Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Sammy Jay and welcome back to this
Speaker 1: week's episode of The Left Bureau Podcast. I hope your
Speaker 1: day is going well and I hope this episode hopefully
Speaker 1: makes your day a little bit better. This week I
Speaker 1: got to chat with the incredibly talented writer, director, actor
Speaker 1: James Morrisini. And you may know him from the film
Speaker 1: I Love My Dad, which he wrote, starred, and directed.
Speaker 1: We talked about everything from filmmaking to college days and
Speaker 1: everything in between. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode
Speaker 1: and I'll see you in a bit. By James, Welcome
Speaker 1: to the Last Bureau Podcast. How are you? I'm good,
Speaker 1: I'm ready to be real. I am so excited for
Speaker 1: this because it's so rare that two people from the
Speaker 1: East Coast find each other in l A. Is it
Speaker 1: that rare? I find it very rare. Most people I
Speaker 1: know are either from the Bay Area, Seattle, or like
Speaker 1: twenty minutes outside about or l A. It's good to
Speaker 1: meet fellow East Coaster, you know. I can feel it
Speaker 1: in your spirit. Really, that's so interesting because a lot
Speaker 1: of people say are very surprised when they find out
Speaker 1: I've gotten like, are you from San Diego before? Like
Speaker 1: quite a few times. No, there's like a knowing edge
Speaker 1: to you. That's that's that's how he coasted me. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't have time for this. It's the
Speaker 1: part of me that can cut through crowds that when
Speaker 1: I can feel that kind of that, I can feel
Speaker 1: that attitude in you. I really can. It's ingrained in me.
Speaker 1: I don't know how it's not when you're born and
Speaker 1: raised in like in a city. How do you think
Speaker 1: you'd be different if you're raised here. I think I
Speaker 1: was thinking about this actually because over the summer, I
Speaker 1: traveled for the first time by myself, and I went
Speaker 1: to Paris. It was like a big trip, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, like, man, being in New York really taught
Speaker 1: me to kind of like I know how to go
Speaker 1: forward and walk forward without looking at anybody and just
Speaker 1: getting my way through. And I think that kind of
Speaker 1: way helped a lot when traveling especially. I don't know
Speaker 1: if i'd have that. I think I'm somebody that when
Speaker 1: I walked down the street, I'm like kind of trying
Speaker 1: to make eye contact with everybody. I don't know why
Speaker 1: I do that. I think I just if you don't smile,
Speaker 1: if you can get a little I don't know if
Speaker 1: I'm looking for a smile or what what is going
Speaker 1: on in my brain that causes me to do that,
Speaker 1: but it is something I do. And then I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, that person doesn't want to look at me.
Speaker 1: I guess it's because I'm not good enough, you know,
Speaker 1: I know what you mean. I'll be walking across campus
Speaker 1: and I just I like to try and make sure
Speaker 1: I don't have a resting bitch face, just because you
Speaker 1: never know when opportunities arise to meet people, so I
Speaker 1: try and have a nice face. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: how do you feel when somebody just comes right up
Speaker 1: to you, a stranger and it's like, hey, I guess
Speaker 1: that doesn't really happen that all. I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: know happen to you. No, I don't. That's not really
Speaker 1: something people do, like a strangers coming up to you
Speaker 1: and being like hello, I'm this person. And it's weird
Speaker 1: that happen, Isn't it weird the that doesn't happen more
Speaker 1: often that people just go up to you and go hello,
Speaker 1: I'm Johnny and you're like, hey, Johnny, what do you want?
Speaker 1: And they're like nothing, I just thought i'd say hello
Speaker 1: and you're like, well, dude, you want something, Johnny, what's
Speaker 1: going on? I mean movies and TV. I think gave
Speaker 1: me a very false sense of what reality would be
Speaker 1: like just going to high school. I thought it would
Speaker 1: be high school musical, straight up, I feel like where
Speaker 1: And then it was a bunch of prepubescent boys. I
Speaker 1: was like, this is high school. Yeah, high school. You
Speaker 1: were saying on the way up here that high school
Speaker 1: is tricky for you, and I really relate to that.
Speaker 1: It's I mean, high school is tough because everybody is
Speaker 1: trying to figure out who they are simultaneously. So everybody's
Speaker 1: trying out different versions of themselves and they're all just
Speaker 1: kind of colliding into one another. And meanwhile, you're trying
Speaker 1: out a version of yourself and you're like, I remember
Speaker 1: every summer, I feel like I'd discover a version myself
Speaker 1: that I thought was maybe more likable, and then that
Speaker 1: first week or two of school I'd be like, this
Speaker 1: is the new me. Everyone. People would be like, oh cool,
Speaker 1: and like they would enjoy the novelty of this new
Speaker 1: version of me, and then I would run out of
Speaker 1: steam and then I would just revert to whoever I was,
Speaker 1: and ever would be like, oh, it's just him. Still,
Speaker 1: it's just so much easier to be yourself. It's so
Speaker 1: hard add social media onto it in this day and
Speaker 1: age when everyone's still trying to figure out yourself. When
Speaker 1: you have like pressures that you didn't even know existed,
Speaker 1: it's how do you navigate this? It's funny you're closer
Speaker 1: to the high school experience than I am, So it's
Speaker 1: it's more it was your what was your high school experience?
Speaker 1: Like what I mean by closer is just it time wise,
Speaker 1: You're it happened more recently for you, whereas for me,
Speaker 1: I think I've had an opportunity to process it, and
Speaker 1: I don't know like you have, like the distance, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like a few years out from high school? Is that
Speaker 1: kind of where you're at few years out, two or
Speaker 1: three years out? Two years out? Yeah, it's like I
Speaker 1: was still going, how did I even? Like? That? Was terrible?
Speaker 1: And so, but like you know, now I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: like like twelve years out from high school, so I'm
Speaker 1: kind of like, huh, I'm able to see the more perspective.
Speaker 1: Encountering people from that period of my life has been
Speaker 1: really Um, I guess you just see them as people
Speaker 1: and you're like, oh, man, that they're they're not really
Speaker 1: scary anymore, and you put them on a pedestal that
Speaker 1: they're not bigger than life as a character kind of yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: like a character. And because you don't know when you're
Speaker 1: that age, you also haven't met that many people. So
Speaker 1: each person you meet feels like much more of a
Speaker 1: distinct presence that you're that feels like a character like you.
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, that's this person and that's the Whereas
Speaker 1: when you're older, I think you just are like, if
Speaker 1: you don't like somebody, you can move on a lot
Speaker 1: more quickly. High school you're trapped without just yeah, you're
Speaker 1: literally trapped with them, Like, how's that at all? Ten?
Speaker 1: I couldn't do that now. It felt really big. I
Speaker 1: remember everything felt really big. But for me, what was
Speaker 1: my outlet was my work. So it would give me
Speaker 1: a perspective to be like, Okay, this feels really big,
Speaker 1: but wait, there is a whole career out there, something
Speaker 1: that I want to do that's bigger than myself. And
Speaker 1: that kind of pulled me away from the high school.
Speaker 1: And so I think having an outlet was really helpful
Speaker 1: for me, and having it be around adults made me
Speaker 1: realize like, Okay, this is only temporary, because I really
Speaker 1: did not thrive in that, and I've always gotten along
Speaker 1: better with adults just because I've always felt older than
Speaker 1: my age. I've always felt similarly, it's hard to remember
Speaker 1: the temporariness of high school when you're you're like, this
Speaker 1: is what it is. Everything, this isn't what it is, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you can't really wrap your head around what it
Speaker 1: would look like after high school. When you're in high school,
Speaker 1: I know, I remember it like college, what is college?
Speaker 1: And then when I got to college, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is just a different type of social experiment, Like
Speaker 1: this is just really you put a bunch of people
Speaker 1: from all over the country, all over the world, grown
Speaker 1: up in different you know, places, different areas, different people,
Speaker 1: and then put them living together in two or three
Speaker 1: people a room, share a bathroom and just post pandemic
Speaker 1: and see what happens. So I feel like that's a
Speaker 1: reality show in itself. I feel like it is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: living through it felt like was like something that I
Speaker 1: didn't realize going into college was that I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: my goodness, there's gonna be so many more mature people.
Speaker 1: But I didn't take into account that it's just people
Speaker 1: from high school also going to college freshman year and
Speaker 1: sophomore year. There is that transition of this isn't high
Speaker 1: school anymore, this is life. And some people, you can
Speaker 1: tell there, will always be stuck in high school a
Speaker 1: little bit. But it's really interesting kind of seeing that
Speaker 1: evolution of people just in the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: Are Yeah, I think some people get to high school
Speaker 1: and then they stay there for ever and they're kind
Speaker 1: of always locked into that version of themselves. What a
Speaker 1: shame not to grow. Well, that just doesn't sound fun
Speaker 1: to me. So was it during high school or college?
Speaker 1: I know you went to college for film, but when
Speaker 1: did you start making films and being interested in filmmaking
Speaker 1: and creating as a whole. Yeah, it's funny. So I
Speaker 1: went to college for theater and film that so yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was studying acting and then I was also
Speaker 1: making a lot of things. And when you're studying acting
Speaker 1: at like a conservatory, you're doing like voice classes and
Speaker 1: movement classes, and like seeing study and voice and movement classes,
Speaker 1: you're I mean, you're essentially you're like rolling around on
Speaker 1: the floor. I mean, for anyone that hasn't taken a
Speaker 1: voice class, if you solve voice class, you'd be like,
Speaker 1: this is the craziest thing. You're like on the floor
Speaker 1: basically doing like different yoga positions a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: and then and then making like sounds like you're trying
Speaker 1: to connect with your like your diaphragm and your because
Speaker 1: it's for theaters, it's super vulnerable, and you're also trying
Speaker 1: to like learn how to access the emotion that lives
Speaker 1: in your body through sound. Similarly with movement, just on
Speaker 1: the movement from But so that's what my college experience
Speaker 1: was like. When you study theater in a program like that,
Speaker 1: you're you're really you learn a lot about who you
Speaker 1: are and about your I hate myself for saying this,
Speaker 1: but your instrument and what what you're made of, But
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't. I've always been a creative person.
Speaker 1: When I was a little kid, I remember I would
Speaker 1: go up to my room and I would make comics
Speaker 1: and I would like come up with stories and then
Speaker 1: I would get really into the world of the story
Speaker 1: and I would I would write and draw these comics.
Speaker 1: I don't know where they came from. I never really
Speaker 1: showed them to anybody storyboarding before storyboarding, and I was
Speaker 1: super I was just like I was always really into
Speaker 1: this idea that like I could tell a story, and
Speaker 1: the more of the story I told, the more real
Speaker 1: it felt, and that I could just keep exploring, and
Speaker 1: there was like more and more the further into it
Speaker 1: I went. I remember I wrote this little comic book
Speaker 1: about I think I was probably ten or eleven years old,
Speaker 1: about like a bunch of like misfit medics like E. M. T. S.
Speaker 1: It was called Breathe and they were all these like
Speaker 1: funky characters that were like trying to save people and stuff,
Speaker 1: and I like wrote several issues of it, and then
Speaker 1: I started the first like big creative endeavor I think
Speaker 1: I had. I mean, my dad got me a video
Speaker 1: camera when I was a little kid, and uh, I
Speaker 1: would like make little movies of my action figures and
Speaker 1: I would like do stop motion with my action figures.
Speaker 1: Well it did, yeah, And so it's like I did
Speaker 1: a lot of that kind of stuff. I was always
Speaker 1: directing my home videos, but I didn't I didn't necessarily
Speaker 1: think about it like I'm a film director. I just
Speaker 1: liked the idea of crafting things and putting it together.
Speaker 1: And then in high school I made a lot of
Speaker 1: shorts and stuff with my video class, and I would
Speaker 1: act in other people's things. But I didn't really do
Speaker 1: any theater in high school. I don't know. I found
Speaker 1: it hard to connect with the folks at my school
Speaker 1: that we're doing theater. And I was more than like sports.
Speaker 1: I was boxing, I was wrestling. I was like, I
Speaker 1: smoked a lot of pot when I was in high school.
Speaker 1: Would you say smoking weed helped you creatively? No, I
Speaker 1: think it hurt me creatively. It made me really paranoid
Speaker 1: and neurotic. And it's funny because I remember watching like
Speaker 1: Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and confused and
Speaker 1: half baked, and I was like, I loved stoner comedies
Speaker 1: and I was always looking for the experience that characters
Speaker 1: in those films were having around weed. But but I
Speaker 1: could never get there. I always just felt like it
Speaker 1: made my brain move too fast and made me have
Speaker 1: this like meta experiences to whatever I was actually experiencing,
Speaker 1: Like it like oversensitized me and made me question everything,
Speaker 1: and I like I couldn't. It made me super paranoid.
Speaker 1: I think a paranoid bad high is the worst feeling.
Speaker 1: And that was like every time for me, and I
Speaker 1: smoked every day. I don't know. I think I think
Speaker 1: I was like I liked the identity that it gave
Speaker 1: me of like, oh, I'm a stoner. I think I
Speaker 1: fetishized the idea of Like I don't know, there's a
Speaker 1: part of me that thought it was kind of luxurious.
Speaker 1: Like I get home, I smoke a blunt. But I
Speaker 1: would do it and then I would just panic for
Speaker 1: the rest of the day wants not exactly like I
Speaker 1: would try to make it enjoyable for myself, Like I
Speaker 1: would make a bunch of food and like put on
Speaker 1: a movie, but I'd be like breaking out. You're like,
Speaker 1: I like this, I promised why exactly? So then in
Speaker 1: terms of the filmmaking I was doing, I would like
Speaker 1: film when they were like fights at my school sometimes,
Speaker 1: like if they were people that were mad at each
Speaker 1: other in school, they would like plan a fight. They
Speaker 1: would go like, Okay, we're gonna meet up the basketball
Speaker 1: court after school. Uh. I was participant to a couple
Speaker 1: of those throughout my high school experience, but we would
Speaker 1: I would film those and then share them with people
Speaker 1: because they were crazy looking. Um, but I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like really into that. And then I was
Speaker 1: like making kind of Jackass type videos. I was really
Speaker 1: in the c k Y at the time, which was
Speaker 1: a predecessor to Jackass. And I was also really in
Speaker 1: the Jackass and and I was watching so many films
Speaker 1: and it's funny, I wasn't like. I wasn't like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm a film kid. I just was obsessed with movies.
Speaker 1: And I didn't really have a ton of friends that
Speaker 1: were also obsessed with movies. I was kind of doing
Speaker 1: it on my own. And then after school, I took
Speaker 1: a year off and I was in New York and
Speaker 1: I tried working as an actor. Um, not super well,
Speaker 1: but you know, at least you did it. I tried, uh,
Speaker 1: And I just like it was just like I didn't.
Speaker 1: I hadn't really developed like life tools yet to to
Speaker 1: really be able to navigate the ups and downs of that.
Speaker 1: And I think so much of any creative work is
Speaker 1: about like really being okay with yourself in a way,
Speaker 1: or or like having confidence in your voice, and I hadn't.
Speaker 1: I didn't have that confidence in my voice. I don't
Speaker 1: think now I have extreme confidence, not in the most confident,
Speaker 1: but it's funny I'm saying that. I'm also like, sometimes
Speaker 1: i feel like I'm creating from a place of my insecurity,
Speaker 1: and I'm like doing it to express what that feels like.
Speaker 1: So it's it's funny. I don't know if you necessarily
Speaker 1: need to feel confident to be fake it till we
Speaker 1: make it, or just be really honest about like I would.
Speaker 1: I think I've gotten a lot more comfortable being really
Speaker 1: honest about who I am and what I'm feeling. And
Speaker 1: I think that's uh, that's helped me create from a
Speaker 1: from a place that I that resonates with me more.
Speaker 1: And I feel like that's kind of the compass I
Speaker 1: used to to determine if it's going to resonate with
Speaker 1: audiences and other people. And it's kind of one of
Speaker 1: those things where if you talk about something and no
Speaker 1: one talks about it, and you talk about you realize
Speaker 1: people are going through it too, and then other people
Speaker 1: start talking about it, and it's just a chain reaction.
Speaker 1: It's just about getting the first one going. It's so true.
Speaker 1: I know, it's it's weird that many of us go
Speaker 1: through the world, and there's this feeling like we all
Speaker 1: have to pretend like we're doing great when in reality,
Speaker 1: like when we're on our own a lot of the time,
Speaker 1: we're not. We're anxious about something or that it's totally
Speaker 1: okay and it's very normal. I think that's what drew
Speaker 1: me to filmmaking, was like trying to capture that experience,
Speaker 1: that universal experience that we're all that we're all having
Speaker 1: on our own or in our own minds, and but
Speaker 1: do it in a context that was super entertaining and
Speaker 1: weird and funky. Do you remember the first movie you wrote? Oh,
Speaker 1: that's a great question. I mean, so the first like
Speaker 1: actual movie I wrote, Like, the first feature I wrote
Speaker 1: was about my high school experience, and I still might
Speaker 1: make that movie. I think movies about high school experiences,
Speaker 1: like real high school experiences, need to be made more
Speaker 1: like I think Eighth Grade showed that really well. I
Speaker 1: hope that gets made because it can relate to it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that movie is called Acne, and it feels kind of
Speaker 1: like eighth Grade meets Good Fellas. Okay, that's I love
Speaker 1: the pitch. Yeah, that's that's kind of how I how
Speaker 1: I think about it. Um, but the first movie I
Speaker 1: think I ever wrote. I mean, it's it's hard to
Speaker 1: remember exactly. I think I wrote something in college. It
Speaker 1: was about a really sensitive t rex that I couldn't um.
Speaker 1: He couldn't connect with anybody because everyone was really scared
Speaker 1: of him. Sounds like an animated show. It was an
Speaker 1: animated show. Yeah. It was like it was really sensitive
Speaker 1: t rex that couldn't and and all the other dinosaurs
Speaker 1: were terrified of him, and he was like and everyone
Speaker 1: was like the other t Rexes were like, dude, you
Speaker 1: gotta get it together, Like you're kind of like you're
Speaker 1: kind of like, why are he's so over released? And
Speaker 1: he was like he just felt really awkward with his
Speaker 1: little arms, like he he felt uncomfortable in his own skin.
Speaker 1: I think I was maybe working something out through this
Speaker 1: sensitive t rex. And I remember I shared it with
Speaker 1: a filmmaker that I was in school with. I think
Speaker 1: I went were at Coachella and I told him about
Speaker 1: it and there's always a great place for a business, bitch,
Speaker 1: and he just kind of shipped on it. I mean,
Speaker 1: he just told me how he just like made me
Speaker 1: feel like it was a bad idea. And it's funny,
Speaker 1: like thinking about it now, I'm like, that actually sounds
Speaker 1: like a cool show. Like I I don't know. So
Speaker 1: much of creating is just going like trusting your gut
Speaker 1: and being like, if I think it's cool, then it's cool.
Speaker 1: I don't care what anyone else thinks. It's like you
Speaker 1: can listen to what other people are saying, but like
Speaker 1: it's not no one has any idea what they're talking about.
Speaker 1: And it's the people that are making brilliant work are
Speaker 1: just the people that have really realized that the most fully.
Speaker 1: And you're just kind of like, yeah, I think it's cool,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to follow what I like. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's having success mean to you, being like if it's
Speaker 1: not successful, it doesn't make a lot of money. I'm
Speaker 1: so proud of what I made because that's what it
Speaker 1: should be. We have to take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: when we come back, I'm going to talk about the
Speaker 1: balance between the economics of filmmaking versus doing something that
Speaker 1: satisfies you creatively, your film, I love my Dad and
Speaker 1: so much more. We'll be right back and we're back.
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard when you're a filmmaker. You have
Speaker 1: to make a living and you have to be realistic,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, it's your creative pursuit. So
Speaker 1: how do you balance the two of those? Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a great question. I mean when I first got out
Speaker 1: of college, I was catering and bartending and working as
Speaker 1: a uh table service assistant to cocktail waitresses at nightclubs,
Speaker 1: Like I was just doing anything I could to make
Speaker 1: ends meet, uh And then I was also auditioning a
Speaker 1: ton and um and it was a tricky time in
Speaker 1: my life. I was getting these migraines constantly, like several
Speaker 1: a week, to the point where they were debilitating, and
Speaker 1: so it was kind of a dark time right after
Speaker 1: college where I was trying to figure out work as
Speaker 1: an actor and a filmmaker and I couldn't really I
Speaker 1: was just like too anxiety written to to really land anything.
Speaker 1: And then I was working long, long nights working in
Speaker 1: the service industry and then barely making ends meet to
Speaker 1: live in like this tiny, tiny studio apartment in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: And so for a while, the balance was just like
Speaker 1: how do I survive? And then how do I But
Speaker 1: I held myself to account that I was going to
Speaker 1: spend at least one hour every day on my creative work.
Speaker 1: And and and was going to spend an hour day
Speaker 1: just focusing on what really excited me creatively, and then
Speaker 1: that hour grew and became longer. But I just knew, Okay,
Speaker 1: if I can, it's funny. Uh. My uncle was the
Speaker 1: actor Christopher Reeve uh and very famous actor, very famous actor,
Speaker 1: and I when he passed away. Philip Seymour Hoffman was
Speaker 1: around my family a lot and was really good to
Speaker 1: my cousin, Will Chris's son, and he told me that
Speaker 1: I should just you just have to do one creative
Speaker 1: thing every day, or one thing towards your goal every day,
Speaker 1: even if it's small. But if you do that, if
Speaker 1: you do one thing every day, it it occrets and
Speaker 1: those small actions become big results or they become consequential.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of that was kind of my mantra
Speaker 1: for the first couple of years out of college. And
Speaker 1: then I started working as an actor, so I had
Speaker 1: some money, uh, not a ton, but I had enough
Speaker 1: to pay my rent. I didn't have to cater and
Speaker 1: barton stuff anymore. And then I started being able to
Speaker 1: have free time to write and make stuff, and I
Speaker 1: was able to upgrade to a more comfortable living situation
Speaker 1: and started meeting having more friends out here and collaborating
Speaker 1: with them. And but in terms of this balance of
Speaker 1: like creative and financial, you know, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, like it's just the most satisfying thing is
Speaker 1: being able to make exactly what you want to make.
Speaker 1: So for the movie that I just made, I Love
Speaker 1: my Dad, the person that financed it gave me final
Speaker 1: cut on the movie, so I was able to make
Speaker 1: exactly the movie that I wanted to make. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: so contractually I was making every decision, uh, and having
Speaker 1: that creative authority meant a lot to me and allowed
Speaker 1: me to just give everything I had to the process.
Speaker 1: But you know, now I'm getting presented with a lot
Speaker 1: of really compelling offers that have big financial upside behind them,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the scripts are not good, or sometimes there
Speaker 1: are elements to the project that aren't creatively exciting, and
Speaker 1: it's required a lot of discipline, uh, navigating quality over quantity,
Speaker 1: quality over quantity, or just like not not operating out
Speaker 1: of fear and going like, Okay, well I'll just take
Speaker 1: this because it's a lot of money, and then I'll
Speaker 1: do what I'm creatively excited by. It's like It's required
Speaker 1: this kind of internal diligence of going, what is the weirdest, craziest,
Speaker 1: funkiest thing that I can imagine? And how can I
Speaker 1: how can I continue getting behind that? You know, regardless
Speaker 1: of what I'm making for or whatever. That's that's how
Speaker 1: I feel most myself. You know, that is so interesting
Speaker 1: you say that because I've been living by that I
Speaker 1: called the one percent rule, just doing one thing a
Speaker 1: day to make yourself better in one aspect, and it's
Speaker 1: I've also been doing one thing a day to make
Speaker 1: myself uncomfortable. Boy, it's made me uncomfortable. And I I
Speaker 1: am an anxious, girly at heart. Um so it really
Speaker 1: pushes me. I'm an anxiously at heart. I love that
Speaker 1: we finally always find each other. Um No, I found
Speaker 1: for me at least. I've grown up with anxiety and
Speaker 1: o c D my entire life, and it's just been
Speaker 1: very interesting to navigate because I always felt like there
Speaker 1: was something wrong with me or that I wasn't good
Speaker 1: at something. And so for me, podcasting was an interviewing
Speaker 1: was the first time I realized, like, wait a second,
Speaker 1: there is something I'm good at. I can't tell a
Speaker 1: story I can't talk to people, and so it's kind
Speaker 1: of what I first fell in love. And so I
Speaker 1: feel like just santly, like I never thought i'd fall
Speaker 1: into this, and just I'm trying to immerse myself and
Speaker 1: as many mediums and varieties as possible. So that reminded
Speaker 1: me of that. Oh so cool. Yeah, what what was
Speaker 1: the first Do you remember the first podcast you ever did? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I am the biggest. Do you ever hear the
Speaker 1: song Anxiety by Julia Michaels and Selina Gomez. Uh, maybe
Speaker 1: I'd recognize it if I heard it, Okay, So when
Speaker 1: I first heard this song, I was like going through
Speaker 1: it in high school and I was working for Radio
Speaker 1: Disney at the time. Um, and I had interviewed Julian Michaels,
Speaker 1: who sang the song, who, like I was obsessed with
Speaker 1: her music. Um, and she remembered me and was about
Speaker 1: the time the podcast was happening. UM, And I was like,
Speaker 1: if Julie Michaels could be the pilot on my podcast,
Speaker 1: like that would be a dream. And the head of
Speaker 1: Radio Disney, who I told about the pilot, was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm friends with her. I'll ask you interviewed her, and
Speaker 1: then she agreed to do the pilot. I had never
Speaker 1: done a long form interview before. Longest I've done with
Speaker 1: twelve minutes, and then we did an hour and a
Speaker 1: half interview. And then usually with podcast series, you you know,
Speaker 1: waited until it's edited to see if it gets greenlight.
Speaker 1: Mine was a little bit different because after nine days
Speaker 1: still and edited, we got green light to series after
Speaker 1: that episode. So I, oh, Julia like so much, you know,
Speaker 1: And that was the start of it. And how doing
Speaker 1: one thing a day, whether it's small or big, is
Speaker 1: truly like just changed my life. So I live by that.
Speaker 1: So cool. Yeah, I mean that's that's definitely how I've
Speaker 1: proceeded through my life as well. I mean, what was
Speaker 1: the last thing that he did that was uncomfortable? Oh
Speaker 1: my goodness, I asked someone out for coffee. Wow, that's
Speaker 1: always so hard. It isn't that weird that that feels
Speaker 1: so climaxic, But you know what, it counts as my
Speaker 1: one thing a day. I also my viewers, notice if
Speaker 1: I've been doing tap this this semester, I've never tapped before.
Speaker 1: I'm doing it again next semester. Just to pick up
Speaker 1: some I took a ballet class in college. Um, and
Speaker 1: it was it was, it was, it was, it was.
Speaker 1: It was humbling. It was me almost all women and
Speaker 1: then a couple, uh, a couple of football players that
Speaker 1: I think we're taking it for balance balance, I think.
Speaker 1: I mean, so it was. I feel like I would
Speaker 1: like goof around with them, and then sometimes I would
Speaker 1: get really into it and like it's it's it's fun
Speaker 1: always like pushing forward your hobby or your passion in
Speaker 1: one way, and whether that's writing an email to someone
Speaker 1: or doing an activity to like progress yourself. Like it's
Speaker 1: so simple, but just breaking it down has been super
Speaker 1: helpful for Yeah, it's like I think, I guess I
Speaker 1: think about it like the more like any time I
Speaker 1: have like the quietest instinct in my mind, I try
Speaker 1: to just bring it to the surface and I try
Speaker 1: to listen to it and I try to just act
Speaker 1: on it. I journal a lot, and it helps me
Speaker 1: discover what those impulses might be. Uh, And when I'm
Speaker 1: creating something, that's really my primary tool is having this
Speaker 1: like ongoing long form conversation with myself so that I
Speaker 1: can be like, oh, this thing is important to me
Speaker 1: or that thing or like it helps me detect things
Speaker 1: that might feel off about what I'm doing or like
Speaker 1: something that might be bothering me. So much of my
Speaker 1: creative life and the way I'm try to navigate my
Speaker 1: life as a whole feel like they're operating around the
Speaker 1: same principles, which is like sometimes like sensitizing myself to
Speaker 1: to what things feel like or what I'm aiming at
Speaker 1: um or what I want or what I don't want,
Speaker 1: But like, how deeply can I listen to to what
Speaker 1: is actually happening in my mind and in my environment
Speaker 1: and what's being reflected back to me, And then how
Speaker 1: can I work with that feeling and shape it really
Speaker 1: or put it into a context like a film or
Speaker 1: a story or whatever. But how can I express that
Speaker 1: feeling in a way that is satisfying for me to divulge?
Speaker 1: You know, I think it's such a relief when you
Speaker 1: express a deep, nuanced feeling that you've been holding onto.
Speaker 1: It's such a relief to express that and then have
Speaker 1: somebody go I feel the same way. And so I
Speaker 1: feel like, why I am a filmmaker or an actor
Speaker 1: or any of these things, it is just because I'm
Speaker 1: going there is I think it's my outlet, and I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm inherently kind of often pretty uncomfortable, and
Speaker 1: it's it's like it's like it's like a coping mech.
Speaker 1: It's like, hey, does anyone else feel this? Like? What's
Speaker 1: going on? This can't be right? Does anybody else? Is
Speaker 1: anybody else feeling this? Or like if I have a
Speaker 1: moment where I, you know, something strikes me as like
Speaker 1: extremely beautiful and I'm like, oh God, I want somebody
Speaker 1: else to share in this thing that I'm experiencing and
Speaker 1: it comes from a place of like a real loneliness
Speaker 1: really and like but wanting to share with other people
Speaker 1: in that feeling and go like hey am I alone here?
Speaker 1: Or or other people feeling this way too. Okay, we
Speaker 1: have to take one final break, but when we come back,
Speaker 1: I want to talk more about anxiety and how it
Speaker 1: affects your filmmaking process. You're amazing movie, I love my
Speaker 1: dad and so much more. We'll be right back and
Speaker 1: we're back. How has your anxiety affect your filmmaking or
Speaker 1: does it or do you feel more yourself and it
Speaker 1: helps with your anxiety when you're working or does it
Speaker 1: have the opposite effect for you? It's a great question.
Speaker 1: I think it's a it's it's kind of both things, honestly,
Speaker 1: Like when I'm making a film, Uh, sometimes anxiety, I've
Speaker 1: found is helpful in that it forces me into action,
Speaker 1: but it's often not totally, but it's it's often not
Speaker 1: the kind of action that produces the best results. So
Speaker 1: by that, I mean if I'm like anxiously we gotta
Speaker 1: get this, I've got to write this, or I've got
Speaker 1: to get this take, or we've got to do this,
Speaker 1: or that it contaminates everybody else's headspace and makes them
Speaker 1: anxious to which I think limits people's ability to be
Speaker 1: free and create from a place of trust and playfulness. Totally.
Speaker 1: It's like we're all of a sudden creating and operating
Speaker 1: from place of fear, which is just not fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it should be playful, and I think that it's
Speaker 1: hard to have Uh, it should be fun because you're
Speaker 1: asking an audience to have fun. I look at the
Speaker 1: experience of a film that I'm making is like the
Speaker 1: experience I imagine of a of a good friend or
Speaker 1: person of like, And you want that person to be
Speaker 1: free and playful and silly and deep and dynamic. And
Speaker 1: if you're freaking out. You know, you don't want to
Speaker 1: be with a friend that's just like freaking out and
Speaker 1: that and and nervous. So they're just making small talk
Speaker 1: and don't have freedom of expression. So short, my anxiety
Speaker 1: compels me into action. But I feel like I'm in uh,
Speaker 1: I'm in my strike zone when I'm like letting go
Speaker 1: of that as much as i can, and I take
Speaker 1: some deep breaths, and I'm I'm kind of slowing way down,
Speaker 1: and I'm just giving myself permission to be exactly where
Speaker 1: I am and creating from that place. And I think
Speaker 1: the work I've done from that place is the work
Speaker 1: I'm the proudest of because I think it delivers that
Speaker 1: same experience to an audience. I mean, I definitely felt
Speaker 1: that way with I Love my Dad. I genuinely love
Speaker 1: how it's written, the social media elements that are throughout
Speaker 1: the way. It's like it's just so well done. And
Speaker 1: I know it's based on a true story from when
Speaker 1: you're growing up. Do often pull from true stores or
Speaker 1: do you like to create generally something fresh. It's sometimes
Speaker 1: useful jumping off point because it feels like I have
Speaker 1: something that's really something to say about whatever that you've experienced. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have some authority around that subject, but I I
Speaker 1: generally am using it just as a jumping off point
Speaker 1: because I think that that if I'm like trying to
Speaker 1: capture it very literally, that's not the point and it
Speaker 1: doesn't that it's bigger than that, and like it needs
Speaker 1: to be a window into the universal. It's not just
Speaker 1: the thing itself. I mean, it's like taking elements of
Speaker 1: it and then going thinking about the theme and what
Speaker 1: you're trying to say. Like with my movie, it's metaphorically
Speaker 1: and poetically and emotionally all true. But I wasn't beholden
Speaker 1: to beat by beat what literally occurred, because nobody care.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. It's it's about how do I as
Speaker 1: a catalyst, Yeah, and how do I deliver the felt experience?
Speaker 1: So what was pre production? Like, how long did it
Speaker 1: take you to write the script generally? And then at
Speaker 1: what point did you go into production? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: I took like a year or so to write the script. Uh,
Speaker 1: the movie was going to be called Age Sex Location
Speaker 1: very different back in the day. For people that are
Speaker 1: familiar with were you on like a O L instant messenger?
Speaker 1: Was that before your time, I wasn't on a well,
Speaker 1: but I'm very My mom is still on a well.
Speaker 1: She has not gone to Gmail. There were like chat
Speaker 1: rooms like a sl and then you'd be like fifteen
Speaker 1: m M A or whatever and you'd like meet random
Speaker 1: people that way. Uh, that that was the thing, and
Speaker 1: so that there was I was kind of pulling from
Speaker 1: that whole realm of my past. And then as the
Speaker 1: story where he took more shape, the title shifted and
Speaker 1: the subject really shifted to what it became, and the
Speaker 1: writing process was super iterative. I would share it with
Speaker 1: a lot of folks. I got a lot of help, uh,
Speaker 1: And I continue to get a lot of help in
Speaker 1: everything I do because I try to surround myself with
Speaker 1: really smart creative people and really listen to what their
Speaker 1: thoughts are. And it can only make your work better.
Speaker 1: It makes you work better, and even if you get
Speaker 1: feedback that you think is not accurate, it helps you
Speaker 1: understand what you are chasing and what you are after.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, I took it about a year, and
Speaker 1: then I brought Patent on board, and then I built
Speaker 1: the cast around Patent and then we shot it in
Speaker 1: June and July of and um in Syracuse, New York
Speaker 1: with the company called American High who had done a
Speaker 1: lot of uh like high school set movies for Hulu.
Speaker 1: So we had all of our production services and stuff
Speaker 1: run through them, and then they may be good for acne.
Speaker 1: You never know, right totally, and and um they were great.
Speaker 1: We also worked with a great company called hands Motion
Speaker 1: Pictures and burn Later and several other folks you know.
Speaker 1: And I edited the movie, sent it off to south
Speaker 1: By and then how long did take? Probably like eight
Speaker 1: to ten weeks. The toughest parts of the process were
Speaker 1: like getting the tone right in the edit, because it's
Speaker 1: it's such a delicate tone, it's so specific, like it
Speaker 1: could so easily feel like I didn't want it to
Speaker 1: feel slapsticky, and I also didn't want it to feel
Speaker 1: like hyper sentimentalized. It needed to kind of have this
Speaker 1: balance of sincerity and sarcasm where there was this kind
Speaker 1: of tonal ambiguity throughout where you weren't exactly sure how
Speaker 1: you should be feeling about it. I wanted to have
Speaker 1: the audience feel a little on edge, because that's really
Speaker 1: the feeling that I think I had growing up, especially
Speaker 1: with my dad, of just like where are what what's happening?
Speaker 1: What's happening? Are you being ostening? Are you? Are we
Speaker 1: in a good place? Are we? Is there tension? Like
Speaker 1: this kind of feeling like you're on your back foot?
Speaker 1: That that kind of push and pull throughout the story.
Speaker 1: And it's funny. I was, I mean, I was kind
Speaker 1: of making two movies in one where it's like in
Speaker 1: my character Franklin's world, he's kind of in this rom
Speaker 1: com where he's like, I finally found I found someone.
Speaker 1: She's amazing, you know. Uh, We're lucky to have Claudia
Speaker 1: Saluski play that part I know what you talked to
Speaker 1: and she was just phenomenal and killed it. I mean,
Speaker 1: she really kind of captured the spirit of what was
Speaker 1: required there. And then we're lucky to have Patton Oswald
Speaker 1: to play Chuck, who plays my dad in the film
Speaker 1: Franklin's Dad. The casting is just so it's so perfect
Speaker 1: because it just it feels real and realistic. I don't know,
Speaker 1: I felt like the casting of Claudie was perfect because
Speaker 1: she's gorgeous, so she you know, could play a catfish,
Speaker 1: but also has this great personality. We get to see
Speaker 1: her character unravel a bit too, totally yeah, So it's
Speaker 1: it's it's funny. It's like I was making this, I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer that genre should come from the character
Speaker 1: in the film, like what movie do they think they're in?
Speaker 1: Because we're kind of subjectively rooted in them and sometimes
Speaker 1: it's fun to subvert that and have the character think
Speaker 1: they're in a different film than they aren't. And in
Speaker 1: the case of my film, that was kind of the case.
Speaker 1: My character thinks he's in a rom com and then
Speaker 1: from Chuck's perspective, he's in like uncut Gems or something like.
Speaker 1: He's he's fish like his life is unraveling and he's
Speaker 1: just trying to keep up. In every decision he makes,
Speaker 1: it just gets worse and worse and worse. Wow. And
Speaker 1: so all in all of you spent about two years
Speaker 1: on this film, I'd say maybe to two or three.
Speaker 1: I mean it's funny, like once you release a movie,
Speaker 1: you're you still do you know? I traveled around ound
Speaker 1: the country doing festivals, which is a whole other world itself.
Speaker 1: What was it like going into festivals? I mean, just
Speaker 1: so fun. It's a movie that was really exciting to
Speaker 1: see in theater because it's there are parts that are
Speaker 1: so uncomfortable and and you're just like, it's so fun
Speaker 1: to watch with other people because you're able to kind
Speaker 1: of delight in the discomfort together, similar to how you'd
Speaker 1: experience like a horror movie, where the more people you're
Speaker 1: watching with, the more fun it is because you're getting
Speaker 1: to hear people's people screaming and reacting to it. And
Speaker 1: there's like another that's another part of the whole experience,
Speaker 1: just going to the theaters. Finally, and being able to
Speaker 1: be in a theater. I was with my friend when
Speaker 1: I watched it, and my reaction, which is, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like and it's it's fun because you're then able to
Speaker 1: like connect with the person or people you're with watching
Speaker 1: this movie, and we'll be on Hulu. I think by
Speaker 1: the time anyone who's listening to this, here's this and
Speaker 1: so yeah, I just encourage people to watch it with
Speaker 1: somebody else because I think it's it's kind it's a
Speaker 1: tough watch. I think to watch solo, I mean it'd
Speaker 1: be fun, it'd be fun, but still make you crawl
Speaker 1: a little bit in your skin. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: fun to kind of celebrate how heightened and uncomfortable like
Speaker 1: that I definitely made it for that. You build it
Speaker 1: up to the point like like how how crazy it gets.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be celebrated like with other people, like
Speaker 1: so that you're it's like you're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm a big fan of like when
Speaker 1: somebody is telling me a story or I'm telling somebody
Speaker 1: a story of like an awkward thing that happened. There's
Speaker 1: something just fun about like collectively cringing. It's the collective
Speaker 1: cringing not knowing what's going to happen. Now. Yeah, you're
Speaker 1: like please, no, no, no, no, You're like, but yes, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're like And it's weird. It's almost like this massochistic
Speaker 1: appetite that we have to like see how bad it
Speaker 1: can get, because I think it watching the car crash,
Speaker 1: you can't look exactly exactly, and when we're watching like
Speaker 1: a social car crash, I think there's something that's weirdly
Speaker 1: healing about it because we can relate so strongly and
Speaker 1: we've all been there where we're just like how am
Speaker 1: I in this conversation or like there's this misunderstanding or
Speaker 1: there's something in the unspoken and it makes us feel
Speaker 1: so lonely because we're like, gosh, I wish somebody else
Speaker 1: was witnessed to this feeling that I'm having. And so
Speaker 1: you've communicated with anyone via the internet, you can relate
Speaker 1: to totally. So the festival experience is great. It was
Speaker 1: just exciting to see different parts of the country react differently. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, you get to see all these places that
Speaker 1: you normally wouldn't. I got to spend a week in Nantucket.
Speaker 1: I was in Seattle, I was in Traverse City, a
Speaker 1: little bit everywhere, so fun. And then and then I
Speaker 1: was able to go internationally. I was like, I showed
Speaker 1: the film in London and they really dug it. I
Speaker 1: was in Rome, and then the movie continued all around
Speaker 1: the country, all around the world, and it was just
Speaker 1: it's just cool to see all these different groups of
Speaker 1: people experienced the film differently. And it's just going to
Speaker 1: keep going. It's just gonna keep it's creating a life
Speaker 1: over itself. I know. It's such a trip and it's
Speaker 1: something you've created and that's awesome, and I'm excited to
Speaker 1: see what you do next, whether writing, directing, acting. I'm
Speaker 1: just I think you're the way you go about filmmaking
Speaker 1: is really smart, just from the character's perspective and not
Speaker 1: having an overall like it has to be this theme
Speaker 1: because not a lot of people, I feel like, go
Speaker 1: from that perspective, but it goes to the human element
Speaker 1: of it, which is what we're all drawn to. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thank you for coming on my podcast and taking the
Speaker 1: time and this was so crazy, This was really fun.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me. I appreciate