Entertainment
Zone with Paul Amadea's Lane.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Hello, and welcome to the Entertainment Zone. What is up?
It's me Paul Amadea's Lane, and I'm so delighted to
have you on our show today. We have an amazing
actress and a writer who's going to join us to
talk about her new project, Hollywood Grit, so you don't
want to miss that before we bring her on. Remember
you can always connect with me Paul Amadea's Lane, dot Com,
(00:58):
all social media platforms. It's Paul lama Day's Lane even
LinkedIn because I am a business man. Because I'm all
about that businessman. We welcome you who are watching and
listening on k e T ABC news radio affiliate here
in southern California. Can't forget about you. We're watching on
our Amazon Prime It's fire Stick Channel, ro Code channel.
(01:23):
Those who are listening on our podcast. iHeart Spotify so
many I can't remember. We're Apple all of them. The
Entertainment Zone with Paulama Day Slane. Thank you so much,
so like light, Subscribe, subscribed, scribe, comic comic comment, hit
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all the episodes of the Entertainment Zone. What if I
(01:47):
told you that a young girl's dream at two years
old would find her to now being an actress, writing
movie scripts and also being on top of the world.
So without any further delay, let's welcome her on right now. Mom,
(02:08):
please don't open the door. I recording. Okay, okay, okay,
thank you. I am so delighted to have me right now. Actor, writer, producer,
all around, great person, great individual. Christina Denton. What's going on, Christina?
How are you?
Speaker 3 (02:27):
I'm good. It's so good to be here and I'm
happy to chat with you. And yeah, it's exciting. Listen.
We're in autumn now. So I feel like, you know,
we got seasons changing things are good.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
You know. It kind of reminds me of an old
Expose a song, remember that Seasons.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
I love that song. Oh yeah, yeah, that's totally my jam,
right that. I'm just like, yeah, that's kind of like
where you want to be in autumn, just like chilling, relaxing,
get ready for just like you know, bulking season where
you get to cuddle and eat, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
It's like it's great, definitely. You know, I'm trying to
be on a lifestyle modification now, Okay, I can't. I
can't do the eating like I used to.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
I know, listen, trust me, I know, I'm just I know.
I hit forty and I went, wait a minute, wait,
wait a minute, to start making safe choices and careful choices.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I know. And when we were younger, we could you know.
You know. I grew up in the in the in
the Compton Long Beach area, so I would always hang
out like in Hollywood, go to Tommy Burgers, the original one. Right,
So when I was a teenager, this is what I
could do, Christina, and this is gonna blow you away.
I used to I used to do two double cheeseburgers
and a chili cheese hot dog. And back then Tommy
(03:40):
didn't have fries. They had bags of chips. I would
do two bags of chips and two canceldas. I was
crazy back then.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
But it's like it's like I used to I would
talk about and go play volleyball game. Like it was
like we were there was nothing phasing us, like we
had all these wonderful genetics on our side. It was
no big deal, you know what I mean. So I
live in Long Beach my first two years of college,
so I know that area pretty well. Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah cool. So are you Are you a University of
Lombies Caslate Lombies.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Yeah? I was dancing there. I had. I went in
their dance program for a couple of years. Yeah, I know.
I was a very good program back then. It was
real like third of the nation or something. It was
a really good, hard and competitive school to get into. Yeah,
it was exciting.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So you and I were neighbors. Didn't even know about it.
Speaker 3 (04:22):
I know, right, that's it. That's it.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Dancer, produce your actor. I mean, what can't you do? Christina?
Speaker 3 (04:30):
You know what I've been calling myself lately is a storyteller.
Like that feels more because like, now I'm an author,
I'm like, what is this? Like, I guess when you're
a writer and an author, they have to separate them
because what kind of writing, you know? But uh, yeah,
it's like storytelling, right and whatever shape it takes, it's
I think this is storytelling right here. So there's absolutely
lots of different forms.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
And since you and I follow each other on I
g now, I know you saw my description storytellers, So
that's yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Exactly, yeah, so you under stand.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, yeah, great, great minds think of Like, so what
I wanted to do Christina before we talked about your
your latest project. Take me to the origin story of
Christina Denton And when you were growing up, what did
you see yourself doing?
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Well, apparently, my mom loves to tell the story. When
I was two years old, I told her I want
to be an actress, and I thought, Mom, what could
I have been exposed to at that young of an age.
I would have even known what that was, right, But
somehow it came out of my mouth. She swears by it.
She's told me since I was you know, I can
remember she told me that story. And so the performer
(05:38):
sort of I think was always in me and I was,
you know, making up plays and dances. I was put
into dance when I was very young. So there was
this this dream of storytelling. And I think I have
vivid memories of sitting in my living room floor as
a little girl, in front of you know, the big
box TVs that were on the floor. Let's be real
about how old I am, and you know, so just
(06:00):
sitting on my knees watching movies and just being transported
into these different worlds and I just felt this magic, right,
and even just the intro songs of these you know,
the twentieth Century Fox and the Lion with MGM, and
you sort of get transported into this realm that is
so different than you see every day. And I loved
(06:20):
that escapism. And then on top of that, I think
when I would meet characters in TV shows or movies
that I identified with, and I would feel like, oh,
they understand me, they get me. I feel less alone,
I feel seen. And I was like I want to
be a part of that process, Like I want to
help people feel like they belong the way I feel. Right,
you can be misunderstood and your youth, you could be bullied.
(06:42):
You can have periods of time you have no friends,
Like I went through all of those times and something
about you know, the characters on TV. I just felt
so connected to them, and I just remember saying, I
want to be a part of this process. And so
it's been in me for a long time, you know.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, yeah, did you kind of take that leap of
faith and try to pursue this?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Well, it took a long time, you know, growing up,
I'm from a very small town in rural California. So Hollywood,
as much as it's only what five hours of a
drive away, could not have been further from what I
grew up around. And you know, cow courses.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Yeah, you know what you gonna have to tell me.
We're part of California. I'm California, guys. So part of California.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
It's called Hollister and it's kind of central coast by Gilroy, Monterey.
It's like an hour inland from Monterey and Santa Cruz
and an hour south of like San Jose. So people
go like San Francisco. I go two hours south, you know.
So it's really in the middle of nowhere. It's it's
stunningly beautiful, but it's it's farmland, right, There's there's tons
of agriculture and cows and you know, just it's it's
(07:49):
farm country. And you know, I always tell people, like most
of our food comes from California. People just don't realize that.
When you're in La, you think the whole state looks
like this, it does not. It is a very desolate
and rural, so you know, it's almost like hauntingly quiet
at night. Now I go back and I'm like, where
is there no hum of traffic? Like it's crickets. You know,
it's just crickets everywhere. So it's beautiful to go plug
(08:11):
back into it. But growing up I knew I was
like I need to get out of here, like I
need more. I need to be around like creative energy
and that kind of thing. So it, uh, yeah, it's
just it couldn't have been more different for me. Okay,
remember remind me what your original question was. Now I
got transported to that.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Because when you say that my mother and father they
grew up like in central like Fowler, Fresno and everything. Yeah,
you get and uh, And whenever I go up north
to do some work, you know, you know, I passed
by San.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
Gil Gil, Yeah, you take the Pacheco Pass and everything.
Yeah said that.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I was like, yeah, and I was saying, when the
leap of faith. Now you know you are growing up
in a small town, no doubt, you know, airboy, I
know your business in a small town. And when I'm
sure when they found out that that little Christine wanted
to want to get into acting, you.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Know it sure yeah, yeah, So it was I was
very shy about it. I mean, I grew up dancing
and then our dance teacher moved out of town. It
was like, well, you can't dance anymore, just go play sports,
which I love sports of course, so I did both,
but it was it was very much something that I
kept to myself, like I didn't do drama. I think
we had one drama class or something in high school
(09:24):
and it was like, oh yeah, if you're a job,
you don't really hang out with those people. Like it
was just like, you know, identity crisis. But I always
knew I was going to do it, so I wanted to,
like at eighteen, go pursue it. And my parents were like, look,
you've got to get a college degree in something, even
if it's just a backup plan. Like have an insurance policy, right,
They're they're projecting their own like academic you know, safety
net of get a college degree. So I wanted to
(09:46):
drop out of college so many times to go pursue acting.
I didn't know I could major in film. I had
no idea that was something I could do, so I
never pursued that in college, and I ended up getting
a degree in exercise science. But the day, I mean
I'm telling my bags were packed, my car was packed.
I ended up finishing up at San Jose State and
my car was packed ready to move to LA my
(10:08):
last day of classes. So I finished my last class,
I got in my car, and I drove to LA
to go pursue acting finally. So it wasn't until after
college and I jumped right into a two year acting program.
So I always called that like my master's And it
was way harder than any college course I ever took,
because it was just requiring you to just excavate and
mine your whole psyche and emotional history and put it
(10:31):
out there. So that was Yeah, it took me a
long time. I felt like I taught here late. I
felt like I started pretty late in the game because
I waited to finish college.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yeah, and do you feel that that kind of sets
you up to be more focus and centered? So when
you got the opportunity, you knew exactly what you wanted,
knew exactly what you wanted to do, and and it
kind of helped you out.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Yeah. I think if I would have really come here
as the naive small town girl at eighteen, I mean
I would have been eaten alive, Like I would have
been eaten alive because I was just so green and
naive to the world, right, And then if I would
have come home, I would have been proud of been
a whole thing. But yeah, I'm actually looking back, of course,
I think it was. It was all designed the way
it was supposed to be. And you know, I think
(11:16):
I was in my mid twenties when I got here,
and even then I was still quite naive. And even
then I fell, you know, pray to a lot of
scams and things. You know, there were a lot of
people here, at least back then that were ready to
pray off your dreams, you know, and take this workshop
and pay me this money and I'll coach you and
I'll help you. And I'm a manager, But pay me
money and you know, all these like different sort of
things where they were setting you up, uh to pray
(11:38):
on your dreams. Really, and so I'm glad I was
a little older and a little wiser, but still I
felt like I had a lot to learn when I
got here, just how the industry. I didn't know anybody
involved in the industry. I didn't know anything, and I would.
I got into the school, but it didn't start for
a couple months, and I remember sitting on forums because
they didn't have Facebook had just started. I was on
(12:00):
forums every day trying to read blogs of just to
teach me the industry terminology, who the players were, Like,
I didn't know anything, so it was almost like a
self taught thing the moment I moved here of just
consuming as much as I could because it was like,
finally I can do this. You know, I made the
parents happy with college and now I'm doing what I
want to do. So I dove really hard into just
(12:22):
educating myself as much as I could. Yeah, it's so cool.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
One thing one thing I love about just your story
and how your career started and how it took off,
was that you went to an international route.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Well, yeah, talk about why that was so so interesting
to what drew you to that?
Speaker 3 (12:43):
Yeah, So the very first job I actually booked is
was a music video for a pop star in Mexico.
And what was so cool about that for me is
I studied Spanish and college. I grew up around a
predominantly Mexican, you know community, Mexican American community, my friends,
my boyfriends in high school. Like so I feel very
connected to the Mexican culture, the food, the music, and
(13:04):
then the language. And I started studying in high school
and you know, went all through college with it, studied
abroad in Spain. So for me to have my first
acting job, it was it was they directed me in
Spanish and I could and I could understand, and it
was so cool for me because I'm like, oh, I'm
blending my world, you know. And so I think that
kind of started it. And then I ended up working
with just like some grad students from other countries on
(13:27):
their thesis projects, one specifically from China, and he he
put me as a lead in his graduate thesis, took
that film back to China with him and somehow it
launched his career over there. And then he calls me
a few years later is like, Hey, I've got this
huge TV show that I'm shooting in Vegas and there's
a few American parts and I want to maybe I
can put you in one of them. And I was
(13:48):
like what, And so yeah, I ended up working with
him and then we we took the project. It moved
from Vegas over to Saipan, which is a very small
island north of Guam. I was amazing to be a
part of that. And then and then yeah, the show
became a big hit in China, and they're interesting how
they do their shows of it. I don't know much,
you know, but it's basically play everything like two episodes
(14:10):
a night, and so it's like you get this crazy
twenty six episodes in a very short amount of time
and then they're on to the next thing, right, So
they just they are pumping things out. At least a
few years ago, that's how they were doing it. So
it was like a big hit for like the short
amount of time, and then it went away. I mean so,
and I don't think they were ever able to get
it over here because there was some who knows, like
lawsuits with the American production company they worked with. I
(14:32):
don't know, you know, but but yeah, so I love it.
Like it's so fun to just be a part of
a different culture and still telling stories. And like how
they tell stories differently than we do. And you know,
maybe there's more drama or you know, more action or
more healing. I don't even know, so, but it's yeah,
it's been fun to just kind of dip my toe
(14:52):
into different different ways of telling stories from different cultural perspectives. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Thank you so much for sharing that, Kiki. You know,
you know I did my research on you. Yeah, yeah,
I thought that was awesome. You know, man, you know
you one thing, one thing, one thing I really admire
about you, just our short interaction right now. I really
(15:23):
admire your authenticity. You know, you come across as someone
who is just really likable, really amazing. But when it
comes down to do some business, it's time to do
some business and and and and I'm sure people people
can respect that. And now talk about how where we're
at today. You have a new project, amazing project. Yes,
(15:45):
I'm amazing talent in this project. Now, one question before
I ask you about about the project and everything, did
Tyree sing on set for you?
Speaker 3 (15:54):
Guys? He would I think he would? He would uh.
He was always I feel like he was always singing,
you know, he was always like humming or mumbling like
he's a singer.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
And he told me when he first when I first
met him, he was one listen he was. I had
a huge crush on him. When I was like, okay,
like I told him, like look, oh like growing up,
I'm like he was on my wall, like straight up,
I had three crushes. I had Tyrese, Tyson Begfort, and
Teddy Diggs. Those were my three t's okay, like this
is like a very serious and when I foundly he
(16:27):
did work on a movie, I went, oh, this is
just full circle hilarious to me. Right, And when he
first met me, I was like, all right, be cool,
you know, be cool, like be real cool. You know
you're the writer, like you got it like this business.
And he stared tells me He's like, you know, I'm
a singer, like not really an actres I'm a singer.
And I was like, you know what I mean, but
I just trying to set me up, like I'm like
(16:48):
you lowering my bar like you know, and he's great
in our movie, like he did such a good job
in our film. But yeah, he's a singer through and through.
I think, like I always say, like I was a
dancer first, I think he's a singer first. Like that's
just his soul. Like he'll never not be a singer, right,
no matter what he does. So yeah, he definitely I
heard I heard little little things here and there on
set between takes. Absolutely. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
You know, my my favorite Tyrese moment is the Coca
Cola co marcial. That's that's where we met him.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
He introduced to the world. That's right, and it's just like.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
And then and then we needed the video. Sweet Lady
kind of played homage to that, you know on the
bus that. Yeah, but you know n f B fanboy.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
Right now, crush aside for me, tell me, tell.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Me tell you about the movie, the concept of it,
what made you want to want to work on this
project and creating all this.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
You know, it's just a really interesting way this was
put together because you know, in Hollywood, traditionally, you know,
you start with a script and then you go try
to find money, and then you start getting all the
people involved. We had money, and we had like a
support like a producer who wanted to support the director's
first feature, and he had funded a project we had
written before, a pilot, and we shopped it around for
(18:04):
a couple of you know, a couple of years, and
then at the high writer strikes and all these things.
So we're like, all right, it's time to make a film.
He said, all I'm gonna give you this much money.
Shoot in LA. But I want a few of my
actor friends in it. So we almost had. We had
like half of our cast was already involved or the
producer wanted them involved, so I had to write for them.
(18:24):
So it's a very backwards way to do this. It's like, hey,
there's money. We know. Where we're shooting is in LA
and we have some actors. And one of the actors
happened to be a singer, and I said, well can
she act? Oh, my dog's gonna bring me a squeaky toy.
Here we go. I'm gonna take it away from it.
But I didn't know if she could act. So she's
a singer. And I said, well is she is she
an actor? And they said, well, we're not quite sure.
(18:45):
So and I said, well, I can't risk her being bad.
Maybe I'll get her kidnapped. When I tell you that
is how the plot of the movie was born. I said, oh,
she's a singer. It'd be funded center the whole thing.
Because I have this fantasy that if nothing ever happens
in my life, I'll be a become a jazz singer
outside of Reno. I have no idea why that's always
been a thing for me, but here comes this movie.
(19:06):
I grew up singing with my dad, so like, I
love singing, but I I I love and I love
jazz and blues and like that's just like my soul.
And so I get, you know, this movie idea comes
about and I'm like, well, at the time, I didn't
know Linda Pearl could sing. And I was like, you know,
I know the producer is friends with her. He wants
to put her and Patrick in the movie. That's really cool.
And Patrick is like the dad from Step by Step.
(19:27):
You know that's me and okay, and so.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
I know, you know what you know, get you get
your dog to the tonight.
Speaker 3 (19:36):
This is Jack's and he's very bored because he did
not get to run this morning at the park because
the sprinklers were on. So he's decided that today, at
this moment, currently we're gonna we're gonna play on the interview.
He's a nine month old pit bull puppy. Give me
say hi? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Are being s.
Speaker 3 (20:00):
Far from protect? Everyone is his friend and nothing is
a threat, and that's that can be good and bad, right, Yeah,
So it was it was really fun for me to
you know, have almost like a puzzle that I was
given to put together into to make the script happen.
And so I just took my background in love of singing,
and I decided we're going to get this girl kidnapped.
(20:21):
We knew we wanted to do an action thriller, and
so I came up with this concept. My co writer
was like, let's run with it, and we just we
created this script very very quickly, and our lead, Max Martini,
he had a very strict schedule with shooting because he
had he was on the show Lioness, and so once
he did, he didn't know we were writing a script
(20:42):
for him, and so we were like, Okay, let's get
it to a place where it's good enough that he
will you know, he'll sign on, and we gave it
to him about beginning of January. He had an opening
to shoot in the month of February only so we
were in pre production, like as soon as January hit,
we started planning the movie and it was like shooting
in February. So it came together in a couple of months.
(21:02):
Like it was very very quick. I think I only
had I think I finished the first draft in three
weeks and then we did notes back and forth and
we started casting in January. I mean, it was it
was wild, like it was such an insane process. And
so you know, here we are almost two years after
you know, the project was first brought to me, and
you know it's about to be on on demand. So
(21:22):
I'm just like, I can't believe it. It's not traditionally the
way movies get put together in Hollywood, or or the
timeline that Hollywood movies get put together. So yeah, we
got really lucky.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
How'd you come up with the name Hollyood Grit?
Speaker 3 (21:38):
So I think I think Ryan wanted the movie. We
wanted to give the character's name to be called to
his nickname to be Grit and originally was called l
A Grit. And I think I'm sure Scott, the executive producer,
decided we should put the word Hollywood in it because
it hits this element of you know, the theme sort
of seeing what's the price of fame and what will
(21:59):
people do to sort of you know, you know, risk
their whole lives to save their career. Like it's it's
pretty pretty intense, those those themes and definitely pulled from
some experiences in my life for that. So yeah, I
think that's how originally the Hollywood part got in there.
Speaker 4 (22:16):
That it sounds amazing, you know, when you when you're
going through the process shooting, getting everything together, you know,
how the sausage is being made and everything.
Speaker 1 (22:27):
Were there times when you were like, we in a
way in the world, we will get this done.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
You know, how we do it and how one hundred percent.
I mean, there were so many times where it felt
like it was going to fall apart. And I have
to say, you know, I'm just the writer, right. As
much as I did help with some casting and I
help with a lot of things and I do have
an EP credit on it, I was kept out of
a lot of the like day to day you know
(22:52):
grind and I've I've produced films before, so I know
what that involves. But yeah, I mean I feel I
always say every movie is a miracle that it was
finished and it should be celebrated no matter how good
or bad it is. I think you have to celebrate
the fact that they were able to complete it because
it's just a miracle. There's so many things that fall apart.
We lost locations, we had all the typical stories happen.
(23:15):
We had, I think we had to do a couple pickups.
The weather was you know, it was kind of cool
because we have a sort of noir vibe in the
movie and it rained a lot that winter and spring,
so we had, you know, weather delays we had. I mean,
there were just so many things that were out of
our control. And like I said, it was a miracle
that it got finished. But one of the coolest elements
(23:35):
I will say that that it was the first time
for me, was we had original music written for the movie.
And because it's so music centric, being centered around this
jazz club, you know, we had an option of like, okay,
do we purchase music, which can cost a lot of
money depending on you know what you're going for, or
do we get original music. And Ryan has this these
great relationships with some musicians he was working with, and
(23:55):
he said, we're writing original songs. So these musicians had
two and a half weeks to create ten songs for
a movie speaking of quick you know, and they did it.
They pulled it out because obviously the actors, they had
to perform the songs in the movie, so we needed
those songs ready to go by by the time we
started shooting. It was just it was incredible the way
things pulled were pulled together like it it's yeah, like,
(24:17):
I don't know how they did it. I really don't.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, awesome, awesome, And when you when you sit down,
sit out the right for this project, I'm sure there
were things that were left on the cutting room floor
which you could, you know, expound on and everything. How
do you kind of in your mind think about, Okay,
we didn't tell this story. So if this gets a sequel,
I'll be able to do somebody's flashbacks with some of
these ideas.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
Yeah, yeah, no. We actually been approached to do a
TV series already about it, by a couple of different people,
which is so cool. I think there's there's interest in
expanding the story around this club, you know, and making
you know, really understanding kind of the inner workings. And
once you see the film, you'll see that there's a
(25:01):
lot more you can kind of dig into of how
it started, how they kind of, you know, bring in
the girls to sing, and then what are they doing
to kind of keep their jobs? Is it all?
Speaker 1 (25:11):
You know?
Speaker 3 (25:11):
Are they putting themselves in harm harm's way to sort
of stay relevant? And so you know, there's definitely things
there that we are excited to explore because you know,
when you have usion, when you have such an ensemble cast, right,
you want to give each character it's their own arc,
their own backstory, you know, their own you know, just
(25:34):
like so you feel really satisfied that they started in
one place and they ended up in another place. But
it's hard to do when you have so many characters
right to really fully give everybody their moment. And we
did the best that we could. Ryan and I have
written a lot of projects together and we tend to
and I don't know if this is my fault or
his fault, but we we love to have a lot
of characters, and so I think we both come from
(25:55):
really big, wild families and so we put ourselves together.
It's like, ah, like this is what we know. We
know chaos, We know lots of different personalities coming together
and just making messy, messiness and that's what comes out
in our projects. So yeah, I think we have characters
we'd love to see a little bit more from, maybe
understand their origin story a little better. So yeah, it
(26:16):
should be if we get to do it, it should
be a lot of fun to kind of expand yeah,
I love that.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
What do you what are you most excited for once
to experience about this film?
Speaker 3 (26:29):
I think you know in terms of so now that
it'll be coming out, we just found out I can
share this actually the first time I've shared this, but
it's October twenty first. It will be available online for Apple, Google,
and I believe Amazon. I think it's I think it'll
start as on demand for rent or for purchase, and
then you know, we'll see where it goes from there.
But finally it's going to be out there. It was
(26:50):
it had a short run in the theater, which is great.
But I think the thing that I feel the most
excited about is is the music. I don't know why
I keep saying that, but the score is a character
in the movie, and you know, music teaches us how
to feel. Right if you put somebody said comedy and
horror the same thing with different music, And I thought
(27:12):
that's really interesting if you think about it that way,
because you have these high stakes and this kind of
like oh, but then the music is kind of like,
oh no, this we're supposed to feel funny. This is
funny as an audience, right, even though this is a
crazy thing happening. Oh wait, this is scary because so
the music is such a character in our movie, and
our our composer, Nick Gomez, it's such a fantastic job.
He's a really talented jazz musician. He had this crazy
(27:34):
amazing band come in and just record all this music,
and when you see it, you'll see like how incredibly
valuable the music is for this film. When you have
low budgets and you don't have money to make these big,
fantastical action sequences or special effects, you rely on character
and music to really kind of make the movie come
to life. And I think we did that in a
(27:55):
very incredible way. And I'm really proud of that, really
really proud of that. And so I think that's the
thing that I probably would say first, and then the characters.
I think there's some really unique characters and incredible performances
in this movie that I'm just so proud of. Our
actors for especially Linna Pearl is probably still my favorite character.
She just definitely unlike anything you've ever seen her do,
(28:17):
and like anything you've ever seen Patrick Duffy do. These
these are two kind of almost like career reviving roles
for them. Yeah, yeah, so true.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Yeah, off ball question, how did you get the nickname Kiki.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
When I was very little? I can't remember exactly. I
don't know if it's that my sister couldn't say my
name and my young my sister. I have three younger sisters,
and I want to say one of them couldn't really
say my full name, so they just my my aunt
started I think it, or my dad and so yeah,
it's something. And all my nieces and my nephews call
me Kiky now like so it's just like my whole
(28:53):
my cousin's still call me Kiki. Yeah, it's still there.
It's still there very much.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
So now you know, if you're ever looking for actors
in wheelchairs kind of kind of kind of nice looking,
kind of sexy.
Speaker 3 (29:10):
Kind of smooth, good personality.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Yeah, Kiky holler at your boy.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
Definitely.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
And and that's one thing I'm so glad we have
like different platforms like streaming and everything where we're able
to see great projects like this. You know, back in
the days when you and I were growing up, it's
like you would never see like other different projects that
people were doing because there were not a lot of
platforms to do it. But to have platforms like this now,
(29:42):
I mean, it's really really, really gratifying. And yeah, and
I don't want to get you in trouble or anything,
but something tells me you're working on something. You can't
tell me, But what's in the pipeline for you?
Speaker 3 (29:54):
I well, I do have a book coming out and
I can't talk about that. It's it's h it's a memoir.
It's a pretty wild it's a pretty wild story. And
uh yeah, it's called you Don't Know Dick, which is
a wild title, low racing and provocative, but it's it's
about the year that I spent working at an erect
(30:14):
syl dysfunction clinic in la is one of my day
jobs on the heat I know, yep, yep, yep, And
I did not I did not apply for the job. Okay.
I was an office manager of a wellness clinic and
they brought in this service and said, you're our only employee,
so you're clearly qualified to do this. And I was like,
the comedy writer in me was like, did you just
(30:35):
did you just ask me to be a dick fixer?
Because uh, that's hilarious and I have a lot of
I have a lot of opinions about it, but also curiosity,
and so I I get certified in this. In this technique,
it uses a machine that has sound wave technology that
you could use to break up scar tissue in your muscles.
Some doctor decided to use it on, you know, for
(30:57):
the men, and it absolutely helps with blood flow and
it works. It's not a you know, forever cure, but
it's something that can help, and it's better than pills
and injections and surgeries. So you know, I knew nothing
about that world beforehand, but I learned quite a lot.
And the story, you know, covers my whole year doing
this job, but also the most important sort of heart
(31:19):
of the story, like the gimmick of course pulls people
in right. It's like she was a but and she
did what where? But it was on the heels of
my dad passed away right at the beginning of me
starting a job, and I had a really rough relationship
with him. He was an alcoholic, he was verbally abusive.
Being the oldest of four girls, you know, I was
kind of the protector and the one that kind of
you know, went to bat with him a little bit
(31:40):
and had just a complicated relationship. And so the job,
you know, when I started it, it was very funny. Obviously,
I learned a lot of funny stories. I heard a
lot of great Then I started seeing men's shame, their vulnerability,
how emotional they are but they just can't show it
in public. And I it completely flipped my narrative because
my dad taught me men weren't safe, men couldn't be trusted.
(32:03):
That was my foundation. And then all of my clients
started giving me this completely different side. And so not
only did it help heal my relationship with men and
help me trust men, but it healed my relationship with
my dad after he died, because I learned to see
him from a different perspective and see how much pain
he was in without resources and without tools, and so
ultimately it helped me forgive him. So the tag to
(32:24):
the title of the book, you Don't Know Dick, is
how I healed my daddy issues by fixing broke indicts,
and so it's this very wild rollercoaster kind of intersection
between humor and heartbreak, grief, you know, healing that relationship.
And so it's got a little bit of everything. But
it's finished and it should be coming out in sometime
in January, February, March. I haven't gotten the exact date yet,
(32:46):
but yeah, so that's like the most personal thing I've
ever written, the most you know, raw and exposed of
my own story. But I think probably the most important
important thing I'll ever do in my life in terms
of a healing story. And then, and my family has
started to read the book and they are crying and
crying and crying and sobbing, and I just had no
(33:06):
idea how much healing it would offer to them as well.
So it's been this beautiful journey for me. I highly
recommend everyone tell their story, because it's as difficult as
it is, I think it's it's extremely important and cathartic
to do.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, I'm about to pick your brain because I've been
Yeah it's been been thirty two years for me since
I've I've been a quadriplegic, and yeah, I've always you know,
I got to do this. I did it, and all
these all these decades and years keep passing. So yeah,
and you can tell me just do it, you know,
(33:41):
qu quit from around.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Yes, Yeah, it's there's so many there's so many things available,
you know, and and and in terms of like outlets
for story now, and it's it's like, you know, if
you you have your story, it's time to tell it,
you know what I mean, And you know you're going
to get that. Like for me, it was like the
itch just like I just was like and I would
do another project, and then I got to write this
book and I do know thres and I wrote it
(34:05):
as a pilot first because I'm a screenwriter. I'm not
an author. I've never written a book. This was a
totally new format for writing for me. But I something
just kept saying like this is very important to do.
And once the strikes happen in COVID, I was like,
all right, what if I just create IP and then
from the book, you know, I can hand it to
an executive producer, I can hand it to an actor
(34:25):
and they can really understand my story more so than
just a pilot script, because a pilot script is just surface.
It's just a very small portion of the story. And
so yeah, the goal is still for me, is that
to make a TV series out of this, because obviously,
you know, there's just so many cool things to explore
in that story. But yeah, I think I think you know,
you'll know, like you'll know when it's time because it
(34:47):
just won't leave you alone, you know what I mean.
And so once it becomes the loudest thing in your mind,
like you'll know like, Okay, it's time, I try to
do it.
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Yeah that makes sense, That makes sense. So any other
things you can tell us about that you might be
wor canon. Do I have to have you back, you know,
in a few months talking?
Speaker 3 (35:02):
I mean, I think we definitely have to come back
for sure. This is very too much fun for me.
But I uh, yeah, there's a couple Brian and I
have another project, a big kind of political thriller about
the weaponization of AI. That's our next collaboration together, which
is pretty pretty intense and very relevant. So yeah, that
should be really fun.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah that sounds good. Definitely for that. And every time
you came back on the show, you gotta bring Jack.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Well, yes, yeah, my husband's home, so he's regulating the dog.
Now he's a good guy. He's a good guy.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Yeah, that's well, Christina, thank you so much. Great chatting
with you. Anything else before we let you.
Speaker 3 (35:42):
Go, No, I think that's Thank you so much for
having me. It was so nice to talk to you.
You're such a great you know uh person to chat
with like you you ought to talk about authenticity. I felt,
you know, very this was easy and fun, so I'm
happy to come back anytime.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Well, thank you so much much success on this latest
project to and thank.
Speaker 3 (36:01):
You so much, so good to meet you, Paul. Take care.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
A huge shout out to the amazing Christina Denton Key.
Keith love talking to her about Hollywood Grit. Some of
the stars and that behind the scenes about Tyrese humming
around and the other ones are in this film. Check
it out. Let me know what you think. I'm sure
she would like it too, so make sure you would
(36:24):
definitely keep your eye out for Hollywood Grit. Well, it's
time for me to get out of here. Until next time,
stay healthy, stay safe, and remember I love you all
of life. Take care.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Everyone intro LESCo with another flow. Ain't your average in
the team and show more than theer tainment. Then what's
on the screen. Connect than dots on what you see
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