James DuMont #4 - Actor (The Righteous Gemstones / Unit 234)

James DuMont #4 Take a walk with me down Fascination Street as I chat with actor James DuMont for the FOURTH time! James has been on every other year; 2019, 2021, 2023, and now 2025. Obviously, we don't do the "how did you get from where you were to where you are" thing this time. Go back and check out his previous appearances for that. In this episode, we chat about the conclusion of HBO's hit series The Righteous Gemstones. Season 4 was the final season and was released not long ago. James played Chad on 20 episodes of the series, and James' real life son Kelton played Pontius Gemstone. James shares fun stories from the set, including some of the things he learned, some of the things he appreciated, and some of the things that he will miss from working with this amazing group of professionals. Next, we move onto a discussion about his new movie 'Unit 234', where he stared alongside the great Don Johnson. This was filmed during covid, and it is where James actually caught covid for the first time. So he explains what it was like to be 'trapped' in a 4-star hotel on the beach in The Cayman Islands. The DuMonts both recently made a change in management after 30 years, so I ask him all about why, and how it has been going since the change. Finally, we discuss James' other job. For more than a decade, James has been teaching actors how to properly film and submit self-taped auditions. For over fifteen years, James has himself been booking auditions via self-taped submissions. As a matter of fact, James has book well over a million dollars in acting jobs from self-tapes. He has over 2500 students across many countries and continents, and he gives a couple of tips to the Streetwalkers! Make sure you check out his 'On Camera Workouts' Instagram page and reach out to him if you would like to participate.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Eric Roberts and this is my wife Eliza Roberts,
and you're listening to Fascination Street podcast, the best one
on the planet besides ours of course. Yeah. Yes, the
amp was fee audio visual down the most into Rectis
Street in the world with my voice Steed, Fascination Street.

(00:24):
You already know. Let's get it when you wait for
the Fascination Street.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Welcome back, Street Walkers. This is James Dumont's fourth appearance
on the show. In this episode, obviously we don't do
the get to know your thing and how'd you get
from where you were where you are, because we did
that years ago, but in this episode we do focus
on just a few important things. James Dumont had a

(00:48):
recurring role in HBO's The Righteous Gemstones. He was in
all four seasons, a total of twenty episodes over six years,
and that show has come to its conclusion. The recently
released season four is the final season. So James and
I spent some time looking back on those four years,
some of the highlights, some of the super cool things

(01:09):
he got to do, and some of the people he
got to work with while participating in this show. James
also made a recent change in representation after thirty plus
years with the same manager. So I asked him all
about why he did that and how that's working out
so far, as he has just finished filming opposite Mel
Gibson in an upcoming film, and he has tons of

(01:33):
auditions coming up. He's landed a few of those things
and all of this since his recent change in representation.
But mostly we talk about James Dumont's brand new film.
It is called Unit two three four, where he plays
the driver in right hand Thug to the great Don Johnson.

(01:55):
Two thirty four had a short theatrical run playing in
four cities around the country and now is available everywhere
on video on demand. So check that out. As an
action adventure film, there's fight scenes and they're shooting, and
there's all the things, and also a wonderful story at
the heart of it. I do bring up a project

(02:15):
or two that James has been working on for some time,
just kind of checking in on how those projects are going.
We talk a little bit about a play that James
directed at the beginning of the year, why he decided
to do it and what he gained out of that experience.
And then finally we touched just a little bit on
his other project, on Camera Workouts. For over ten years

(02:39):
and twenty five hundred students strong, James has been teaching
actors how to work on camera. James has been doing
self tape auditions for over fifteen years, which made him
a natural go to resource when COVID kicked in and
turned the whole industry into self te ape auditions. Make

(03:01):
sure you check out on Camera Workouts dot com if
you're interested in learning more about how to act in
front of a camera and how to use the camera
to your benefit. It's no accident that this is his
fourth appearance on the show Love This, Dude, you do too,
And this is my fourth conversation with actor, producer, teacher,

(03:23):
and now director James Dumont.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
For credit, be fascinating.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
For credit.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Be fascinating for credit, Be fascinating.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Welcome back again to Fascinations Street Podcasts. My good friend
James Dumont. What's up, dude, what's going on? I'm a
glad for punishment. Well we may have another ladies and gentlemen,
this is James Dumont's wait for it, fourth appearance on
Fascination Street podcast.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
On one hand, that we're good for going on.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
To five holler y'all. But here's the weird thing. There's
a little bit of a pattern. The first time that
James was on was in twenty nineteen, and then again
in twenty twenty one, and then again in twenty twenty three,
and then now in twenty twenty five, so we got

(04:22):
to wait two years.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
It's a it's a cycle, so weird. So I'll see
you again after this in twenty twenty seven, so we'll
have more to talk about. Well, hell yeah, I got
something to talk about. I'm still here. I'm still standing
better than I did before.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
We're going to skip the whole get to know your
thing because we did that seventy years ago.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
That's so four sessions ago.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
So we're only going to talk about a few things. Okay, great,
But first, dude, now you can say you're from Popetown.
You grew up in Popetown. Dude, did you grow up
with the Pope?

Speaker 1 (04:58):
No, but I knew of the dude, really yeah, because
I grew up on the north side of Chicago, and
the Archdiocese the state is right there on the north side,
like overlooking Lake Michigan, and so I grew up there
and it was right there. Archias's place is right there,
like his house. All grown up as a kid, we
knew where it was and it had like a big

(05:18):
old compound and stuff, and so, yeah, isn't that cool.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
That's pretty dope.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Chicago. We've got Chicago pope there. The word thing is
he has killed buses now in the in the Vatican.
The Vatican's going deep dish. But he's also a Hoosier fan,
so that's a whole other thing. He's Chicago guy, but
he's an Indiana Hoosier whatever. I mean, Look, he loves
Gene Hacklan. Who doesn't who didn't love Hoosiers? So I think, yeah,

(05:44):
that's hilarious. Chicago dogs are going to be now served
to the Vatican along with deep to his pizza and
Ditka and Walter Payton's going to be a saint, and
Ryan Sandberg is going to be a saint. I think
it's great.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
And the Saint Blues Brothers, yeah, the.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Saint Blues Brothers. Yeah. I feel it's like, if you
can just do all sainthood for all of it all Chicago,
that would be great, Like Saint Buddy Guy, I think
is a way to go. Although he's from Mississippi, but
he's really Chicago's been his thing. That's a cool thing,
you know, American pope. She's like, since never going to
be an American pope? Is like, I don't know, kind
of think that would be a smart thing to do
right now. So there you go.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
We'll see how this works out. Yeah, Okay, we're gonna
talk about things.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
First.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
I want to talk about the end of an era.
Oh yes, my friend. Six years, four seasons, Yeah, twenty episodes,
many many tears which are falling out of your face
right now. This is the final season of The Right's
Just Jim Stones on HBO.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
It was a wild ride.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
It was a fun ride. But the most important question
I have to ask you, which I did not ask
you in any of the other times you were here,
what's with all the dicks? Bro?

Speaker 1 (06:58):
We got a couple little dick stories. So let's talk dicks,
shall we? Welcome to Fascination Dick Podcast. So I remember
in season one, Danny was talking about Euphoria and how
Euphoria had lots of dicks, and Danny's like, I'm gonna
out dick Euphoria.

Speaker 2 (07:15):
So that was a goal.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
That was a goal to just know, like season one,
he's like, oh, yeah, you haven't seen enough male, Genda
tell you it's a thing in our show for sure.

Speaker 2 (07:24):
Okay, So is there a dick in every episode in
the first season.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
I think there is. I heard that there's a drinking
contest when people binge the show that every time a
penis is either talked about or seen. I think there's
a drink.

Speaker 2 (07:36):
I think, oh, talked about Oh no, you're gonna get hammered, bro,
you're gonna get.

Speaker 1 (07:39):
Hammered, or anytime like the different uses of vagina from
Judy Jemstone, I think that's a drinking thing too. You
know my snail trails, you know, it's just it made
my bird slick.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
It is some of the most graphic in a horrific.

Speaker 1 (07:55):
I think in the writer's room there's like there's just
a list of vagina, and I think they just like hmm.
I think the darts they just throw it on there.
Which one we're going to use? This one? First off,
I have a dick double. His name is Victor Rivera. Right,
thank you for taking one for the team. He does have,
as you've seen, a mushroom cap penis. He credited himself
on IMDb as my dick double, which if I were

(08:17):
a guy that'd had a mushroom penis that probably not
be something that I would connect myself to. However, his
response when asked, why did you post up that you're
my dick double on even though you are? And he goes,
because it's a recurring role, James, I don't have any
recurring role credits. It's a recurring role. I was like, yes,
because I said no because I have kids. I'm fine
because I've been full frontel on Broadway for like two

(08:39):
and a half years. But I was like, I don't
want to do that on television or film because I
have kids and people now capturing it and sending it around,
so it's like I don't want that, so I said no.
But the weird thing about White went down was when
they posed it to me, it was almost like a
guy trying to get a girl to take their top
off for their movie. They're like, well, you know, Danny
McBride is going to be doing full frontal two. I go,

(09:03):
Danny McBride, multimillion dollar deal, HBO is going full frontal bullshit?
And it was it was bullshit because the caster director,
one of which is beautifully and wonderfully religious. And they
basically said, so you know what we did all morning?
We looked at seventy two captions of various penises to

(09:24):
decide for who your dick double's going to be. The
cast start explained, that's how we had our breakfast that morning.
James our day started looking at seventy two. People thought
we were having porn in our coming through our office,
but no, we have still shots of various penises that
we had to pick through seventy two, and we picked
this one. So I have a dick double. Walton Goggins

(09:46):
has a dick double, but his dick double is at
least seventy. He may be older. He's a seventy year
old man. That's a yoga teacher. He's in great shape,
but that's his body doubles at seventy year old. Now
Tony Calvero in Season one where he's in like the
leather suit and it's like, he says it's his because
it's I would say it's mine if even if it wasn't,

(10:07):
you know what I mean? He says it's his. I
kind of don't think sobody, but knowing Tony, it probably
is and then the mushroom cap was his in season
two or season one, I think season one. You know,
some people have breast obsession, we have a dick obsession
on our thing. It kind of goes into the cues
into our demographic of you know, fraternity guys that are dropping,

(10:30):
you know, ping pong balls out of their ass into
shot glasses. You know, it kind of goes along with
those things. So, yeah, that's an obsession. I think there's
you know, there's a lot of dicks this year, which
is great. Yeah, and a lot of like long shots
water skiing dick shots and you know, like and the
fun part is when we did the screening for the Academy,
which I've been I really hope that my fellow Academy

(10:50):
members give the love to Gemstones. After four seasons, you know,
everybody talked about Barry and everybody talked about Shit's Creek.
Then the Academy went to do a thing where it
was like half our drama, but it's really a comedy
called The Bear. But there's nothing really funny about it.
But it's thirty minutes, so we're gonna give it a
Comedy Award. And then Baby Reindeer it's not really a

(11:11):
comedy because it's really dark and it's not a stalker.
But so like we were just ignored for like the
last four seasons. So Danny does what I think is
probably the most brilliant thing is they go, Okay, Academy,
I see how this game is played. I want to
tell the story of Eli Jemstone. I'm going to put
an Oscar winning actor director in it, and I'm gonna
do my version of a what I think is a

(11:33):
thirty minute dark comedy. And that's what the first episode
of season four was. And he played that for the
Academy and everybody went insane. And then we showed the
next episode, which is episode two, and it's Baby Billy
full frontal, as you know, Walton Goggins doing his best,
and I go, Okay, you did exactly what the Academy

(11:54):
needs got. You gave us just enough, because first off,
you showed us that you're a filmmaker and that even
though you're not in Hollywood and you're not in New
York and you're not in LA but you've been making
these shows and we haven't really been paying attention to
eastbounding down or vice principles in any way even though
the writing has been brilliant and the performances up and
down the street, but then Jemstones, This entire cast is

(12:14):
like ringers of not just amazing talent, but amazing people
off camera as well. I mean, if we don't get something,
if Edie Patterson doesn't get something, or Walton Goggins doesn't
get something, or badly Cooper doesn't get an Emmy nomination
for half hour comedy, which he hasn't done as of yet,
and Danny McBride doesn't get acknowledged for the show or directing,

(12:35):
I don't know what the hell us we can do
because I thought that was as good as gold. I mean,
people were pissing their pants laughing at the first episode,
but really they lost their shit on the second episode.
And I was in that room, but I've been in
that room where they're like, oh, Claris Leach been so
much funnier than Wanda Sykes, and I was like, no,
she's not. That's the same character she's been doing for
forty years.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
You know, it's not a character at this point.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
It's not a character. It's the bitchy Nazi woman. It's
like we've seen that, so you never know I'm feeling
pretty hopeful, optimistic when the Emmys come out that we're
going to get some acknowledgment. But yeah, these last six years,
I tried not to go on too long, just because
it has changed the course of my life and my
son's life just being on the show. We have this
incredible new manager, and it has everything to do with
being on Gemstones and doing it together and being coming

(13:21):
on as a team. You know, our careers have just
totally I just booked a job first two weeks working
with this person. I've already have a job, you know,
after being ignored for you know months, And my son's
getting more opportunities in the last you know month than
the last six years. So we're forever grateful for Danny McBride.
First off, he chose me just for the direcord, and

(13:43):
then picking my son and flying us down and letting
us do our thing, and then allowing a father and
son to have this incredible experience that we want to
now duplicate and start producing movies together and do TV show.
We're like, we want to just do stuff together, you know.
And some people are going to get it and see it,
and some people are like, oh, Yeah, I don't get it.
I want the kid, but don't Why do I need
this guy, you know? Or Oh that guy that's good,

(14:05):
he's working, that's good. Yeah, I got to build discription.
So yeah, we were trying to figure out who's the
right fit for us moving forward, but Danny giving us
that experience of what it's like to be celebrating Father's
Day on set together. I think I've said to you
before the two times I'm most happy and comfortable are
being with my family and being on set And the
fact that I was getting both of those things for

(14:25):
the last six years and four seasons is nothing short
of a miracle. I just want more of it without
raining on my kids, like you know, like, oh, my
dad wants to be in it too. Yeah, okay, you know,
like we're finding projects for us to work on together,
and I have two already lined up.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Oh kick ass. While we're on the topic, if you
working with your son, how amazing is it that twenty
years from now, thirty years from now you can literally
sit down and watch your son grow up on screen?

Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (14:57):
How amazing is that?

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Like what, He's a little embarrassed by it in the
sense it's it's like because he was a kid. He
was fourteen when he started. He's twenty one now. So
if you look at somebody's life and like zero to seven,
age of reasons, seven to fourteen, fourteen to twenty one,
like they're these little seven year leaps that we make,
and yeah, fourteen to twenty one is it's a lot
of there's a lot of shit going on, Like you're

(15:20):
in your body and your mind and you're Desasseroni. There's
just a lot of stuff happening at once. But yet
you know, I get to watch that. I mean I
have it. I have it in photographs, and I have
it in auditions. I think his first audition is online.
I think it's on YouTube of him or Vimeo. I
think it's like public hymn auditioning for Bonnie and Clyde
to be like young Clyde, be young Emil Hirsch for

(15:41):
the mini series my oldest daughter. She booked a gig
on it. And so then they're like, hey, let's let's
read Keelton too. So it's like, Hey, I'm Kelton Dumont
and I'm nine years old, and I'm like, you know, like,
but he was doing some short films, so like the
work was just really really solid man. And so there
is I know he feels a little bit like I'm
not that kid anymore, that kind of thing, and I

(16:01):
looked goofy or whatever, you know, like, but I know that, Yeah,
It's a part of who he is, you know. And
then I'm really excited about what this next phase of
things are for him. What kind of career does he
want to have? Does he want to have a Jason
Bateman career where he's directing to and producing or Timothy
Shallomey where he's taken on these incredible iconic figures in
history and doing massive films and then doing theater, Like, well,

(16:25):
you know, what kind of career does he have?

Speaker 2 (16:27):
Absolutely?

Speaker 3 (16:31):
High Street Walkers. Here's a word from our sponsors. Let's
get back into it.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Speaking of watching Somebody Grow Up, a young man named
Gavin Munn previous guests of the show. He plays Kelton's
little brother on the show. Now, when I interviewed Gavin Munn,
he was ten years old. And then I think last
month or the month before, or you know, he turned
sixteen or whatever, and he's posting all these Instagram pictures

(17:05):
of he got a car for his birthday and I'm
just like that little bitty's ten.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
Year old who used to like stunt jumps like he's
a motocross kid.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Yeah, he is. I reached out to Gavin and I said, hey,
I'm going to have James on here man, Why should.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
I ask him?

Speaker 2 (17:21):
This is what Gavin said, all right, He said, feel
free to mention my name as we are all close
friends on set. And one memorable time I can remember
is all of us going out to eat together in
Charleston and getting recognized, mainly the sushi bar with Danny
McBride himself. What is it like to build a second family.

(17:45):
You were with these people for six years.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
It's a pretty healthy family, to be quite honest. I
mean I think healthier than most families. I think because
our patriarch, John Goodman really but Danny McBride really, really
between John Goodman and Danny McBride in terms of just
male leadership. But I mean Cassidy Freeman ridiculous, incredible person like,
incredible mom, incredible artists, just a force, incredible force, and

(18:14):
Danny knew exactly what he was doing. This is what
I've been talking about mostly. When you set the tone
of your thing, that there is no pretense, no power games,
and no talking down to anyone or cowering to anybody
that's alleged network anybody that's put when that dynamic is
avoided altogether, because I've seen that dynamic in every single set,

(18:34):
watching ads talk to human beings like their cattle and
their background and they're in the sun and they're you
know what I mean, they're working out like watching those
kind of dynamic or how somebody, oh this is craft server.
This is not for this, just for the actors, just
for the crew, you know, like watching the power games
that happen on set, that sets a kind of very

(18:55):
poisonous negative. When that's eliminated all together, when the guy
that's running this thing and rough House Pictures that works
a very specific way and was working with the same
people for the last twenty years since they all went
to UNCSA North Carolina School for the Arts, and it's
like when you have that, I said to Kelton, I
was like, every set experience is going to be all

(19:16):
downhill from here. It's like you started with that, but
now that you know what the best of the best
is when you get to set, you also know how
to navigate yourself through there, and some of those things
are just basically good family things like it. I look
at going to Gemstones and I used to be grudget
a little bit because I was like, I'm the invited guest.

(19:37):
Because when you're the guest star on a TV show,
they go, oh, man, it was so great. Oh it's great.
We had a great meal, everything was good, and the like,
now it's time for you to leave, and I go,
I don't want to leave. I want to be a
series regular, just like I want to sit at this
table and have this incredible meal with these people all
the time. They're like, yeah, we do this all the time,
but you're just visiting, so go away, you know what

(19:58):
I mean. That was my experience up until working on Gemstones,
right because now with Gemstones, I was feeling like I
was coming home for Thanksgiving and they really wanted me
to stick around for as long as it was necessary
and I could leave at any time, but no one
ever said it's time for you to go. Most of
the other shows, there's this feeling of well, we're going
to have this new chef come in, new director that week,
and we eat like we like this all the time. Man,

(20:20):
I'm glad you had a great time. But this is
how we land that you don't have. You're not part
of that. You know, I would get that dynamic of
like you're an invited guest, so you have to act accordingly.
We work this way all the time. And some sets
really thrived on that to the point where you did
not feel very comfortable or welcome. You were just utilitarian.

(20:41):
You just served a utility on the show and then
get the hell out. Some were like welcoming you as
if you were already a serious regular, and we're so
glad that you had this experience with us, and we'd
love for you to come back if it works out,
like if somebody feels necessary. So that whole dynamic of
the higher key we call it in the Buddhism world,
we call it the world of animalty. You know, where

(21:02):
you talk down to your gardener because he's a migrant
and he makes less money and you want and then
you coward to your husband or your boss because they're
more powerful than you, and so you feel that makes
you when you talk down to somebody, it makes you
more powerful. The pecking order, which happens and has to
happen when you're running some of these sets, but it
doesn't have to happen in the way that it does happen.

(21:23):
But it doesn't happen that way with Gemstones, it doesn't
happen with Danny mcbriden Rothouse. So the experience of having
this second family, it's coming home to Thanksgiving Man and
I and we check in with each other and we
see each other, and you know, there's exceptional people, and
Tim and Tony and Adam and Cassidy and Edie, they're

(21:43):
just wonderful and Danny. We have this kind of respect
and reverence for each other because we all were part
of this incredible experience and it was hard to kind
of take that we're not going to do this again.
But there was also like there's all these rumors about
a Gemstone movie or one offs, like a Very Gemstone
Christmas or the Gemstone Easter Special. You know, it's like

(22:06):
we're gonna do an Eastern telethon. There's little teases of potential,
or a Baby Billy spinoff of like or teens or
Baby Biller's Bible Bonkers being. You know, like these things
could happen. Cassidy got to be Kelton's on screen mom,
and Danny McBride got to be my son's on screen dad,

(22:26):
and I couldn't ask for a better better situation. John
Goodman to be the grandfather and really very very big
influence on Kelton and mentorship. They had lots of conversations
about the process and navigating their way through and John
you know, had some really kind words to say to
me about Kelton and he said them right to Kelton,
and Kelton was like dude, you know. And then for

(22:47):
Kelton to kind of grow up and be an Eric
andre fan and then Eric Andrey's on the show, it
was like, I think of all the people, he was like, ah,
he goes, hey, what's up there, Paunch? He goes, oh, hey,
Hi Kelton. He's like, hell, man, I know you are.
I know you are okay? And he walked me He's
like like her, comy know's who I am? Like, you know,
he watched all his error so like to have that,
you know, Like we had a lot of those. But

(23:09):
for me, I felt like I've learned a lot about
how to be comfortable with being enough. I think before Gemstones,
I really felt like I always had to kind of
prove something to someone, prove my value, my worth, my
contribution and I think with season one, when the intention
of the Goon Squad was one episode and they looked
at what Troy does, and they looked at what Jay does,

(23:30):
and they looked at what I do, and they looked
at what Jody does individually, and then collectively they're like,
oh shit, we got it right for these guys, like
this is what Dad like, Danny needs a posse. And
so I always felt that I was trying to self
promote and trying to exert myself and fit myself into
places where I wasn't necessarily welcome or needed. And I

(23:52):
don't feel that a way anymore. And I think it
comes out of that experience. And I think part of
it too is being a journeyman actor and having done
up collectively over and eighty If you add all those
episodes up, it's like on hundred and eighty films and
TV shows. I've had to kind of, you know, insert
myself into various different situations with some of the most
powerful and talented and acknowledged people in my business and
hold my own in scenes with the best of the

(24:15):
best you know. And I think I have a much
greater sense of when I get to play the same
character over four seasons and twenty episodes, which has not
happened before. I get a chance to show what I
can do sort of and also realize I'm part of
the orchestra and my specific instrument supports other instruments. But

(24:36):
I also have to go like, this is not the
violin's time, you know what I mean, Like you're the
timpani guys like you only come in when you need to,
but it's extremely important that you kind of get your
thing right. So I think for me that was the
biggest kind of takeaway from that whole experience is a
stronger sense of self. I think with movies like Deepwater Horizon,
where I kind of build a beautiful arc of the

(24:57):
character from being this arrogant asshole VP of BP. You know,
we told to take his tie off because they felt
it was superstitious, like something was gonna happen wrong on
the Deep Water Horizon ring. One of the stupidest things
could what could ever possibly happen on that rig in
the next ninety minutes, you know how arrogant that is.
And for that guy at the end to be crying

(25:19):
like the rigs on fight, you know, like begging for
his life and watching the rig inflames with the American
flag and he's sweating and he's like realizing, holy shit,
you know what I mean, I'm part of one of
the most famous tragedy. They will talk about this tragedy
for decades. It's like, I've got a chance to have
a character that has that kind of arc. And then

(25:40):
the fun part for me with Chad is that sad,
fucked up Chad to that badass Chad, which leads to
the movie that we're going to talk about today. My
character of Leon in Unit two thirty four is an
extension of bad Chad, a badass Chad. He went from
sad Chad to mad Chad to glad Chad, a badass Chad.

(26:01):
Like there's your Chad four point zero, and Leon is
the next alliteration of that, which is he's the driver.
Don't have to say much. He's there, he's present, he
has his presence known, but it's not overbearing. Right. He's
the bodyguard something goes down. He'll jump in front of
a bullet I just like I got in front of Danny.
I'll do whatever's bidding. S kickers for Christ and he's

(26:24):
an enforcer when shit needs to go down, I'm walking around.
I got an AK forty seven in the back of
my you know, g wagon. I'm ready to go to
war and battle any point in time. So that's the
fun part about this next movie is like to kind
of go from four seasons of Gemstones to playing a
badass Leon was awesome. And I got to work with
Don Johnson, which you know doesn't suck. And Isabelle Furman

(26:48):
is a huge fan of Righteous Gemstones and I'm a
huge fan of the Orphan franchise, so that worked out great.
And she's just an incredible person. And then Jack Houston
was gonna you know, I remember watching Boardwalk Empire and
going like, who is this? He's fucking brilliant, and then
I'm like, wow, he was part of the Houston legacy,
iconic film family, John Houston and Angelica and his brother

(27:09):
cousin Danny. I'm like, it's just incredible. And then he
was coming here to do Mayfair Witches, and so he
was coming in New Orleans and so, you know, we
had a great experience all the way through. We shot
in Grand Came in Island. I was there for six weeks.
It's the first time I got COVID I was stuck
in a five star hotel overlooking the ocean with twenty

(27:29):
four hour room service and getting paid. So my recommendations
if that's the best way to get COVID. No one
was crying for me that they sealed my room off
with you know, government security and everything was monitored. But
I'm like, this is my circumstance, Like okay, I think
God think I'm all right. And I was literally two
days of sweating and that was it. Then five days in,

(27:50):
I was like, what if I never get out of
this room? Like a couple other people got COVID and
they were there for like two weeks in one room,
and I was like five minutes and I got like,
I got like, I was like, ah, I got it.
I just relaxed, relaxed, man. I mean I literally was
like just freaking the hell out, like what if I
don't get out of here for another five days? And

(28:12):
it was like this. On the seventh day, it was easter,
he is resin, you know, like I was free. I
tested negative or negative enough to go back to set.
So yeah, man, I had a great experience. Six weeks
grant Caman Island. We shot mostly during the night time,
daytime was free to watch those incredible sunsets that take
an hour. We couldn't shoot, so it was really dark dark,

(28:34):
So we started our work at night, did some day
shoots a little bit here. Then the days were free
to go swimming with the sting rays and like you know,
learning how to scuba, and like it was. It's an
incredible and it's a great thriller. Derek Steiner script, really
tight cat and Mouse game. Andy Tennant not known for
doing action thrillers, you will be after this. I'll tell

(28:54):
you that. You know, Sweeten apple Ballama, damn good film, Hitch,
really good film. This film in terms of the tightness,
not your typical trap and torture kind of thing. I mean,
really build a good character development, really solid director. You know,
he's showrunner for you know, in direct episodes of the Bookie.
I mean, Andy's just fantastic. You know, this was an

(29:16):
incredible experience for me, and I'm so glad it's finally out.
We did three years ago to the day. I mean
literally my last day of shooting was like the first
week in May, three years ago. So the fact that
we're gonna have a VOD to release today on Friday,
May ninth. It opens in five theaters, So if you're
in Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis, Orlando, and Los Angeles, which I'll

(29:38):
be tonight tonight, I'm gonna go see it on the
big screen. I know we're opening in LA for a
whole week. I don't know about the other theaters, but
it's on video demand and we're gonna have we have
a streaming deal that'll drop after that. So you want
to go curl up with some popcorn, you know in
your big screen. This is a good one.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
So the name of the film is Unit two thirty four.
Do we also say the lock up?

Speaker 1 (29:59):
I think a loca? That was what they used for
the overseas.

Speaker 2 (30:02):
Oh okay, I'm gonna ask this. I'm gonna word this
very specifically. Okayh wait, look, hold on pause. I just
got a got a message from your buddy, Tony Cavallero
in my own time. This has never happened before. I
told him I was talking to you, and he said, yeah,
kisses to him. So kisses to you from Keith.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Love that I love you, Tony.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
Okay, So I'm gonna word this very specifically. What was
it like to work with eighties TV star Don Johnson.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
It was awesome. It was challenging, and that had nothing
to do with him or anything else. And the reason
was our first day of shooting, and I had lots
of cool stories. We were connected. He had worked with
Danny McBride, so like, I wanted to talk about those
things our first day of shooting. Unfortunately, it was the

(30:59):
day that it was announced that Bruce Willis had the
brain condition that he had. And I don't know if
you know this, but he and Bruce are very very
close and he was very instrumental in getting Bruce into
the business. And that was our first day. So it's like, Hey,
I want to bond and connect with you, and you're

(31:19):
like telling me all these incredible stories, some of which
I knew. That was the challenging part of it. Don
was also producing this, so I think there were times
where he was actor on camera but then really moving
into Bruce role mode. It was a little more seamless
when Danny was doing it because he's in scenes with you.
So that was the challenge of it had nothing to
do with anything else. My experience was really great. I
also kind of knew my role in the movie, and

(31:43):
it was really about quietly supporting and just being present
without being overbearing, which, again, as I said, coming off
a Gemstones, I'm a little less for wanting of attention
or wanting to feel like I need to justify and
substantiate my place.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
So one of the things that you do on every
project that you work on, and I love this about you,
is that you try to learn something. Is that what
you learned working on the Gemstones for twenty episodes is
that you are enough? Yeah, I mean, besides all the
cool things that you get to do with your son
and all the great experiences.

Speaker 1 (32:18):
But that's a big takeaway, you know, I'm sure, and
I think my son had a lot to do with
that too. He's like, hey, Dad, you don't have to
do that. You don't have to go that extra. You
don't have to say that extra thing, or why did
you do that extra? Like he may be cognizant of it.
He's like, you don't have to prove that, or you
don't have to add that. You're in the cast, you know,
even though he so mutually and goes, You're not a Gemstone.

(32:40):
You're a friend of a Gemstone. I'm a Gemstone. You
are a buddy, not a blood relative of a gemstone.
You're not part of the genealogy at all. You're a
friend of You're like an appendage, like an extra thing.
But you're not a gemstone, you know. That's what I
love that my kid's gonna hold me, you know, for

(33:01):
my ego.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
I love that he busts your balls.

Speaker 1 (33:03):
Oh and I bust his back and I said, oh,
that's right. So you're the middle child, right, You're the
one that they don't give a shit about. There, that's
that's why you do all these things, Like you have
the cute little one, and then you have the one
that's all. He's everything, And who are you? Just a
sad disappointment. Give you the name of Ponchas for a reason.
You're a trader punk. So yeah, so you know, like

(33:26):
like I used to have uncles that were all like
Italian MafA mafia guys. They busted my ass so much
I thought it made me a much better person. And
I had a situation with my nephew one time where
I like I busted his ass on something. I was like,
he just couldn't recover, Like he literally was going to
learn to do kung fu just to kick my because
he ate his uncle because I called him out of like,

(33:48):
hey man, just because he's standing in front of a
Porsche doesn't mean you own it, you know. I was like,
he's like, I was like, dude, you're posing. It's like,
just say I was posing, and I was like, my
sister's car whatever. But then I looked at it and
I was like what I said was wrong. I was
not cognizant of how it would affect him. Can't believe
I talked about that. But it's a pleasure that I
get to do this. It's an honor to be able

(34:10):
to step in the shoes of create. You know, like,
there's going to be in my email box, there's going
to be a human being that I'm going to have
to create that day or for twenty four to forty
eight hours, put it in my body, tell the story
of what they want to tell, document, and send it off.
That's my gig. That's a pretty fucking great job. It'd
be great if I get paid for more of it. Sure,
this gig I just booked. I've auditioned for the same

(34:32):
casting office for four years, thirty three auditions, fourteen callbacks,
four times. I've been pinned where I'm the main choice
and it didn't go my way unpinned, or they check
my availability to see if I'm available, and I don't
get the gig, and finally we have a booking. So
four years, thirty three job interviews, fourteen callbacks or second

(34:55):
interviews four times it's between you and somebody else and
find broke through. It's not for everybody, by the way,
that's just one of hundreds of casting offices. That's just one.
And now what happens is very specific. People are calling
about very specific roles because it's like James Dumont can
do that, like my next film. It's like I got
an offer which I hadn't got an offer since pre COVID.

(35:18):
Is that the Mel Gibson one, yeah called Hunting Season.
That was an offer where I've been recommended to the director.
The producer threw my reel in front of him and
the first scene was like the Sheriff and Blackbird because
it's supposed to be a good old boy kind of sheriff,
and then it was like this racist kind of Boston banker.
And then it was like this really kind of Chad funny,

(35:39):
Joe Vial, smartass. The director called up and I was like, Oh,
I'd love to talk to James, and so I watched
all my work. He called up and he's like, look, dude,
there's three different actors that I always had in mind
for this sheriff role because they bring these three different
elements to the character. This one really does well with this,
and this one does well with that, and this one
does well. He goes, But you're the actor that does

(35:59):
well with all all three of these things. He goes,
that's why we're having a conversation because I get three
actors in one and from what I heard from Gemstones,
you guys do three camera setups and you knock out
five ten pages. I was like, yeah, that's that's how
we work. We work pretty fast. And he goes, I
need that. It's an independent film. I got limited locations,
I have limited time. We're going to drop ourselves in.

(36:21):
You know, you have eleven scenes in this movie. You
have paragraphs of dialogue, and I'm going to need somebody
to come in and knock that out. And so, for
the first time ever, I was not as prepared as
I really wanted to be. I really really struggled. They
were going to shoot and then go to lunch but
then they did lunch when we came back and I
knocked it out. But it was just like it was
a lot.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Was this on Hunting Season?

Speaker 1 (36:42):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Oh you've already started.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
I've already shot. We're done. Oh shit, it's in post
right now. We'll talk about it when it comes out.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Oh fantastic.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
But I got, you know, eleven scenes opposite Mel Gibson
man and that that's just incredible. I liked getting back
to supporting leads and films. It's you know that my
conversation with my new management is like, this is where
the sweet spot we want to be in. You know,
you're supporting opposite Don Johnson, You're supporting opposite Mel Gibson
where you're not the character utility actor that you are
more of a presence with the main actors, just like

(37:13):
you were Deepwater Horizon, just like you were in Spencer Confidential,
just like you are we're in Trumbo or The Banker.
You know, you come in and you're like, we need
you to push this strong character dialogue and narrative, and
you know, we need your presence. We need it more
than just one or two takes or one or two scenes.

Speaker 2 (37:31):
Okay, you vaguely mentioned it a couple of times, and
you don't have to give me any details that you
don't want to. But why make the switch? Why are
you now with zero gravity after all these years? Why
switch management companies?

Speaker 1 (37:44):
My manager, I love them like a brother. The business
is drastically changed. The kind of resources it needs and
the kind of boots on the ground to get the
most of all the opportunities that are out there requires
more than his current model. And also so there's this
great joy that he's had in working with filmmakers, creating

(38:06):
film festivals now in overseas, and financing and being a
moderator at film festivals and things. I see the joy
and the passion of that so much more than the
day to day struggle and grind to carve out a
career for myself and my son and other people. And
it has nothing to do with lack of effort, because
the work is there, I see it. It's just I

(38:26):
needed something different. Kelton needed definitely something. I'm going into
the third act of my career and my son's just
beginning his career if you really think about it, but
he's beginning his career with you know, logan recurring on
The Astronaut Wives Club and now you know, twenty five
episodes of a series like his beginning is his entry
points pretty damn good. I just felt like I needed
more of a support system and a more of an

(38:48):
infrastructure that kind of takes me to the next level
of things, which is I have a feature that my
son's attached to with two you know Emmy winning Golden
Globe Oscar nominated actors, you know director that knows what
they're doing. It's like, so that's the next thing I
have as a project that we're going to work together
producing and another project after that. So I needed someone
who can kind of also build a team. I think
the hard part is the longer people have been working

(39:11):
in the business, it becomes a little bit harder to
find who the next generation of team members are. My
new manager is just a little bit older than Calton,
but very seasoned, very deliberate, and the kind of results
that we're getting in the first two weeks is unlike
we've ever seen before. This person didn't do anything wrong.
It's just a matter of they have different priorities of

(39:33):
their time and I have different priorities of my time.
There's different things that I want to do that I
know was not possible under this current relationship.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Gotcha, Well, thank you for explaining that to me.

Speaker 3 (39:46):
Yeah, High Street Walkers, here's a word from our sponsors.
Let's get back into it.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
One of the previous times you were on you were
trying to put together a project called That Guy. How's
that coming?

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Well, now that I'm not running around with Kelton or
myself with six months out of the year, that's now
given me a little bit more time to put more
time into it. I actually have the drives that have
this scene. I have a little gee Chi that has
the scenes on them. I'm really focused on this one
feature because I want to shoot it in nine months.

Speaker 2 (40:29):
Is it not That Guy?

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Is it something else? No, this is something else. This
is a project that I've worked with this writer before.
There's just things I can't talk about it right now,
just because we're still financing in the development stage. But
it's a writer that I worked with before, and I
did this short film called The Confession that was a
one act and then I recently directed an off off
Broadway play by the same writer.

Speaker 2 (40:52):
At the beginning of the year. Right, Yeah, it's yeah, So.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
That's why I did the first quarter. It's just something
I never did before directing a full production. It was
an incredible experience, and it also gave me a lot
of confidence to use all the produced prousordial skills that
I kind of put to the side that I use
for my business. You know, in terms of on camera workouts,
my son always goes, you know, you're a jack of
all and a master of not one. So because I'm

(41:17):
an adult with add I can easily be distracted and
pulled in various different directions of which I'm trying to
work on that. So I'm focused on that one project
right now exclusively, and with the other one already another
one backed up behind that. In a year's time, I'm
going to get back to that guy. But I'm also
going to dust off another piece that I wrote when

(41:38):
my first born was.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Born, the one man show about being a teach.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
One man show of my life as a DJ. Yeah,
I'm trying to figure out where to start, but I
got to stay focused on finishing one. That was the
thing I really got the most out of the play
was I finished it to its completion. You know what
I mean. I put in all that I possibly could
put into the piece. I gave all of myself, and
I did have to take a break and go just

(42:04):
before tech rehearsal. I literally got on a plane at
nine in the morning, flew to La, rented a car,
crashed at a friend's place, hit the red carpet at six,
was at the cocktail reception with the cast. At seven
they did a screening of two episodes. To eight nine
o'clock they started their panel discussion with the Academy. I

(42:24):
jumped back in my rent a car. I went to
the airport, I sat in the lounge and had dinner.
I got the red eye flight out of LA flew
back into JFK that I had been twenty four hours
previous at nine in the morning, took a nap in
the afternoon, had at two o'clock tech rehearsal. Tech rehearsal
of the entire show, did a six o'clock performance. By
eight nine o'clock, I was still wired, had a few drinks,

(42:47):
and then I fintally went to sleep. But the point
of that is finishing something to its completion is something
that I've always had problem. In fact, I left my
house in New Orleans and I have an entire wall
filled with immense possibility. But I'm not there. But I
don't have the war room thing. It's not there. I'm
not there. I'm on the road for the next you know,
two months or a month and a half. So point

(43:09):
B is I think it's about finishing things and also
then starting to dust off other projects that excite me.
My life is a DJ is a theater piece. Although
a friend of mine read it and it was like, wow,
you should probably not play yourself. You should have your
son play younger version, and you used to play your dad,
and then it becomes not a one man show but
a two hand er. It's what they say in the theater,

(43:30):
a two hand or two characters. That was like, whoo.
The hard part with that guy is I have great
scenes of all my kids when they're much younger that
they're all their twenties because I let all this time
go by. I have a few of them up on Instagram,
but I may create like a little like TikTok or Instagram,
like just up there and to see people. My wife
is like, just put them up there and just see

(43:52):
if it gets some sort of traction. I remember pitching
it to one of my friends who would work with
Ray Romano and got It helped them get Everybody loves Raymond.
Off at the Ground is a stand up and a
great writer named Mike Royce. I did a four episodes
I think, or maybe more some of Men of a
certain age with him and Scott Bakula and Andre Brower.
I mean, like, what a great fucking show. I mean,

(44:12):
like incredible. So I sent him the script and he's like,
nobody's gonna watch this. I was like, when do you
mean knows gonna watch? It? Goes you're not famous? I go,
that's the whole fucking point of it. It's like, well,
you know, with Larry David, Larry David's famous for being
the writer of Seinfeld, so he's famous for something. That's
why we watch Louis stand up comedian slice of his
life outside of being comedian. That's why we watch a

(44:36):
out of the work, struggling character actor that is in
all these things, but nobody recognizes him. Why would we watch?
And I was just like that shit's harsh man, I said,
because that's the funny. That's the fucking funny part of
it is between somebody and nobody is that guy? And
how does one navigate themselves? Of like working toe to

(44:56):
toe on equal terms with Oscar winning actors and the
next day having to read for Juror number four. Do
you know what I mean? How do you keep your
dignity being on the red carpet of a movie? Like
I just have the whole big thing with my publicist
being on the red carpet of a movie and being
ignored by the skanks from Orange County, you know what

(45:16):
I mean? Like Eric Strata showed up, It's like what
the fuck? Like I'm in this movie. Eric Strada has
like Mexican soap operas and chips like why are you
ignoring me? And there's also something really, as I learned
from Gemstones, my main guy and that guy is a
total narcissist. I mean, I find myself a healthy narcissist
or really have a healthy ego, because there's dark, dark

(45:37):
things about narcissism. But in order to fucking survive this business,
you have to have a resilient sense of self. I
remember when two thousand and eight happened, and like middle
aged men were freaking the hell out because they were unemployed,
they couldn't provide for their family, and they didn't know
who they are as men. They went to school, they
followed day, went to the frats, they got their law degree,

(45:59):
they went to think. Then they couldn't find a job,
or they've been working for this company for twenty years
and they're like, we're going to get somebody younger and
pay them half. And there's no pension in health fuck off.
So how does one have a sense of manhood and
place and identity when you're unemployed. I'm unemployed ninety percent
of the time. I put it a regular hour's work.

(46:20):
I got up at seven o'clock this morning. I got
five hours sleep last night, four hours the night before,
like I usually sleep six hours, and it's an eighteen
hour day, and I got to figure out my day.
But I do There's nothing I don't do that's towards
something that either I'm teaching or coaching, or I'm reading
material or I'm auditioning. As my mic Chickaholic would call,

(46:41):
I'm in flow, baby, I'm in flow. I think it
is interesting and fascinating what it's like to be known
and unknown all at the same time. And like every
good artist, you know, Rick Rubin will be like, yeah, man,
do what you want to do. If there's an audience
for they'll find you. You don't have to coddle to them.
And also him coming off of like I did a

(47:02):
successful show, Raymond, I did a show that people want
to watch. I was like, well, it's easy for you
to say. I think there is something very funny about
and sad and insightful about being like that's what Extras
was like, That's why I think Ricky Gervais like fucking
killed it, because he's like, they build up this false
sense of themselves, but they have a sense of themselves,
you know what I mean, like like some dignity and

(47:24):
sadness to it all at the same time. And these
scenes that I have, these therapist scenes are just I mean,
I'm balling my fucking eyes out because I realized that
at a certain point I was like gaining weight. My
kids were like not finishing their food, and I was like, oh,
I came from you got to finish your plate. So
I'm eating the food for them, and I'm getting fatter
and I'm becoming less attractive so I won't cheat and

(47:45):
become like my dad. And I had this like therapy
session where I like, I'm killing myself so I don't
become my father and it's deep and I'm balling, but
it's funny as fun because it's just black comedy, you know,
because you're like, oh, that's what I'm doing. Like, I
don't know, I got to get back to it. It's

(48:05):
just again, bro, four hours sleep, five hours sleep. Tomorrow
I'll get back on my six routine. You know. There's
only so many hours in the day. I'm trying to
keep healthy just so i can do all the things.
My wife's like, if you die tomorrow, you're gonna be
pissed off because there's so many things that you want
to do. And I'm realizing fame and accomplishments, none of

(48:27):
these things are as valuable as time. I'm just starting
to figure out how fucking valuable time is. The time
is the is the greatest commodity. The gig now is
you know. I even said it to my eighty four
year five year old mom. I'm like, how long you
want to live healthy body? Your full time job is
to go to the doctor and the dentist, Like right
now she's retired, but her full time job is literally

(48:49):
every day there's something physical health. This is going to
be your life for the next fifteen years, so like,
what do you want it to be? And so for me,
I go, Okay, now I'm on the cusp like that.
I hate to say it because like no one believes it,
but I'm like, I'm about to be sixty years old.
Every time my students all think I'm like mid forties
because I got lots of energy, and I just I go,
I see people that are sixty or older, it's like,
now that's sixty. Like I'm not that I'm about to

(49:12):
be sixty. So I go like, well, what's the next
twenty years going to look? Like? What kind of food
do I need? What kind of fuel do I need
to put in my body? What kind of exercise do
I need to do? What kind of mindset do I
need to have? What kind of representation? What kind of
people do I want to take me to this next level?

Speaker 3 (49:32):
Hey, street walkers, here's a word from our sponsors. Let's
get back into it.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
We did everything we possibly could together, Like I loved it.
We werent on a fucking tear like when I was
at the peak of it. And I know what that
rarefied air is because I've seen it to work so hard.
In February of twenty twenty to be invited to Vanity
Fair and not be someone else's plus one or someone
else thinking I bet it, not knowing that Adisoner's in
his eighties, like come on in, mister Asner, Like okay, great,

(50:04):
another fat ball guy. The apex of February and March
of twenty twenty was like I walk into Vanity Fair
and the first person I see is Peterburg greeting me,
introducing to all the young agents at William Morris this
is the most amazing actor. He's going to be in
all my move Then I walk over and see my
friend Sarah Paulson, who you know. Then I talk have
conversations with Brad Pitt about you know, New Orleans while

(50:27):
he's holding the oscar, you know, And I go, I'm
in the room. You know what I mean. I'm an
invited guest. I've been kicked out of this place. I've
been never never get in here. I've been turned away
at the door many times this year. I'm an invited guest.
And I'm not flying myself to go do the job
and renting a car in a hotel to work local
hire in an area in order to get a job

(50:49):
over somebody a famous person that's not available and they
can't afford. Netflix is flying me to la and they're
putting me in a hotel and they're sending a car
for me. And then from here they're going to fly
me to Memphis and Apple's gonna pick me up for
the banker and they're gonna and then somebody's gonna walk
me down the carpet and I'm gonna let it. Like
I'm like, I'm going all these things that I did
on my own dime for decades is now being handled

(51:11):
and taken care of. And I was with the APA,
this big agency that now merged with another agency, and
it's like all the young agents were there and they're like,
oh my god, you're gonna get so much work off
of this, and like boom, Covid hits. And I always said,
I never want to be that person's like, oh, everything
was great until COVID hit. I was like, well, let
me tell you something. You know, where my career had
built to up to that point was just astonishing, to

(51:34):
the point where my incredible manager of forty years, thirty
years said, here I was. I come out of Spencer
Confidential and I'm wearing the red track suit that I had, Like,
you know, I came out and I'm surrounded by like
hundreds of people that all want to get a selfie
and sign stuff. And my manager's off in the corner.
My sister's with. My sister had never been to a

(51:55):
premiere with me, and she was just like, this is incredible.
And I learned to look over my manager of a
mana just like he goes lean into it, You're a
thirty year overnight sensation. And he was right, you know,
like we did it, we built it, We got it
to as far as we possibly could go. You know,
you when you see those things right now, it's the
commodity of time. And I really had to think about

(52:15):
who could I put on this team to make the
most of the time that I'm here to do the
kind of projects that I really want to do. That
this is their full time, one hundred percent job along
with other clients, but this is the only thing that
they do. They don't have other interests or passions other
than this. I mean, we Kendall Kramer at Zero Gravity
is an amazing, amazing manager, amazing and has me working.

(52:37):
I got homework, I got to cut reels, I gotta do,
like you know, Kelton, stuff is not like I got
work to do, like she's putting me to work. It's
a ninety ten split, so I got to do ninety
percent of work and I'm doing it. So it's really great.
I feel empowered. I feel excited, you know, checking in
on my health. I drop twenty two pounds, just doing
everything I can to try to tell as many stories
as I possibly can. And then I'll get the series.

(52:59):
I get to do this series, which is great, so
I'll know. I can't talk about it now, but we'll
come back and once I kind of get to the
first episode, we'll go from there. I love it.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
This is a busy man, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 1 (53:09):
I tell everybody I say that this is for any
actor who's listening. Your job is to create this human
being in the most truthful, grounded, authentic way and bring
yourself to the self tape period. The other thing is,
once you've done the audition and document it and send
it off, your job is done until you get to like,
I did my job for this thing, and now I

(53:30):
get to go there and get They give me a
costume and they put you know, they're gonna make up
and I'm gonna get in front and I'm actually gonna
get to But the truth is, I already did this,
I already played this character. I'm already done. I'm in
the acting business. I'm not in the selection business. The
curation business with is what these incredible cast directors are
who are artists and finally are getting acknowledged by the
Academy to curate that gallery and put all these artists

(53:52):
in this one particular exhibition that is art. That is like, hmm,
same thing with the director, the right actors. Casting is everything.
The play that I did, my cast was incredible. Couldn't
cast any better. It made my job so much easier.
So what I realize is that once I submit send
an off, it's etch a sketch, you know, new one,

(54:15):
you know, or ripping up remember the thing where like
you do a thing with like a little pen and
then you rip the thing up and it disappears. That's
the only way I'm going to kind of not lose hair,
whatever gray is. I have to just move on to
the next thing.

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Well, I do want to mention that you do on
camera workouts. It's actually on camera workouts dot com and
on camera workouts on Instagram, and for fifteen years you
personally have been self taping and getting roles based off
of those, and for ten plus years you've been helping

(54:49):
other students do that. You have over two thousand students worldwide,
twenty five hundred. Oh it's twenty five hundred. Well that
is over two thousand.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
It's another five hundred people. What good?

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, plus or five hundred.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
The good news is they don't all come in at once. Oh,
thank Christ. And I've automated my process, so yes.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Oh good. So with these students, you have a specific
focus on how to do on camera auditions and self tapes.
How do you feel like all of that experience has
helped you in this post COVID mostly self tape industry.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
Well, the good news is I was doing it before COVID,
And even when I was starting to self tape fifteen
years ago, there were people that have been self taping
before that, meaning famous people that didn't want to go
in an audition and they didn't want to take time
out of their day to sit down with that director
to see if they wanted to have to prove themselves.
So they're like, send me the material, let me put

(55:48):
something down and then I'll send it off like that,
this is what famous people were doing before I was
doing it. I find it's been a great, great equalizer.
It allows so many more people to have opportunities all
over the world. What used to happen is you had
to live in New York, you had to live in
Los Angeles. Both of those places are extremely cross prohibitive

(56:08):
to live and survive. And most of the time you
go to those places and you do three jobs in
order to just be able to pay half of your
rent for that month. So you're spending less time doing
the very thing that you came there to do your dream, right,
which I think all survival jobs are. You know, my
coaching and teaching that is considered a survival job in

(56:30):
a way for me as well. During COVID, I just
happened to be the guy that booked a million dollars
worth of work off of self tapes. So I felt
like I was the guy that had water in the desert.
Because when COVID hit and everybody went indoors, I was
working eighteen twenty hour days. I had classes seven days
a week. I had way too many people in class,
and now it's like six people in one class two hours.

(56:50):
Fifteen people in this class, three hours live workouts tomorrow.
I got a live workout tomorrow, eight people. It's like
eight people on camera as many people can watch. And
so there's now an art form of this, like one
of my dear friends does like kind of cinematic self
tapes and has had really good results. And part of
a recent audition that I did, I start to adapt

(57:10):
those things without making it distracting. It should look professional.
There should be the key light that's in your eyes,
a phill light, and a backlight that hits here, like
there's a little backlight on my ball paint. They should
be able to see you and hear you. The other
thing is on that page are visual nouns. You're talking
about a person, place, thing or an event. Film and

(57:31):
television is a visual medium. So are you going to
just talk about it or are you going to see
it before you say it? I could say to you,
it's like, hey, Steve Joe was the craziest dude in
our high school. He was insane. He used to run around.
He made a mistake one time he was going to streak,
but he put his football helmet on it and it
had his number on so we all knew it was him.
So I just told you that story. It's like, man,

(57:52):
do you remember in high school that guy Joe Is
one time he was streaking down the thing. It is
an idiot because he you know, he didn't he had
his helmet on, but he didn't realize that he had
his number on there. And we all know who he was.
So I just told you about him, or I also
created him. And I find that's the big difference between
good and great. From a good self tape of an

(58:14):
actor that can be truthful, ground to believable and authentic.
It's a given now people will give it a lot
of leeway with the technical aspects of it during COVID.
Now you have a ring light, like that's very twenty twenty,
you know, like, oh, I still have a ring light. Really,
I could see this demonic reflection in my eyes. I'll
tell you right now. It's distracting and you're definitely going
to book less work. So if you still have a
ring light, get a tripod, get a key light, and

(58:37):
move on. But the other thing is, can you take
these words on a page and visually bring them to
life within the frame and the reality is the director
has to do the exact same thing. They have to
take words that are on a page and visually fit
it in the frame, not out of the frame, not
acting over here, not up in this right here, everything
on the fourth wall. So for me, I've found this

(58:59):
child like curiosity and excitement and enthusiasm that each self
tape is an opportunity to create a one person movie
of this character because you're only seeing the story from
my point of view. In my eyes, what I see,
what I look at, where everything is. So I know
that there was a lot of pushback for people that

(59:21):
did very well in the room, meaning they were very
charming and people liked them and got work. They weren't
that talented or crafted, but they were likable enough that
they wanted to put them in the movie. And some
people go, I book more in the room than I do,
and stuff like, you know, like there's that whole thing,
and when we get back to the room, it's like
we're not getting back to that. Because one of the
biggest things that COVID taught everybody was, for example, I

(59:44):
lived in la I moved to New Orleans, I got
a callback in the room at Paramount Studios, for CSI
or NCIS, and I had to fly from New Orleans
to La rent a car, stay at my sister's house,
drive to Paramount Studios Melrose in the middle of who,
drive back to Santa Monica, go to the airport. I

(01:00:05):
had to fly. But when I did that, there were
ten other actors or fifteen other actors who were reading
for that role. So that put fifteen cars on the road.
And then there were thirty people in the room that
were from all over Orange County, so you had another
thirty cars that were on the road for everybody to
be in the room for two hours to make a decision. Right,

(01:00:25):
So just look at the environmental impact and then look
at the economic impact of that. So now you don't
have to put thirty cars on the road of all
the people in the room, or another fifteen for the actors.
The car, the time away from family, the gas, the traffic,
all of it. The physical office we're not going to
get back. I think we're going to get to the
point where callbacks may be in person or virtual, where

(01:00:47):
you get to talk and meet with this person to
have that interaction, because I think that's important. But it's
changed now. So what's interesting is I felt like, you
know my great uncle, Like you're a pioneer, Like I
got this thing called television. It's better than radio. You
get to see this image, it's in the little thing here.
So I feel like a pioneer in a way of
self tapes. And I'm passing on all the fucking mistakes

(01:01:08):
that I like, the thousands of auditions I lost or
I wasn't chosen or selected, not rejected, the thousands of
auditions that I was not selected for that got me hundreds.
And when I say it's very conservative to say a
million dollars, it's like I self tape for deep Water Horizon.
That was one I self taped Righteous Gemstones, which led

(01:01:32):
to twenty episodes. So do you see how that one
self tape celt in self tape for Righteous Gemstones? So
one cel tape leads to work. And I mean residuals
as time goes by at nauseum. So that number is
extremely conservative. But now I look at it as I'm
an artist. This canvas is blank. I can paint whatever

(01:01:52):
pictures I want based on the colors and the brushes
that you give me. I just have to fit it
in the frame, bring myself to it and then send
it off, and then beyond to the next one, and
then etch a sketch and the next. So I look
at them as small pieces of art many movies. In fact,
I'm gonna take this one audition that I did, this
one section of it, the last part of it that

(01:02:15):
sums up the entire relationship between father and son saying
goodbye to college, and I'm gonna post it up because
I put music under because I'm a DJ, and I
was like, what's the song that's like most pointed about
saying goodbye to your son and accepting you've got to
let the person Harry Chapins, Cats, Cats in the Cradle
and the Sieves Boom, Little Boy Blue and the Man
when you're coming home son, I don't know, we'll get

(01:02:38):
together then that you know, we'll have a good time.
I put that on the I don't care if I
get the movie. You know what I mean. You gave
me the audition, you're giving me the job. You're saying,
what is James demo going? And this is what I did.
So whatever the result, I'm trying to stay away from
the results in the outcomes, because that's where I feel
does a lot of people in If I don't get this,

(01:02:58):
it means I did something wrong. Rejected. It's like, no,
just weren't selected. But you have to make enough of
an impression. Perfect example what I said earlier, four years
with this one office, thirty three auditions, thirty three impressions,
another fourteen times, coming back, another four times, coming real
close to finally break through. So I look at each
of these things as an incredible opportunity and the way

(01:03:21):
the competitive world of self taping is either you take
that opportunity and exploit or somebody else will.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
What wonderful words to go out on James Dumont, thank
you so much for taking time yet again to come
back for a fourth time on Fascination Street podcast once again, everybody.
The new movie is called Unit two thirty four. It's
stars the great James Dumont, also Isabelle Furman, Don Johnson,

(01:03:49):
Jack Houston, so many others. Go check it out. It's
available on video videod everywhere, and don't forget to check
out on Camera workouts dot com and on Instagram and
learn how to be a pamp.

Speaker 1 (01:04:06):
With self tapes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Dude, Thank you so much seriously, and enjoy seeing your
face tonight on the big screen.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
I know, I'm excited. I got a nap to like
build up and it's all good.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Thank you brother, you have a great rest of your week. Ben,
Thank you sirving much.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Yeah peace.

Speaker 2 (01:04:32):
Opening music is the song fsp theme, written, performed and
provided by ambush Vin. Closing music is from the song
say My Name off the twenty twenty one album Underdog
Anthems used with permission from Jack's Hollow. If you like

(01:04:53):
the show, tell a friend, subscribe and rate and review
the show on iTunes and wherever else us you download podcasts.
Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel. All the
episodes are available there as well. Check me out on
the vero at Fascination Street Pod and TikTok at Fascination

(01:05:13):
Street Pod. And again thanks for listening.