Latest / Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast / Episode 32 - With Zoe Colletti

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Episode 32 - With Zoe Colletti · Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast

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Speaker 1: You are listening to Tom's Hirshprung's Podcast, where I provide
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Speaker 1: a look into the remarkable experiences of the most inspiring
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Speaker 1: people around Hirshprung's disease and sports.
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Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to episode thirty two of Tom's Hirshprung's Podcast.
0:44
Speaker 2: A very very special guest joins me today. She is
0:48
Speaker 2: an actress and YouTuber. You may know her from The
0:51
Speaker 2: Family Plan, you may know her from Only Murders in
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Speaker 2: the Building or from Fear the Walking Debt. My guest today,
1:00
Speaker 2: he's actress and YouTuber Zoe Caletti. Zoey, Welcome to the podcast.
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Speaker 3: Hello, thank you so much for having me.
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Speaker 2: No, thank you so much, so so much for joining
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Speaker 2: and taking time out of your busy acting schedule to
1:14
Speaker 2: be with us. So thank you so so much.
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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, of course any day.
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Speaker 2: Fantastic. Thank you. Now, something that will dive straight into
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Speaker 2: the Hirshbrungs if I may and talk about Obviously you
1:29
Speaker 2: have were born with hirshprungs, something that some people may know,
1:33
Speaker 2: some people may not know. Would you like to sort
1:38
Speaker 2: of talk a little bit about your sort of experience
1:42
Speaker 2: on being diagnosed. Obviously people are diagnosed very young, and
1:45
Speaker 2: I'm not expecting you to know a lot when you
1:47
Speaker 2: would diagnosed, But would you like to just talk a
1:51
Speaker 2: little bit about your sort of experience with Hirshprungs.
1:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, I do want
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Speaker 3: to say, regardless that I think your show is super
2:01
Speaker 3: awesome because Hurtsprings is not something that's talked about a ton,
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Speaker 3: and even for me personally, just getting to see a
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Speaker 3: ton of people talk about their experiences as well, it's
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Speaker 3: just really really cool because you don't get to see
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Speaker 3: that a lot. So starting off with that and I
2:14
Speaker 3: think it's really awesome. Anyway, onto my my story droning
2:20
Speaker 3: on anyway, So yeah, obviously I don't have a ton
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Speaker 3: of crazy memories of it happening. I just have kind
2:26
Speaker 3: of heard the lore of what it was like when
2:29
Speaker 3: I was born. I was not a sentient baby, but anyway,
2:34
Speaker 3: I was. I was born. I'm from New Jersey, so
2:38
Speaker 3: that's where it all all went down. But yeah, I
2:40
Speaker 3: was born obviously pretty quickly on parents could tell that,
2:45
Speaker 3: you know, things were not the most super normal. I'm
2:48
Speaker 3: a second kid too, so they had kind of gone
2:50
Speaker 3: through having a kid and knew a little bit what
2:52
Speaker 3: to expect and knew that it wasn't exactly how it
2:55
Speaker 3: was supposed to go. Yeah, yeah, well say three yep.
3:00
Speaker 3: So they're like, this is not this is not the
3:02
Speaker 3: same as the other one was. What's going on a
3:04
Speaker 3: clip them? So so yeah, they kind of were starting
3:08
Speaker 3: to do tests and stuff. Again, I'm I'm turning twenty
3:11
Speaker 3: three this year, and so crazy enough, even with just
3:14
Speaker 3: that gap, there's so much more information now about it,
3:19
Speaker 3: Like even then, like they really had no clue what
3:21
Speaker 3: was going on. So as much as my parents had
3:24
Speaker 3: no idea what was going on, even a lot of
3:26
Speaker 3: the doctors and stuff didn't really know what was going on.
3:29
Speaker 3: And of course that's kind of a scary position to
3:31
Speaker 3: be and when you're like, you know, having just had
3:33
Speaker 3: a kid. So anyway, they were kind of trying to
3:36
Speaker 3: figure out what's going on with me. And then unfortunately,
3:39
Speaker 3: the doctor at the hospital that I was at took
3:42
Speaker 3: a biopsy of my intestines and then sent me home
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Speaker 3: when I was only a few days old, and didn't
3:47
Speaker 3: realize that they had perforated my intestines. They had like
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Speaker 3: cut a hole in my intestines and didn't realize and
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Speaker 3: sent me home, So that had been kind of a
4:00
Speaker 3: crazy addition to just the hirshprunks diagnosis in general. So
4:03
Speaker 3: I ended up getting like rushed to the emergency room.
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Speaker 3: I had an emergency colostomy put in when I was
4:07
Speaker 3: a baby because of that mistake that had happened. And
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Speaker 3: then I ended up being in the niqu for like
4:13
Speaker 3: three months because I had sepsis and and all a
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Speaker 3: bunch of crazy stuff that had to do with not
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Speaker 3: only just the hushprunks but then also the medical mistake,
4:24
Speaker 3: and so it was crazy time for for my parents.
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Speaker 3: I had to like heal open and they just had
4:30
Speaker 3: a really hard time getting like the infection under control,
4:32
Speaker 3: and it was a whole whole crazy thing. And so yeah,
4:38
Speaker 3: again craziness. So I got home finally after three months
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Speaker 3: and had to have like a nurse in the house
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Speaker 3: to like do the wound care and packing the wound
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Speaker 3: and crazy, crazy crazy Yeah. Yeah, So that uh, that's
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Speaker 3: how that kind of went down in the first kind
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Speaker 3: of initial bit. And then I was able to get
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Speaker 3: the pull through surgery from a doctor that we didn't
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Speaker 3: realize even though there we were asking a ton of
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Speaker 3: questions about it. I say, we my mom was asking
5:07
Speaker 3: a ton of questions about it, and it turns out
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Speaker 3: that the doctor that literally created the pull through surgery
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Speaker 3: was like forty five minutes away in a different hospital,
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Speaker 3: and nobody seemed to think that would be a relevant
5:19
Speaker 3: piece of information. So it ended up being great. I
5:23
Speaker 3: went to an amazing doctor's name is doctor Penya in
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Speaker 3: New York who did my pull through surgery, and there
5:29
Speaker 3: was so much scar tissue and everything because of the
5:31
Speaker 3: mistakes that had happened, and then trying to kind of
5:33
Speaker 3: heal from that that the surgery took like eight hours,
5:37
Speaker 3: and I still had to have the colostomy during like
5:41
Speaker 3: the whole kind of healing process. And then six months
5:45
Speaker 3: later I had a hernia surgery just because again like
5:50
Speaker 3: trauma to the area my body was just like not
5:53
Speaker 3: really sure what to do about that. And then uh,
5:58
Speaker 3: I was able to have the class reversed around like
6:01
Speaker 3: a year old and I haven't had to have one
6:03
Speaker 3: since then, which is obviously a good thing. Yeah. Yeah,
6:10
Speaker 3: And then in terms of kind of my life growing
6:12
Speaker 3: up and just having her sprungs in general. You know, again,
6:17
Speaker 3: it's like anyone that has it or any kind of
6:19
Speaker 3: medical condition that you're bored with it's sort of like
6:21
Speaker 3: you don't know anything else, so it's becomes just like
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Speaker 3: sec like it's just your nature to kind of have that.
6:27
Speaker 3: But it's definitely not fun. It's not great. I'm always like, yeah,
6:31
Speaker 3: it's a bit TMI to talk about, but like that
6:33
Speaker 3: is what it is. But yeah, up until I was
6:35
Speaker 3: seventeen years old, I was having to do daily enemas,
6:39
Speaker 3: which is not lovely, right, No, No, not not great
6:44
Speaker 3: at all, and especially kind of getting a bit older
6:48
Speaker 3: and not being a little kid and having to have
6:50
Speaker 3: like my parents kind of rotating between who had to
6:52
Speaker 3: do it, being like I'm going through puberty and I
6:55
Speaker 3: really don't feel like having my parents do I guess anymore.
7:00
Speaker 3: So yeah, definitely not the best. But at around like
7:04
Speaker 3: fifteen sixteen, I was able to go to a children's
7:09
Speaker 3: hospital in Ohio and I did like the bowel management
7:12
Speaker 3: program where I was able to finally figure out like
7:17
Speaker 3: a good regiment of like laxative and fiber and all
7:21
Speaker 3: that good stuff to be able to kind of keep
7:23
Speaker 3: things moving. And I do like check ups now now
7:26
Speaker 3: every now and then just to make sure everything is
7:28
Speaker 3: like working. But luckily for me, which has been really amazing.
7:32
Speaker 3: Since I was like seventeen, I've been able to stop
7:35
Speaker 3: the animals completely and just be on like laxative and
7:38
Speaker 3: fiber to kind of keep things moving, which was majorly
7:44
Speaker 3: impactful in my life just because you know, at the time,
7:48
Speaker 3: I had like my first boyfriend and we were in
7:51
Speaker 3: a long distance relationship, and it was all things like
7:53
Speaker 3: I wasn't able to travel by myself because I needed
7:56
Speaker 3: someone there to do the enemas, and you know, my
8:00
Speaker 3: mom was obviously amazing, amazing. She would make it that,
8:04
Speaker 3: you know, I'd go to sleep away camp and she
8:05
Speaker 3: would stay in a hotel, you know, five minutes down
8:08
Speaker 3: the road so she could come and do my animal
8:09
Speaker 3: so that I'd be able to go to sleep away
8:10
Speaker 3: camp still even though I couldn't really go away for
8:13
Speaker 3: like a week by myself. So we made it work.
8:16
Speaker 3: But yeah, it was a pretty pretty impactful transition at
8:21
Speaker 3: that age to realize I'd be able to like kind
8:23
Speaker 3: of be mobile on my own completely and still be
8:28
Speaker 3: like alive and not feeling like I'm nauseous and gonna die.
8:31
Speaker 3: So like that's the kind of cliff notes version of
8:36
Speaker 3: my start to finish in terms of like now with
8:39
Speaker 3: like my actual regiment for hirsprungs. It's kind of the
8:42
Speaker 3: same thing. Now it's been still working and I'm kind
8:45
Speaker 3: of chilling with that now. So that's the gist.
8:48
Speaker 2: No, that's fantastic. Thank you so much for sure story.
8:53
Speaker 2: And also I'll just pick up on a couple of
8:55
Speaker 2: things you said there, just how dedicated your your mom
8:59
Speaker 2: is to to keeping you well. I know I had
9:03
Speaker 2: the same experience with my parents. Every single surgery. My
9:08
Speaker 2: mum was there and she stayed in the hospital and
9:09
Speaker 2: missed that and the other. So yeah, just give a
9:12
Speaker 2: sort of huge shout out to parents and especially your
9:15
Speaker 2: bye barb a home for keeping us alive.
9:18
Speaker 3: I guess, yep, yep, I know it's the crazy job,
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Speaker 3: not only just like the job of keeping your kid alive,
9:22
Speaker 3: as like a parent of any kid ever, but you
9:26
Speaker 3: got a little bit of extra work there, so I think, yeah,
9:30
Speaker 3: big shout out to all the parents that put the
9:32
Speaker 3: work in for their kids like that.
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Speaker 2: Fantastic. Yeah, absolutely, And obviously with you started your career
9:39
Speaker 2: and we'll move on to acting but a little bit
9:41
Speaker 2: later on. But you started your career in two thousand
9:44
Speaker 2: and six, so you will four or five years old,
9:47
Speaker 2: give will take, so very very young and obviously going
9:51
Speaker 2: through all of this stuff as well. How did that?
9:56
Speaker 2: How did that work? Having an acting career? Obviously it
9:59
Speaker 2: must have in a bit of traveling involved, and I
10:02
Speaker 2: know you said your mom was sort of you would
10:04
Speaker 2: stay at hotels and this, that and the other. But
10:06
Speaker 2: but how did you make that work?
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Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, you know, it's it's interesting again from my perspective,
10:14
Speaker 3: you know, it being that it was always that way
10:18
Speaker 3: for me. I think the nice thing about that is
10:20
Speaker 3: that you don't have to change anything about your lifestyle
10:24
Speaker 3: because when you're born with it, you sort of just
10:26
Speaker 3: like that's what your routine is from day one, so
10:29
Speaker 3: you don't like, you're not really aware that other people
10:32
Speaker 3: aren't living that way. So I think that's a positive
10:35
Speaker 3: for being a kid and kind of trying to process
10:37
Speaker 3: like these extra things that you have to do to
10:40
Speaker 3: kind of keep yourself feeling good that you can tell
10:43
Speaker 3: other people aren't having to do. So that's just on
10:44
Speaker 3: that basis, I think is a positive thing to take
10:47
Speaker 3: away a positive of Oh, the experience for sure. Yeah,
10:52
Speaker 3: it's interesting. So it's funny. My my brother is twenty
10:54
Speaker 3: seven and he started acting when he was like four
10:57
Speaker 3: as well, and then I came into the picture and
11:00
Speaker 3: kind of ended up like following behind him and doing
11:01
Speaker 3: it as well. And so my family had quite a
11:05
Speaker 3: bit of a routine going in terms of getting the
11:09
Speaker 3: auditions done and traveling for the work. Most of the
11:12
Speaker 3: stuff that me and my brother did when we were
11:13
Speaker 3: really young was a lot of commercials, and so we
11:17
Speaker 3: used to be like in and out of New York
11:18
Speaker 3: all the time, like probably three four times a week,
11:21
Speaker 3: we'd be going back and forth doing auditions and stuff,
11:23
Speaker 3: which isn't a crazy commute. It's like forty five minutes
11:25
Speaker 3: to get into New York from where I live, but
11:30
Speaker 3: it was it was interesting. I feel like it didn't
11:33
Speaker 3: have a massive impact on that kind of stuff when
11:36
Speaker 3: I was younger, because I had such a regiment of, like,
11:39
Speaker 3: I mean, I'd be like, God, kill me for having
11:41
Speaker 3: to go home at night and do all the crap
11:43
Speaker 3: that I have to do to make sure I'm not
11:45
Speaker 3: gonna die. But I think one thing I've always loved
11:50
Speaker 3: about it since I was like super super little is
11:53
Speaker 3: whether it was just like me having a good attitude
11:56
Speaker 3: about it, or my mom there to be able to
11:58
Speaker 3: make sure she could help me and things would be okay.
12:00
Speaker 3: Like I feel like I've always really strived to have
12:05
Speaker 3: it not be something that is a hindrance to anything
12:09
Speaker 3: that I've wanted to do in my life, which I
12:11
Speaker 3: think is like a thousand percent possible to do. And
12:15
Speaker 3: if anything, it's just become an extra thing that I've
12:17
Speaker 3: been able to talk about and kind of add to
12:21
Speaker 3: my life in a positive way. So yeah, it wasn't crazy,
12:25
Speaker 3: Like I don't feel like it crazily affected me when
12:27
Speaker 3: I was little in that regard, because again, we had
12:30
Speaker 3: a pretty good system down, especially by the time I
12:32
Speaker 3: was aware of what was going on. We had a
12:34
Speaker 3: good system for for what I had to do to
12:37
Speaker 3: keep things going fantastic.
12:40
Speaker 2: Now, thank you ever so much again for sharing that.
12:43
Speaker 2: And I wanted to sort of touch on another point
12:45
Speaker 2: as well. It's something that you've done quite recently and
12:49
Speaker 2: talking about body confidence and this, that and the other.
12:52
Speaker 2: You have become a creative designer for a swimwear brand,
12:58
Speaker 2: the Swingwear brand. It is on my notes, But could
13:01
Speaker 2: you just remind.
13:02
Speaker 3: Me yes, of course, Yeah.
13:04
Speaker 2: I'm sorry I couldn't.
13:10
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Kitty and Vibe is awesome getting to work
13:13
Speaker 3: with them was such a cool experience. Their whole message
13:18
Speaker 3: in general is just like ultra ultra body positivity, especially
13:23
Speaker 3: for how like annoying and uncomfortable bathing suit shopping can be.
13:27
Speaker 3: In general, even people that are like have the utmost
13:29
Speaker 3: confidence and how they look, it's still like that, oh God,
13:32
Speaker 3: I'll really fine one that I like a needle in
13:34
Speaker 3: a haystack of one that I'm gonna like feel really
13:36
Speaker 3: good in. So I related a lot to that just
13:40
Speaker 3: on a base level of like being a girl going
13:43
Speaker 3: through puberty, like dealing with like figuring out who the
13:46
Speaker 3: heck you are and how you feel about like the
13:47
Speaker 3: skin that you've just like been involuntarily put into, and
13:52
Speaker 3: so in that on a base level, I thought was
13:55
Speaker 3: like a really great message and made it that I
13:58
Speaker 3: was super excited to get the opportun unity to work
14:00
Speaker 3: with them. I also, just on a separate note, love
14:02
Speaker 3: fashion in general. It's a huge part of who I am,
14:05
Speaker 3: and I love like the self expression that comes with it.
14:08
Speaker 3: So getting the opportunity to like design for the first
14:10
Speaker 3: time was super cool for me, and with some really
14:13
Speaker 3: amazing women that run the company. The company is completely
14:16
Speaker 3: run by women. Women make the bathing suits design the
14:20
Speaker 3: bathing suits, like the whole nine yards. So it's it's
14:23
Speaker 3: just a really cool company in general. But to kind
14:26
Speaker 3: of add to that, it was a really really cool
14:30
Speaker 3: experience for me, and honestly one of the first times
14:33
Speaker 3: that I was able to do an entire campaign that
14:36
Speaker 3: was so specialized to me in the way that body
14:39
Speaker 3: positivity for me personally meant so much more than just
14:45
Speaker 3: the kind of base description of what you would think
14:48
Speaker 3: for that not just confidence in your maybe you wait
14:51
Speaker 3: or your figure or or any of that kind of stuff.
14:54
Speaker 3: But I have a ton of scarring, like a ton
14:57
Speaker 3: of ton of scarring, not only just because of like
14:59
Speaker 3: the Herstprung surgeries, but also a lot of my scarring
15:03
Speaker 3: is due to the mistake and then having to heal
15:06
Speaker 3: open and all that kind of stuff and having lots
15:07
Speaker 3: of scar tissues. So unfortunately, in that regard, it's not
15:12
Speaker 3: even all just about the hirsprungs. It's about kind of
15:15
Speaker 3: the disaster that ensued right after I was born. So
15:20
Speaker 3: I definitely struggled with that a decent amount when I
15:23
Speaker 3: was younger. Particularly, there is like one scar that I
15:26
Speaker 3: have on my stomach that because of the way I
15:29
Speaker 3: was like Frankenstein back together, but kind of like Hucker
15:34
Speaker 3: is a little bit and like gives me like a
15:36
Speaker 3: little hooch on my stomach. And like when I was younger,
15:38
Speaker 3: I hated it. I was like, wouldn't want to wear
15:40
Speaker 3: tight clothes because it was like you could see it.
15:42
Speaker 3: And I even had people on like Instagram and stuff
15:46
Speaker 3: when I was younger like commenting on it, being like,
15:48
Speaker 3: oh what is that like? Set it out whatever, So
15:50
Speaker 3: like it was sucky, Like I did not enjoy that,
15:53
Speaker 3: especially kind of when I was younger, and nobody really
15:56
Speaker 3: feels all that great in their skin. I think when
15:58
Speaker 3: you're like, well to fifteen, you're like, I don't know
16:02
Speaker 3: what's going on. So that was not not great. But
16:07
Speaker 3: as I've kind of gotten older, I love them. I
16:11
Speaker 3: think they're awesome. I am like, at every given moment
16:14
Speaker 3: down to show off my scars because it's so massively
16:19
Speaker 3: a part of who I am and why I am
16:22
Speaker 3: the person that I am today, And honestly, if somebody
16:26
Speaker 3: were to ever comment on it, it gives me a
16:28
Speaker 3: great excuse to kind of share about myself and and
16:32
Speaker 3: something that I think makes me so uniquely me. And
16:37
Speaker 3: they were super super open about my entire campaign being
16:41
Speaker 3: related to my scarring and even doing the kind of
16:45
Speaker 3: photo shoots and stuff like I talked about it a ton.
16:48
Speaker 3: I got to do like a log line kind of
16:49
Speaker 3: like speaking all about my experiences, and I even was
16:56
Speaker 3: able to to pick some models for the shoot that
17:00
Speaker 3: had like maybe some like skin conditions or other things
17:03
Speaker 3: that were not commonly seen necessarily in models, to make
17:08
Speaker 3: my entire campaign super focused on body positivity not only
17:13
Speaker 3: and just like your physique, but also in stuff that
17:16
Speaker 3: maybe is out of your control completely. So yeah, because
17:20
Speaker 3: I think scarring isn't necessarily talked about a ton in
17:23
Speaker 3: like the modeling industry or anything in terms of like
17:27
Speaker 3: that being an aspect of making it hard for you
17:30
Speaker 3: to feel confident in yourself. So that was really cool,
17:34
Speaker 3: and there was a ton of great feedback from that
17:38
Speaker 3: of people like dming me or emailing me. I heard
17:41
Speaker 3: from a ton of people that have hirshprungs as well,
17:44
Speaker 3: whether it be like people personally that have it or
17:47
Speaker 3: people that like just had babies that have it, which
17:51
Speaker 3: was something that was always really important to me and
17:54
Speaker 3: I think really cool just to even be able to
17:56
Speaker 3: like give some hope and encouragement and like a sense
18:00
Speaker 3: of calm, even for parents that have just had kids
18:03
Speaker 3: that have hirshprungs, that are like completely overwhelmed and not
18:06
Speaker 3: sure how that will impact their life as an adult,
18:10
Speaker 3: and to be able to be like, no, it's fine,
18:11
Speaker 3: they'll be chilling, don't worry, like you can literally do
18:14
Speaker 3: anything you want to do. It's it's fine, like your
18:16
Speaker 3: kid's going to be a okay, no stress.
18:19
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you added that last part because this
18:22
Speaker 2: is everything the podcast is, which is why again I
18:26
Speaker 2: was so so keen to get you involved, because you
18:30
Speaker 2: epitomize everything to do with this podcast. It's not a
18:34
Speaker 2: medical podcast. I'm not going to sit here and I'm
18:36
Speaker 2: not a doctor. I don't know, but it's all about saying, okay,
18:42
Speaker 2: yes you do have hershbrungs. Yeah, okay. Parts of it are,
18:46
Speaker 2: you know, do suck a little bit, but you can
18:49
Speaker 2: and go and do so many things and and you
18:53
Speaker 2: epitomize that you've gotten done. I mean, we'll talk about
18:55
Speaker 2: the acting, we'll talk about YouTube later on, but you've
18:57
Speaker 2: gone and done some incredible things and obviously, as we
19:01
Speaker 2: touched on you, you've gone through some pretty some pretty
19:04
Speaker 2: rough stuff with Hirshprungs. But that's that's something that it's
19:07
Speaker 2: so so important to me in being somebody that can
19:11
Speaker 2: go on and do You can go and do anything
19:13
Speaker 2: you like. And it's a bit cliche, but you you
19:16
Speaker 2: can go and you can go in and do whatever
19:18
Speaker 2: you like. Hirshprungs shouldn't be the thing that holds you
19:21
Speaker 2: back at all. So that I absolutely love that about you,
19:23
Speaker 2: really really do. And the the models as well. I
19:28
Speaker 2: didn't realize that you picked models and picked the models
19:32
Speaker 2: that had scarring, and I love that as well. Was
19:37
Speaker 2: that just sort of like you have a catalog of
19:39
Speaker 2: models and you just sort of pick randomly or how
19:43
Speaker 2: did that work? Yeah?
19:45
Speaker 3: Well it was interesting, Like I was hoping to kind
19:49
Speaker 3: of do that on a much larger scale. There's only
19:52
Speaker 3: one model that I had that had a skin condition.
19:58
Speaker 3: I was it was interest. I had no idea going
20:01
Speaker 3: into it what the process was at all for that
20:03
Speaker 3: kind of stuff. Like I was involved in the design
20:05
Speaker 3: stuff and then they're like, here, here's all these other
20:06
Speaker 3: things you can do, and I was like, whoa, I
20:08
Speaker 3: am not involved in the business side of things. Sure, okay,
20:11
Speaker 3: but I had no idea what was going on? Crazy
20:13
Speaker 3: learning experience for me, But yeah, I was like I
20:17
Speaker 3: would love to be able to incorporate this somehow and
20:21
Speaker 3: and look at it as a way to give opportunity
20:24
Speaker 3: also to like other people that maybe maybe don't like
20:28
Speaker 3: get a ton of modeling opportunities, and especially you know,
20:31
Speaker 3: being in LA, it's like, hey, there's probably tons of
20:34
Speaker 3: girls that are like super interested in being able to
20:36
Speaker 3: get to model and maybe don't have like a million
20:38
Speaker 3: opportunities for it. And they do they have like they
20:42
Speaker 3: never hire actual models or like like they don't go
20:46
Speaker 3: through like modeling agencies. They like take submissions from people
20:49
Speaker 3: that like their brand and then hire models based off
20:52
Speaker 3: of that, which is a cool system regardless that just
20:54
Speaker 3: they do for their company and all of their campaigns,
20:57
Speaker 3: like all of their shoots. They never like it's always
21:00
Speaker 3: different people every time, which I think is really cool
21:03
Speaker 3: because they also are kind of looking at it from
21:05
Speaker 3: the perspective of like giving opportunity to anyone that feels
21:08
Speaker 3: like they want a model. But yeah, I got to
21:13
Speaker 3: just look through a bunch of the submissions and there
21:14
Speaker 3: was some people with really cool stories and stuff as
21:16
Speaker 3: well that we're interested and there was a ton of
21:19
Speaker 3: ton of people, which was just really cool to see
21:22
Speaker 3: as well, because I love to see people being confident
21:26
Speaker 3: and kind of rocking their scars or whatever they have
21:29
Speaker 3: going on. I think it's really like inspiring and cool.
21:33
Speaker 3: So that was fun.
21:34
Speaker 2: I think that's brilliant. And thank you for such a
21:37
Speaker 2: great insight into into how that'll work, because I have
21:40
Speaker 2: no idea. I mean, okay, I'm not a neither true,
21:43
Speaker 2: but I and will never be in the modeling industry.
21:46
Speaker 2: But from the three or four models I've had on
21:49
Speaker 2: here and talk to, I haven't heard that car type
21:52
Speaker 2: of process before. So thank you, thank you so much
21:55
Speaker 2: for sharing. And if I may move swiftly onto your
22:01
Speaker 2: career because it started very very young as we as
22:05
Speaker 2: we mentioned, sort of around four or five years old
22:07
Speaker 2: and you got into acting again. You sort of mentioned
22:12
Speaker 2: a little bit on how that started and your brother
22:15
Speaker 2: being involved and et cetera, et cetera. So you started
22:18
Speaker 2: in two thousand and six with a TV pilot called
22:23
Speaker 2: The American American Men. How does auditioning go at four
22:28
Speaker 2: or five years old? How does that work?
22:31
Speaker 3: Oh, my boss, goss, it is. It's it's a process
22:34
Speaker 3: for sure. You know, it's interesting in general. I don't
22:38
Speaker 3: know how I ended up getting into it all. So
22:41
Speaker 3: obviously I'm quite a talkative person now, but when I
22:45
Speaker 3: was young, I was so shy, like brutally shy, like
22:48
Speaker 3: can't even order it restaurants, shy, borderline being a mute.
22:54
Speaker 3: Not in private, like if I was in private with
22:56
Speaker 3: my family, I was like a chatterbox. But the second
22:59
Speaker 3: I'm like step outside into civilization, I was like zip blip,
23:04
Speaker 3: completely mute, which is crazy because how in the world
23:09
Speaker 3: I've ended up doing the job that I do that
23:12
Speaker 3: does not make sense at all. So to say that
23:15
Speaker 3: it was an interesting kind of start to my career
23:17
Speaker 3: because the agency that we went to took my brother immediately,
23:20
Speaker 3: because he's the opposite of me in every way. In
23:22
Speaker 3: that regard, he was like big Ham, center of attention
23:25
Speaker 3: all the time. You can watch our home videos and
23:28
Speaker 3: you'll see him, like the cameras on me for three
23:29
Speaker 3: seconds and he's like pushing me out of the way
23:31
Speaker 3: to bring the camera back onto him. He was born
23:33
Speaker 3: to be an actor, a performer, all of the above,
23:37
Speaker 3: couldn't be me at all. So the agency took my
23:41
Speaker 3: brother and actually was like we are not interested in
23:43
Speaker 3: her because she doesn't speak, so that's not gonna work.
23:45
Speaker 3: He probably can't do very well for auditions. And the
23:48
Speaker 3: crazy thing that happened was my brother had a commercial
23:51
Speaker 3: audition for sausage was a sausage commercial, and I was
23:55
Speaker 3: in the waiting room with my mom because I used
23:57
Speaker 3: to go in and out of the city with them
23:58
Speaker 3: just because I was like foreign, mean whatever, I just
24:01
Speaker 3: go with them, and they're like, well, we need a
24:04
Speaker 3: sister as well, Like we're looking to cast siblings for
24:06
Speaker 3: the commercial. Is there any chance she want to come in?
24:08
Speaker 3: Because they look a lot alike and are like their
24:11
Speaker 3: actual siblings, so why not? Like, yeah, good luck, Sure,
24:15
Speaker 3: I guess you can ask her, but yeah, right, sure,
24:19
Speaker 3: and they asked me, and I was like sure. For
24:21
Speaker 3: some reason, I was possessed by something to go into
24:24
Speaker 3: this audition room with my brother. And the agency called
24:28
Speaker 3: later and they're like, yeah, well, Ian, who's my brother?
24:30
Speaker 3: They're like, Ian got the commercial, but Zoe also booked
24:34
Speaker 3: the commercials, so you can come in and we can
24:36
Speaker 3: like sign contracts for her to be in the agency,
24:38
Speaker 3: because clearly she does something right in the audition room.
24:42
Speaker 3: So I had to prove myself and I booked the
24:44
Speaker 3: first commercial I ever auditioned for, which was a for
24:48
Speaker 3: a sausage company, really glamorous, starting to acting, So that
24:52
Speaker 3: was kind of how that began. Again, no idea what
24:55
Speaker 3: possessed me that day to do it, but then I
24:56
Speaker 3: was in it and I enjoyed like the actual filming
24:59
Speaker 3: of the commercial, and crazy enough, that's that's kind of
25:03
Speaker 3: how that started. The audition process for a little kid
25:07
Speaker 3: is really interesting because I was doing auditions before I
25:11
Speaker 3: could read, So when I had to learn lines, my
25:15
Speaker 3: mom would just have to sit there and read them
25:18
Speaker 3: to me over and over again until I had the memorized,
25:22
Speaker 3: which is completely different obviously now than how I learn
25:25
Speaker 3: my lines to fulfilming. So that's like a super interesting
25:29
Speaker 3: you don't think about, like how do those little kids
25:30
Speaker 3: learn like dialogue for scenes when they can't read the script.
25:34
Speaker 3: So most of the time that's how it goes, just
25:36
Speaker 3: like aud audio, you know, hearing it over and over
25:39
Speaker 3: again until you until you know it. But yeah, my
25:43
Speaker 3: first you know, project that is like a movie or
25:47
Speaker 3: a TV show was that pilot American Men and I
25:50
Speaker 3: look back and I'm so idy bitty in that, but
25:52
Speaker 3: I was doing a ton of commercials in between there
25:54
Speaker 3: for like every company under the sun and was doing
25:58
Speaker 3: like Walmart and Home Depot and like Wendy's and whatever
26:02
Speaker 3: all the things. So I did a ton of commercials
26:04
Speaker 3: when I was young. But yeah, it's crazy. I just
26:07
Speaker 3: think when you're really little as nuts because they just
26:09
Speaker 3: like shove you in a room and you're like, hey, hello,
26:12
Speaker 3: I'm I don't really know what to do here. How
26:14
Speaker 3: do you supposed to know how to do a job interview?
26:16
Speaker 3: Four years old?
26:17
Speaker 2: You're like, you don't, no, no, you just turn up
26:20
Speaker 2: and do what they tell you to do. Presumably they
26:22
Speaker 2: say say this, and you say it, do this dance
26:26
Speaker 2: and you do it.
26:26
Speaker 3: And the gist, Yeah sounds about right.
26:31
Speaker 2: That's fantastic, that's brilliant. And then you you obviously sort
26:35
Speaker 2: of kept that, kept it going from such a young
26:38
Speaker 2: age and presumably kept doing commercials, kept doing sort of
26:41
Speaker 2: bits and pieces and everything. And then what was your
26:47
Speaker 2: sort of first I know we've talked about the American Men,
26:50
Speaker 2: but what do you what do you consider your first
26:52
Speaker 2: sort of big project interesting?
26:55
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I mean it different things for different reasons,
27:00
Speaker 3: I feel like, but the first movie that I did
27:03
Speaker 3: which was like a really big scale type of thing.
27:05
Speaker 3: I was. I was twelve years old and I did
27:11
Speaker 3: the remake that they did of Annie that came out
27:14
Speaker 3: in twenty fourteen, I want to say, yeah, And so
27:18
Speaker 3: that one was a crazy thing. I remember so vividly
27:20
Speaker 3: being at summer camp and my mom like picking me
27:22
Speaker 3: up from camp and being like, you got the movie
27:24
Speaker 3: and like freaking out because it was just crazy crazy.
27:28
Speaker 3: The process for it was so long. It was like
27:30
Speaker 3: a singing audition and then like a billion rounds of
27:33
Speaker 3: acting auditions and then a dancing a rehearsal, and then
27:35
Speaker 3: you go back for the dancing audition. Like it was
27:37
Speaker 3: one of those ones that was like a huge long process.
27:41
Speaker 3: So for me getting that one and kind of working
27:43
Speaker 3: on my not only my first movie, but a movie
27:45
Speaker 3: that was like a big, big scale filming set was
27:52
Speaker 3: really really cool and super impactful to me in general.
27:58
Speaker 3: But then I would say the movie that I did
28:03
Speaker 3: a little while later in life when I was I
28:04
Speaker 3: think I was seventeen or eighteen when I filmed it
28:08
Speaker 3: was the movie Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
28:10
Speaker 3: that I did, and that was the very first time
28:12
Speaker 3: that I had ever been like the main character of
28:16
Speaker 3: a movie and that's amazing and super super cool, and
28:21
Speaker 3: just I was kind of really nervous to do it
28:25
Speaker 3: because it's like, whoa, this is like the first time
28:28
Speaker 3: I'm doing a job where like review boose will definitely
28:32
Speaker 3: like comment on what I've done. I can't like slide
28:36
Speaker 3: under the radar, being like a character that's not really
28:38
Speaker 3: going to get like talking about in a review. And
28:42
Speaker 3: also just it feeling like a cool experience that all
28:46
Speaker 3: of these people have kind of put their trust in
28:49
Speaker 3: my ability to perform to the level that they're they're
28:53
Speaker 3: looking for for this movie. And I gained a ton
28:56
Speaker 3: a ton of confidence in myself kind of of getting
29:00
Speaker 3: through that experience and really enjoying it and the movie
29:03
Speaker 3: doing well. So that was like a huge turning point
29:06
Speaker 3: for me, like just with my own confidence in acting
29:10
Speaker 3: and again that shy little girl is still absolutely in there.
29:13
Speaker 3: So kind of getting through those kind of experiences and
29:15
Speaker 3: it going well and being positive, it is all stuff
29:20
Speaker 3: that really made me like get to the point where I.
29:22
Speaker 2: Am now fantastic. No, thank you so much again, And
29:27
Speaker 2: I'll take you back a little bit when you said
29:29
Speaker 2: kind of the age of eleven twelve because again, people
29:33
Speaker 2: may know this about you, they may not that you
29:35
Speaker 2: are a huge horror movie fan.
29:37
Speaker 3: Are you right?
29:38
Speaker 2: Is that right?
29:39
Speaker 3: It's true?
29:40
Speaker 2: And around that time, sort of like Walking Dead and
29:43
Speaker 2: everything came out and you effectively got to live out
29:50
Speaker 2: a dream of yours, if I'm right, and saying in
29:52
Speaker 2: the fact that you were a huge, huge band of
29:54
Speaker 2: Walking Dead and then a few years later you were
29:58
Speaker 2: cast cast in it or a sort of all shoot
30:02
Speaker 2: of it. What's that feeling like? And I get and
30:06
Speaker 2: it probably nothing necessary to do with films, but what's
30:09
Speaker 2: that feeling like of having something that you look up
30:13
Speaker 2: to and being such a huge fan of and then
30:16
Speaker 2: being cast in it and being asked to star in it?
30:19
Speaker 2: What's that feeling like?
30:21
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, that one was super super crazy for me,
30:26
Speaker 3: because yeah, so when The Walking Dead did come out,
30:29
Speaker 3: my family was like obsessed with the show. We used
30:32
Speaker 3: to have like big groups of people over on Sunday
30:34
Speaker 3: nights when the new episodes would come out and we'd
30:36
Speaker 3: all watch it together, like definitely like super super invested
30:39
Speaker 3: in the whole Walking Down universe. In general, I was
30:42
Speaker 3: obsessed with There was a huge stint in my life
30:44
Speaker 3: where I was convinced I was going to also try
30:48
Speaker 3: and pursue like special effects makeup like in film and
30:51
Speaker 3: TV as well. I was super interested in it. You
30:54
Speaker 3: could ask my mom or my brother or anyone that
30:56
Speaker 3: I shared a bathroom with, like they'd come in and
30:58
Speaker 3: it would just be like covered and blow and weird
31:01
Speaker 3: concoctions of like oatmeal and things that YouTube was telling
31:04
Speaker 3: me could work to make gross zombie skin. I don't know.
31:08
Speaker 3: I was like so invested in that for a while.
31:11
Speaker 3: I still love doing Halloween makeup and stuff, is like
31:14
Speaker 3: it's my favorite time of year. So so yeah, I
31:17
Speaker 3: was majorly invested in that whole Walking Dead universe. So
31:22
Speaker 3: getting the chance to be on the show was amazing.
31:26
Speaker 3: I remember some of my first days just like getting
31:30
Speaker 3: to work and being around all of like the zombies
31:32
Speaker 3: and all that stuff was so so cool. Unfortunately for me,
31:37
Speaker 3: my character got blown up in an explosion and I
31:39
Speaker 3: didn't get to be a zombie. Was so sad. I
31:42
Speaker 3: would have loved to be in the full zombie makeup.
31:47
Speaker 3: But such a cool experience. The crew and the cast
31:50
Speaker 3: and everyone are so so sweet, and I look really
31:55
Speaker 3: funly on and it was a really great experience for sure.
31:57
Speaker 2: And you played Dakotza I did.
32:00
Speaker 3: People hated me. I was terrible, the terrible character. People
32:03
Speaker 3: really really hate me so much. I like still, I
32:06
Speaker 3: mean that season came out like two years ago now,
32:08
Speaker 3: I think, and people still are dmy me being.
32:10
Speaker 2: Like I literally hate you?
32:11
Speaker 3: Why did you do that? And I'm like, please, I
32:13
Speaker 3: don't write the show of sor, but.
32:16
Speaker 2: That's gotta be that's gotta be a massive compliment that
32:19
Speaker 2: they can't necessarily. So do you like keep the distance
32:23
Speaker 2: or keep k fabe or keep kind of like the
32:27
Speaker 2: character from the person that that's gonna be like the
32:29
Speaker 2: highest compliment.
32:31
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, I think so too. And honestly, for me,
32:33
Speaker 3: I look at it as like I either want to
32:35
Speaker 3: be people's favorite character or the character they hate the most,
32:39
Speaker 3: because it at least like eliciting some sort of conversation
32:43
Speaker 3: or reaction to it, which is fun. So I didn't
32:46
Speaker 3: mind it. I knew people hated me. I was a
32:48
Speaker 3: terrible character. I killed so many characters that people loved it.
32:52
Speaker 3: It's not but you know what, that was fun. It's
32:55
Speaker 3: part of the job. I've got to be like a
32:56
Speaker 3: literal psychopath. I was like breaking psycho child running around
33:00
Speaker 3: killing everyone totally fun because acting is all about getting
33:04
Speaker 3: to play things that are like so so far from
33:07
Speaker 3: who you are, so it was a little fun.
33:10
Speaker 2: On that note, do you have kind of a favorite
33:13
Speaker 2: are you? Do you prefer bad or good necessarily or
33:18
Speaker 2: is it just anything that elicits a reaction.
33:22
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm super huge on just like if I
33:26
Speaker 3: get an audition for something, if it's just a character
33:29
Speaker 3: that really like sparks interest for me or I feel
33:31
Speaker 3: like connected to in some way, I get really excited
33:34
Speaker 3: about it. I love playing characters that are super far
33:38
Speaker 3: from like my own personality, just because I think that's
33:42
Speaker 3: the most fun to like watch something back and like
33:45
Speaker 3: feel like you're unrecognizable, like it's not even remotely like
33:48
Speaker 3: who I am. I just think that's really fun. But
33:53
Speaker 3: I I a lot of times end up playing characters
33:57
Speaker 3: that are like evil. I I don't know why. I
34:02
Speaker 3: don't know if that's a commentary on me as a
34:04
Speaker 3: person or the vibe that I give off. I don't understand.
34:07
Speaker 3: I don't know, but I'm like always killing people, or
34:11
Speaker 3: I'm dying like in the hospital, or I'm causing other
34:16
Speaker 3: people to die. I'm getting killed. I don't know, like
34:19
Speaker 3: it's always these like really insane plot lines that are
34:24
Speaker 3: happening to me. I don't like, I've killed so many
34:27
Speaker 3: people in movies and TV. I don't know why they
34:30
Speaker 3: do that to me. Oh, I don't know if I
34:32
Speaker 3: should like go to therapy or something for that.
34:34
Speaker 2: But if you're giving off, because every time I've told
34:37
Speaker 2: you you've been fantastic, you've been lovely, you'd be great.
34:40
Speaker 3: To chat to, sir, I don't think that that's the
34:42
Speaker 3: vibe I give off. But I think a lot of
34:44
Speaker 3: things like that, like the massive twist where it's someone
34:48
Speaker 3: that feels so unassuming and then they end up doing
34:52
Speaker 3: something bad. I feel like that's what it is. I
34:54
Speaker 3: don't think I actually give off the vibe of a murderer,
34:56
Speaker 3: but I'm the art thing that I give the really
34:59
Speaker 3: shocking twist of like, oh my gosh, it's that person
35:02
Speaker 3: that's gone crazy. I'll just I'm gonna say that's what
35:05
Speaker 3: it is, but so fun because obviously like that's crazy
35:09
Speaker 3: characters to play. It's like for me, even there was
35:11
Speaker 3: a movie that I loved working on called a Boy
35:13
Speaker 3: called Christmas, where I got to play like a little
35:16
Speaker 3: Pixie fairy and in this like super cute christmasy world
35:20
Speaker 3: and even still I'm like, oh, this is lovely. I'm
35:23
Speaker 3: playing a fairy and this is so fun. And then
35:26
Speaker 3: they're like this fairy's in jail and she likes to
35:29
Speaker 3: blow things up. And I'm like, what the heck? I
35:32
Speaker 3: thought I was big a little fairy. Why are you
35:35
Speaker 3: see in jail for like Arson? What can't I just
35:39
Speaker 3: be normal.
35:40
Speaker 2: Just be a nice character for once, though, you have
35:42
Speaker 2: to be a murdering psychopath.
35:44
Speaker 3: Sorry, I've accepted it now. I think that's just that's
35:47
Speaker 3: just what it is.
35:49
Speaker 2: Fantastic the hut. I think that's great. But you have
35:54
Speaker 2: you have shown you have shown range in your in
35:58
Speaker 2: your acting. And and there's one story in particular, and
36:01
Speaker 2: kind of go back to The Walking Dead a little
36:04
Speaker 2: bit where obviously you're from New Jersey and you had
36:07
Speaker 2: to play a Texan and you had to so how
36:12
Speaker 2: did you get into the role of that accent? Did
36:14
Speaker 2: it take time to get that accent or did you
36:16
Speaker 2: just sort of get it straight away? Oh?
36:19
Speaker 3: Okay, there's actually a really funny story that Sorry keep
36:22
Speaker 3: getting notifications. Okay, So there's a there's kind of a
36:25
Speaker 3: funny story about how last minute that actually ended up being.
36:29
Speaker 3: So I had no idea what. I didn't like plan
36:34
Speaker 3: on doing that accent at all before I got on
36:38
Speaker 3: too set, and I I was. I got to set
36:43
Speaker 3: on my first day and the actress Colby Minafie, who's
36:46
Speaker 3: playing my sister, we started like doing the rehearsal for
36:50
Speaker 3: the day and she was doing a really heavy Southern
36:53
Speaker 3: accent and I was like, hmm, interesting. So nobody told
36:58
Speaker 3: me she was going to be doing that accent. And
36:59
Speaker 3: we're sisters, so I feel like I also need to
37:03
Speaker 3: have that an accent. She's gonna have that accent, and
37:07
Speaker 3: they were like, you know what, You're probably right, And
37:09
Speaker 3: so about five seconds before we started filming for my
37:13
Speaker 3: first scene of the season, I just was like, oh, well,
37:15
Speaker 3: I guess I'll just do it, and so I did,
37:18
Speaker 3: and then that was the accent I had for the
37:19
Speaker 3: whole season. So there was zero planning whatsoever that went
37:23
Speaker 3: into that. I love doing accents in general, so I
37:27
Speaker 3: think I think I'm decently okay at it, So I
37:30
Speaker 3: think that worked out. But it's funny. I guess I
37:33
Speaker 3: am quite good at doing accents, which I mean, I
37:36
Speaker 3: guess I just like we'll be doing them randomly. But
37:38
Speaker 3: when I did A Boy called Christmas, I had to
37:39
Speaker 3: be British in what movie? And I had a dialect
37:45
Speaker 3: coach for that one that they had kind of given
37:47
Speaker 3: me because I was the only American person who are
37:49
Speaker 3: like one of two Americans in the cast. And I
37:54
Speaker 3: did like my first session of dialects coaching and the
37:56
Speaker 3: guy ended up being like, well, I don't really have
37:58
Speaker 3: anything more to say, so I'm just I guess I'll
38:00
Speaker 3: just tell them you're fine. He's like, did you, like,
38:02
Speaker 3: have you done this in a job before, Like why
38:05
Speaker 3: do you know how to do it? And I was
38:06
Speaker 3: like I don't really know. I just I just do it.
38:09
Speaker 3: And then I only knew one session and he's like, well,
38:11
Speaker 3: you're good because this sounds really correct, so I guess
38:14
Speaker 3: we'll just leave it. And I was like, awesome, vig to.
38:16
Speaker 2: You, autastic, let's work brilliant.
38:18
Speaker 3: But I'm always just winging it. I don't know, Oh.
38:21
Speaker 2: That's brilliant, and I have I have seen bits and
38:24
Speaker 2: pieces of that as well.
38:25
Speaker 3: And as a.
38:26
Speaker 2: Fellow brit I believe your British accent was fantastic, so
38:30
Speaker 2: and kudos to you that.
38:31
Speaker 3: Means the most to me coming from a British person,
38:34
Speaker 3: So I'll take it.
38:37
Speaker 2: As we sort of get round towards the end here,
38:39
Speaker 2: I'd love to talk a little bit about your YouTube career,
38:42
Speaker 2: because you know, you are up to seven and a
38:44
Speaker 2: half million subscribers, which is a decent amount, and it
38:51
Speaker 2: was four point two million on TikTok as well. What's
38:56
Speaker 2: the sort of prey one who hasn't seen, what's the
38:59
Speaker 2: sort of jen genre demo you're kind of going forward
39:03
Speaker 2: with your YouTube channel?
39:05
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, it's interesting. It's something that has kind
39:08
Speaker 3: of become its complete own beast, separate from anything else
39:12
Speaker 3: that I do. So I definitely make videos that are
39:15
Speaker 3: geared towards kids, which has been really fun. There's a
39:21
Speaker 3: kind of long winded backstory as to how I ended
39:24
Speaker 3: up doing it, but I was dating a guy. I'm
39:27
Speaker 3: my ex boyfriend now, but I was dating a guy
39:28
Speaker 3: for like five years who did YouTube full time as
39:32
Speaker 3: his career. He still does, and when we started dating,
39:36
Speaker 3: so that he could kind of travel and come see
39:38
Speaker 3: me if I was, you know, working away filming whatever, Dadaiada.
39:42
Speaker 3: When he would come to visit me, I would like
39:44
Speaker 3: film with him, so that he could keep working and
39:46
Speaker 3: keep getting his content put out. And then over time
39:49
Speaker 3: it just developed into this like massive animal where I
39:53
Speaker 3: was like in all his videos and it became such
39:55
Speaker 3: a huge part of my life, completely accidentally, because I
39:59
Speaker 3: was like, I don't know, I'm just helping him so
40:00
Speaker 3: that he can keep working while we're traveling or whatever.
40:04
Speaker 3: And it became this whole thing. And again, I was
40:07
Speaker 3: busy working on, you know, my acting career and all
40:10
Speaker 3: this other stuff, so I never really considered having my
40:14
Speaker 3: own channel. I was kind of like, well, that's like
40:16
Speaker 3: my boyfriend's things, so I help him with that, and
40:18
Speaker 3: I've got my other stuff that I'm doing. And then
40:21
Speaker 3: the like SAG strike came around, and there was a
40:24
Speaker 3: whole whole lot of months that I was kind of
40:25
Speaker 3: sitting around twiddling my thumbs doing nothing, and I was like,
40:28
Speaker 3: all right, well, I've got a lot of time on
40:30
Speaker 3: my hands and and that that could be a creative outlet.
40:33
Speaker 3: And I'd been doing it for so long that I
40:35
Speaker 3: at that point had a huge span base from YouTube,
40:39
Speaker 3: Like I get recognized out in public constantly, and ninety
40:44
Speaker 3: nine percent of the time it's not for acting, it's
40:46
Speaker 3: for YouTube, Like it's crazy if it's like such a
40:49
Speaker 3: huge audience, which has been really cool and so much fun.
40:53
Speaker 3: So yeah, only around like eight months ago, I started
40:56
Speaker 3: my own YouTube channel, which is crazy how fast it's
40:59
Speaker 3: grown in that short of a period of time. But yeah,
41:02
Speaker 3: I make videos for kids. I do like sketch videos.
41:05
Speaker 3: I actually work with my brother, so my brother writes
41:08
Speaker 3: all of the videos and kind of helps with the
41:12
Speaker 3: back end stuff of the uploading and deals with our
41:14
Speaker 3: editor and all that kind of stuff. So we've got
41:16
Speaker 3: a bit of a family business as well with the YouTube.
41:21
Speaker 3: But it's been really fun. I adore the fan base.
41:24
Speaker 3: They're like between ages like five and twelve, and they're
41:28
Speaker 3: so sweet and I love when when kids come up
41:32
Speaker 3: to me in public, and I've always loved kids forever
41:36
Speaker 3: and ever. So it's just been been a lot of
41:39
Speaker 3: fun and they're so sweet and they're also very forgiving.
41:41
Speaker 3: You can post really silly things on the internet and
41:44
Speaker 3: they think it's hilarious, so that's a plus.
41:47
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, no, that's absolutely fantastic. And obviously TikTok as well.
41:52
Speaker 2: You do a variety of different stuff on that And
41:56
Speaker 2: how's that all going at the moment.
41:59
Speaker 3: It's good good. Yeah, it's interesting, like with each of
42:02
Speaker 3: the different social media platforms, I've kind of like done
42:04
Speaker 3: completely different things, And my Instagram has kind of stayed
42:08
Speaker 3: mostly just regular day to day stuff. But also I
42:12
Speaker 3: use that mostly for like, if I have to post
42:14
Speaker 3: about work, like acting stuff. I think is kind of
42:18
Speaker 3: primarily where my Instagram followers have come from, is like,
42:21
Speaker 3: you know, an older crowd of people that I like
42:24
Speaker 3: have watched my acting stuff. And then my TikTok I
42:28
Speaker 3: just kind of rand I don't know, I just do
42:30
Speaker 3: random stuff on there. I have no idea. It's just
42:32
Speaker 3: random trends. You'll watch me do stupid dance trends or whatever.
42:35
Speaker 3: I don't know. I just kind of like it's just
42:37
Speaker 3: has become such a huge part of life of like
42:39
Speaker 3: being an actor, and it's like super relevant to be
42:42
Speaker 3: active on social media. So I'm just like I just
42:44
Speaker 3: just post random crap on there, and I guess somebody
42:47
Speaker 3: likes watching it. Couldn't tell you why, but they do.
42:51
Speaker 3: So I also use that platform is more just kind
42:55
Speaker 3: of me personally just doing silly stuff that I feel
42:57
Speaker 3: like doing, and then the YouTube became a completely different
43:00
Speaker 3: beast of like my channel is called zoetube, and it's interesting.
43:04
Speaker 3: I almost look at that YouTube channel as like a
43:07
Speaker 3: caricature of myself, almost like the like Amanda Bynes show
43:10
Speaker 3: or something like. It's like I feel like I'm like
43:13
Speaker 3: having a like a kid's TV show over on a
43:16
Speaker 3: YouTube channel, which is fun because I get to just
43:18
Speaker 3: like outlet all of this like silly, high energy stuff
43:22
Speaker 3: kind of over there. So it's weird. All all of
43:24
Speaker 3: the different social media platforms I have, I use like
43:27
Speaker 3: incompletely different ways, but kind of makes it fun. It's
43:31
Speaker 3: the fun thing about social media is like getting to
43:33
Speaker 3: just do whatever you want, like you're in complete control
43:36
Speaker 3: of yeah, put out from start to finish, which is
43:39
Speaker 3: super different from the acting industry. So definitely keeps me
43:43
Speaker 3: busy in my free time between acting jobs.
43:45
Speaker 2: For sure fantastic. And on the subject of acting jobs,
43:49
Speaker 2: I'd like to get onto two plans for the future
43:53
Speaker 2: now obviously no spoilers. I don't want to get sued.
43:55
Speaker 2: Why do you want? I don't want agents coming off
43:58
Speaker 2: to be or film acuses are no one's saying, Tom,
44:01
Speaker 2: you coerced Paul Zoe into saying all of the secrets.
44:05
Speaker 3: I talked about something be it sniper like ready right,
44:08
Speaker 3: be like.
44:09
Speaker 2: No, you'd say that, we'll have none of that. But
44:12
Speaker 2: I know you've talked to me a little bit about
44:15
Speaker 2: where you'll be doing some acting work next. I don't
44:18
Speaker 2: know if you can share that at all, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:22
Speaker 3: I don't have a ton of secret of stuff going
44:24
Speaker 3: on right now, so it's okay. But I I finished
44:27
Speaker 3: up filming a movie a little while back called Please
44:29
Speaker 3: Don't Feed the Children, which is another horror movie, and uh,
44:34
Speaker 3: the cool thing about that that is Destri Spielberg's directorial debut,
44:38
Speaker 3: so uh, pretty pretty cool person to get to work
44:43
Speaker 3: with and and even all the insight that she has
44:46
Speaker 3: from having a pretty pretty incredible director as a dad
44:50
Speaker 3: and just wanting to kind of see those genetic skills
44:53
Speaker 3: come to life and get to work with her was
44:56
Speaker 3: really fun. So that is an independent film, but it
45:00
Speaker 3: should be getting kind of floated around festivals this festival season.
45:04
Speaker 3: So that'll come out probably in the next few months
45:07
Speaker 3: at some point, not totally sure in the exact date.
45:10
Speaker 3: So there's that, and then there's another independent film that
45:13
Speaker 3: I'll be working on in September, so I'll get to
45:17
Speaker 3: go and film that's like a kind of a road
45:20
Speaker 3: trip type movie with two sisters, so that should be fun.
45:25
Speaker 3: It's a very cute one. And then I did a
45:26
Speaker 3: movie called The Family Plan a little while back, and
45:29
Speaker 3: that did get officially green for a sequel, So starting
45:33
Speaker 3: in October, I will be heading to Europe to film
45:37
Speaker 3: a sequel for The Family Plan.
45:39
Speaker 2: Fantastic And obviously I've seen Simony Plan as well, and
45:44
Speaker 2: see that has a star studying cast. I mean, I
45:47
Speaker 2: was having a look though. You are obviously a very
45:50
Speaker 2: big star in your own right, and you also work
45:52
Speaker 2: with some huge, huge names as well. Is there anything
45:59
Speaker 2: any particular person that really sort of stands out that
46:01
Speaker 2: you go, I learned loads from this person.
46:04
Speaker 3: Ooh. I would say in general the job that it's
46:08
Speaker 3: funny because it's like there's multiple people that I feel
46:10
Speaker 3: like I learned a ton from and all of them
46:11
Speaker 3: happened to be on the same job. But one of
46:15
Speaker 3: the biggest learning experiences and just like being kind of
46:18
Speaker 3: in awe of the creativity around me was working on
46:21
Speaker 3: only murders in the building. I mean that cast in
46:25
Speaker 3: itself is just they're known at this point for having
46:28
Speaker 3: like the most absurd star studded cast on the planet goss.
46:33
Speaker 3: But getting the opportunity to work in scenes with like
46:37
Speaker 3: Steve Martin and Martin Schorre and Selena Gomez and all
46:41
Speaker 3: of these like insanely phenomenal actors that are like I mean,
46:45
Speaker 3: comedy legends at that point was really amazing. And when
46:50
Speaker 3: I had done that job, I've done a ton of
46:51
Speaker 3: drama over my career, and more recently in the past
46:56
Speaker 3: few years, I've I've worked on more comedy, which has
46:59
Speaker 3: been cool, but it was definitely like an avenue I
47:01
Speaker 3: hadn't explored as much, and getting to work with like
47:07
Speaker 3: literal comedy legends was a pretty great, pretty great place
47:11
Speaker 3: to learn and kind of work in the comedy field
47:13
Speaker 3: for one of the first times, because making a joke
47:17
Speaker 3: on set or in a scene and having Steve Martin
47:20
Speaker 3: or Martin Short laugh at something you've improved is a
47:23
Speaker 3: pretty good shot in the arm of confidence to feel like,
47:26
Speaker 3: all right, okay, it's good. I can feel a little
47:28
Speaker 3: bit better about what I'm doing, Like if they think
47:30
Speaker 3: I'm funny, I could pretty much just die feeling like
47:33
Speaker 3: I'm maybe slightly funny. And also I was the biggest
47:38
Speaker 3: fan of Selena Gomez, like as a child. She was
47:40
Speaker 3: probably like my ultimate person that I was obsessed with.
47:42
Speaker 3: I was like a wizard of Weberly Place obsessed child.
47:45
Speaker 3: I loved her and she's like the sweetest person I
47:49
Speaker 3: think to exist on the planet Earth. And she's so
47:51
Speaker 3: kind and amazing and so overall. In terms of like
47:56
Speaker 3: the people I got to work with, I think that
47:57
Speaker 3: job is front runner for shirts because they were all
48:01
Speaker 3: so amazing and kind and so talented. So I loved
48:06
Speaker 3: that one. That was great.
48:07
Speaker 2: That's fantastic to sear them. Thank you so much for
48:09
Speaker 2: your for your insight as well, and just very lastly,
48:13
Speaker 2: and I were rubbing short on time. But where people
48:17
Speaker 2: probably find it easier to find you, then they'll find me.
48:20
Speaker 2: But where can people find you keep up to date
48:23
Speaker 2: with everything that's going on with you?
48:26
Speaker 3: For sure? I would say, honestly, in general, probably my Instagram,
48:29
Speaker 3: which is just literally my handle is just my name.
48:32
Speaker 3: I would say I post the most about acting stuff
48:35
Speaker 3: and just general stuff going on in my life on there.
48:38
Speaker 3: I think that that's most of my info you can
48:40
Speaker 3: usually find on there.
48:42
Speaker 2: Fantastic. I just want to say it has been a pleasure.
48:45
Speaker 2: These forty five years have absolutely flown by a bit
48:49
Speaker 2: of an absolute pleasure talking to you. Thank you so
48:52
Speaker 2: so much for taking time out of your day to
48:55
Speaker 2: come and chat to me. Thank you for being so
48:57
Speaker 2: open with your hirsh brungs and you're acting. It's been
49:01
Speaker 2: an absolute pleasure. Thank you so.
49:03
Speaker 3: Much, my gosh, thank you, Thank you for having me
49:07
Speaker 3: my pleasure.
49:11
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the podcast. Find us on
49:14
Speaker 1: Instagram Tom's Underscore Hirshbrun's Underscore podcast. Listen to previous episodes
49:20
Speaker 1: on Spotify by searching Tom's Hirshbrun's Podcast