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IFH 766: How to Tap Into Your Screenwriting Muse with Jocelyn Jones · Indie Film Hustle® - A Filmmaking Podcast

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  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network.
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  Speaker 2: For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
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  Speaker 2: ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Indie Film Huscle Podcast, Episode number seven
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: sixty six. Start writing no matter what. The water does
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: not flow until the faucet is turned on. Louis Lemore.
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: the film biz.
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  Speaker 1: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: episode of the Indie Film Hustle Podcast. I am your
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: humble host Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise
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  Speaker 1: of the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film
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  Speaker 1: into a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before
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  Speaker 1: for independent filmakers to make money with their films from
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  Speaker 1: who upon them. The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker.
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  Speaker 1: The old distribution model of making money with your film
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  Speaker 1: is broken, and there needs to be a change the
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  Speaker 1: future of independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the
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  Speaker 1: film entrepreneur. In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break
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  Speaker 1: down how to actually make money with your film projects
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  Speaker 1: and show you how to turn your indie film into
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  Speaker 1: a profitable business. With case studies examining successes and failures.
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  Speaker 1: This book shows you the step by step method to
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  Speaker 1: turn your passion into a profitable career. If you're making
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  Speaker 1: a feature film, series, or any other kind of video content,
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  Speaker 1: the Film Entrepreneur method will set you up for success.
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  Speaker 1: The book is available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook.
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  Speaker 1: If you want to order it, just head over to www.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Dot filmbiz book dot com. That's film bizbook dot com. Well, guys,
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  Speaker 1: today on the show we have author Jocelyn Jones and
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  Speaker 1: her new book Artist Awaken. The Spirit Within is a
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  Speaker 1: must read for filmmakers, screenwriters, and any creatives that want
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  Speaker 1: to be able to tap into that kind of ether,
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  Speaker 1: to tap into your muse and to be able to
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  Speaker 1: find the creative spirit within you. And her techniques are
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  Speaker 1: remarkable and she's been an acting coach now a legendary
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  Speaker 1: acting coach for decades. She's worked with Clint Eastwood and God,
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  Speaker 1: so many people it's hard to keep track. But Jocelyn
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  Speaker 1: and I had a fantastic, fantastic conversation about the creative process,
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  Speaker 1: how to constantly be able to tap into that creative
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  Speaker 1: flow that we hear so much about and so much
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  Speaker 1: more so, without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation
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  Speaker 1: with Joscelyn Jones. I like to welcome the show Joscelyn Johns.
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  Speaker 1: Hey doing Jocelyn.
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  Speaker 3: I'm very good. Thank you, it's lovely to be.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the show. I
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  Speaker 1: am I'm excited to talk to you. I think I
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  Speaker 1: think we're going to have a conversation that's hopefully going
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  Speaker 1: to help some filmmakers, some screenwriters, anybody in the business
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  Speaker 1: who wants to be creative and be an artist. And
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  Speaker 1: I think it's something that a lot of the things
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  Speaker 1: that you talk about in your book, your new book,
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  Speaker 1: Artists Awaken the Spirit Within, is that it's things that
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  Speaker 1: aren't talked about publicly very often, about mental health, about
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  Speaker 1: negative talk about self talk, about beating yourself up, all
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  Speaker 1: these kind of things. But before we get into all
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  Speaker 1: of that, how did you get into this insane, insane business.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know, I was a little bit born into it.
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  Speaker 3: I was raised on the Hudson River in an artist community,
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  Speaker 3: and so I was raised with extraordinary artists. My dad
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  Speaker 3: was an actor, So the first wave of artists at
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  Speaker 3: the dinner table were actors and they are agreed unto themselves.
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  Speaker 3: And then my mother remarried, and the next wave my
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  Speaker 3: stepfather wrote for The New Yorker. And the next wave
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  Speaker 3: of artists at the table were painters. And this was
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  Speaker 3: in the sixties, so you just go to the top
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  Speaker 3: of that food chain. You know. I don't drop a
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  Speaker 3: lot of names, but they were these extraordinary painters. And
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  Speaker 3: then you know, there were dancers at the top of
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  Speaker 3: the field. I mean, everybody was at the top of
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  Speaker 3: their field. And I was young, and I was impressionable,
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  Speaker 3: and I was studying them, and I was very interested in,
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  Speaker 3: you know, when they were happy. We're going to talk
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: about happy, because I happened to watch you flip the
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  Speaker 3: script and be interviewed by your friend Cbbato and talk
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  Speaker 3: about happiness, and I was like, yes, you're onto something
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  Speaker 3: there anyway, And so I was very interested when they
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  Speaker 3: were happy, they were working, and when they they weren't working,
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  Speaker 3: it wasn't just actors who when actors go out of work,
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  Speaker 3: you know, they should really check into a hotel because
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  Speaker 3: they're very difficult to be around. They get so concerned
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  Speaker 3: that they'll never work again. But it was also painters,
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  Speaker 3: and it was anyone who like they're in the creative
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  Speaker 3: process and they are lit from within and the because
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  Speaker 3: these guys were at the top of their field, they
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  Speaker 3: were lit with inspiration. It was something beyond themselves, which
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  Speaker 3: is kind of what the book is trying to hook
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  Speaker 3: people up to, anybody up to. But anyway, so there
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  Speaker 3: were all these actors and then I left home at
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  Speaker 3: a very early age because I lived right outside Manhattan,
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: and if you live near Manhattan the break away, you're like,
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  Speaker 3: I'm in the city, bye bye. I got to go.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, when I was young, when we moved
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  Speaker 3: to Manhattan, we still couldn't afford Manhattan, even you know,
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  Speaker 3: sixties and seventies when it was not the same city
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  Speaker 3: as it is now. So we would live five girls
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  Speaker 3: in an apartment and you know, work and I don't
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  Speaker 3: know how many second avenue bars and wait tables and
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  Speaker 3: go on auditions and all of that. And at that
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  Speaker 3: time I was really young, and I was discovered by
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  Speaker 3: Eileen Ford, who was a very big model leading agent
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  Speaker 3: at the time, and she saw something in me and
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  Speaker 3: she sent me out tour test shots they were called,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: which were you know, photographers who were trying to get laid,
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: but they also wanted you know, pictures and free models
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: and upcoming moths whatever. They would take your picture. It
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: was during blow ups, so I don't remember that movie,
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: but you know, they were all it was a pretty
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  Speaker 3: wild time. And I would bring these pictures back to
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  Speaker 3: Eileen Ford and she looked at them and said, oh god, Jostin,
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  Speaker 3: you know these are terrible. He looks so sad and
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  Speaker 3: nobody calls me out and says, I want the sad girl.
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  Speaker 3: Give me that sad girl. So she said you have
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  Speaker 3: to do something thing, And so I started creating characters
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  Speaker 3: to be in front of a camera because I was
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  Speaker 3: really had a hard time with the black box, you know,
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  Speaker 3: and so did she. I brought those pictures. Look, she said, oh,
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  Speaker 3: you're an actor. I said no, no, no, no, my
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  Speaker 3: dad's an actor, one of those in the families. I'm not.
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  Speaker 3: And she started sending me out on audition. So she
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  Speaker 3: sent me out of my first audition was for a
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  Speaker 3: heroin Addict for Mayor Lindsay's drug campaign, and they were
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  Speaker 3: very real, they looked like documentaries and it won an award.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, I played the sad It's perfect for the
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  Speaker 3: sad girl.
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  Speaker 1: I was about to say perfect, yeah, yeah, good for.
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  Speaker 3: The sad girl. So uh, you know that was that.
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  Speaker 3: That was the start of my journey toward acting, and
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  Speaker 3: I did a number of independent films. But in my
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  Speaker 3: you know, I never loved acting. I mean, I love acting.
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  Speaker 3: I love the part of acting and building life from nothing.
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: I love that. And I understood structure, but I never
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: you know, you talked about how you know you found
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  Speaker 3: the podcast. It took you a while, but something you'd
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: found home. It was like a call and suddenly you
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  Speaker 3: were happy, right. I was not happy as an actor.
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  Speaker 3: I'm a very private person. I didn't like having to audition.
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  Speaker 3: I like control in my life and putting my art
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  Speaker 3: in front of somebody and having them say yeah, I
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  Speaker 3: like it. No, I don't, you know. I'm from New York.
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  Speaker 3: I had a little you know, But more than that,
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  Speaker 3: all of this study of artists had settled in me,
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  Speaker 3: and I had a certain kind of leadership growing up.
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  Speaker 3: That came from other things, and I thought teaching. You know,
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  Speaker 3: I got pregnant and I have a baby, and being
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  Speaker 3: a mother and being a teacher sort of went together.
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  Speaker 3: And you know, when you do that thing you're meant
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  Speaker 3: to do, you put one step on that path and
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  Speaker 3: things just start flowing really well, which is part of knowing, oh,
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  Speaker 3: I'm on the right path. So you know, really I
• 9:16
  Speaker 3: was a teacher for thirty years, and teaching led to
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  Speaker 3: you know, I worked with a lot of film stars
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  Speaker 3: on films and private coaching, and that led to script doctoring,
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: and all of that was very you know, confidential on
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: their non disclosure agreements, but a lot of fun, very
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: interesting work. And then all of that led to one
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: day deciding, you know, I think it's time to do
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  Speaker 3: to leave something of my own because my whole life
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  Speaker 3: has been helping artists and I love that and it's right,
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  Speaker 3: but at some point you have to look at yourself
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  Speaker 3: and say, am I avoiding you know, my own.
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  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
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  Speaker 3: And so, you know, my mom died. That's a whole
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  Speaker 3: evolution in a person's life. Everything stopped so I could
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  Speaker 3: say goodbye and then handle her affairs. And that's when
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  Speaker 3: I started writing the book. And you know, Alex, I
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  Speaker 3: didn't want to write another acting book. There's a lot
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: of acting books.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: There's a couple, there's a couple.
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  Speaker 3: I started. You know, I don't know whether this is
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  Speaker 3: part of the hustle, but you know, I'm quite spiritual,
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  Speaker 3: and so part of what I had spotted with these
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: artists was a kind of a spiritual connection. Call it inspiration,
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: call it the muse, call it spirit, call it whatever.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: But it's something beyond ego. It's something beyond personality. It's
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  Speaker 3: something in the ethos that great artists seem to tap into.
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  Speaker 1: It's so funny you say that, because you know, as
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  Speaker 1: you know, on the show, I've had the pleasure of
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: talking to some amazing guests and some very high performing
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: you know, Oscar winners, Emmy winners, Tony winners, really high
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  Speaker 1: performing artists. And I always love asking that question. I
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  Speaker 1: always ask the question where does it come from? For you?
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  Speaker 1: And the bigger the star, the bigger the artist, the
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  Speaker 1: more humble they are about their craft. It's so funny
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: because I've met people who are so boastful about what
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: they do, and you can tell that they'll burn out
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: soon enough and they won't have any major legacy left behind.
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  Speaker 1: But the bigger the Oscar winner, the more humble they
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: are because they are aware that in many ways, it's
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: not them. It's coming through them, but it's not them,
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: it's coming through their filter, if you will, so in
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: many ways. And not to get too woo woo, but
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: like I'm talking, I'm going to drop a name because
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's important to the conversation. When I was
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: speaking to Eric Roth, who's obviously the Oscar winning writer
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  Speaker 1: Forrest Gump, and he just wrote doing and he's doing
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  Speaker 1: okay for himself. Eric, I asked him specifically, I go,
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  Speaker 1: how did you do you ever just sit down and
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  Speaker 1: write and when you're done writing, you look at it
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  Speaker 1: and go, who wrote that? Like it's not even you
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  Speaker 1: can't even recognize it as your own. It just kind
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  Speaker 1: of flew through you. He's like, yes, oh, And I
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  Speaker 1: search for that almost all the time, but I don't
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  Speaker 1: always get it. But when I'm able to tap in,
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  Speaker 1: it just flows through you. And it's a magical thing.
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  Speaker 1: And I think any I mean, as I've written my books.
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  Speaker 1: There's moments where I've written entire chapters and then I
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  Speaker 1: go back to read it, I'm like, who wrote this?
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  Speaker 1: Like it? It's almost like you're channeling something as a
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  Speaker 1: great artist, and that goes for acting, writing, directing. It's
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  Speaker 1: being in the flow. Athletes talk about it all the time,
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  Speaker 1: and being in that moment where you don't think, it
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  Speaker 1: just is and it just kind of goes through you
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: and you already understand the craft enough that that's not
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a problem. Like if you're going to write, you have
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: to understand English, you have to understand basic grammar. But
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: once those basic foundations are laid out, everything else is
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: fairly magical. And that I always find that's so interesting
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  Speaker 1: that they are all humbled. The biggest ones are the
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: most humble about their process. And this is one hundred
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: percent of the time I've asked this question. I don't
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: care who it is. Everyone has imposter syndrome. It's fascinating
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  Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, everyone. I mean again, I'll
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: talk back. Go to Eric Roth's interview. He's like, oh, yeah, absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like, but you're you're Eric Roth. You've won Oscars,
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  Speaker 1: You've worked on the biggest movies with the biggest director
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  Speaker 1: with I mean, and he's like, yeah, but I still
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: feel like at any moment, someone's going to walk in
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  Speaker 1: the door and go, what are you doing here? You're
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  Speaker 1: not supposed to be here. So that's an artist thing,
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  Speaker 1: I think. I think most artists in general do that.
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  Speaker 3: Do you agree, well, yes, I mean, I think there's
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  Speaker 3: an interesting explanation for it. First of all, I think
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  Speaker 3: intention is such a really important thing. So when you're
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  Speaker 3: talking of what you just said was so beautiful, when
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  Speaker 3: you really talk about structure, you're talking about technique which
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: builds structure, right, and when you win an artist and
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: those greats, and I've worked with a number of those huge,
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: huge stars, which I'm just facilitating them to this space
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  Speaker 3: of inspiration because the more structure you have, the more
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  Speaker 3: you can trust yourself. It's like building a house. An
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  Speaker 3: actor builds a life, builds a life out of nothing.
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  Speaker 3: So you think of that as building house. You have
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: to put the structures together so you can live in it.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: So people always talking about living in the moment, well,
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: living in the moment most actors think of as improvisational,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: but it's not just improvisational. You have to build a house.
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  Speaker 3: You have to build the moment. So you are building
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  Speaker 3: moments and then because of the structure of those moments,
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  Speaker 3: you trust them and you can fly from one moment
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  Speaker 3: to the next, which is the book. I like it too.
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: Rock Coping. I don't know if you ever spent a
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: time in the country, but you know those big wonderful
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: streams with big rocks in them, and they have a
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: lot in the in the woods and had to move
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: the valley. And my favorite thing to do is leap
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: from one rock to another. So I spent years honing
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: this concept from my students, which I still think is
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: a little mad, but about how those rocks are like
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: the structure, and you can only have the three A
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: elite because you've built the rock, You've created the rocks,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: and what are those rocks come out? And then we
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: go into technique and such. So it is the intention
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  Speaker 3: to have that connection to the muse, to something beyond yourself.
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  Speaker 3: So then we have ego out of spirit. Now we've
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: got to have ego. We can't be That's the whole
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: point is like I'm going to be separate from you.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: I'm going to have this ego. You're going to have
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: that ego we're energetic beings in bodies and have the
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: identify we identify with ego, but we're really something much, much,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: much bigger than ego, but we have no education as
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: to how to connect to that at all. So these
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: great artists of inspiration recognize that they are beyond ego.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: You have the actor who's all ego, it's all about
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: being you know, admired. And then you have the actor
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: who sometimes accidentally trips into this space where they've entered
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: a character and they've created this life before your very
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: eyes and really entered, really gone in there, and they
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: are living in those moments from the structure, they felt
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: they're living in those moments, and they realized they're bigger,
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: They're bigger than their personality. So then when somebody comes
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: along and says, oh, you, Alex, you're so great, they
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: feel like an impostor because I'm not.
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  Speaker 1: That's a great explanation, It's no, it's really it's really
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: interesting because that's a fantastic explanation of imposter syndrome. Because
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: you're absolutely right. And if you've noticed, you know, with
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: some actors over the course of their careers, you know,
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: the greats like a Meryl Streep can just walk in
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: and walk out and tap into that at will. Steven
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Spielberg as a director can tap into it. The great
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: directors are great writers, a great artist. They just tap
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: in effort almost effortlessly, at least it seems effortlessly from
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: our point of view. And then there's I love the
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  Speaker 1: way you say they trip into. So sometimes you see
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: actors who trip into a performance and they just connect
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  Speaker 1: with that character, but they're never able to get back
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to that place in their career where they might even
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: go away and win an oscar or get a lot
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: of accolades. But it's whatever stops them from getting back there,
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  Speaker 1: whether its ego, whether it's outside sources, but it's really
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: and it happens in all all aspects of the business
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  Speaker 1: from directors. Some directors make the most amazing film ever,
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  Speaker 1: you know, one of the most amazing, then they can't
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  Speaker 1: get back there, you know. And writers, writers as well,
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  Speaker 1: novelists and writers.
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  Speaker 3: Well, you know a lot of that's a lot of
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: what the book is about. It it's about its intention.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: You have to intend it, so you have to kind
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: of recognize this is what Spielberg and you know, Meryl
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  Speaker 3: Streep and all these greats that you mentioned, and like
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  Speaker 3: going to the painters and Michelangelo, you know they've recognized
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: some sort of technique for themselves, and what works for you,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: doesn't work for me, doesn't work for him, doesn't You
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: have to give artists a lot of different colors of
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: techniques and realize that each one is going to respond
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: differently and make their own toolkit. But once you have
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: that technique, you have to intend. I want, I intend
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: to go beyond myself. And if once you've had that experience,
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: two things happen. You either intend to have that experience
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: again and chase what it was, what combination did I
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: put together that helped me do that? Or you get
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: lost in your own dramas. So now I'm going to
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: go to a really kind of woohoo word, which is vibration.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: So you know, when you're around enthusiastic people, you're like, okay.
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: You know, we'll be right back after a word from
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: We respond to We are energetic beings and bodies, and
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: we respond to vibration no matter how woo you want
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: to get about it. That's the deal. And so we
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: want to be around the reason that audiences love actors
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: is because they're looking, you know, and they go that
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: guy's creating life. When they do it right and you're
• 20:30
  Speaker 3: in the theater, the audience releases from their own life
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: and enters this parallel universus, parallel story. And then when
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: they come back to their seats and they walk out
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: of the theater, they go, Jesus, the fact that I
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: can create that much life out of thin air, maybe
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: I could do a little better with my own. They
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: are inspired to take control of their own life in
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: some way they recognize.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Isn't it fascinating Because I've I've had the pleasure of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: being in the room with some of the biggest movie
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: stars in the world. And when you're in the room
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: with them, you understand why they're movie stars. There's just
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: something about their energy in the room. And I've I've
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: met you know, I won't name drop, but I have
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: met some and I walk in I just and just
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: being around them, you just go, oh, oh, I get it.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I truly, I truly get it. And it's and you know,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: when you want and talking about the wou wu aspect
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: of you know, energy and vibrations of people and stuff.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: All you have to do is and I know everybody
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: listening has gone through this. You've met somebody in your
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: life that after you got done talking to them, you
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: wanted to take a shower because you feel slimy dirty.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: It could be a salesman, it could be a customer,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: a sales rep. It could be it could be a teacher,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: it could be anybody you know, another part just you
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: just feel.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: So whether you believe even the woo energy or not,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I think everyone's had that experience at one point or
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: in life. Another you just met somebody who you just, oh,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: I just don't want to be around that person. And
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: then vice versa, you meet somebody like, oh my god,
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: there's just so much fun to be around. There's so
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: much energy around them, and there's something about that conversation.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: There's no question about it, whether again you want to
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: get into the woo woo aspect of it or not.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: But I think everybody listening I can't agree that they've
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: had that conversation. And if you ever do, anyone listening
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: ever does get to sit in a room and have
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: a meaningful conversation, And even through my show having conversations
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: over zoom, you can sense why they are who they are.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: Some of these directors, some of these filmmakers. I've had
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: the pleasure of talking to you just go wow, Okay,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: I get it. I get it, you know. And I've
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: had the pleasure from the five thousand dollars first time
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: filmmaker made this feature, to Oscar winners and everyone in between.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: You can sense where they're coming from. It's really interesting.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: One thing in your book I wanted to talk to
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: you about is the stories that we tell ourselves and
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: as artists. You know, being an artist, and it took
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: me a long time to admit I was an artist.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: By the way, that's another problem. A lot of times
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: like I'm not an artist. That's very pompous of you
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: to say you're an artist. No, you've got to admit
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: who you are. And once you admit that you are
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: an artist. I think artists specifically artists have a special
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: level of storytelling that they tell themselves because they are
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: especially people in the film industry and storytellers, because we're
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: so good at it. We're really good at beating ourselves
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: up with these negative stories about what we're capable of doing,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: where we're going, what's up and beating yourself up when
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: you don't get the part, or don't get the job,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: or don't get the financing. And it's these stories we
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: constantly tell ourselves. Can you dig in a little bit
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: about why we do it and what we can do
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: to kind of rewrite that story to help us move
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: forward on our path?
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: Oh, great question, great question. Well, the why we do
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: it is pretty pretty obvious. And when I say it,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: I don't know people will get it or won't get it.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: But we like sensation, you know, as people like strong sensations.
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: So you know you have drama queens. They call them
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: drama queens. Okay, people who stir negative emotion. It's like
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: an addiction. They're addicted to it. Why because of the sensations?
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: Why do people take drugs because of sensations? We like sensations.
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: So if you go you know, I'm just going to
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: keep doing it and you'll keep bringing me back. But
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: if you go to this aspect that we are actually
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: spiritual beings, of course we like sensations. That's why we're here.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: We're here to have experiences. Otherwise we're out. You know,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: we're all spirit We have no body, we have no
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: none of the tactile things. So we're here for experience,
• 24:55
  Speaker 3: and I think we're evolving and sending even perhaps and
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: so we're going from just any old sensations to hey,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: wait a minute, maybe I can control this a little better.
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: So some of the enthusiastic people you meet, they just
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: seem naturally enthusiastic. They were well loved as kids, or
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: they just most of the time they were well loved
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: as kids. And so they're settled in and they're confident,
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: and they're able to have just a more positive outlook
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: on life and have more fun, and we enjoy them,
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: and so it propels itself. But you can intend decide
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: that you want more of that. You can. Most of
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: the people who are listening to your show right now,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: my guess is they're of an age where they have
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: already let go of certain friends because they go, I
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: want to take a power after I'm with that person,
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: I can't do it anymore. Man. You know, they never
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: ask you about yourself. They are all complaint and the
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: thing most to be heard a lot it's energy suckers.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Energy suckers.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they are energy suckers. But we can we can
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: also like not judge them and just say okay, cool,
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: you want to go. But I'm not entering that now.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: I'm not doing that because it's going to happen naturally
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: in your life. I've discovered that most didn't get my age.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: Then the older people you start losing your mom, you
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: start losing your dad, you start recognizing the older people
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: get they will do this. They will pick up a
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: lot of dust and a lot of negativity because it
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: makes them feel alive. You know, my mother could get
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: apoplectic about butter. It was like, honey too, just makeing
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: an egg here, you know, can we just got She
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: was very dramatic and it was I would just so
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm I'm training myself. I'm training myself in meditation.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: I'm training myself in certain ways and the biggest one
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: is to observe people without and to just look at
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: what's going on. And then you kind of expand and
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: you go, Okay, well this person is doing this thing
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: and it has nothing to do with me, and I
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: actually be kind of have some compassionate understanding work because
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: I've done the same thing. We've all done everything we've
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: done all since. So did that answer? It does?
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: It does. It's It's fascinating because you know we all
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: look in our business, we run into very unique characters,
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: to say the least. Uh, And I've had some of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: the most toxic human beings I've ever met in my life.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: I've met in this business and some of the most
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: beautiful people have ever met in my life. I've I've
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: met in this business and everyone in between. And I've
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: gotten to a place in my uh my elder years,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: as I as I call it, I have a little gray.
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: I have a little gray. I'm not I'm not a
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: kid anymore. But but in my years walking the earth,
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I've realized that the more times when someone is blowing
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: up on you or something like that, nine out of
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: ten times has nothing to do with you. When you
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: have a business partner or a producer on a project
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: that is egocentric or wants control, or wants this or that,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: or wants tension or this has nothing to do with you.
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: You know, it's unfortunately because you're involved with them in
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: a project that is both of yours, so you have
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to maneuver that world. But it
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: nine out of ten times it's not about you. And
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I've gotten to the place where I feel almost empathetic
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: for people when they are acting that way. I'm like,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: what happened to them that they feel that they need
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to act that way? Because that doesn't just come up
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: like that. There's some if you start looking back, there's
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: some deep seated stuff when they're children or in this business.
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Like this business can chew people up and spit them
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: out all day every day. It could destroy lives it has.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, if you go down to Hollywood Boulevard, it's
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: literally shattered with souls of broken dreams down there. It is,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: so it's not I think it was David Chappelle. I
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: was watching David Schappelle the other day and he said
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: I think he was in the Actors Studio interview with Lipton,
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: and he's like, there are no weak people in this business.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: If they're sitting on this stage with you, they are
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: not weak people. It takes a special level of strength
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: to make it in this industry, at whatever level that is.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: And it doesn't have to be Oscar winning. It could
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: just be making a living. He goes, there are no
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: weak people in this business that sustained themselves. And I
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: thought that was such an interesting and profound comment because
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: you don't think of it that way. But it's absolutely true.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: You know it, and I know it. If you've made
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: it in this business in any way you can, if
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you're making a living in this industry, you're not weak.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well it goes back to story, which that
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: was the part of the question we didn't quite answer,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: is what's with the stories that we hold on too?
• 30:18
  Speaker 3: You know, the stories are there to you know, to
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: stimulate all this negative emotion, to have these experiences, but
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: the stories are also hurt trapped pieces of self. You know,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: where trained you hurt my feelings, particularly if you're from
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: New York. It's like I don't care, ask me for
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: I learned that very early. But you do care and
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: that and artists care more than anybody. They're highly highly sensitive.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: We'll get into that because it is my definition of
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: artists that they're they're more sensitive and so they can
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: pull this stuff out of the air. But in that
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: sensitivity they push a lot of things down. And then
• 31:05
  Speaker 3: people have experiences that are also horrific, and they push
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: those things. They overcome them, but there are pieces of
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: lost soul, lost parts of themselves. That they've shoved down underneath.
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: So people do therapy why to let some of that out?
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: And you know this shaman call it so so retrieval,
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: where you just create a space for a person to say, ow,
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: this hurt, this is what happened. Here are the tears,
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: I didn't cry, you.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Know what I mean?
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: And in so doing, when you just can listen to
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: a person, which is very rare in this day and age,
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: people haven't been taught how to listen. You just listen
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: to a paper person and intend to create this space
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: for that part of themselves to be released, so to speak.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: You know, you create a whole new space in them
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: to grow and understand that. You know, you're more than yourself.
• 32:08
  Speaker 3: When you're writing your book, Alex and it's that fluid,
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: it's you and you, it's you and your higher self,
• 32:13
  Speaker 3: that connection. Wow, you know, I have trouble. I don't
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: like to call this my book, you know, I call
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: it the book because it's a little weird just my book.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: You know, it's like I feel like, what is that
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: wonderful movie The Fish and the Seagull? Is mine mine?
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: Finding mine mine my book? It's not these are you
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: know you want to help. That's I saw branding thing.
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: You know, CB was asking what's your brand? What's your brand?
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: He went on two minutes. I loved it about I
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: was one of the two people listening. I was one
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: of the many people listening because that's what we all
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: wanted to do. Well, we all want to contribute in
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: our way, you know.
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: Well that's the that's I feel us the goal of
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: life is to find out what that that thing that
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: you were put here to do and then do it.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: And we're so afraid of walking that path, especially as artists.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: We're afraid of walking that path because you know, there's
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: been such a abuse of the artist over the course
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: of millennia that you know, the whole starving artist mythology,
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: and that you have to struggle to be a good
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: artist and you have to be broke and all of
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: these kind of these stories that have been told over
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: the years. And had I had an author on years
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: ago who said real artists don't starve, and it was
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: and he was to go back to like Michelangelo was
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: extremely wealthy and in da Vinci was extremely like these
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: were wealthy artists of their time. So it's kind of
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: like a myth about that you have to be a
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: starving artist and so on and so forth. But we
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: as artists do do truly have trouble walking that path.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Like I told you earlier today, earlier in this conversation,
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I took me a while to figure out that I
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: was an artist even though I was working in the business.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: I'm like, no, no, I'm just a director. I don't not
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: an artist, you know, because I didn't want to admit
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: that to myself because there was a lot of stories
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: associated with being an artist. So once you accept that
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: you are an artist and you want to express yourself.
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: And another big problem I see in the business, and
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: it's something I struggle with for a long time, is
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: that so many artists believe that if they do not
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: reach the highest pinnacle of their craft, they have failed.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: And that is such a horrible story to tell yourself.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Like I didn't direct my first feature until I was forty,
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: not because I didn't have the skill set or the
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: ability to do so, is because it had to be
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: reservoir docs. It had to be pulp fiction, it had
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: to be clerks, it had to be el Maria. I
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: had to be a movie that exploded, And you know,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: I have arrived kind of and I think every filmmaker
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: goes through that that you have to. If you haven't
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: won an Oscar, you really haven't made it. And it
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: took me years to realize that, Oh no, no, are
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: you making a living? What's the definition of success in
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: your And that's you have to define that for yourself.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: And those those moments in your career where you, let's say,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: win an Oscar or win an award, or work with
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: a certain actor or work with a certain level of
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: budget or so on and so forth, they're great, but
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: they're fleeting. You win the Oscar and then now what
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and now you got to your back. You're back to
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: it Monday morning, you know. So it's about that journey
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: and about really defining what success is for you as
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: an artist. And that could be and I use the
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: analogy that if you're living in Kansas making fifty thousand
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: dollars a year and that puts food on your table,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: pays your mortgage, and supports your family. As a filmmaker,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I hate to tell you you are a raving success,
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: raving because you're at the top, top Exchellon of filmmakers.
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, let's define artists because you know, that's the devery.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: So we're very exclusive about what is an artist. We're
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: so exclusive about what is an artist that you didn't
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: want to admit that you were an artist. You know.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: You know, well, I don't know that's an artist, but
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: not you said it beautifully. The stories we tell ourselves
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: about what is an artist. An artist is a guy
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: who winds the Academy Awards, I don't think so. So,
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: you know, in my teaching, I was always like, I
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: looked for definitions, and I love dictionaries, and I looked
• 36:27
  Speaker 3: in a lot of you know, I'm looking for this
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: quintessential definition of artists, and I couldn't come up with it.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: So I came up with my own, which is basically,
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: an artist, you have to discover an artist. It's the
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: expression of your own discovery. So the artist, if he
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: doesn't discover something, he's going to express something that somebody
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: else already discovered. So it has to have happened to you.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: There has to have been an aha moment. You know.
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: If you talk to painters, painters are fantastic because they
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: look at things to fly. They don't look at the tree,
• 37:01
  Speaker 3: They look at the space in between the branches. They
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: look at the space, they look at the negative space,
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: you know, So you have to have discovery before you
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: can express something, or it's going to be you know,
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: what is it called when it's a copy, there's a
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: wonderful word for it that it came from, not a
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: representational but you know it's going to be a clone
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: of and there's nothing wrong with that. And we kind
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: of have to imitate things for a while before we
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: get on our own feet. But you want to intend discovery.
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: So all technique, and my technique is usually in the
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: form of questions. You know, where am I? What do
• 37:40
  Speaker 3: I want? All those questions, but there's a way to
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: get in there a little deeper. You you're asking the
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: same question, and most people stop at the intellectual clever
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: answer because they think, oh, that'll look good. So they're
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: operating from their ego. Right'll look good, that'll sound good,
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: that'll sell you know, that'll be the So.
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: You're telling me that there's ego in the film industry,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: stop it.
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: Stop it, guys that we really admire. You're not going
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: to get rid of ego. We love our personalities, we
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: spend our whole lives on them. But there's something beyond it.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: So even like I saw the the interview you did
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: with Ed Burns, and you know, look at his love,
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: look at the size of his passion, and then look
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: at the size of you responding to his passion and
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: talking about his camera. Oh you worked on this kind
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: of camera. Oh you worked on that and this. You know,
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: the level of enthusiasm if you had, you know, one
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: of those Geiger calendars, it was just our charts. That
• 38:56
  Speaker 3: is beyond ego. You have elevated to joy. Joy and
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: creativity go hand in hand. So what is an artist? Okay?
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: An artist is someone who's discovered something and has the
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: desire to express it period now. And I think there's
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: art in everyone. This is not popular because we want
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: to have the artist's club. Here's the deal. We're not
• 39:22
  Speaker 3: a club. You're in a body. You're creating a life.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: You got here on the planet. However you got here.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: You got here on the planet, and now you're running
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: a life. And that life is either happening to you,
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: you know, you're just going with the flow of what's
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: coming in, or you are beginning to get the reins
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: of your own life and say, you know, i'd like
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: it to go like this. If you look at that
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: interview with Ed Burns, Yeah, I'd like it to go
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: like this. That's out ahead of yourself, that is creating
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: it yourself.
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: That is the story of You know, the big Lugu
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: word is manifestation. But that's a real deal, and you
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: manifest the best in the highest vibrations joy, enthusiasm, joy
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: and creative people can't. The guy who's not running his
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: life is the guy who's taking hits, you know, right
• 40:27
  Speaker 3: left and center. Life is happening to me. It sucks,
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: It's terrible. I hate it, against it, but I'm so emotional.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: I hate you all. That's life happening to you.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: It's it's fascinating that I agree with everything you've said.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: But one thing I would add to the artist aspect
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: is that that definition of being an artist is the
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: courage to walk the path, and that is something that
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: we as artists don't have. You might identify as an artist,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: but to walk the path of the artist is difficult
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: to choose. And it took me a long time. Everything
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: else around myself I was in the I was editing,
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I was doing other things but not walking the path
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to walk, which was being a director,
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: being a filmmaker. But I surrounded myself and was working
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: in the in the orbit of others following their path,
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: and I was helping them bring their art to life.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: And I thought that that was enough for many years
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: for me, until I realized I was so unhappy doing that.
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: It was very different. So it's finding the courage to
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: walk the path. And I'll go back to what you
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: said earlier that being an artist. I think every soul
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: on the planet is an artist because they are creating
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: their own lives. Now. I know that's might be woo
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people are like, oh, what happens
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: with life? Happens to you and all that kind of stuff.
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: I get all of that. Look, we've all gone through stuff.
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: But I do truly believe that we create what we
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: want in our life, you know. And it's all about
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: it's just like Henry Ford says, if you believe you
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: can or you can't, you're right, and it's you know
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: it regardless. And we're not talking about the secret here
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: or anything like that, but whatever you believe, you achieve,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: and it's if you're out of ego. If you're out
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: of ego, and that is something that it's so interesting
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: because again having the pleasure of talking to all these people,
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: I asked these questions of them, and and I love
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: listening to people's stories about how they made it in
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: the business and how and it's so random. It's so random.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Now one story is like another. I had, uh and
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I'll drop her name, Evil Longoria on the show a
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: few a few a few months ago, and her story
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: was the most ridiculous story to get into the business
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: I have ever heard in my life. She again, I walked,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: got into a beauty contest, which she didn't want to do,
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: but the first prize was books for school, so she
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: just got in and she won it. She got the books,
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: but because she wanted, she had to go to like
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: the state competition. And by the way, all her life
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: she was called La feyita, which means the ugly one.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: Her mother. That was her nickname, the ugly one. So
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: she was considering in her own story, in her own
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: mind that she was the ugly one in the family
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: and the parents like, oh, do the beauty. Obviously that
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: was a fluke, don't do so she goes to the
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: state when's this When's the state finals? And then the
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: win the winning prize for that tripped La. So she
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: gets to LA and she goes, Hey, I like it here.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: I'm going to stay. Knows nobody. I'm gonna stay. I'm
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: gonna try to be an actor. I think that'd be
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: kind of fun. Literally, that's the And then she got
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: an apartment, got some roommates, hustled it out for a
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: handful of years, and then one day, at the end
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: of like a ten or fifteen audition day, she goes
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in for Desperate Housewives. She's so pissed off, she's sew everything.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: She's like, oh whatever, I'm not going to get this
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: part anyway. And because of that attitude, she gets the
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: part and her life changes. There's no logic to that,
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: but she did have intention and she didn't and very.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: High vibration, very high. You know when you say you
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: meet these movie stars and there's something going. I mean
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: it is true. You meet different people that it's like
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: this one's been around longer, this one maybe is brand new.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: I don't know how many lifetimes here, I don't have any.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: People are different. People are different, and those people have
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: a there like you are you feel it?
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: You feel?
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: Are you struck by it? I mean, you know it's science.
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: We have a vibration that extends about eight feet. There's
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: eight I don't know, four feet eight feet beyond our bodies, right,
• 44:45
  Speaker 3: and those people even more so, you know, even in
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: a room and you go like boom, what's happening there?
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: And it's also different. That's tricky for them, having worked
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: very intimately with movie the stars who have not trained,
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: because generally they come on the scene at a very
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: young age, they don't train. Now everybody's powdering their nose
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: and blowing air up their ass, and they get a
• 45:14
  Speaker 3: little lost. And one of the reasons I was successful
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: is because I really because of all those people at
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: the dining room table, I really don't care who you are.
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: I think in my home, I only swooned over one
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: guy ever, which was Carry Grant. I mean, come on, you.
• 45:29
  Speaker 4: Know Grant Carry Grant really Oh well, But but these
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: other guys, you know, they're lost and they're getting powder puffs.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: They have this big energy, but they get sucked up
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: into their own ego because everybody's treating them in the
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: in the you know, in it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: And you see and you see it again and again.
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: You see these stories of artists in every level, director, writer,
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: they just kind of fizz they burn out. A lot
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: of times, they'll just they're like a star, they'll burn out.
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, a great example of it. It
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: was Lindsay Lohan, who was such an amazing actress, such
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: an amazing actress, and to see what happened to her
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: over the course of her career was tragic to watch.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: But I mean you see some of her early work
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: and you're just like, she's a powerhouse, Like, oh she
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: could have she could have. Oh my god, the things
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: that she could have done. Tom Sizemore another one who
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: worked with every Spielberg'sporsese camera, like every big director in
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: the world, and he was an amazing actor. Burned out.
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: What happened though, what was the burnout? The burnout was
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: like lost in ego.
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, but that's what we that's what that's the
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: main problem that we have as artists, and I think
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: it's human beings, is we have to get get a
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: hold of our egos. We all have it, you know,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: and and it's very I always say that we have
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: an a fighter on our shoulder and he's quiet. They're
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: waiting for the moment of weakness, and that's when they
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: just pounds you because you're just like, you're like, I
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: got you in the control. I got you in the control.
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: I got you in the control. And some someone goes, hey,
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: you look really good today. I think you could be
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: the next this or that, and you're like hot, what boom?
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: There it comes.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: It just comes and knocks you like, oh, there it is,
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: I got you now, it just waits there, it waits.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: I tell my students that, you know, they talk about
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: their talent, which you know, always kind of flip my
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: stomach a little bit. Well, you know, my talent is
• 47:33
  Speaker 3: and my talent Now, I'm going to tell you something
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: very unpopular here. I don't believe you are your talent.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: I don't believe the actor's talent is the actors talent.
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: I believe that artists are the most sensitive people on
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: the planet, and that level of sensitivity allows them to
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: connect with our higher selves, allows them to connect with us,
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: allows them to connect inspiration, allows them to connect to
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: the ethos and things floating around that need to be
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: expressed on the planet right now. Without acknowledging that when
• 48:09
  Speaker 3: you do have a kind of inspiration taking young LINDSAYO him,
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: and you don't acknowledge that, and you take it all
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: to yourself and say me, it's me, it's me. Not good.
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: It's like you're not acknowledging a very high conversation, and
• 48:26
  Speaker 3: a part of you knows that, and a part of
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: you will begin to destroy yourself because you are of
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: the most important time that you were given, which is
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: that connection. That connection.
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: It's so funny. I have a great story. I don't
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: know who told me this story, but it was at
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: Michael Jackson's story, and that Michael, I think it was
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: either Michael or No, it's a print story. Excuse me,
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: it's a Prince story. And Prince called up his you know,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: he obviously famously has recorded six thousand songs that I
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: never got least. We will have a new Prince album
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: every year until the year three thousand. That's how many
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: songs are in his vault.
• 49:08
  Speaker 4: He was.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: The level of genius is beyond what he was able.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: And I had the pleasure of working with some people
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: who were very close to him, and I heard all
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: these amazing stories. But one story I always stuck out
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: of my head was he would just call you at
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning as a singer, a backup singer,
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: Go hey, meet me at the at the studio. I
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: have a song to record, and like, but Prince can
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: just wait till six or eight in the morning. It's
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: three o'clock in the morning. He's like, no, we have
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: to do it now, because if I don't record it,
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: it's going to go to Michael Jackson.
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: Yes, I know the story. On several fronts they talk
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: about that.
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, if I don't, Spielberg does it too.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: Spielberg has said this publicly in interviews, is like, when
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: I get an idea for a movie, I understand that
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: if I don't act on it, it will go to
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: someone else. We'll be right back after a word from
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: our sponsor, and now back to the show within a
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: bond or two. And he's like, it's never failed that.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: When I've let go of an idea. Three months later,
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: I'm reading about that idea in the trades and I've
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: told nobody about it.
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's in the air, it's in ethos. My favorite
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: of those stories is about a poet, a woman poet,
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: and their name I can't remember her name because that's
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: my age, and she's she's lived in the Midwest, and
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: so she's out in the field, in her gardens, in
• 50:36
  Speaker 3: her fields, and she feels this poem coming on, like
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: a storm would roll in this and she knows it,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: and she knows that feeling, and so she takes off
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: towards the house and she's trying forward the house, running,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: running to chase because she knows if she doesn't get
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: back to the house and she doesn't get a piece
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: of paper, and she doesn't get a peace of paper,
• 50:58
  Speaker 3: and so that poet is going to go right by
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: her and onto another poet. And so she gets home
• 51:05
  Speaker 3: and she gets her she grabs a paper, she grabs
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: a pencil, and she starts writing. And she said she
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: grabbed it by the tail and hauled it in God
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: out backwards, and then she had to reverse the poe. Wow,
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: the ethos, that's you know, And so let's talk about how,
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: because this is what I wanted to do in the book,
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: how do you optimize that? How do you make your
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: chance of being able to be in that space? And
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: so here's all the technique and the questions, and you
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: have to have that as an actor, because in teaching
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: someone to know that they know how to go about
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: it in so that that way, you know, they don't
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: do a great, big movie and it's fantastic, and then
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: they have to reinvent the wheel at the time. So
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: you have to give them some you know, some structure
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: so they know that they know. But how do you
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: get to that place where you can intend and experience
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: that opening, more that inspiration, more that flow. So you know,
• 52:12
  Speaker 3: as writer, and I know it's right, we'll probably do
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: certain things every time we go to wright and those
• 52:16
  Speaker 3: things kind of set up a certain thing and then
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: we hope that slow comes in and we start right. Well,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: I guarantee you when you look at those things that
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: you are doing, you are in the present moment. You
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: are not thinking or you are intending to get away
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: from those thoughts about all of that stuff, so you
• 52:36
  Speaker 3: can be here now in the moment. So in the book,
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: I talk about the stuff that's been around forever. Meditation
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: is not wuhu. It's just a really simple way to
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: just settle in. We have so much noise going on
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: between you know, I mean, come on with the television
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: and the media. Yeah, and the screens and the phones
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: and every there's so much noise and everyone wants our attention,
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: and we don't even know what the truth is anymore.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: So my whole book was about there's only one truth,
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: and that truth is your truth. That's a connection to yourself.
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: You have the perfect biometer for knowing what's true if
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: you can only connect to I call it your heart.
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: You can call it abuse, you can call it your soul,
• 53:28
  Speaker 3: you can call it just that space, being in the
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: present moment. It's all the same thing. You can get
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: there from many different kinds of meditation, from meditating to
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: sports to you know, people talk about all kinds of
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: different meditations for themselves. You can get there. I teach
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: actors this is the greatest exercise in the world and
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: it's great for the planet. Just to observe life without judgment,
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: use your intention to just observe what's in front of
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: you without judging, and then when you judge it, just
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: like meditations, Oh look I'm judging it. So then you
• 54:05
  Speaker 3: become aware that you're judging, and that flexes the muscle.
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: It's like going to the gym. You know, nature, you know,
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: you can't stand front the ocean and think too much,
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: you know, because that thing is going to come in
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: and go hello.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: You know, you know that wave is fat. I could
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: tell that wave is fat. Yeah, that wave, that wave
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: is ugly. It didn't crust the right way. You never
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: do that. You never go looking at a tree and go, wow,
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: that tree was ugly, man, the ugly tree. Like I
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: have actually done that once or twice. But the tree
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: was pretty gnardly looking. It came out of a Tim
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: Burton movie. But but but but generally speaking, when you're
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: in nature, you don't judge a bird or you know,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: you generally don't judge that. You just it is what
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: it is. And you know, in my in my work,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: I've realized that things don't have a negative or a
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: positive charge. We are the ones who apply the negative
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: charge or positive charge to it. And I love using
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: the example of a fender bender. When you get into
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: a fender bender, the person who you're driving, everyone's safe,
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: but you get an a fender bender, You're like, oh
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: my god, this is going to cost me like a
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars to get this prepaired. So for you, this
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: has been an absolutely negative experience. You take it to
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: the mechanic and the mechanic and the body shop and
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: they're like, ah, this is fantastic, I got more work.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: So the exact same event is to different perspectives. So
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: when you're looking at life and looking at certain things
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: that happened to you, especially on your artistic journey, it
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: is what it is. You can't it's not personal. It's
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: not just like you know, oh I didn't get to
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: find the financing fell through. It is. It is what
• 55:51
  Speaker 1: it is. You being depressed about it or angry about it,
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: it doesn't help you, doesn't help the situation. If there's
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: something you can learn from it, learn from it, grab
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: those new those new lessons and move on and to
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: keep going. But sticking in hold and this is something
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: we do. I mean I like said I did as
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: an artist, you hold on to like I didn't get
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: into that film festival, I didn't get that agent, I
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: didn't get that actor attached to the project. And it
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: just throws you for a loop and you start telling
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: yourselves these stories. Is that you they don't want to
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: work with me, I'm a fraud.
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: And it's all in your head. Go trust there is
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: the possibility when you get into the fender Bender and
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: the guy's like happy because he has more work, and
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: Europisto off because you spent you know, a thousand dollars. However,
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: there's also the added element of by the way, you
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: were about to cross ninety sixth Street and there was
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: a huge accident right in the middle of ninety sixth
• 56:52
  Speaker 3: Street that you would have been directly hit, or oh,
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: you didn't get that movie. But then if you've gotten
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: that movie, you wouldn't have met to your wife, or
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: you know, there is this beautiful thing of trusting because
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: this is part of creating your own life. I am
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: in exactly the right place to learn the next thing
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: that I have to learn to get to this goal
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: that I'm trying to get to, and that element is trust.
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: It's so funny because I've written about this before. Where
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: I was. I got into the top twenty five of
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: a show called Project green Light.
• 57:34
  Speaker 3: Project One green Light, the old Great Greenlight.
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: Yes, Project green I was in second season. I'm in
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: the first thirty seconds of the show and they just
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: used a clip of me. But I made it to
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: the top twenty five that year. I almost made it
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: in I had like I went to as far as
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: you could get it til they chose the top ten
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: or whatever it was, and I didn't make it, and
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: I was devastated, absolutely devastated, because you're like, oh my god,
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: this was such a great opportunity. I missed my shot
• 58:03
  Speaker 1: to be on this amazing show. And every filmmaker that
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: made it out of that show didn't do anything and
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: it pretty much torpedoed their careers. Then I did another
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: one called On the Lot, which was Steven Spielberg's show,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: which was about directors. It was on NBC for US season.
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: I got flown out.
• 58:23
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: I was right at the tip end again, didn't get
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: in devastated me. Who the guys who made it through
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: that show destroyed their careers never got to do anything
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: else again. So I was so just grateful that I
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: didn't get on those shows. But that's only in hindsight
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: that because at the moment you feel like it's the
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: worst thing that could ever have happened to you. But
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: most of the time, and this is just me talking
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: about my own experience, most of the times, when bad
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: things happen in life to you, generally speaking, and this
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: is again my person some experience, when you go looking back,
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: you can see the dots are how you connected the dots?
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: What happened because of this? What happened because of that?
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you one other story. When I was coming up.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: When I was coming up, I spent about fifty thousand
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: dollars for my director's reel, shot out on thirty five
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: millimeters because it was no digital yet. That's how old
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: I am. So I shot the whole thing, my whole
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: commercial demo reel and the the DPS that I hired.
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: And I used the word dps because there was two
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: of them on one show. How many times have you
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: seen that ever happen in the business. But I didn't
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: know any better, and they were horrible, and I shot
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: like a fifty thousand dollars commercial. It looked horrible, it was.
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: It was bad, and I wasn't I had no place
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: of money to get more money, so I was like,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: oh my god, I guess I'm going to have to
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: deal with this. Well, so happens that in the lab.
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our spon, sir,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: And now back to the show. The lab broke down
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: and burned all of that film. It just sat in
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: the It sat in the in the in the chemicals
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: and burned. It broke down just on my commercial, and
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: only like a few things, like like lack quarter of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: a reel survived. And I was like, this is the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: worst thing has ever happened to me. I've lost fifteen
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: thousand dollars. I went back reshot the whole thing with
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a real DP. It came out beautiful, got me work
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: as a director, and I moved forward. It was kind
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: of like the universe was saying, we don't want this
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: out there. We need to burn this because this is
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: not going to be good for you and your career.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: We need to get rid of this. It's going to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: be a little painful right now, but in the long run,
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: it's the best thing that could have happened to you.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: So these are the kind of stories. And again, as
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: you get older, you start looking back at your life
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: and you just start going, huh, that girl that dumped me,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: probably the best thing that happened to me. That girl
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: that I that girl that I didn't get to go
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: out with, probably the best thing that get you know,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: because then you hear other stories of like, oh yeah,
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: she turned into a cycle with one of your friends.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: You're like, oh God, thank god, I dodged that bullet.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: These kind of things. You start seeing these things and
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: you just start realizing, oh, there's something, there's something, and
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: I look, and this is me getting a little woo woo.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: I believe the universe is a good universe. I believe
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: the universe is here to kind of guide you in
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: the direction that you are supposed to go on, because
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: I've just seen it so many times. Like, if you
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: would have told me twenty years ago you're going to
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: be a podcaster talking to some of the greatest filmmakers
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: of all time, I'll be going, first of all, what's
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: a podcast? Secondly, out of your mind? You're out of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: your mind? And look where I am today, and then
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: all and it's so funny, and I've said this on
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: the show before. It's fascinating that for so many years,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: all I would have done was the kill that speak
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: to people like yourself, people that are on my show,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: to have that kind of connect to people that could
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: quote unquote help me make it in the business, let's say.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: And then without trying, now they're calling me. And the
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: funny thing is that I have a fairly decent rolodex,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: and yet I don't ever call anybody that's them for
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: help with my projects or anything, because it's just not
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: something I want to do. It's not kind of relationships
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: I'm building with them. If it's organic, it's different. But
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: it's not like when I was like the desperate filmmaker,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: I would have called up, hey, Ken, can you can
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: you connect it to your agent kids. It's so fascinating
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: to me that that's the reality that I'm in right now.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: And you know, and people listening to the show who've
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: been with me for seven years can see the transition
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: from my very first episodes to where I am today
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: and what we're doing. But anyway, we've gone off tangent
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit here, but not.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: Really because I love the way you say that's not
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 3: something I want to do, because it's somewhere in you
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: that's what you wanted. This is a really important thing.
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: Was the first indicator, you know, my dad asked me
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: when I was like really just an acting out, terrible teenager.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: My dad asked me this question. He said, you know, Jossy,
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: if you did have anything in the world, barring all obstacles,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: what would that be. And at the time, I said, well,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: I don't want to go to boarding school. I want
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: to live with you at the beach and you know,
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: go to public school. And you know we couldn't. I
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: couldn't do that at the time because he was an
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: actor and he was on location. He was terrified of me.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: You know. He was a single parent, and my mother
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: had sent me to live with him at thirteen and said,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: you take care of her. She fears me. So he said,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: you got to go to warding school. But then I
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: got kicked out of working school. So I got what
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: I wanted, not in the best way, but we get
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: what we want. So the trick is careful, careful. The
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: trick is to listen to what is that to be
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: able to ask yourself somewhere along the line to get
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: to this podcast, you had asked yourself and you had
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: answered the question, and you'd moved toward that podcast, and
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: you've discovered that, hey, this thing makes me really happy
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 3: more than oil and vinegar. Is the podcast I'm really
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: you know, and I can contribute here and this is
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: the real purpose. We get what we want. So the
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: trick is to like, ask that question, wait for an
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: answer that moves in you, not an intellectual one, but
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: one that's exciting to you and then you know, move
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: toward that with actions every day and trust you know,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: and that's what actors do. That's why I could take
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: all the lessons that I gave actors and plug them
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: into people and say, look, you can have a more
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: artistic life, you can have a more joyous life and
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: more control of your life using these same techniques that
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: actors use to create a life. You use those techniques
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: to create your life.
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: It's so fascinating because so many you know, talking to
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: so many different filmmakers of the years and analyzing my
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: own career, there's moments that you are creating a project,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: let's say, because you believe that that's what the market wants,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: or that's going to take you to the next level,
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: or you are trying to intellectualize the craft. Not one
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: successful filmmaker or writer in my experience on this show
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 1: has ever done anything substantial when they chase the market
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: or when they're trying to intellectualize their craft. When they
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: do something that is meaningful to them and is truly
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: coming from inside of them, it's something that needs to
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: come out of them. That is the key to success.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: But to have the courage to do it and That's
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 1: what these great artists do, is they have the courage
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: to go out there and fail. They have the courage
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: to go out there and make whatever they want to make,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: and that might be ahead of their time. Every single
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Stanley Kubrick film did not hit their audience when it
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: came out. It took a generally, it's about ten years later.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: Every one of his films. About ten years later is
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: when they really go back and go, holy crap, that's
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: the definitive film in that genre. And to have the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: bravery to do that again and again and again. And
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 1: you know, it's funny because if you study Spielberg's career
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: and I love I mean, who doesn't love Stephen, But
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: he had such a run in the seventies from Jaws
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: to Close Encounters, and then he's like, I can do.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: And then you could see where it went wrong for
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: a second nineteen forty one. If you remember nineteen forty one.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: I do. I liked nineteen forty.
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: One, I know, but I enjoyed it as well. But
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: it wasn't it wasn't something that it was obviously one
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: of the biggest failures of his career. And he does
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: not talk about, but he learned a lot from that.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 1: I mean, don't get don't feel too bad. He did
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Raiders right afterwards, so he's okay. But it was something
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: that went as stress, something went off and I think,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: and I think he said somewhere in an interview once,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: at that point he felt that he could do almost
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: no wrong because at that point, there's so many people
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: like you are the greatest. You are the best things
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 1: in slices spread at a point and you're like, hey,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: I can't do anything. I'm gonna I'm gonna do my
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: Doctor Strange Love, Doctor Strangelove. That's what that was. It
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: was his Doctor strangelovet He wanted to do Doctor Strangelove,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 1: did that movie?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: You know, it's always the questions, did you make the
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: movie you wanted to make? I mean, I've ask more
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: filmmakers and then sometimes they say yes and it was
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 3: a fit, you know, and it makes him go, yeah
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: it was, but I wanted to And sometimes they go, actually,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: not really, But I wanted to go back to courage
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: because there's a wonderful definition for courage, which is, you know,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 3: what is courage? How do you get courage? So you
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: think you kind of like to get courage off. You know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: it's like, Okay, I'm gonna get the courage. There's an
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: expression when I get the courage to do this thing,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: you don't get courag you. Actually, if you think of
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: a doorway, if you think of a threshold, you walk
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: through the threshold, and courage shakes your hand on halfway through.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: And those you've been you know you have to you
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: have to move toward it. So I'm you know, because
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: of thirty years of teaching, I don't believe like this
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: one has couraged this one doesn't have courage. You have
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: you Certainly I'm not successful with all of them. There's
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 3: certain ingredients that you can't teach. You can inspire courage,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: though you can inspire it, sometimes somebody's just waiting for
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: that one person to kind of make it go click
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 3: in their head and they'll move toward it. It's a
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: tricky one though, Courage, You're right.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: Courage. And then also just dealing with fear and dealing
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, I think fear in general, as as people
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: walking the planet, we all deal with fear and having
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: it stops us and stops us from moving forward. It
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: stops us in directions that we need to go to
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: and I'm talking about fears of a tiger, that's fine.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: Fear of a bear in the room, definitely good. I'm
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: talking about that. I'm talking I'm about that other fear
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: that stops you from going down the road to write
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: that script, to make that movie, to go to that audition,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: to whatever that you paint, that painting, whatever. That fear
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: is of ridicule, fear of not being accepted, fear of
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: your family not accepting you, or your peers not accepting you,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: all of that kind of fear. When you can break
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: through that, that's when that's when the breakthroughs happen. And
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: it to me a long time, Alex.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: But channel it. You know, great actors talk about you know,
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: they're great actors, and they talk about I thought I
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: was going to throw up. I mean, opening nights are.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: But what happens is is you kind of collect it
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: and channel it. So when you teach young people about
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: fear or sometimes, as you said, I've had seventy year
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 3: old people come and say, I want to be an actor,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: which is wonderful.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. We'll be right back after a word from
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: And created acting careers. For them. But when you tell them,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: these fears are absolutely natural. You know those fears. Now,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: what you want to do is accept them and channel
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: them into the work. They're just your talent looking for
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 3: an avenue because once you step out on stage, you're fine.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: Once the camera rolls, you've got someplace to go with it.
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I do that because the camera so the
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: There's this great story of Peter Fonda who would go
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: on on stage every night and right before every performance,
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: he would throw up in the corner every performance. And
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: he's Peter Fonda. Yes, So if Peter Fonda has issues
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: and is nervous before a performance, yeah, that's at the
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: natural part of life as a part of being the artist.
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: I remember having a panic attack on my first day
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: directing my first short film that I was arguably one
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: of the bigger things I've done at that moment in
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: my career, and it was and I literally had a
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: panic attack. I was like, it got into my own
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: head and I went to I'm like, I didn't do
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: it on set, Thank god. I said, hey, guys, I
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: gotta go to the bathroom. Went out for about ten
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: or fifteen minutes while they set up a shot and
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 1: had my own panic attack quietly in the bathroom and
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: started breathing, started meditating, and I didn't even know what
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: meditating was. I was like, I'm just going to do
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: whatever I've seen on a movie, closed my eyes and
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: started deep breathing, and then slowly calmped myself to the
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: point where I got back out on set because it
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 1: was just so overwhelming. As a director, a set can
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: be a very overwhelming place. For an actor, a set
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: can be a very overwhelming place, and having to deal
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: with that kind of pressure, it takes a special set
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: of skills, experience, and person to do that. That's what
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: I've seen directors make one and they're done because they're like,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: I can't go through that again, Or an actor who
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: goes through I can't, I can't do that again. It's
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: it's a special like. I love being on set. I
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: love it. I absolutely love being on set. I love
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: working with other people. I love all the insanity that
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: goes along with it and trying to figure out the
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: day and figure out the performance and creating. It's art
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: at the highest level, I feel, because there's a you're
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: combining with so many other great artists to come together
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: to make one piece of art. It is one of
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: my favorite places to be. But I can see where
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: people just don't have it. They just don't have that
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: thing that And like you said, it works itself out
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: if it's how bad do you want it? Is this
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: for you? And maybe you just have to test it
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: to see. Look, I had to open up an olive
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: oil and vinegar store and go down that path for
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: three years to figure out, you know what retail not
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: for me?
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: Waw I mean you do, and and all of it
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: adds up, It all adds up, But you are right.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: The filmmaking industry is very very special. You know. My
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: husband was a director and director a lot of episodic,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: hour long episodic and dramas, and then he taught at
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: USC and he was from USC and he taught at
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: USC and he's just the greatest thing about USC is
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: you have to do everything. Most of young filmmakers are
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: own but except they have brilliant equipment, but they're all
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: little gorilla filmmakers and you put them in pods of
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: three and five, and you have to do the sound,
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: and you have to be the cameraman. You may not
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: think you want to do that thing at all. And
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: then suddenly you realize. I mean, one of his best
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: friends from film school ended up being an Academy Award
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 3: winning sound man. He thought, they all think they want
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: to be directors, but then, however, everybody wants to be
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 3: a director. Everybody wants to be an actor. But he
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: brought that wonderful syllabus that he brought to our acting studio,
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: and we had actors, you know, making these films to
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: discover what it's like, and we made directors. You know,
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: out of the thirty actors who took that film course,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: maybe five of them are now professionally directing. So you
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: have to be exposed to this, you know everything, because
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: you know, who knows. You might want to be a costumer,
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: you might want to be the cinematographer. If you've never
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 3: picked up a camera, how are you going to know?
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 3: And we won't go into you know, education, because I
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: really you know that it's true with all education. What
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: if we've just talked to little kids and said, what
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 3: is it that you think you want to do? Well,
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: let's try that out. You know, the big question, if
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: you could have anything wanted, barring all obstacles, what would
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: that be?
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 4: What do you think that.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, I wanted to be an astronaut, but that's
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: five and wanted to be an astronaut. Probably wouldn't have
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: worked out really well for me, but you know, that
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: kind of made its way. It worked.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 3: Why are you.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not particularly good in math. I don't have that
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: kind of mind. I'd be a very creative astronaut, but
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have been an astronaut to say the least.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: But yeah, you're right. You have to be exposed to
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: some things and just think. Also, and this is a
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 1: very difficult thing for some people to hear. Let's say
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: you've had a dream of doing something and you've had
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: it since you were a child, and you go down
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: the path and it doesn't work out exactly the way
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: you want, because nothing ever works out exactly the way
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: you want it, because that's just life, and you really
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: and then to come to grips with like, you know,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: maybe maybe this is not what I want. Maybe it's
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: I want to be a sound guy or a gal
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: and maybe I want to do that. Maybe what I
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: really want is to write. Maybe that's where I find
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: But for the last ten years of my career, all
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: I wanted to do is direct but that's not working
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: out the way I want it to work out. Maybe
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: I really enjoy the writing process. Maybe I should he
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 1: that's a difficult crossroads for artist to be.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, but if you accept the fact that you're better
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: at what you do because of what you did. Oh
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: so you mean you wanted that thing, and you did
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: all that eggs of stuff and you learned all that stuff,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: but then you came to this thing. And if you
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: just come to this thing, it wouldn't be Jocelyn.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't have a show today unless I would have
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: gone to the twenty five years plus of shrapnel that
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: I've gone through in this business. And you know, I
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: direct when I want to direct, and make my movies
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: when I want to make my movies. But I'm so
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 1: happy doing what i'm doing. Everyone's like when you're going
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: to make another movie, and like, when I'm ready, when
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: I'm good, when I'm ready to do it, and I'll
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: do it. And you know, I like writing books now,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: I like doing this. I like building companies. These are
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: things that make me happy and I'm helping people. So
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 1: I was like, it's okay. I have never given up
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: on my directing. I think it's always going to be
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: something I want to do because I love. It's addiction.
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 1: It's the beautiful illness as I call it, because you
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: can't get rid of it, and it's an illness.
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: But then you go back to what is the definition
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: of success. It can't just be the Academy Award. It's
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: too small. And more so, it's in that exclusivity, that
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: ego that says you're not if you haven't. She's better
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: than he is because she had a series for seven
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: years and he's just starting out. It just can't be
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: that way. That's not success. Except but the girl who
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: has the series for seven years isn't nearly as happy
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: as this guy who just booked his first, you know,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: five lines on a show, and he's like, I set
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 3: out to do it, and I did it, and I'm
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 3: seventy years old and I'm acting for the first time
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 3: in my life. You know, it's really about how you
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: doing day to day, well up in the morning, deal
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: are you making as many of her own choices. I'm
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 3: living where I want to live, I'm seeing who I
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: want to see, I'm married to who I want am
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 3: married to, and my kids are doing great. You know,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: these are the components of successful life and all of
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: those are under our control.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, without question. Now, can you tell me where
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: people can find your amazing book, The Artists Awaken the
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: Spirit Within.
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: You can find it on Amazon or any place that
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: books are sold. Also have a website Johnson Jones Studio
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: dot com. And we're coming out with a fifteen part
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: documentary series on a masterclass that we shot with three
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 3: cameras that is amazing, that has actors who've studied with
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: me for twenty twenty five years and brand new people
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: because that's what I like to do, and they are extraordinary.
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: I've never seen anything like this when we went in
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 3: with three cameras and shot in acting class and you know,
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: we did that in eight weeks and it's really quite beautiful,
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 3: if I do say so myself. I don't know what
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: we were doing. I just thought, well, why don't we
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 3: And you know, just like all filmmaking, I thought, you know,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 3: you're director, Miles, my husband, and we did this film class.
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 3: Let's put some cameras in these people's hands and wear
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: it out and figure it out. And now we've been
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: editing it for three years and discovered, oh, this is
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 3: really a celebration of actors and actings.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: That's amazing. I'm going to ask you. I'm going to
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 1: ask you a few questions to ask on my guests.
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: What advice would you give a I would normally ask
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: a filmmaker, screenwriter, but artists trying to break into the business, an.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: Artist trying to beg in the business. I would really
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: find a way to get in conversation with yourself. I
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: would find your own autonomy. I would take counsel from
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: one person and one person only, particularly as an artist,
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: and that is yourself. And so meditation can help doing that.
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: We'll be right back for a word from our sponsor,
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: and now back to the show.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: Just taking in nature because nature will stop your thinking
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 3: a little bit because she's just you know, you go, oh,
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: look at this, and create that space to ask yourself
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 3: these questions with what I want and believe that you
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: can have them. They have to come from you. Nobody
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: can tell you what is.
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: The lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: in the film industry or in life.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 3: I judgment. Judgment I came from a very very that's
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 3: a great question that maybe emotional. I came from a
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: very judgmental family, and I are very proud of and
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: artists are very judgmental. Proud of the fact that I
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 3: practiced that every day in every conversation, just creating space
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: for that other person to be, to listen to them
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: and let them be who they are.
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: And three of your favorite films of all time?
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting because you set you mentioned Spielberg, and
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: my favorite Spielberg film is Empire the Son, so beautiful.
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: That film just knocks me out. And then you know,
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: for some reason, and there's so many, but for some reason,
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: I'd have to say To Kill a Mockingbird because that,
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: as a child is one of the first films I
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 3: just entered into a world and didn't come out of forever.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: And third one, God, it's gone completely oh truthful. Oh
• 1:21:41
  Speaker 3: you know what it is? Remember the film I think
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: it's le lush where the couple doesn't meet each other.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 3: He has a life and she has a life, and
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: see them in the restaurant and they pass each other.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: I think it's happy. Is it happened?
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: New Year?
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 3: And anyway, at the end of the film they get
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: on an airplane. You go, oh my god, they're finally
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: going to meet It you see their luggage go up
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 3: that you know this film I'm talking about.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: I'm familiar with it. Yes I forgot the name of it,
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: but yes, Beauty, Beauty.
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: I would say that's my third all time.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: Jocelyn, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the show and
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: writing this book, And hopefully this episode has helped some filmmakers,
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 1: some screenwriters, some artists out there look inside themselves to
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: figure out what they need to do to truly be
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: an artist, to truly make a living in this business,
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: and connecting to their true purpose of what they're trying
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 1: to do here on earth. So I truly appreciate you,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: my dear, Thank you so much.
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Alex. It's been a tremendous honor to be
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 3: on here. I love your show and I thought, wow,
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: he's interested in this book. I love that. So always
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 3: the pleasure to listen to you, and even more of
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: a pleasure to talk.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: I want to thank Jocelyn so much for coming on
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: the show and dropping her knowledge bombs on the Tribe today.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jocelyn. If you want to pick
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: up her new book, Artist, all you need to do
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: is head over to the show notes at Indie film
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: muscle dot com Forward slash seven sixty six, and if
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 1: you have it already, please head over to Filmmaking podcast
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: dot com, subscribe and leave a good review for the show.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: It really helps us out a lot, guys. Thank you
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: again so much for listening to guys. As always, keep
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 1: that hustle going, keep that dream alive, Stay safe out there,
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: Indie Film Hustle dot com. That's I N D I
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 2: E F I L M h U S T l
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: E dot com.