Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Spirited Actor Podcast with me
Speaker 1: Tracy Moore. I was a casting director for film and
Speaker 1: TV and commercials for over thirty years. I transitioned to
Speaker 1: a celebrity acting coach after I cast a film New
Speaker 1: Jersey Drive with executive producers Spike Lee and director Nick Domez.
Speaker 1: I auditioned every rapper from Biggie Smalls to Tupac, and
Speaker 1: I realized that rappers and musical artists they needed help
Speaker 1: transitioning to acting. My clients consist of musical artists from
Speaker 1: Buster Rhymes to Eve, Missy Elliott, Angela Yee from The
Speaker 1: Breakfast Club, and Vanessa Simmons, to name a few. I
Speaker 1: also coach sports stars and host as well. I feel
Speaker 1: I have the best of both worlds. As a casting director,
Speaker 1: I know exactly what they're looking for, and as an
Speaker 1: acting coach, I can coach you to be remembered in
Speaker 1: that room. Now I know. I know actors want to
Speaker 1: get the job. I get that, but being remodmember by
Speaker 1: a casting director that is powerful. Meditation of the day
Speaker 1: life has two rules. Number one never quit. Number two
Speaker 1: always remember Rule Number one Duke Ellington, no matter how
Speaker 1: challenging it gets, never give up. You should always keep
Speaker 1: the vision of your dreams clearly embedded in your mind.
Speaker 1: When things do appear bleak, know that it's just a moment.
Speaker 1: You can get through it, and you will survive. I
Speaker 1: have had my share of chaos, but looking back, I
Speaker 1: can honestly say I made it. It's over, but at
Speaker 1: least I know that somehow I will continue to persevere,
Speaker 1: and so will you. Today I will promise to value
Speaker 1: my strength. Welcome back to the Spirited Actor Podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Tracy Moore, and I'm really excited today to
Speaker 1: introduce to you a phenomenal director as well as a
Speaker 1: spirited being. I'm so honored and proud to know her
Speaker 1: work and to know her, and I want to share
Speaker 1: her with you today. I want you, guys, to make
Speaker 1: sure that you have your You're taking your notes on
Speaker 1: your phone, you're writing things down, because every show, every
Speaker 1: guest you leave with pearls, you leave with Jules, and
Speaker 1: I want you to have those. And it's very rare
Speaker 1: that you get an opportunity to have like this, one
Speaker 1: on one with a director been specifically talking to you actors,
Speaker 1: you know, letting her letting you guys know how she
Speaker 1: directs what she's looking for in an audition, things that
Speaker 1: and questions that you don't get this opportunity and you
Speaker 1: don't get a chance to really engage with directors like
Speaker 1: this unless you know, you watch the director's cut at
Speaker 1: the end and then you hear feedback and things like that.
Speaker 1: But this is special. So ladies and gentlemen, I want
Speaker 1: you all to put your hands together for Darnell Martin. Yay, Darnell.
Speaker 2: I am so blessed to know you. You know, you are
Speaker 2: one of the most incredible acting coaches. And I go
Speaker 2: to you a lot and you know that. Yes, so
Speaker 2: it's fun working with you, and you know it's great
Speaker 2: because you know, I can you know one thing you
Speaker 2: never talk about is how a director works with an
Speaker 2: acting coach, right, Oh, one thing that you know, the
Speaker 2: way that I work with an acting coach is you know, I,
Speaker 2: let's say, but let's really get into this world and
Speaker 2: what you know, specifically I'm looking for about the character
Speaker 2: and this actor and where I see their need of
Speaker 2: saying hm hmm, let's can can we spend some time
Speaker 2: on on a certain on being a certain character from
Speaker 2: a certain place that maybe this character isn't from. So
Speaker 2: that's something that that I wouldn't work work on as
Speaker 2: a director. That's some some of the homework that they
Speaker 2: would do for themselves, like Okay, let's find out the
Speaker 2: place where this character is from the history. You know,
Speaker 2: everything that I do as a as I'm a writer
Speaker 2: director as well. So the work that I do as
Speaker 2: a writer director, I expect the actor to do a
Speaker 2: more detailed version of that. So you know, many times,
Speaker 2: you know, it's interesting because a lot of my directing
Speaker 2: is in my writing. Well, like I'll obsess over the
Speaker 2: fact of how many people in nineteen oh seven had
Speaker 2: telephones and what kind of people were those people? And
Speaker 2: you know, I'll research that for like two days and
Speaker 2: maybe not even use it in the screenplay. I just
Speaker 2: need to know because they don't want to put a
Speaker 2: telephone in their house, right, I have to know who
Speaker 2: they are. Right, People go, well, why do you do
Speaker 2: all that? And if the actor asked me, I need
Speaker 2: to know, no good after going to ask you, and really,
Speaker 2: phenomenal actors should do their homework. Do you ask me?
Speaker 1: So do you find that most actors do their homework?
Speaker 1: Because I struggle in my classes to get homework for actors,
Speaker 1: and one of my first homework assignments is a character
Speaker 1: breakdown of yourself. And I say to them, in order
Speaker 1: for you to know someone else, you need to know
Speaker 1: your self. So I need you to write a character breakdown.
Speaker 1: And I got a fifteen page character breakdown one time.
Speaker 1: But I find it challenging to get actors to really
Speaker 1: commit to the homework outside of the class.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's challenging to see actors when they, you know,
Speaker 2: who actually do their homework, but it's a big difference.
Speaker 2: I've rarely seen an actress who has done their homework
Speaker 2: who doesn't come with the goods.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: You know, look at Sarah Flaucett majors okay, career. A
Speaker 2: lot of people don't know who she is. She was
Speaker 2: a horrendous actress, horrendous, it was like shocking, you know,
Speaker 2: and she became a good actor.
Speaker 1: Wow, burn this right, Yeah, it got It's.
Speaker 2: Worked, you know. And people think people think that writing
Speaker 2: that you're born a writer. I disagree. People think you're
Speaker 2: born a director. I disagree. I think that And Faulkner,
Speaker 2: William Faulkner will tell you that as well. You know,
Speaker 2: if there's writers, you know that he thought writers were
Speaker 2: born if you put in the work. There are some
Speaker 2: people who are just naturally very talented or have things
Speaker 2: that are very natural, like transtance, they can very easily
Speaker 2: let go of themselves, right, and you know they're not shy,
Speaker 2: let's say, but there are some breeding actors who are
Speaker 2: terribly shy. Way they can get out of their shyness
Speaker 2: is when they're putting on the clothes of someone else.
Speaker 1: Right, Oh, I love that the clothes of someone else.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, And a lot of actors actually can't pull
Speaker 2: it together until they signed out what's this character wearing.
Speaker 2: So that's another thing is a lot of you know,
Speaker 2: wonderful actors spend a lot of time in wardrobe and
Speaker 2: play with their clothes, like you know. I had a
Speaker 2: kid who was an actor who was playing with his
Speaker 2: clothes period piece, and he kept, you know, messing his
Speaker 2: clothes up as he was playing with it, and the
Speaker 2: wardrobe personal wasn't very experienced, came over and said, you know,
Speaker 2: he's really got to stop that. And I said, are
Speaker 2: you crazy? No, right, this is now he's you know,
Speaker 2: this kid is acting. You know, he's playing with it
Speaker 2: in a you know, he's in the moment, you know,
Speaker 2: like being in a scene and having a splinter in
Speaker 2: your finger and sucking it out the scene's going on.
Speaker 2: You know, another thing this kid did and people were like,
Speaker 2: you want to stop. They're like, oh, this is great,
Speaker 2: this is what would happen. The kid just had a fight.
Speaker 2: He should be sucking a splinter out of his finger,
Speaker 2: you know. So these are the things to be in
Speaker 2: the moment. That's a natural thing. That's not the work.
Speaker 2: There are just some people who are oddly naturally in
Speaker 2: the moment and aware of and also aware of their behavior.
Speaker 2: The same kid, same kid was beaten by their father
Speaker 2: in a scene and later on had a bloody lip
Speaker 2: and a scar across the sided. So while they were
Speaker 2: in the scene, the kid was playing with the edge
Speaker 2: of his lips with his tongue touching it, you know,
Speaker 2: where the wound would be. Now there's no wound there.
Speaker 2: There was no woman there. And later on, you know,
Speaker 2: the kid's aunt said why were you doing that with
Speaker 2: your tongue and he said, you know, and she thought
Speaker 2: it was wrong. I said, no, that's great, and he said,
Speaker 2: because if it was cut, I don't want to touch
Speaker 2: it with my tongue.
Speaker 1: Wow for him.
Speaker 2: So now that's just behavior, right, and so that is
Speaker 2: a really special thing to have that Max just like
Speaker 2: not you know, to allow your behavior to be on
Speaker 2: camera and that's to you, that's something that you don't
Speaker 2: really need in there. It's a real cinematic thing. Wow,
Speaker 2: you know, like uh, and you know, we do this
Speaker 2: exercise about touching, you know, and that whole country exercise
Speaker 2: you know where you have uh you imagine a piece
Speaker 2: of fabric on your lap, right, you know. I think
Speaker 2: that's a very powerful exercise to just go places. Time
Speaker 2: travel too, and this is pretty for the dinner actors
Speaker 2: who you're finding this problem with homework. So there's this
Speaker 2: you know kind of time travel exercises. I learned very
Speaker 2: young with a theater acting coach called James Jennings many
Speaker 2: many years ago, like decades ago. And I found it
Speaker 2: at the American Theater of Actors. But when I was,
Speaker 2: you know, very young, and I first started in this,
Speaker 2: I was a teenager and I got into this you know,
Speaker 2: adult program. But the interesting thing about it was he
Speaker 2: did this exercise that I thought it was pretty wonderful
Speaker 2: and I and I sometimes use it where you know,
Speaker 2: you have this piece of fabric, you imagine it, okay,
Speaker 2: and you imagine what it feels like. It could be silk,
Speaker 2: it could be corduroy, we don't know, but really trying
Speaker 2: to focus on what that fabric feels like. And then
Speaker 2: from there after you really understand it and you ask
Speaker 2: them questions. Your datas are not allowed to answer. They're
Speaker 2: just allowed to be there and feel the fabric and
Speaker 2: touch it and how heavy it is in their hands,
Speaker 2: you know, to really because that then you start to
Speaker 2: get into play right and meditation, and then after that
Speaker 2: getting into okay, I want you to go back to
Speaker 2: a time where you know, maybe you really laugh and
Speaker 2: something was so funny, you know, and put your hands
Speaker 2: on your lap and remember what you will wearing, you know,
Speaker 2: with their pants that you were wearing. So we go
Speaker 2: back into that fabric, right, and then we start to
Speaker 2: talk about, you know, smell what it smelled like. Remember
Speaker 2: who was there? How many people to see it? You know,
Speaker 2: really going back time, traveling back to that space. Remember
Speaker 2: what was said? What was You're not forcing anything, it
Speaker 2: was so funny, and to really what does it smell like?
Speaker 2: Using every sense very slowly, and this exercise can go
Speaker 2: on from anywhere to half an hour to an hour
Speaker 2: could take you could have two people and have it
Speaker 2: take a whole class.
Speaker 1: Wow. You know it's a brilliant exercise.
Speaker 2: And it's amazing because also when you get to the emotion,
Speaker 2: people really go to a place and it takes a
Speaker 2: while to let go. That's why you can go from
Speaker 2: an hour to an hour because and this is also
Speaker 2: where I have learned that I don't believe something. So
Speaker 2: I'll be in a scene with somebody who I wish
Speaker 2: shooting right right, and they'll do something and I'll go
Speaker 2: take your time. I have time. I can cut it.
Speaker 2: I always say I have said this, I got this time.
Speaker 2: Just be there. The action doesn't mean you start, just
Speaker 2: means I said it right. Don't go intol you're ready,
Speaker 2: don't utter a word until you're ready. And then they'll
Speaker 2: go through it and go stop. I don't believe it, find.
Speaker 1: It, find it and do it again.
Speaker 2: Take the time, take the time. You have a lot
Speaker 2: of rush actors who don't take their time. And again,
Speaker 2: I love that exercise. And you know it's tough because
Speaker 2: people will sit in your classroom for half an hour
Speaker 2: and then they'll get really excited when it's their turn,
Speaker 2: and they'll get scared as hell, you know, And you
Speaker 2: could also give them the opportunity of what moment they
Speaker 2: want to remember. Okay, if you have a moment, is
Speaker 2: it a sad moment? Is a happy moment? Well, it
Speaker 2: has to be a moment that has an emotion because ultimately,
Speaker 2: with you even to see in the entire class, we'll
Speaker 2: see you will see their face change and you will
Speaker 2: see an amazing scene, an incredible scene that they could
Speaker 2: never reach with words, right because all words are alive.
Speaker 1: Oh well, at this moment, right now, dar now, there
Speaker 1: are actors out there who are holding on to every
Speaker 1: single one of your words. And we have a call
Speaker 1: right now for you that just came in, So we're
Speaker 1: going to patch them in.
Speaker 2: Hey are you doing? Hi?
Speaker 1: What's your name?
Speaker 2: Oh? My name is Rob Muriol.
Speaker 1: How are you doing?
Speaker 2: Hey? Are you doing? I just want to ask a question.
Speaker 2: You know, I heard a lot of actors talking about
Speaker 2: working from outsider and inside out. What do you mean
Speaker 2: by that? What does that mean? Okay? So, Sean Penn,
Speaker 2: I believe from from what I've heard from him, is
Speaker 2: an actor who works outside in and he he uses
Speaker 2: a mask, right. He once he finds the mask, he
Speaker 2: finds the character. I know that that Karen Howard, I
Speaker 2: worked on the there. I was watch a guy with
Speaker 2: him and he works. I mean, I believe that he
Speaker 2: found that character from the outside end, maybe our mom,
Speaker 2: because he spent so much time in the wardrobe really
Speaker 2: picking together and really designing and finding who he was
Speaker 2: and the specificity in his wardrobe. Now he might he
Speaker 2: might work with the inside out too, but that but
Speaker 2: work is from the outside in is basically getting the
Speaker 2: clothes first and letting the clothes affect you. You know,
Speaker 2: maybe you put the clothes and you know, like maybe
Speaker 2: maybe I've heard another thing about this, and I can't
Speaker 2: remember which actor it was, but this is the very
Speaker 2: famous actor who had to find the shoes and once
Speaker 2: he found that this character, he put them on and
Speaker 2: he walked in this very specific way, very famous action.
Speaker 2: It's a very famous character. And I wish to god
Speaker 2: I could remember he found Oh you know what was
Speaker 2: it was quite tamper.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Stanford.
Speaker 2: And yes, he could not figure out who that character
Speaker 2: was until he put the shoes on. And put the
Speaker 2: shoes on, he had the walk, he had everything. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because you know Red Fox was snazzy, right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: shoes like that. So he puts those shoes on and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you know, it came to him.
Speaker 2: But all for instance, Ed O'Neill from Married with Children,
Speaker 2: people don't realize that O'Neill is amazing. Yeah, people think
Speaker 2: he's a comedian, but he just fell into his laugh
Speaker 2: is because he was a big theater actor like Eugene
Speaker 2: O'Neil and all this stuff. And what happened was is
Speaker 2: he came in for that audition he said, you know what,
Speaker 2: this guy is like my uncle, And so then he
Speaker 2: started working on that character from the inside out because
Speaker 2: he knew who his uncle uncle was. So it's like
Speaker 2: and also working from the inside out, and we talk
Speaker 2: a little bit more is actually doing that character work.
Speaker 2: I just talked about like, well, see it's funny because
Speaker 2: I feel very much like I do the actor work
Speaker 2: with writing. Again, I go into what was happening at
Speaker 2: that time, What did they wear at that time? What
Speaker 2: was this person's family like, like what moved them? What
Speaker 2: was this thing? What was their fatal flaw? What was
Speaker 2: this thing that hurts him so much? You know what?
Speaker 2: Here it is every character is working out something that
Speaker 2: they've been working out since they were five years old.
Speaker 2: Something happened between the ages of one and six that
Speaker 2: kind of defined them and they've been wanting that thing
Speaker 2: that they never got from that prime And so if
Speaker 2: you can find that in your research, that's great. Sometimes
Speaker 2: you have to make it up and make a decision.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you're playing with different types of sadness, right, and
Speaker 2: you can say, I don't know the sadness of losing
Speaker 2: a child. I have no clue of what that means.
Speaker 2: So you can make h a transfer? What is it
Speaker 2: not a transfer?
Speaker 1: The word you know what your substitution is.
Speaker 2: You make a substitution. So maybe you had a friend
Speaker 2: who was very close to you and died, right, I
Speaker 2: got your mother or your father. I was. I was
Speaker 2: in a very horrible film when I was young, and
Speaker 2: I hated it because I know I did not want
Speaker 2: to be an actor, but I was acting in order
Speaker 2: to get behind the camera. And it was one of
Speaker 2: those thriller films where you like run and cry and
Speaker 2: or tortured through the whole thing and try to get
Speaker 2: away from the killer, and then at the end she
Speaker 2: killed the killer. So it was very hard to sustain
Speaker 2: every day, six days a week, you know, thirty days shoot,
Speaker 2: this period of hysteria and tears and and fear grief
Speaker 2: and you know, dig to this and and I was young.
Speaker 2: I was young, wow, And I remembered, you know, going
Speaker 2: to my father's grave and just being exhausted and just
Speaker 2: laying on his grave and not wanting to be an actor,
Speaker 2: but not also knowing how to how to how to
Speaker 2: get there every day like that, because it was like
Speaker 2: it took me. And that's one of the one of
Speaker 2: the things that I found very hard about being actor,
Speaker 2: of of letting it go afterwards, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was I couldn't do that well.
Speaker 1: And then that young you didn't have the mechanisms to
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, to know how exactly.
Speaker 2: And so when I was lying on my father's grave,
Speaker 2: I took a watch call a leaf it was fall
Speaker 2: and and I put it in my pocket. And then
Speaker 2: I realized when I went to work the shoot, I
Speaker 2: had it in my pocket, so I just transferred it
Speaker 2: into my my costume. And it was really weird. I
Speaker 2: had to live there and I touched it and boom,
Speaker 2: I was there boom right away.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And to discover that, right, like, wow, I I
Speaker 1: held on to that.
Speaker 2: That leaf throughout the whole production. No one knew I
Speaker 2: had it. It was in my pocket. It was my secret.
Speaker 2: And so here's the deal is that when you have
Speaker 2: a secret and you have like a very emotional moment,
Speaker 2: and that has happened with me many times where actors
Speaker 2: have really gone places and just broken down, and everyone
Speaker 2: feels like, Okay, maybe when need to stop, you need
Speaker 2: a medic because this is really you know, and it's
Speaker 2: like no, and I just walk away with them. And
Speaker 2: sometimes people want to say it. Many times people want
Speaker 2: to say what happened? I'm like, no, you cannot tell me.
Speaker 2: This is yours and this is your private thing. It's
Speaker 2: not my place to hear it. Even if you feel
Speaker 2: like this is something you need to tell me, it's
Speaker 2: not my place to say because it's no one's place
Speaker 2: to know. You know. If that kind of pain, that
Speaker 2: kind of that's for a very close friend, that's for therapist,
Speaker 2: that's for priests, whatever it is, you know what I mean? Right,
Speaker 2: also one to release it into that working world, it
Speaker 2: no longer has a power. Well, well, you're a private thing,
Speaker 2: and you you know, and your director is not your
Speaker 2: therapist and they're not your friend. They came very very
Speaker 2: close to you. But I feel like that's a breach
Speaker 2: of trust also for me to hear that, because you're
Speaker 2: in the actors in a very vulnerable place there, and
Speaker 2: later on they might feel like, oh my god, I
Speaker 2: don't know why. You know, they might be embarrassment, it
Speaker 2: might be all kinds of stuff that gets in the
Speaker 2: way of your relationship with the director.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm gonna have to thank.
Speaker 2: You right right. That's that was also Fred so much.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. And I hope you recorded it
Speaker 1: or wrote it down something, because oh, well, yeah, you
Speaker 1: just come back and you just visit, you know, visit
Speaker 1: our website and that's where everything is. So but thank
Speaker 1: you so much for Colin and Darnelle. We are at
Speaker 1: the end and I didn't even get a chance to
Speaker 1: laundry list your credits from Law and Order franchise to
Speaker 1: Grim Blindspide New Amsterdam. The list, you guys goes Gray's anatomy. Well,
Speaker 1: I was going to say, in terms of a writer director,
Speaker 1: Cadillac Records, and wow, to work with those greats and
Speaker 1: that's why you know what We're just gonna have We're
Speaker 1: just gonna have you come back on. There's so many
Speaker 1: guests that you know, we're going to do a part
Speaker 1: two two and we need a part two to you
Speaker 1: for the committed actor and we need to just get
Speaker 1: some more nuggets and insights from you. So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say so long, not by because you're coming back to
Speaker 1: the Spirited After podcast, but you were awesome actors. You
Speaker 1: need to be applauding standing ovation wherever you are right now.
Speaker 1: To miss Darnell Martin, writer director Darnell Martin, thank you, Darnell,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much, and now the give love.
Speaker 1: You are phenomenal. I have this theory that most people
Speaker 1: are not afraid of not making it, they are afraid
Speaker 1: of making it. One of my favorite poems was written
Speaker 1: by Mary Anne Williamson and Nelson Mandela read this when
Speaker 1: he was released from prison. It's called Our greatest Fear
Speaker 1: by Mary Anne Williamson. It is our light, not our darkness,
Speaker 1: that frightens us the most. Our deepest fear is not
Speaker 1: that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we
Speaker 1: are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our
Speaker 1: darkness that frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I
Speaker 1: to be? Brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are
Speaker 1: you not to be? You are a child of God.
Speaker 1: You're playing small does not serve the world. There's nothing
Speaker 1: enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure
Speaker 1: around you. We were born to make manifest the glory
Speaker 1: of God that is within us. It's not just in
Speaker 1: some of us, it's in all of us. And as
Speaker 1: we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other
Speaker 1: people permission to do the same. As we liberate from
Speaker 1: our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. Fear is
Speaker 1: an illusion, don't believe it. Thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: on the Spirited Actor Podcast with me Tracy Moore. I
Speaker 1: look forward to our next Spirited podcast. Thank you.