Speaker 1: When I came to the Mainland for college. I went
Speaker 1: to school in New Hampshire, which is about as different
Speaker 1: as you can get.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, I actually didn't have any idea what I was
Speaker 1: in for. I brought like a pair of sneakers and
Speaker 1: a cotton hoodie and I was like ready for winter,
Speaker 1: Like two comes up. I talked to this day. I
Speaker 1: don't know why my parents didn't like buy me wool
Speaker 1: or boots. I think they just I'm sure that I
Speaker 1: was just sort of an arrogant little shit of a
Speaker 1: kid who was like, I kN know what I'm doing,
Speaker 1: and they were like, all right, you can learn the
Speaker 1: hard way. Hi. My name is Sarah Wayne Kelly's. And
Speaker 1: in the following podcast, I almost make Brian spittake, which
Speaker 1: I am very proud of.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, we're back. It's another episode of Off the
Speaker 2: Beat here and I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. What
Speaker 2: I want you all to do for a second is
Speaker 2: think about things that give you nightmares. Maybe tornadoes, zombies
Speaker 2: for sure, zombies give people nightmares, maybe aliens, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Think about the things that give you nightmares, and then
Speaker 2: whatever you're thinking about. My guest today has probably been
Speaker 2: in a movie or a show about it. However, she
Speaker 2: herself is a dream my guest today, as you just
Speaker 2: heard Sarah Wayne Calli's You may know her from her
Speaker 2: death Row drama prison Break, maybe the zombie thriller The
Speaker 2: Walking Dead, the dystopian sci fi Colony, or from films
Speaker 2: like Into the Storm, Black November, and Pay the Ghost.
Speaker 2: She's also a writer, director, producer, former historian, and hula dancer,
Speaker 2: as you will soon hear about. I did not know
Speaker 2: Sarah before today, but let me just say this now
Speaker 2: that I do. She's awesome. Yeah, and you're gonna think
Speaker 2: so too. She's also just recently written, produced, directed, and
Speaker 2: voice starred in a fantastic post apocalyptic episodic story a
Speaker 2: podcast called after Shock, which she just premiered its second season.
Speaker 2: It's kind of an adventure thriller about the world after
Speaker 2: a big earthquake levels Los Angeles, which I don't like
Speaker 2: to think about. Whoever, the story is fascinating. It's such
Speaker 2: a cool project. You gotta check it out. But don't
Speaker 2: take my word for it. Take her. She's better at
Speaker 2: words anyway. The multi talented and very funny Sarah Wayne
Speaker 2: Kelly's Bubble and squeak, I love it, bubble and squeakna
Speaker 2: bubble and squeak.
Speaker 1: I cook it every mo.
Speaker 2: Lift over from the ninety before. Thanks Hi, Sarah, uh hi,
Speaker 2: how are you. I'm so good. How are you doing.
Speaker 1: I'm good. It's nice to see you.
Speaker 2: It's very nice to see you. Thank you so much
Speaker 2: for joining me today.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it's absolutely my pleasure. You gave me
Speaker 1: all the cool points with the kids. They're enormous office fans,
Speaker 1: and I think of everything I've done in the last
Speaker 1: maybe like eighteen months, this is the.
Speaker 2: One that like, this is this is the cool one.
Speaker 1: Actually matters to them. So thank you.
Speaker 2: How old are they?
Speaker 1: Sixteen and ten?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about right.
Speaker 1: Well, and they just finished okay, it was on Netflix
Speaker 1: here in Canada, and so like they just finished two
Speaker 1: back to back binges of the whole thing for the
Speaker 1: first time. It was very sweet. They came up to
Speaker 1: me and they were like, have you ever seen the office?
Speaker 1: It's great? And I was like, really, that's amazing. I'll
Speaker 1: tell everyone I know. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yah.
Speaker 1: They got to the party late, but they're here.
Speaker 2: You've never heard of it? Where are you in Canada?
Speaker 2: I'm on my way you are.
Speaker 1: Where are you coming to.
Speaker 2: I'm coming to Toronto.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm on the other side. I'm in BC.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm on the warm side. How long are you going
Speaker 1: to be there?
Speaker 2: The war? Not that long. I think it's still I
Speaker 2: think it's still I think it's still hot there. But
Speaker 2: I've never been. I'm very excited. I've only been to
Speaker 2: the the your side before. I've never I've never been
Speaker 2: to Toronto. I'm excited. I'm excited to do it.
Speaker 1: Great city.
Speaker 2: I'm going to see Niagara Falls for the first time.
Speaker 1: That is wonderful. I have good I've got good kind
Speaker 1: of memories of that area. My husband's from quite near Rochester,
Speaker 1: so you know, the falls were nearby. And when we
Speaker 1: we just became dual citizens with the US and Canada
Speaker 1: last year. Okay, I first landed. You have to land
Speaker 1: as an immigrant, and we were staying with my husband's parents,
Speaker 1: and so we just went up to Saint Catherine's, which
Speaker 1: is really close. It's this teeny little town on the
Speaker 1: border and you just cross the border and they stamped
Speaker 1: the thing and you have to spend a night there.
Speaker 1: But it's like it has a nice, warm, fuzzy oh
Speaker 1: spot in my house. And I gotta tell you, Toronto
Speaker 1: has some of my favorite food in the country. There's
Speaker 1: just wonderful restaurants.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm very excited. Now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just there for a conference.
Speaker 2: I'll send you a list, Okay, yeah, send me a list.
Speaker 2: All right, Well you're in Canada. Now, you started out
Speaker 2: you were born in Illinois, but you went to Hawaii
Speaker 2: like immediately. So first off, how are you feeling about
Speaker 2: what's going on in Hawaii right now? It's I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's devastating. What's what's happening over there in Hawaii?
Speaker 2: You were on in a Wahu? Is that right?
Speaker 1: I grew up on o Wahoo. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: I was born in Illinois. My parents both applied for
Speaker 1: jobs as professors at universities all around the country. And
Speaker 1: the only university that took them both. I don't know
Speaker 1: why university was so hard to say just then, the
Speaker 1: only place of higher education that took them both was
Speaker 1: the University of Hawaii. So just a huge shout out
Speaker 1: of gratitude to the board of regents there for bringing
Speaker 1: me to Oahu where I grew up. As for what's
Speaker 1: happening on Maui. I don't honestly know that I have
Speaker 1: words yet. It's you know, Lahina was the capital of
Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Hawaii before it was illegally overthrown as
Speaker 1: a sovereign monarchy. It's such a deeply important place to
Speaker 1: Hawaii's history before you even scratch the surface of just
Speaker 1: the scale of the human loss. Yeah, you know, I
Speaker 1: was just reading something today that of the plus bodies
Speaker 1: that they have discovered, they can only identify five because
Speaker 1: there's only enough left. And you just a friend of
Speaker 1: mine has a brother who's this wonderful T shirt designer,
Speaker 1: So you know, he's designed a T shirt and I'm
Speaker 1: going to put a bunch of stuff out about like
Speaker 1: all profits to whatever. But I don't think there's a way.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you do. You can't rebuild. You
Speaker 1: have to kind of re envision and recreate, and whatever
Speaker 1: you build will still hold the kind of ghost of
Speaker 1: what you've lost. But I will say that, like I
Speaker 1: wonder if people in Hawaii don't have an extra set
Speaker 1: of tools in their toolbox. It is a place where
Speaker 1: I think most of us just were kind of raised
Speaker 1: with a connection to community, a connection to the land,
Speaker 1: itself to the stories about the land that will, I think,
Speaker 1: create a kind of resilience and a kind of spirit
Speaker 1: of I don't even know what like resurrection of whatever
Speaker 1: comes next.
Speaker 2: Right now, I get it. I mean, clearly it's a
Speaker 2: very important place for you. I will say sadly, I've
Speaker 2: never been to MAUI obviously heard so much about it.
Speaker 2: What was it like for you growing up there with
Speaker 2: that kind of a community. You feel like it's a
Speaker 2: specifically different place that breeds a different kind of community
Speaker 2: than anywhere else.
Speaker 1: Super I mean when I came to the Mainland for college,
Speaker 1: I went to school in New Hampshire, which is about
Speaker 1: as different as you can get. Yeah, I know, I
Speaker 1: actually didn't have any idea what I was in for.
Speaker 1: I brought like a pair of sneakers and a cotton
Speaker 1: hoodie and I was like ready for winter, like two
Speaker 1: comes up. I don'd to this day. I don't know
Speaker 1: why my parents didn't like buy me wool or boots.
Speaker 1: I think they just I'm sure sure that I was
Speaker 1: just sort of an arrogant little shit of a kid
Speaker 1: who was like I knew what I'm doing, and they
Speaker 1: were like, all right, you can learn the hard way.
Speaker 1: I mean I felt culture shock. Okay, Like, first of all,
Speaker 1: the native Hawaiian presence in Hawaii is vast and permeates everything, right,
Speaker 1: Like I had Hawaiian friends, teachers, governors, legislators, police officers,
Speaker 1: like there were just there were Hawaiian people everywhere, and
Speaker 1: there was language everywhere, right like half the street signs.
Speaker 1: There's a Hawaiian music radio station, a couple of them
Speaker 1: that play like both modern and contemporary and traditional Hawaiian music,
Speaker 1: most of it in Hawaiian. I took Hawaiian language in
Speaker 1: high school. Like that just felt very normal and pretty
Speaker 1: fair because I was like their land, you know, like
Speaker 1: feels like we should be learning about the people and
Speaker 1: how to say right, please and thank you, and you know,
Speaker 1: what are the stories of the land. And then I
Speaker 1: got to the mainland and I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 1: nobody knows who's land there on. No, there's like there
Speaker 1: was this deafening silence around those kinds of things, you know.
Speaker 1: And I mean I'd asked all these people and I
Speaker 1: was like, whose land are we on? They're like Darmouth College.
Speaker 1: I was like, sure, but go back a little bit.
Speaker 1: And partly you have to go back, so much farther
Speaker 1: on the East coast than you do in Hawaii. But
Speaker 1: it was really interesting. A part of the podcast actually,
Speaker 1: and like writing some of these Native Hawaiian characters in
Speaker 1: was just visibility.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: It's like before you can even get to the place
Speaker 1: of equal rights and remedying certain things and you know,
Speaker 1: issues of land and water, just like visibility, like, hey,
Speaker 1: there are people here, maybe we should give a listen
Speaker 1: to what's going on, right because you know, and like
Speaker 1: not to get too nuts about this stuff, but you know,
Speaker 1: I've been reading a lot of stuff lately about Maui
Speaker 1: and it's tricky, right because the whole state relies on tourism.
Speaker 1: We've vectored our economy exclusively towards tourism, and yet part
Speaker 1: of why Maui was so dry was because all the
Speaker 1: water was going to the hotels and golf courses and
Speaker 1: not to like the rest of the island, which is
Speaker 1: you know, they're like there have been a bunch of
Speaker 1: native communities for a while being like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: not going to work long term.
Speaker 2: Has been discussion, that's been a discussion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there, I mean, you know, and it's not
Speaker 1: getting a whole lot of coverage. But you know, for
Speaker 1: those of us who like are kind of you know,
Speaker 1: like there's a bunch of like protect Mono Kaa and Aamamana,
Speaker 1: and like there's a bunch of different folks on social
Speaker 1: media that you know, have been speaking from the Native
Speaker 1: Hawaiian communities. Yeah, there are folks who are, like we've
Speaker 1: been saying for a really long time that this this
Speaker 1: sort of tourism first approach to land and water and
Speaker 1: resources it is creating not only is it like vastly
Speaker 1: unfair to the people whose land it is and all
Speaker 1: of that, but right also creates this massive imbalance in
Speaker 1: the land's resilience to things like fire.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, it's that's it's a very I mean,
Speaker 2: I don't even know how you go back and begin
Speaker 2: to un tangle and unwind those things. I mean, I
Speaker 2: guess to your point, it's going to have to be
Speaker 2: re envisioned. It's going to have to be rebuilt in
Speaker 2: a new way. But that that catch twenty two that
Speaker 2: you mentioned of we rely on the tourism yet we're
Speaker 2: neglecting our ancestors, our history, our native peoples. It's very complicated.
Speaker 1: It requires a lot of revisioning and I think I
Speaker 1: have no answers, and so I take what I am
Speaker 1: going to call a politically responsible cop out just to
Speaker 1: say it's not for me to come up with answers.
Speaker 1: I just want to listen, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: like sort of turn the mic over to like some
Speaker 1: of the some of the organizers and the leaders and
Speaker 1: the elders in those communities and be like, Okay, if
Speaker 1: hypothetically I had no ideas, what are your ideas? What
Speaker 1: do you need for me?
Speaker 2: Right? I mean there's so much, as you said, music
Speaker 2: and culture and performance. Were you did you begin performing
Speaker 2: in like Native Hawaiian spectacle or no?
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I took the sort of you
Speaker 1: know how like little girls on the mainland take ballet.
Speaker 1: You turn four and they put you in a tutu
Speaker 1: Like it's just it's like a thing that happens.
Speaker 2: It's required.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and if you're like super alternative, it might
Speaker 1: be like gymnastics and baseball, but like that's about as
Speaker 1: far outside about as we get. So I actually did
Speaker 1: take it year of ballet, and I think I think
Speaker 1: the ballet teacher took my parents aside and was like,
Speaker 1: I'm sure she's good at something it's not this. So
Speaker 1: I ended up in you know, hula lessons, which is
Speaker 1: what I think a lot of the like four or
Speaker 1: five six year olds, you know, and I never got
Speaker 1: any good but enjoyed it. I think what what I
Speaker 1: really kind of came away with is a sense of
Speaker 1: storytelling as really important.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know, because you.
Speaker 1: Grow up with like the stories in Hawaii, right, the
Speaker 1: stories of Pelle of the volcano goddess and of where
Speaker 1: the name for your valley comes from, or you know,
Speaker 1: Cohala Opuna and the owls, and like those stories were everywhere,
Speaker 1: and I was fascinated by them, and you know, everything
Speaker 1: from picture books to like you know, certain teachers or
Speaker 1: your Hawaiian studies teachers sharing things. And I think at
Speaker 1: a certain point I started to realize how different those
Speaker 1: stories were from the stories that I was like hearing
Speaker 1: in church, right, especially when it came to women, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, Like lots of very powerful female
Speaker 1: figures in Hawaiian storytelling. The Bible seems to be all
Speaker 1: about like please don't have sex, but then do have
Speaker 1: a baby. But that you know what I mean, Like
Speaker 1: it's super complicated, very complicated, like Sarah in the Bible
Speaker 1: is ninety nine and God tells her she's going to
Speaker 1: have a kid, And in my imagination, her first response
Speaker 1: was just like, you really don't know how this works.
Speaker 1: I don't think you've thought this all the way through. Also,
Speaker 1: who wants kids at ninety nine? I'm in my forties
Speaker 1: and I don't want to stay awake that late. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: So so anyway, the point is that the storytelling, I think,
Speaker 1: is what kind of hooked me into what we do.
Speaker 1: What about you? I know that I'm supposed to be
Speaker 1: interviewing me, but like, where did you know?
Speaker 2: It's it's interesting. So I grew up in the South,
Speaker 2: and I think similarly that tradition of storytelling, of history
Speaker 2: of who owns the land, which again that becomes a
Speaker 2: very complicated issue at its depth, but I think there
Speaker 2: that was more important than I think it is say
Speaker 2: in New Hampshire or Iowa or whatever like. There is
Speaker 2: that sort of identity. Again, not all of it positive,
Speaker 2: but the history in the South is is a part
Speaker 2: of it. And my grandfather, I mean we two three
Speaker 2: four years old, I mean me and my sister at night,
Speaker 2: he would just tell stories. So yeah, I mean there
Speaker 2: is I'm not equating it at all to be exactly
Speaker 2: the same, but I think that there is some sort
Speaker 2: of similarity there. You.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that never.
Speaker 2: Really even quite occurred to me in that same way
Speaker 2: in terms of my personal history until hearing you talk,
Speaker 2: because that really, that really was, that storytelling really was
Speaker 2: a part of my early childhood.
Speaker 1: Well and even the in the South. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I was what was I'm never going to remember this
Speaker 1: exactly right, And I apologize to all the Kenny fans
Speaker 1: out there, but there's that Kenny Rogers song the Coward
Speaker 1: of Something County. Yes, I was listening to it came
Speaker 1: on the other day, and I thought, this is this
Speaker 1: is a movie in three minutes, do you know what
Speaker 1: I mean about? Like a man whose dad tells him
Speaker 1: don't get into fights and don't do what I did,
Speaker 1: and then he falls in love with this woman and
Speaker 1: then she's ps gang raped like literally that's in the song,
Speaker 1: which is nice, and then he turns around and like
Speaker 1: it's it's a story, and it's it's a like Steven
Speaker 1: Spielberg worthy giant story. And if I think about a
Speaker 1: lot of country music, that's you know, even bluegrass, right,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know what part of the South you're from.
Speaker 2: But no, Georgia. I mean as as deep as it goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, wait where in Georgia? I lived there for five
Speaker 1: years Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, so I think you're exactly right. It's why
Speaker 2: I you know, people say what's what's your favorite kind
Speaker 2: of music, and I'll say old country, like like Willie
Speaker 2: Nelson and yeah, Nylon Jennings and they're telling stories. My
Speaker 2: least favorite is new country because I feel like it's
Speaker 2: just bebop but he beep beepop I was drinking. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 2: and it's not as complex as story. Actually, his stories
Speaker 2: are way simpler.
Speaker 1: No, although I will say there are some do you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Like blown Away, there's there's definitely
Speaker 1: some people still like Brad Paisley can still write some lyrics.
Speaker 2: Man, that's but that's old country. So if it's if
Speaker 2: it's in the old style that.
Speaker 3: Counts, then that then that that counts.
Speaker 2: So when you started becoming really involved in performing, I
Speaker 2: understand you started acting in school plays and stuff. Was
Speaker 2: this like a passion of yours? Was this an activity
Speaker 2: like ballet when you were four or did you feel
Speaker 2: like this was something that that that really moved you
Speaker 2: that you wanted to do later on, and if not,
Speaker 2: when did that moment occur?
Speaker 1: Good question. I mean plays. Acting was the first thing
Speaker 1: that I put myself in, you know, like your parents
Speaker 1: put you into dancing whatever, blah blah blah. I joined
Speaker 1: the track and field team because I thought that would
Speaker 1: be useful. Blew my knee out in the very first practice.
Speaker 1: There's I like anything that involves physical coordination. Basically, the
Speaker 1: people in charge are like, again, I'm sure you're good
Speaker 1: at something, go find it.
Speaker 2: Wait a second track though, I mean running.
Speaker 1: I know, I know that's not.
Speaker 2: A ton of physical coordination this.
Speaker 1: Is, but it's more than I have, and I have.
Speaker 1: I will say I will now at this point in
Speaker 1: my life, only run if someone's behind me with a firearm,
Speaker 1: which weirdly describes like half of my career on camera.
Speaker 1: So I do a bit of running, but only if
Speaker 1: there's like the Apocalypse is behind me. I basically flogged
Speaker 1: out a track, which was amazing, And there were auditions
Speaker 1: for the play the next day. So and it was
Speaker 1: as you like it, and it was Shakespeare, and I
Speaker 1: loved that and the chewiness of the words and the
Speaker 1: language and the challenge of the language. It felt like
Speaker 1: a puzzle. But I never thought I would do it professionally,
Speaker 1: you know, because I mean I didn't come from a
Speaker 1: family that like could support me, you know, so it
Speaker 1: was like, you get your degree and you are on
Speaker 1: your own right, which also, by the way, seemed completely fair.
Speaker 2: Sure, no, they put up with you for long enough,
Speaker 2: exactly an uncoordinated daughter. I mean, you can't expect get
Speaker 2: into things came going. But now you went when you
Speaker 2: left to go to New Hampshire, which is, by the way,
Speaker 2: it's just hilarious, but you go to New Hampshire. You
Speaker 2: but you went to study drama.
Speaker 1: Right like I know, I went to study history.
Speaker 2: You went to study I went to study history with.
Speaker 1: An eye toward being a diplomat, which is hilarious because
Speaker 1: people who know me, I mean you've known me now
Speaker 1: for what eight minutes, You're like, this is the least
Speaker 1: diplomatic person in the face of the earth. I can't
Speaker 1: not say something that floats through my head. You know,
Speaker 1: it's funny. This is this is becoming the podcast about
Speaker 1: Sarah's failures, which I'm totally fine with. After my first
Speaker 1: semester in the.
Speaker 2: History that was not the attention, but go ahead, no.
Speaker 1: But it's truly like the head of the teacher that
Speaker 1: I had that taught me my first history seminar, she
Speaker 1: said to me, and I quote, you are too creative
Speaker 1: to be a historian. The drama department is that way.
Speaker 1: And I was like, all right, really yeah, which, by
Speaker 1: the way, might be part of the problem of the
Speaker 1: way history was taught at the time, But at any
Speaker 1: point I was out. I still never thought. I took
Speaker 1: a bunch of drama classes, I did a bunch of plays.
Speaker 1: I still never thought like, you can't make a living.
Speaker 1: And so you know, I was going to get a
Speaker 1: degree in something else and get a PhD and be
Speaker 1: a professor like my parents. And right before I graduated
Speaker 1: from university, I realized that I would have to fail
Speaker 1: at acting before I could settle for anything else. I
Speaker 1: had to try. I just had to give it a shot.
Speaker 1: And you know, the thing is about it to me
Speaker 1: and growing up actually in such a big family. I
Speaker 1: wonder if this kind of lands with you too. I
Speaker 1: love how collaborative it is. I love that, like whether
Speaker 1: you're in a green room with a bunch of actors
Speaker 1: or you're you know, chatting with the crew at lunch whatever,
Speaker 1: like we are surrounded. We're in a big network of
Speaker 1: people all trying to do good stories, trying to make
Speaker 1: something out of whole cloth that will be meaningful and
Speaker 1: beautiful and funny and human. And that is like just
Speaker 1: the greatest thing to me to be with those people
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: That is the greatest thing, you know, Jenna Elfman, she
Speaker 2: said to me almost exactly the same thing that you
Speaker 2: just said, and I love it, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: share it with you. She talked about that in life
Speaker 2: there are people who have agendas and you're looking out
Speaker 2: for yourself, you're looking out for your family, or you know,
Speaker 2: you're trying to accomplish different things. But the moment that
Speaker 2: someone says action, every single person on screen off screen
Speaker 2: is working toward one thing. In that moment, It's like
Speaker 2: a time in life where everyone is just trying to
Speaker 2: get this one thing right. Be it prop and yeah,
Speaker 2: the look and the camera and the action the actors
Speaker 2: are doing. It's exactly what you just said. But I
Speaker 2: love that that.
Speaker 1: Idea, particularly in theater. Actually, from the moment the curtain
Speaker 1: goes up to the moment it comes back down, at
Speaker 1: the end. It's extraordinary how everybody on stage, backstage, in
Speaker 1: the audience, there's a single mindedness that we very rarely
Speaker 1: get right. Like I my mind is never quieter than
Speaker 1: it is when I'm acting because I'm thinking about this
Speaker 1: one thing and we can't do it alone. That's I
Speaker 1: think there's something so beautiful about this. You know, we
Speaker 1: have this silly Marlborough man image of American achievement. That's
Speaker 1: like I pulled myself up by my bootstraps.
Speaker 2: Bullshit.
Speaker 1: You took a staircase that somebody else built for you,
Speaker 1: You took the hand that somebody else put down for you.
Speaker 1: You walked shoulder to shoulder with people who were there
Speaker 1: for you. Like, we don't do anything alone, not anything meaningful.
Speaker 1: And I love how deeply interdependent we are on each
Speaker 1: other making stories, and particularly with people who are not
Speaker 1: like us, you know, like we've all got there's always
Speaker 1: people on a set that you're like, we would never
Speaker 1: I our paths would never cross, you know, with like
Speaker 1: me and this guy who's working craft service, you know,
Speaker 1: or like this driver. I mean, we've all had Like
Speaker 1: drivers are amazing, man, and some of them are the
Speaker 1: greatest ever and some of them, You're like, Wow, this
Speaker 1: is not a conversation I ever thought in a million
Speaker 1: years I would have, right, right, But we're driving from
Speaker 1: Atlanta to Savannah, so we're gonna have it for three
Speaker 1: and a half hours, and you end up like, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, walking down was really interesting because you know,
Speaker 1: we shot in Sonoya the I mean after season one.
Speaker 1: Season one was in Atlanta. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: drivers down there that like, man, they don't have people
Speaker 1: like me in their life.
Speaker 4: You know, some like pink Ocamie tree hugging, rainbow flag flying,
Speaker 4: but and like I don't have a lot of people
Speaker 4: who pray and vote and think the way they do.
Speaker 4: But we humanized each other, yes, And so I'm not
Speaker 4: going to use unkind language to describe them because while
Speaker 4: I may not agree with a lot, they are also
Speaker 4: my brothers and sisters because we survived.
Speaker 1: They survived the Georgia Woods together. Yes, And the Georgia
Speaker 1: was the snakes.
Speaker 2: Slash the Apocalypse. Did you see snakes?
Speaker 1: Oh dude. We had a guy named Patrick whose job
Speaker 1: it was to flush the snakes out of the set
Speaker 1: before we got there, and he was always like think
Speaker 1: I got him? And I was like you are the
Speaker 1: bravest man I know. Also, what do you mean think?
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, oh dude, it was It was nuts.
Speaker 1: We had a tick check every day after work. You'd
Speaker 1: go to your trailer, you'd strip down, and you check
Speaker 1: your body for ticks. You guys didn't do that with
Speaker 1: the office.
Speaker 2: No, Oh my god. That really made me. No, we
Speaker 2: did not. We did not have tick checks. So I
Speaker 2: have an issue right now. I don't know if anybody
Speaker 2: wants to message me, message me about this. So I
Speaker 2: have ticks I where I live now, and I have
Speaker 2: a dog and the dog gets tick medication. Here is
Speaker 2: a current problem. The medication is working, and the ticks
Speaker 2: don't want to be on the dog. But now findings
Speaker 2: everywhere dog goes outside tickets are right inside. Is like,
Speaker 2: I don't want the dog and then I'm like seeing
Speaker 2: them walk around on the ground.
Speaker 1: But there's this Brian dude, that's the ticks freaked me out.
Speaker 1: The whole line is these thing like it's worse than
Speaker 1: a zombie apocalypse as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker 2: Well, that's true. I so, yeah, you shot obviously the
Speaker 2: walking Dead in Georgia. Yeah, I mean you're doing so
Speaker 2: many nights too, right nights and hot days and snakes.
Speaker 1: And the one Actually we didn't have many nights. It's interesting,
Speaker 1: like if you watch the first even the first two seasons,
Speaker 1: we didn't do many nights. I don't really know why.
Speaker 1: Season one was odd because in order to permit downtown Atlanta,
Speaker 1: we could only shoot there Saturday Sunday, so our days
Speaker 1: off for Monday Tuesday, which is just a little odd
Speaker 1: because it means right that you're like extra freaky as
Speaker 1: a circus freak actor anyway, do you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: It's like you try and make new friends and you're like,
Speaker 4: you want to come over for dinner Monday night.
Speaker 1: And you're like, what, No, not at all? Right, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's fine.
Speaker 2: I have to ask you. You said you you were
Speaker 2: not going to be able to move on to something
Speaker 2: else until that didn't work out. You end up going
Speaker 2: to the National Theater Conservative in Denver for your MFA,
Speaker 2: which is a very big deal at the time. You
Speaker 2: get your equity card, which I didn't know that when
Speaker 2: you graduate from there, for you theater or film, film, slice.
Speaker 1: Television, there's such different muscles and such different media. I
Speaker 1: did a play right after I left Walking Dead at
Speaker 1: the Kennedy Center, Okay, And I was so scared to
Speaker 1: do it. And it was actually Jeff Demon who kind
Speaker 1: of talked me into it. He's like, you need to
Speaker 1: sharpen that muscle because there is nothing like the sustained
Speaker 1: attention of a two and a half hour play. It'll
Speaker 1: make you a better actor.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: The economics of it I struggle with. I struggle with
Speaker 1: the fact that the tickets were too expensive for most
Speaker 1: people to see. It was the whitest audience I have
Speaker 1: ever performed for. And I made no money and lost
Speaker 1: my health insurance and had to go on Cobra and
Speaker 1: so wow, Like that's not romantic, man, it's really not,
Speaker 1: you know. And like the Kennedy saide it's a good
Speaker 1: it's a good theater, Like they pay you, but I'm
Speaker 1: the sole breadwinner for a family of foreman, Like, it's
Speaker 1: not it did not it did not do it I,
Speaker 1: you know. And so it's usually the writing's better in
Speaker 1: theater and there's a devotion, there's rehearsal, which is such
Speaker 1: a gift. But to the extent that I believe that
Speaker 1: stories are powerful when they are shared. More people saw
Speaker 1: the first episode of The Walking Dead, than would see
Speaker 1: every show I would ever do if I spent my
Speaker 1: entire career on Broadway correct and they saw it for
Speaker 1: so much less money, And so that's a that's a
Speaker 1: tough one. I would love to go back and do
Speaker 1: another play, but I can't afford to make that my career.
Speaker 2: See, I started in theater too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so what do you think would you go back?
Speaker 1: Would you if somebody said, here you go, We'll give you,
Speaker 1: you know, forty eight weeks a year for Oh no, no, babe?
Speaker 1: Would you By the way, are you a musical theater person?
Speaker 1: Do you sing? No?
Speaker 2: I talk sing. I talked sing really really well, which
Speaker 2: you know for comedic musical theater roles is good. But yeah, no,
Speaker 2: it's I mean it's I mean, you talk about the
Speaker 2: circus Freaks with you know, you, during a short period
Speaker 2: of time on The Walking Dead had Monday and Tuesday off,
Speaker 2: like for your life, having Mondays off. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: like so difficult. I mean, it's I mean, the short
Speaker 2: answer is I want to go back and do something.
Speaker 2: You know, that's all I did essentially prior to the Office.
Speaker 1: That's right. The Office was the like big TV break.
Speaker 2: That's right, what a trip? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did that just do your headed?
Speaker 2: Did I say it again?
Speaker 1: Well, to go from like, you know, on a good week,
Speaker 1: a couple thousand people a week, see what I'm doing
Speaker 1: to like giant massive, Yeah, you know it.
Speaker 2: We started so not strong that it didn't feel like
Speaker 2: that early on, but it you know, I mean it
Speaker 2: quickly became what it was so so it like ramped up.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so that was different. But yeah, no, I
Speaker 2: mean it's obviously a huge change. And yeah, I mean
Speaker 2: to your point, Yeah, yeah, I could do that forty
Speaker 2: eight you know, weeks a year at eight shows a week,
Speaker 2: and yeah, no one's going to see the exposure is impossible.
Speaker 2: But there's a live theater experience. There's something that happens
Speaker 2: in a room every single day that's different. And you know,
Speaker 2: that's the part for me that I miss is that
Speaker 2: experience live in the room.
Speaker 1: You want to hear a fun theater story real quick. Yes,
Speaker 1: So speaking of live in the room. When I was
Speaker 1: in grad school, we did a production of Doubt. Okay
Speaker 1: I know it, which is yeah for people who don't.
Speaker 1: The short version is it's a story about a woman
Speaker 1: in the hospital dying of cancer and she's a she's
Speaker 1: a scholar of the poet John Dunn. And we did
Speaker 1: it in the round, which was kind of insane hospital
Speaker 1: Journey's everywhere, and I had like that four lines in
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Dude, I mean, we're grad students. We're
Speaker 1: just there to little tiny parts. I think it's almost
Speaker 1: a one woman show. There's like two roles when they
Speaker 1: did it on Broadway, but they added a bunch of
Speaker 1: other students and things like that. And I'm in one
Speaker 1: of the three scenes I think I'm in in the
Speaker 1: entire thing. We're playing the leading woman is a flashback
Speaker 1: of her teaching, and I'm playing one of the students.
Speaker 1: And I opened my mouth to say one of the
Speaker 1: two or three lines I have, and Annette Held, who
Speaker 1: is the role, points at me and then points past
Speaker 1: me and goes, Sarah, I'm sorry. Is she okay? And
Speaker 1: for somebody who notices, who knows theater, for an actor
Speaker 1: to go off script and break the wall like that
Speaker 1: was like for probably three heartbeats, nobody moved, nobody breathed,
Speaker 1: and then she looked up into the booth and she goes,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, we need the lights on, and the lights
Speaker 1: come on and there's this elderly woman slumped over, not
Speaker 1: moving in her seat. Again, we're in the round, so
Speaker 1: the audience is looking at us and we're looking at them.
Speaker 1: And the brilliant, quick thinking stage manager comes on and
Speaker 1: goes the gentleman, they'll be an unscheduled fifteen minute or mission,
Speaker 1: please buy them the lobby. They kick us backstage. Backstage
Speaker 1: is full of hospital to trytus right, the hospital beds
Speaker 1: and gurneys and people dressed in scrubs. And in record time,
Speaker 1: the doors to the backstage bang open and incomes the
Speaker 1: ambulance crew and they freeze and they're like, what the fuck?
Speaker 1: This is a hospital, what's going on? And we're like,
Speaker 1: we're actors, we can't help you.
Speaker 2: Go bag.
Speaker 1: And they go and they pull this woman out and
Speaker 1: I look over at a net and she has wrapped
Speaker 1: her arms around herself and she is physically holding her
Speaker 1: performance in because it's a beast of a role and
Speaker 1: she was brilliant at it. And they take the woman
Speaker 1: out to the ambulance and the stage manager says, what
Speaker 1: do you want to do? She says, is the woman alive?
Speaker 1: And stage manager said yeah. She goes all right, well,
Speaker 1: let's get back out there. And we got back out there,
Speaker 1: and at the very end of the play spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: but the play is like thirty years old. The lead
Speaker 1: dies and she drops her clothes and she looks up
Speaker 1: and this bright white light shines on her. And usually
Speaker 1: that's where the audience starts applotting. But the lights came
Speaker 1: up and it was dead silent, and the audience was
Speaker 1: on their feet, and we'd just been in a play
Speaker 1: of death, and like death was in the audience that night,
Speaker 1: and we just stood there, the cast and the actors
Speaker 1: and the audience, looking at each other for like again
Speaker 1: a few heartbeats, and then they started applauding and we left.
Speaker 1: It was one of the most profound things I've ever
Speaker 1: been a part of. And that only happens in a
Speaker 1: live show.
Speaker 2: That's beautiful. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right, You're right.
Speaker 2: You just gotta do seven thousand, one hundred and forty
Speaker 2: two performances before it happens again. Your career is amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, your career is amazing.
Speaker 2: I have I have a quote from you. I'm not
Speaker 2: a badass. I just play one on TV. This by
Speaker 2: the way, based on this conversation is clearly is clearly
Speaker 2: not true. But you can't run, and you're an actor,
Speaker 2: you're a director, you're a producer, writer, voice, actor, podcast
Speaker 2: or mom, you work with the International Rescue Committee, you tango,
Speaker 2: you trapeez, I mean, clearly hula at least as a
Speaker 2: four year old mite for the list goes on, how
Speaker 2: much because you were an uncoordinated person? How much extra
Speaker 2: work did you have to do? Was it difficult for you?
Speaker 2: And I'm talking prison break obviously the Walking Dad. Did
Speaker 2: you do a lot outside to be ready when it
Speaker 2: was like physically yeah, when your number was called?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean after season one of Walking Dead,
Speaker 1: first of all, I think we all lost about ten pounds,
Speaker 1: like ten to fifteen, me and John, the entire crew. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sweat and just like because we're outdoors all day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's too hot to eat. We had like forty
Speaker 1: days over ninety degrees. You know. It was just like
Speaker 1: the and we realized coming back for season two, like
Speaker 1: you have to be in the best shape of your life.
Speaker 1: There's just no right getting around it. By the way, later,
Speaker 1: many years later, I did a show called Letter Kenny,
Speaker 1: which is a Canadian comedy and I'll.
Speaker 5: Say, oh, you guys really have it figured out. Finally,
Speaker 5: these comedians like if only I were funny. You guys
Speaker 5: have the right idea. You shoot inside, you make each
Speaker 5: other laugh. You're not screaming and crying. There's no firearms.
Speaker 1: Nobody's talking to you about dead babies like I congratulations
Speaker 1: on landing in the right part of our industry, or
Speaker 1: long term mental.
Speaker 2: Health, and that's so funny.
Speaker 1: Quality of life. I salute you, sir.
Speaker 2: You know it was an accident for me. I wasn't well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean people, I mean I told you I came
Speaker 2: from theater, like you know. I mean people assume that
Speaker 2: I was at Improva, Olympic or Second City or the
Speaker 2: Groundlings or Stand Up or one of those. I mean,
Speaker 2: I did just as much drama as I mean, I
Speaker 2: probably did more drama than comedy.
Speaker 1: Favorite theater role. Don't think about it to go.
Speaker 2: I don't know, I know, I'm thinking. I mean, I
Speaker 2: mean the standard answer, which it just happens too much.
Speaker 2: And for an American male now regardless of race. Willie
Speaker 2: Lowman and death of a Salesman's greatest.
Speaker 1: Roll of fall Time, Oh yeah, sure, I mean yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: although legendarily like Rex actors. Yes, the play I did
Speaker 1: at the Kennedy Center was opposite Finn Whitrock, who had
Speaker 1: just done Phil Hoffman's Death of the Salesman, and he
Speaker 1: was like, it broke him. I mean it just like Phil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I just I can't imagine what it takes to go
Speaker 1: through that. It's like Lear, right, Yeah, it's big. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's awful. Stacy Keach actually said to me once he
Speaker 1: did Lear right after the first season of Prison Break,
Speaker 1: and I was supposed to do it with him. He
Speaker 1: asked me to play one of his daughters, but then
Speaker 1: they moved the show from Chicago to Dallas. He was
Speaker 1: doing it at the Goodman but I called him like
Speaker 1: right before first preview, I was like, how's it going?
Speaker 1: He said, you know, Sarah, the tragedy of Lear is
Speaker 1: that by the time you're old enough to understand the role,
Speaker 1: you're too old to keep up with it physically. And
Speaker 1: you know, He's like, I'm losing my voice. I'm exhausted
Speaker 1: all the time. And I think there's something to it
Speaker 1: that some of those roles, and I think they wrote
Speaker 1: more of them for men than women back then, But
Speaker 1: like some of those roles. Just I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: got to feel like a marathon every night.
Speaker 2: Have you ever seen the movie? Now we're going to
Speaker 2: really keep here. Have you ever seen the movie The
Speaker 2: Dresser Albert Finney? Oh, Tom Courtney? Long time Ago, A
Speaker 2: long time ago. By the way, if you're listening and
Speaker 2: you want an old classic drama, I'm not even going
Speaker 2: to get the decade right. I would say it was
Speaker 2: probably in the eighties. But it is about an old
Speaker 2: Shakespearean company that takes place during World War Two, I believe,
Speaker 2: and they could be one I don't know. Albert Finney
Speaker 2: is playing Lear and Tom Courtney is his dresser, and
Speaker 2: it is essentially about him descending into madness on the
Speaker 2: trajectory that Lear is and that for me is theater.
Speaker 1: Well there is. I mean, like you have to be
Speaker 1: able to lose your mind.
Speaker 2: I have done. I've had the good fortune and I
Speaker 2: say good fortune seriously of playing a role over an
Speaker 2: extended period of time, like over a year, of playing
Speaker 2: the same role which was heavy makeup and sitting there
Speaker 2: before the show putting on the makeup's going Can I
Speaker 2: do this one?
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can do this again?
Speaker 2: Can I do this one more time, and it was great.
Speaker 2: It was called The Green Bird with a fantastic theater
Speaker 2: company called Theater de la June Loan. That was French
Speaker 2: slash Minneapolis, and I played the evil old woman in
Speaker 2: full kabuki makeup.
Speaker 1: WHOA, yeah, that's so into. First of all, I really
Speaker 1: would love to see that. I'm curious about everything at
Speaker 1: every level. But I think, you know, in some ways,
Speaker 1: I think there's something very cool in what we do.
Speaker 1: In you do touch a little bit of madness, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, even just on an eight show week. I
Speaker 1: remember being in a Sunday matinee performance when you've done
Speaker 1: Friday Night, Saturday matinee, Saturday night, and now it's Sunday
Speaker 1: going I don't know if I just said this line
Speaker 1: or if I'm remembering saying it yesterday, but I know
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to say it again tonight. And just
Speaker 1: like a little part of your brain just goes wh
Speaker 1: and it.
Speaker 2: Like totally totally, and you's.
Speaker 1: A little crazy. You go a little crazy. I've lost
Speaker 1: myself a couple of times, But then I think you
Speaker 1: find yourself too, and you learn a little bit about
Speaker 1: who you are and what you're capable of, and you are,
Speaker 1: in theory in a safe enough environment that there are
Speaker 1: people there to pull you back. And actually, I think
Speaker 1: that's what makes for great storytelling, and I imagine it's
Speaker 1: got to be the same thing in comedy. But like
Speaker 1: the directors, that producers, the writers and the other actors,
Speaker 1: creating an environment where you can do super dangerous work
Speaker 1: knowing the people around me are gonna they're not going
Speaker 1: to make fun of me, They're not gonna let me fail.
Speaker 1: You know, they're gonna there. There's again that community that
Speaker 1: we're kind of enmeshed in.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By the way, I feel like I have to
Speaker 2: give us credit here. I feel like we've done a
Speaker 2: fantastic job of talking about our careers and our work
Speaker 2: during of this writer strike. So I'm just gonna give
Speaker 2: us both just an amazing tip of the cat to
Speaker 2: that tip of the cat. Cap I cat, I'm gonna
Speaker 2: I'm gonna tip. I'm gonna tip the cat. We do
Speaker 2: have something very important that we need to talk about,
Speaker 2: which is Aftershock, which is your podcast. You're basically lord, dictator, king, queen, writer, creator, producer, actor, beverlord, technician,
Speaker 2: microphone operator. You kind of mentioned it before I want
Speaker 2: you to tell me a little bit about where the
Speaker 2: idea came for after Shock. By the way, for those
Speaker 2: of you who don't know, it's a scripted podcast, uh
Speaker 2: that Sarah is doing to great a. I'm so in
Speaker 2: love and excited by it. Did this come at all
Speaker 2: from your childhood in Hawaii? I mean it takes place
Speaker 2: on an island.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of it, I will say. You know,
Speaker 1: the original idea was brought to me by a writer,
Speaker 1: a Ya writer novelist named Patrick Carmon, and he and
Speaker 1: my producing partner Ben Haber cooked up this thought about
Speaker 1: what would happen if a new island rose up out
Speaker 1: of the sea. And I thought, oh, that's really interesting,
Speaker 1: and we talked about a lot of it. It felt
Speaker 1: to me from the beginning like a little bit of
Speaker 1: a re exploration of like westward expansion, right, like new Land.
Speaker 1: We tell that story a lot in westerns, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, And it's cowboys and Indians and women
Speaker 1: in whorehouses, and it's like, well, what if we examined
Speaker 1: some of those Like what if we took some different
Speaker 1: people and tried to tell the story in a new way,
Speaker 1: and what would it look like now. But yeah, immediately
Speaker 1: the new Pacific Island thing came up, and I started
Speaker 1: thinking about what were the female relationships that I most
Speaker 1: wanted to see that we're maybe more complicated than some
Speaker 1: of the ones I've had a chance to portray, which
Speaker 1: is where a lot of the stuff between Cassie and
Speaker 1: Mikayla came up with, you know, like, what does it
Speaker 1: mean when the person that you need for your own
Speaker 1: survival Cassie and Mikayla's case, is the person that you
Speaker 1: hate most in the world. And how do you atone
Speaker 1: in Cassie's case, for the things you've done that hurt
Speaker 1: of the people. And actually the second season. First season
Speaker 1: ends well, most people have a lot of blood on
Speaker 1: their hands at the end of the first season, and
Speaker 1: the second season is really about atonement and forgiveness and
Speaker 1: how do you ask for it and how do you
Speaker 1: grant it? And what does that look like? Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I realized, it's interesting. There's a woman that I've
Speaker 1: been following for a long time and I really loved
Speaker 1: her work, and I've gotten to know her a little bit.
Speaker 1: She's deeply involved in the Hawaiian land activism, and I
Speaker 1: asked her to go over a couple of scripts with
Speaker 1: me for season two, so I wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that there weren't like blind spots and some of the
Speaker 1: more cultural things I was doing. And she pointed out
Speaker 1: a fundamental flaw in season one and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: and she goes, it's no problem. You know, you can
Speaker 1: rewrite it, and I was like, no, season one is out.
Speaker 1: And I asked the bed on this and she's like, okay,
Speaker 1: So from a cultural perspective, I would say this instead
Speaker 1: of what you did. And I went great. So my
Speaker 1: stomach turned to water and I went, oh god, I
Speaker 1: blew it. And then I thought, okay, so this can
Speaker 1: become the character's journey then, and this will come up
Speaker 1: more in kind of the back half of the season.
Speaker 1: Episodes like six, seven or eight, Lay goes on a
Speaker 1: very kind of emotional journey of trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: with all the best intentions, I took this action and
Speaker 1: I'm now being told by the people who know more
Speaker 1: than me that it was the wrong action. So how
Speaker 1: do I make that right? And this? So there was
Speaker 1: a lot of humility involved in writing this season, because
Speaker 1: of course, you know, I'm a writer's room one, and
Speaker 1: you need other people to bounce things off of. Tatti
Speaker 1: Gabrielle was kind enough to help me break this season.
Speaker 1: She did such a brilliant job playing Mikayla. I was like,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear what you feel, what you hear,
Speaker 1: what you think. She's at a different generation than I am,
Speaker 1: she's a different race than I am. And I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, your perspective will only broaden this thing. And
Speaker 1: so we got to do a bunch of that together.
Speaker 1: But still, you know, the wearing of many hats is
Speaker 1: a necessity. If we had the budget, I would very
Speaker 1: happily start delegating thing. I needed a lot of help
Speaker 1: from outside. And yeah, eight some humble pie.
Speaker 2: As I was writing, well, you have a great cast.
Speaker 2: You mentioned Tati Gabrielle, David Harber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan. How
Speaker 2: did you cast it? Are these people you knew out.
Speaker 1: On my phone? Yeah, David, I went to college together
Speaker 1: along with Mindy Kaling, who you know was on your show.
Speaker 1: Like there was a sort of small I've heard of her,
Speaker 1: but yeah, ye, she's coming up.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I think we'll see great things from her in the future,
Speaker 1: that Kaling. But there was a sort of small knot
Speaker 1: of us that we're fortunate enough to have careers. And
Speaker 1: Dave was one of them. So yeah, I mean they
Speaker 1: were all just people that I knew and I called
Speaker 1: them and you know, I have nothing to offer, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's no money, there's no you know, like this
Speaker 1: isn't going to be the role that like wins you
Speaker 1: the Oscar. You know, it's just, hey, there's this thing
Speaker 1: that I really want to do. I want to tell
Speaker 1: this story because I don't see it being told anywhere else.
Speaker 1: And I think you probably know that feeling of you
Speaker 1: get that call from your friend and you know, well,
Speaker 1: the only way this gets done is if we sign
Speaker 1: on to do it, even though it is the wrong
Speaker 1: professional decision, It is the wrong but you know, like
Speaker 1: there's no benefit to Dave for being in this. It's
Speaker 1: not going to like change Jeffrey's life. And yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: look I told them. I was like, hey, if this
Speaker 1: goes somewhere, if this becomes a film or a television series,
Speaker 1: like the role is yours. But you know, I mean
Speaker 1: one of the odds, like first of all, you know,
Speaker 1: Dave's gonna be like thanks, but I'll be running Sony
Speaker 1: by then like I will, I will own a studio
Speaker 1: with my rack of Emmys. So it's just the goodness
Speaker 1: of their hearts. In that same sense of collaboration, What.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like you can do in terms of
Speaker 2: the type of storytelling you can do through this medium
Speaker 2: that you can't do other places.
Speaker 1: Well, look, I mean I think I've talked about this
Speaker 1: a lot, but I still think it's the best example
Speaker 1: that I know of. You know, you remember all those
Speaker 1: stories from when Orson Wells's were the World's this broadcast
Speaker 1: on the radio and people tuned in and they thought
Speaker 1: that the aliens had landed. There is a power in
Speaker 1: audio storytelling, I think, because it engages the imagination of
Speaker 1: the listener. So whatever three hundred million dollars of you know,
Speaker 1: pyrotechnics a VFX department might be able to put together
Speaker 1: is still not going to be as tailored to you
Speaker 1: as what your own brain serves up. You know. So
Speaker 1: if you've got a fear, if you've got a joy,
Speaker 1: the door creaks open, your brain's going to put on
Speaker 1: the other side of it the thing that scares you
Speaker 1: the most. Yeah, and I think that makes it a
Speaker 1: really potent medium.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree, and freeing in a way. And I
Speaker 2: think for actors also an ability to create a character
Speaker 2: without so many of the obstacles that we regularly are
Speaker 2: put in front of us. That for me, you know,
Speaker 2: for me it's mostly been animation stuff, but still in
Speaker 2: the same way, you know, I'll let somebody else worry
Speaker 2: about exactly what it looks like or exactly what you know,
Speaker 2: how pressed the suit is, or how fuzzy the bear's
Speaker 2: hair is, or whatever it is, you know, but just
Speaker 2: being able to create a character with voice, I find it.
Speaker 2: I find it very freeing in a way and really
Speaker 2: really enjoy it. So congratulations to you on that.
Speaker 1: Thanks you want to be in season three?
Speaker 2: Yeah, give me a call. Figure out. Can I play
Speaker 2: a bear?
Speaker 1: Not that I can totally write a bear? Okay, we'll
Speaker 1: write exit pursued by a bear bear played by Brian Bumkin.
Speaker 1: We're tying it back. This is by the way, you
Speaker 1: guys can't see this, but we're on squadcast, so I
Speaker 1: know we're on the riverside, so I can actually see Brian.
Speaker 1: And I almost got a spit take out of you.
Speaker 2: You did, you almost got a spit take. And by
Speaker 2: the way, you made me laugh harder than anyone has
Speaker 2: made me laugh in a long, long time earlier. So
Speaker 2: we're going to write that down for the record book.
Speaker 1: Uh all I needed today.
Speaker 2: We're on strike, but we're not on strike here in
Speaker 2: the iHeart Podcasting world. Congratulations on everything and on after Shock.
Speaker 2: And when the strike is done, we're going to come
Speaker 2: and we're gonna we're going to reconvene. We're going to
Speaker 2: talk about We're going to talk about all the other
Speaker 2: a magent, amazing acting projects that you have with the
Speaker 2: Ewel Studios going right now, we'll pretend to like them.
Speaker 1: By the way, small asterisk. We did call SAG about
Speaker 1: Aftershock and I was like, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: us promoting it? And they're like, we don't care at all. Right,
Speaker 1: So this promotion has been brought to you with the
Speaker 1: permission of the Great Actors Guild because we do not
Speaker 1: cross picket lines.
Speaker 2: We don't. No, we don't. Sarah. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: It's very nice to meet you. I feel like I've
Speaker 2: got a new friend.
Speaker 1: Likewise, yeah, I hope we get to meet a person
Speaker 1: a person at some point. Until then, Thanks for having
Speaker 1: me be well.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. Thanks Sarah. Or should I say mahalo
Speaker 2: for coming in today. I loved hearing your thoughtful perspective
Speaker 2: on the disaster in Hawaii that is happening right now.
Speaker 2: And you're very funny comments. Yeah, nearly made me do
Speaker 2: a spittake. You are truly you're a badass folks. As
Speaker 2: you know what's been happening on Maui, it's absolutely devastating.
Speaker 2: I mean, it can't be overstated. So after hearing Sarah
Speaker 2: talk about this today, and if you're looking for a
Speaker 2: way to help, check out an organization she likes Maui
Speaker 2: Rapid Response. That's Maui Rapid Response dot org. They're on
Speaker 2: the ground there in Maui. They're providing some food, shelter supplies,
Speaker 2: and other resources to those impacted by the fire. And look,
Speaker 2: if you're on Maui right now, know that me and
Speaker 2: I know so many of my listeners are thinking about you.
Speaker 2: Our heart is going out to you, and know that
Speaker 2: you can go to Maui Rapid Response to connect to
Speaker 2: resources across the island. Thanks for listening, everybody. That was
Speaker 2: a fun one. Have a a very very happy and
Speaker 2: safe week. Off the Beat is hosted and executive produced
Speaker 2: by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Lang Lee.
Speaker 2: Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes,
Speaker 2: Hannah Harris and Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan
Speaker 2: Papa Zachary, and our intern is Thomas Olsen. Our theme
Speaker 2: song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only
Speaker 2: Creed Bratton,