Latest / In Search Of Excellence / Sasha Pieterse: The Real Costs of Acting | E131

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Sasha Pieterse: The Real Costs of Acting | E131 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Randall Kaplan: Most people don't understand the Hollywood Game, so you're really taking home around 30% of what you make. Got taxes, agent, manager, lawyer, the
• 0:09
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: money isn't as much as you would think that it would be for the majority of actors, unless you're at the tippy tippy top.
• 0:14
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It's an interesting topic, and it feels like such a champagne problem. In one breath, you feel so disgustingly privileged talking about complaining about something like that, when you are earning a decent amount of money that it's because you want to do better this view of how actors are millionaires, generally speaking, that's actually not the case.
• 0:39
  Randall Kaplan: You're listening to part two of my awesome podcast with Sasha petersa, she's an amazing, award winning actress, singer songwriter, entrepreneur, one of my favorite guests of all time. We talked about how she started her career at three and a half, got an agent at four and a half, her eight years on the hit TV show, Pretty Little Liars, one of the most successful TV Shows of All Time. Talked about what it's like to be a child actor and growing up on set and being homeschooled and graduating high school when she was 14 years old and being recognized for the first time, we talked about what it's like to be on set and actors and insecurity and being naked on set, and what it's like as a woman to be naked with a man on set while you're married.
• 1:17
  Randall Kaplan: Then we moved into her career, her future career as an entrepreneur with an amazing company called hippie water, a cannabis infused beverage, drink, which she hopes to have a unicorn exit. If you haven't listened to part one yet, be sure to tune in that one first.
• 1:32
  Randall Kaplan: Now, without further ado, here's part two of my awesome interview with Sasha. Can you be successful without being passionate about what you're doing.
• 1:44
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I mean, my first instinct is Yes, actually. And I just, I'm just gonna say yes, because there are certain jobs that, yeah, you can be successful in it, even if your heart's not in it. You know, traditionally speaking, but an office job that you might climb the ladder. You might be smart enough to do it, but your heart's not in it. You know, I think that there are things that you can always succeed in, but what's more important is your happiness, because you could do that job, you could make a lot of money, but you could just be so unhappy. And I think if you're doing anything for the wrong reasons, it's not going to be rewarding, even if that means a pay cut. I think passion is always something that should come first, because naturally, even if it's much harder than everything that you've done before. It's rewarding. And I think as people, that is actually what fuels our happiness and your passion could be, you know, a family. It doesn't it doesn't matter what your passion is. I think it's just more about making sure that you're creative. You know, it's like, I want to become a certain thing, and I'm really passionate about it, and I might have to do creative things to get there, whether that means multiple jobs, whether that means taking a chance and moving somewhere, whether that means, you know, putting yourself out there on social media or cold calling, or, you know, doing things that make you uncomfortable to try and get ahead. I think generally speaking, passion comes with hurdles.
• 3:34
  Randall Kaplan: One of the things that's contributed Sure, passion means different things to different people. Yeah, for sure, I believe that passion is also not required to be hugely successful, but it certainly helps a great deal. Yeah, you wake up, you ought to be excited about what you're doing every day. And I'm very fortunate today. I have that luxury where in my career, when I started out, I started out as a lawyer.
• 4:00
  Randall Kaplan: I hated being a lawyer, hated law school, but as a means to them. Let's talk about something that's contributed to my success, something I call extreme preparation, which means when someone may prepare two hours for something or three, I may prepare 1020, in some cases, for a corporate pitch or an investor pitch. One case is 70 hours, and we didn't get it, by the way. How has extreme preparation led to your success?
• 4:23
  Randall Kaplan: And can you give some examples?
• 4:23
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah,
• 4:26
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I mean, I think that's a great question, and it's so true. I think there's a couple of things to remember with that. It's also the type of energy that you're putting in. So you might give 70 hours to something, but you might be in a toxic headspace, and really your productivity of that preparation could really be that three hours that somebody put in, that three hours, I think we naturally overthink, or at least I do I naturally overthink things if I spend too much time on it, or I don't.
• 4:58
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Take breaks. I think that, you know, preparation is so important, and I think it's the foundation for luck. So I always say, try your best, prepare as best as you can, know as much as you can about a subject. But you know, also, don't like waste your mental health on it, like, if you're if you're prepping to a point where it's just driving you crazy and you're not thinking straight and you're sacrificing, you know your self care doesn't matter. If you prepped for seven hours, it might not be the right thing.
• 5:35
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: You might get into a position where you're like, well, either I forgot about that, or I forgot about the intention, or, or it's, it's turned into something that wasn't true, not to say that if you need 70 hours, you shouldn't do it. It's just more about, I think, always figuring out the quality of your preparation. So if I'm prepping to interview somebody for my podcast, I do want to spend a lot of time digging into them and seeing, you know, maybe finding questions that nobody's asked them before, or things that I find interesting about them, and that could take a couple hours, that could take, you know, a couple days, but I think making sure that you you just figure out what is good for you. And it feels like a cop out saying that. But I think there's a difference between giving quality energy and half assed energy. And so if you, if you know you need a certain amount of things done to achieve something, you need to do those as best as you can, no matter how long it takes. But to say that somebody's little bit of prep is not as good as your 70 hours of prep is not always the case, and ultimately both people, both circumstances, might fail. So I think it's generally about monitoring what is needed, taking taking time to make sure that you're mentally Okay, to keep on on, you know, plugging away at something to get the best result. So I think for different people, different people work differently. Their minds are different. Your circumstances are different. The time that you can put to things is different, and as long as the energy is there with the right intention, I think you'll be better off regardless if that thing fails or not. One
• 7:31
  Randall Kaplan: of the things that all of us have to get over to be successful is getting over challenges. You had a major health challenge. Can you tell us about PCOS and how that's affected your life and how you're doing with it today.
• 7:43
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah.
• 7:44
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So when I, like briefly referenced the growing up on screen, sometimes being a negative this is kind of what I mean. So I have something called polycystic ovary syndrome, which is a silly name, actually, because not everybody with PCOS has cysts on their ovaries, so I feel like they need to kind of update that, but it's, I think it's 99.9% in females. I think it's a very, very low population. Hence the cyst on your ovaries that can happen to men. But for the most part, this is a female disease, and right now, it's not curable.
• 8:17
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It's more about trying to get to a balance where it's dormant.
• 8:20
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And so I had no idea what the hell that was. I was around 1617, when I realized that I was gaining weight. That wasn't making sense. 70 pounds, 70 pounds in a year, no matter what I did wasn't like, you know, I wasn't trying. It was just everything that I was trying to do was going, it was, it was like my body was rejecting. It like, if I ate a salad, I would feel nauseous and like it my my workouts, I would faint, like it was drastic, and I just could not figure it out. I went to multiple gynecologists. I was like, maybe it's my thyroid. You know, I've never had regular periods. Every gynecologist was like, You're young, it'll regulate, or you must be lying about what you're eating, or, let me put you on all these pills. Or, you know, it was always something, and never truly listening to me. And eventually I my friend, was like, why don't you try this endocrinologist? And endocrinologist, one of the things that they focus on is hormone based issues. And I was at that point. I was like, Sure.
• 9:38
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Like, I don't even know. I'll try anything at this point. She gave me a blood panel. I gave her like, you know my symptoms?
• 9:46
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And she's like, I think you have PCOS. Let's, let's see the results from this blood test and and we should have a better idea. Said, Well, what is PCOS?
• 9:51
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It looks different on everybody, which is also a hard thing. So most women. Gain a lot of weight and don't have regular periods.
• 10:01
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Some women are normal weight for their you know, for their height and weight, but or and their height and age, but they've got terrible gastro issues, or they have cysts on their ovaries that burst and it's extremely painful. Most people have a hard time with fertility, but just looking at somebody, it can look different on everybody or on every woman. So turns out I had PCOS, and I was able to talk about it and finally have an answer to what I had been searching for, which at that point I was 1919, 20. So and I just, I still just, was at a loss. She put me she didn't want to put me on the pill, so she put me on something called Metformin, which is used for multiple different things. It's it started to work slowly. A lot of it was diet and exercise related, but not because I wasn't trying to do the right things. It was because PCOS responds to different things. So PCOS, low carb diet is good for PCOS. And I went on that, and I saw almost immediate changes, and low impact workouts work better. So I started just doing Pilates and things like that, and that made a huge difference.
• 11:21
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So my high cardio running and crazy cycling and, you know, only eating, you know, quinoa and lettuce, all of those things that we're kind of told we should do. That's why it wasn't working for me, and it was just completely going the opposite direction. So I got some guidance, and it really started helping. But I'm gonna go two different directions here. While all that was happening, I was on a TV show. I was playing the it girl, most of the time, your it girl, you know, didn't look like me. And I was also playing a character that was often in flashbacks, so I didn't look naturally, I didn't look the same age as a 13 year old version of myself. And so I was really lucky that our show runners and our writers were really sensitive to it, but nobody else was. And I mean, they, you didn't know what it was at the time, I didn't know what it was, you know. So, of course, it was like she must be pregnant or, you know, or for whatever. Lots of people had different things that they that they threw at me. But in a way, thank goodness I was on a show, because I was unhireable.
• 12:35
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Designers wouldn't dress me. I was told that I should just go to sacs. So it's like, it's one of those things where we feel like things are moving in a positive direction as far as the industry goes, and in a lot of ways, we have but when it comes down to the reality of working or being in the public eye, a lot of those things still exist in the industry, and a lot of it's just a safe face. I think we are seeing a lot more inclusive things, but that mentality doesn't just change overnight, so a lot of that is still there. So I went through a really difficult process with my mental health, and in so many ways I don't even, I can't even sit here and tell you how I got through it, other than the fact that I had an amazing support system. So through the majority of that time, not knowing what was happening to me, I had a close circle of people that were committed to making sure that I was okay. If I didn't have that, I could be in a totally different position right now.
• 13:42
  Randall Kaplan: Were you thinking you weren't okay? I mean, suicidal thoughts to that point.
• 13:45
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It wasn't to that degree. But I feel like without positive people around me and could have easily gotten there, yeah, you were being
• 13:52
  Randall Kaplan: fat shamed.
• 13:52
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, of course, yeah. Public on Instagram,
• 13:56
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I remember seeing something like, Listen, guys, I don't even know what's going on with me, I eventually addressed it because I was like, I'm not pregnant.
• 14:03
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I'm not, you know, any of the things that they're calling me, I'm just, I'm here telling you I don't know what it is, and I'm working on it. But also, in so many ways, I look back at that and also say, like, I didn't owe anybody an explanation. I knew this was a health issue that I was trying to figure out, and as much as I understood why people were confused and assuming I still didn't owe them an explanation, but it's just a very hard place to be in, because so many women have PCOS, so many women don't know or Don't talk about it, and it affects their life dramatically.
• 14:41
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And I'm glad that I have the platform to talk about it, because I've had endless women come to me saying in person and online, saying I had nobody else to talk to, or because you talked about it, I went and got checked, and it turns out I have it. Or, you know, like. Infinite things like that, where it's a support system, because I was under a microscope, you know, like everybody was talking about it with me, and so I was living a different version of it, but it's very personal, and it affects so many aspects of your life, just to have doctors say that they don't believe you or you know, not listen or just say that, like, it'll change when you get older. You know, I'm just like, I'm already an adult.
• 15:29
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: What do you mean? It's, it's crazy to not have doctors listen to you. So one of my big things that I say is, like, get second, third, 10 opinions.
• 15:39
  Randall Kaplan: You had 16 gynecologists. I think, yeah,
• 15:42
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: yeah, yeah. And it took one endocrinologist. It's crazy, crazy. So it's, it's first finding somebody that will listen to you and is is willing to to try and figure it out, even if they don't think that what you're thinking is happening to you is happening generally speaking, you know, if your body is feeling off, there's a reason for it,
• 16:07
  Randall Kaplan: right? Eight to 13% of PCs, PCOS cases go undiagnosed,
• 16:12
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: yep.
• 16:12
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And the other thing that's really sad and unfortunate is the fact that PCOS can lead to other things. It can make or trigger endometriosis. It can trigger or later in life, you could have diabetes. You can have gestational diabetes when you're pregnant, you have a much higher risk of having that. Can have cancer in your ovaries. You can have lots of different things can happen to you because something goes on diagnosed like that, fertility is just a big one. In general, I was super lucky to get pregnant naturally, and I definitely give that up to my endocrinologist helping me balance it. And there's another amazing thing that happened, and this is, I don't want to say the wrong percentage, but it is.
• 17:02
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It's under, it's like 0.05% of women that this happens to.
• 17:06
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Hopefully it's higher, to be honest, but I don't think it is where pregnancy helps correct your hormones. So when I had Hendrix, I didn't get gestational diabetes, but I gained, I basically gained that 70 pounds back. I just didn't carry, well, makes sense, because of PCOS, that was something that we expected. I had something called pelvic dysfunction, which means that my body released too much relaxin at once, which is essentially what relaxes your muscles, so you have an easier time with labor. It's just a natural process that your body goes through, but mine released pretty much all at four months, so my muscles weren't holding my skeleton together. So that was an interesting process. But after, like postpartum, I my hormones corrected. I eventually got a regular period. I felt better. I was like my hormones were normal. I got to a point where it was balanced. And it turns out it can happen with pregnancy, where it kind of resets your body.
• 18:14
  Randall Kaplan: We talked about the haters earlier briefly. Yes, you were fat shamed, but your reaction to this was different than most people. You actually had compassion for bullies, and that that's I when, when I was doing the research on you, I thought, gosh, that's that says a lot about what kind of person you are, but tell tell people what what you did and what you thought about, and the compassion that I'm talking about right now.
• 18:42
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Yeah. I mean, I can't really pinpoint why I felt that compassion. I think it's, I think it's I looked at it as like a natural human reaction where
• 18:55
  Randall Kaplan: that bullies have,
• 18:57
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: yeah. I mean, you're seeing like it's just because you don't bully someone doesn't mean that you don't see something changing, or something stick out, you know, and I think it just depends on how you react to it. You can go either way. Social media, it's much easier to hide behind your phone, as we know, where you would never normally say that to somebody, to their face, and so we get to just say things to people if we want to and don't really feel any consequence. But I started to realize, you know, it was one of those things where I knew I was feeling so like exhausted from not essentially knowing what was happening to me. I understood the fact that, like they're seeing my character, that they feel like they know so well not be the same. And it's, it's like, why it bugs people, and in ways, it made the show inaccurate. So like, I looked at it from a version of, like, obvious ignorance, because they didn't know it was happening. But. But, you know, I didn't know what was happening. So I was like, Okay, we're on the same playing field there. Obviously bullying is an absolute No, and I was experiencing it. But I tried to just kind of, I tried to just understand that, like human nature, we want an answer for things. We question everything, and it's hard to not have an answer. And so when we don't have an answer, it comes out in multiple ways, social media, usually it's negative, and that was the reaction that I was getting. So my reaction to that was essentially Okay, I understand it, even though I don't agree with it or accept it, but I'm going to address it because I just wanted to, in ways, open a line of communication a lot of women deal with, even if it's not PCOS, body shaming in general, that type of experience wasn't necessarily new to me. It was just another level. And so because our bodies are hyper analyzed, especially as public figures, it's generally better to talk about it than not. And in ways, it was better for my mental health to address it as well than compared to just pretending like it wasn't happening. Because obviously it was so it was kind of the combination of everything, and I'm glad I did it that way, because it gave me an outlet that I don't think I had the foresight for at the time, but it gave me the outlet that I needed, and it ended up, I think, helping other people, which is awesome. That's a great side effect, and now one that I actually pursue. I
• 22:41
  Randall Kaplan: love it. I think it's very commendable to have compassion for bullies, because I don't think many people do.
• 22:47
  Randall Kaplan: There's something wrong with them that they have to act this way. Well,
• 22:49
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: maybe that comes from like the acting side of like I was saying before is like understanding the villain, right? Most bullies have a reason. It's not a good reason. It's not an acceptable reason. But I think once you understand where it's coming from, it's easier to process and it's easier to overcome it.
• 23:09
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Because mostly I mean it's, I feel like, generally speaking, you could be anyone you know, you, you are the target, but it could easily be somebody else if you weren't there. It's generally not your problem. It's their problem. And I know that's like a band aid that a lot of people, I think slap on bullies, you know, like, oh, it's not you, you know, don't worry. But I think it's true, and in most ways, where you know, they were the target of something and now they're projecting it onto you, because it's easier, because it's much easier to point the finger at somebody else than it is to try and deal with it yourself and fix it. And I think that's why there's two ways we go with our parents. It's either we become like them, or we don't. And if you have a bad example, it becomes a much bigger choice.
• 24:02
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about money, which I think the transition from born to money.
• 24:05
  Randall Kaplan: Let's talk about money, which is a career goal of everybody.
• 24:09
  Randall Kaplan: Doesn't matter where you are on the planet. Everyone wants to make money. Some of us want to make more money than the average person, but you are making money at a very young age, extremely young, four or five, six years old, you got a hit. Show lasted for eight seasons, syndication, etc, etc. Most people don't understand the Hollywood Game, so you're really taking home around 30% of what you make, right? You've got taxes. Agent, tax manager, lawyer, it's like 36% I think, yeah, the number, something like that. So you make a million dollars, which is enormous, by the way. Barrow said, Oh, actors are millionaires or whatever, but they're making $300,000 $350,000 per million is, is, is the money really there, even at a young age? And how does it all work?
• 25:02
  Randall Kaplan: And how did you deal with money making money at such a young age?
• 25:05
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: This is another one I'll give up to my parents, because, as you know, I've I wasn't dealing with that stuff. It all depended on how they were taking care of it.
• 25:15
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Before I was 18, my dad, you know, was obsessed, really, with keeping my money safe.
• 25:25
  Randall Kaplan: By the way, the people don't know there's something called a Coogan account, right? So maybe you can explain what, what that is, everybody what is a cougan
• 25:32
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: account?
• 25:32
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So a cooking account is a trust.
• 25:34
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So 15% of the money that you make is untouchable until you're 18, by law, by law, yeah, and so, yeah, you can take away even more percent from, like, what you're actually, the money that you're actually dealing with when you're a minor, as far as actively, day by day, which
• 25:50
  Randall Kaplan: I think is designed to prevent. And your parents spending your money, all the money that you're making.
• 25:56
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Yes, it's definitely designed to protect you, and then it just depends on what type of career you have until you're 18. Yes, I had lots of lucky, you know, breaks and work that happened before I was 18, and I think my dad did the best that he could possibly do to make sure that that I was like, set up, and that we were keeping it, I think he he realized, you know, this was the most amount of money that he had really seen, all it at once. And so it was about keeping it contained and not overspending anything, and then realizing, like, okay, you can get certain tax breaks, learning how to like expense on a business account, and having a corporation and the benefits that that can have for you, and like, what happens when you have a company car, and what you can write off and And so I think that was like a learning experience for him. And so by the time I was 18, that was all explained to me. I think I had a head start in that direction where I was like, okay, not going to overspend. I'm going to try and figure out what the best place to do, or like, the places to put it, you know, real estate investing and all of those things you do your best, and there's, that's where the failure starts. There's lots of learning curves, you
• 27:17
  Randall Kaplan: know, and lots of bad people trying to get at your money as well. Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:21
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I mean, it's people come out of the woodworks, for sure, for sure they do. But to kind of answer your first question about the type of money actors make, I hate saying that it's not a lot, because obviously it is in so many ways. I think a lot of people that have like seasonal jobs will understand this, where you make a big chunk of money, but then it needs to last until the next thing that you do. And so I think what happens to a lot of actors is they get a big chunk of money, and then they spend it too fast, and then they don't have enough money, you know, before the next job. And so I think, especially as a young actor, that can easily happen to you when you're not, you know, if you don't, if you don't have any experience with it, it's like these big highs and these big lows. And yes, we get residuals, but most of the time it's not very much, as you experienced with your 40 cents
• 28:16
  Randall Kaplan: for my alpha dog. Yes, roll 42 you just shortchange me two cents.
• 28:20
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I get all sorts of I get, like, two set checks from like things I did way, way, way back. So you're not alone.
• 28:26
  Randall Kaplan: Do you actually take the time to deposit those direct deposit
• 28:30
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: now, I used to, I used to, I used to, I used to wait. That was actually really funny. I used to to wait.
• 28:35
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And I got to know, like, the bank tell her, because she would be like, three cents. And I was like, I, I would wait until I had a bunch of checks to deposit, because those little ones were just right, so ridiculous. And to go to, you know, a bank with a three cent check is I also probably little suspicious. It's like, what?
• 28:51
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: What is the point of this? But once someone understands the situation, it's fine. It's just more of a it's more funny than anything else, now that we've got good old direct deposit from sag, where we're cleared and we don't have to worry about that anymore. So that's that's nice, but yeah, overall, I think that the money isn't as much as you would think that it would be for the majority of actors, unless you're at the tippy tippy top.
• 29:21
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And then there is the money gap, or, like the pay gap between men and women, which I don't know. I guess I was a little bit surprised that it was still like that in the industry, but certain things reveal themselves, generally their leaks. It's, it's an interesting topic, and it feels like such a champagne problem, is what I call it, because,
• 29:48
  Randall Kaplan: yeah, well, it's like, I want to borrow that term, but
• 29:50
  Unknown: do it? Do it.
• 29:51
  Randall Kaplan: I give you credit for appreciate that.
• 29:53
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah,
• 29:54
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: you know, it's like, in one breath, you feel so disgustingly privileged talking about, complaining about something like that when you are earning a decent amount of money, but then you also want to kind of fight for what's fair or like, or even just growth. And unlike you're saying fiscally like you want to do better. You want your business to grow, or you want to grow. And so the things that you're complaining about, you feel weird complaining about them, but it's because you want to do better. So it's this constant, like dance. I think if you're a fairly healthy person, it's a dance. But that is, I mean, I've been in situations where I found out what male co stars were getting paid, and it was like, what? Like, good for you. I'm not, I would never be mad at the actor. Like, absolutely, who's your team?
• 30:46
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Like, good for you. But also, that's really fucking messed up for. Doing the same work, or more or more important role, like, how is this still a thing?
• 30:56
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And, you know, I don't even really know how much farther to go with that, but I was more so just pointing it out because of this, I guess, this view of how actors are millionaires, because, generally speaking, I feel like that's actually not the case. You're saying
• 31:16
  Randall Kaplan: that famous actors who have been regulars on shows for years, yeah, are not millionaires. Most of them are not. But from what I know from my friends in the industry, stars, regulars on shows get between $10,000 per episode up to, I mean, obviously for the top, top million dollars per episode, but I think on a regular show, and again, there's fewer scripted shows today than there were 10 years ago. For sure, way less, right? Reality TV has taken over a lot of the prime time programming, Yeah, but you're still getting 25,000 to $50,000 on average per episode. Now, we talked about, you're not doing 24 anymore.
• 31:59
  Randall Kaplan: You're doing 12, right? But that's still,
• 32:02
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: that's what I mean by very good money, right? So,
• 32:06
  Randall Kaplan: but 10,000 is really 3600
• 32:09
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: right?
• 32:09
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: If you, yeah, if you, if you really want to break it down that way, which is correct?
• 32:14
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Yeah, it looks a lot. It looks a lot smaller, but I think,
• 32:18
  Randall Kaplan: but you are a millionaire at this point. I mean, I
• 32:21
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: can't believe with assets, and, yeah, exactly, if you're doing it right, and the snowball effect happens, like, of course, you if you're doing it right, there's definitely ways to get there.
• 32:30
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: But if there's big gaps in your career, you definitely hope you would have put it in the right spot in order to fill that gap, because those runways, you know, will run out eventually, depending on how long it takes between projects. So setting certain things in place, like an investment property or properties, hopefully things like that, help that you need.
• 32:52
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: You need somebody to help you with that, to tell you, like, hey, maybe that's a good idea, or maybe something that you've learned. Because most actors are like, Well, no, I want to be an actor. I want to be successful in my industry. But if they're not putting their money in the right places when they get it, you'll be on unemployment like every you know, like other people that lose their jobs. And that's that is a case of just the spending but but also just the how volatile the industry is. Like, you might have work right now, but your show could get canceled, or it could be a one off, and then you don't you don't know when your next job is coming. You may never work again. You may never work again, and then what? Right? But I would say a good example of, like, the crazy amount of like, the range of money that you could make on a show in particular, a good example with us on PLL, a lot of our our paychecks were different. So I'm not going to give away too much information on that side. But what I will say is, while we were on Pretty Little Liars, we were one of the biggest shows in the world. And I'm not, you know, I'm not, I don't want to brag, but that was fact, and so was the big bang theory. We were both on ABC owned shows, Disney owned shows, The Big Bang Theory, all of those cast members were earning a million dollars an episode, and we were not, and we were definitely not by, like, a lot. And so those were the things that were like that felt like a champagne problem, where we're like, okay, they have just as many episodes, if not more, than we do a season, and we actually, technically not knocking their talent. They're incredible actors. As far as hourly goes, they're on a comedy we work way longer hours than they do, and we're not understanding why this is the case, and generally speaking, you often I would say, don't necessarily get rewarded for it. I want to be polite here, because, again, I'm I will never not people for earning more money. I think that's incredible. It's it becomes like a systemic problem versus what other people are achieving.
• 35:16
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Those are the things that don't make sense to me, where I'm like, Why? Why is this the case?
• 35:19
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Is this, you know, a team based thing? Is it a network based thing is it's, generally speaking, what they know that they can get away with?
• 35:32
  Randall Kaplan: Aren't these shows again, a lot of people don't really know this, because they're not in the business, but a lot of these shows are packaged by one agency, so CAA will represent a lot now. Yeah, right. And so aren't they negotiating for the whole cast of the show? Mostly? Are we blaming the agencies? Are they responsible for the salaries?
• 35:52
  Randall Kaplan: No.
• 35:52
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I think it no studios, and you're playing the studios and your
• 35:56
  Randall Kaplan: agents should be fighting. They know what everyone's making, and say, Why is PL all making? They
• 36:02
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: don't always know what everybody's making, but, but I know what you're saying. Often it's a studio issue which ends up being kind of like a stalemate where you like, take it or leave it, sort of situation, and then it's like, Well, do you want the project or not? And then also, will you Band Together to Fight it for the next negotiation? Go on strike?
• 36:22
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, well, we're just not coming back to work. I know
• 36:25
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: you mean, yeah, it's a complicated issue. As far as the CAA or like, grouping of, you know, packaging shows go it happens more now than it used to, but also they don't necessarily have, I would say, all of the control like that with TV shows, it's more common for movies, and that's a much simpler process.
• 36:47
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It's, you know, the movie, and then you're done. So the packaging side is way, way easier and also more common with movies than it is for television. In many ways, with a TV show with a lot of the same agents, it could be a conflict of interest. There's a lot of like politics that go into that, but TV's shows are just, are just different. There are different animals. And it's, it's also based on when you sign, you know, our contract was five years before we could renegotiate. So a lot can change in five years,
• 37:26
  Randall Kaplan: going from an unknown show to one of the most popular shows on television, right? It's like a star athlete needing to renegotiate or holding out a rookie, rookie contract,
• 37:37
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: right?
• 37:37
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So that's, you know, friends is a great example. When their time to renegotiate came, all of them came together and said, We will all walk if we don't get a million an episode. Yeah, and that's where that number kind of started, which was incredibly hard to get. I mean, the amount of people getting that after friends was, I think Big Bang was probably the next one to get that, at least for a bunch of actors to get it. By
• 38:07
  Randall Kaplan: the way, I just want to make it very clear I'm not knocking CAA. Oh no. My daughter just graduated Cornell, and she's starting at CAA next month. That's amazing, and I'm not knocking them either. Love CAA. And obviously, love my daughter more than anything.
• 38:19
  Randall Kaplan: Love Absolutely, love CAA. CAA is the best agency in the world.
• 38:23
  Randall Kaplan: There's nothing better. No,
• 38:27
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I really don't think that. I mean, of course, it's like every, every component matters. And you know your your lawyer and your agency is going to try and get you the best possible deal as possible. It only serves them, but it'll come down to like the studio and the production companies, and what they're willing to to do, what they're what they're pocketing, what they're allocating to certain things, how big the production goes for, both big thing, Big Bang Theory and pretty old liars, we both filmed on the same lot. So I think that was the other thing. We were like, I see you. We clock in and out, you know? Like, what is happening here?
• 39:04
  Randall Kaplan: That's a nice Lamborghini got over there, right? Yeah. Like your Prius.
• 39:06
  Randall Kaplan: Yeah, exactly.
• 39:09
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: That's the and we were all, I feel like good spirited about it, but it annoyed us every time we would like talk about it as a group.
• 39:15
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: We're like, how? Why? Why is this happening? And it just gets down. It comes down to what they can get away
• 39:24
  Randall Kaplan: with. You've had multiple careers now. You're an entrepreneur. We are now going to talk about hippie water. Yay.
• 39:32
  Randall Kaplan: So here's hippie water. Tell us about hippie water. Yeah, what it is, what the idea is, and what your goals are for it. So
• 39:40
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: hippie water is hemp derived, cannabis infused, social tonic, like a self serve it better. That's kind of how we describe it. It is low sugar. There's no sugar added. It comes from juice. So it's 15% juice. It's a low dose, five milligram hemp derived.
• 39:54
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: THC, I'll explain why that's important. The juice comes from Italy. We're a nano emulsion, so everything is easily and evenly distributed in the drink. It tastes delicious. What did I miss? So I say 35 calories and under Yeah, it's an amazing beverage, just the way that it tastes. And I'm not being biased, it really is an incredible product. I love it.
• 40:21
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I've tried endless cannabis beverages now, and I really, truly feel like ours stands out as at least in the top three.
• 40:30
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It's delicious, and it gives the perfect buzz like one can.
• 40:36
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Everybody's different, but one can feels like your first cocktail. Two cans, for most people, feels like two cocktails. Three can person you you
• 40:50
  Randall Kaplan: said you are a three can person. Yeah, you have a within. You built up. You built up some.
• 40:57
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Well, anyway, but, but
• 40:59
  Randall Kaplan: this is a social drink, yes, as if you would have a cocktail or a beer instead, you're not drinking,
• 41:06
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: okay, alcohol, it's an alternative, or it's a side by side. Do
• 41:11
  Randall Kaplan: you drink it to get buzz? Yeah,
• 41:13
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: so either to relax, right, or to party, depending on how many you take, okay, but it's meant to replace, you know, we have, I feel like, socially, we have a bit of an oral fixation, whether that's having a drink in your hand or smoking a cigarette, you know, or smoking weed, whatever it is, it's nice to have something in your hand in some capacity while you're socializing. It's just something that we've, I think, kind of gotten used to, or feel weird when we don't have it. And you know, for me, I love socializing. I love having people over to the house. I love having parties. I love, you know, socializing with my friends to whatever capacity, whether that's low key or high key. But I'm a mom. I get up really early for work. I want to be productive. I have a lot of priorities, and having a hangover in the morning is just not fitting in. So I personally like this is the majority of this product is because it started selfish. I wanted something to replace having, you know, a couple of drinks, you know, I wanted to make sure that, like I was giving equal effort and being able to be productive and do everything that I wanted to do without compromise. And hippie water does it. And I will start by how we started, which is, there's four of us, four co founders.
• 42:39
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It's my husband and I, and Taylor and Alex, who are also married. We've known them for over 10 years. We're breaking the first rule, which is, don't get into business with friends and family. But we feel like
• 42:50
  Randall Kaplan: or your husband or your wife, but we do feel like double whammy going there,
• 42:55
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I know for good reason, because of what we all do now, the four of us always throw around ideas.
• 43:03
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Always have funny things, funny names. Generally, an idea comes from a good name that we think could be a cool product. Hippie water came about, and we're like, oh, that's a really cool name. What can we do with this?
• 43:11
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And we all realized when we talked about it, that this could really be something, and it's why we pursued it. So I'm an actress, obviously, I love it, but I also have access to a lot of reach, a lot of people.
• 43:30
  Randall Kaplan: 50 million followers on Instagram, yeah,
• 43:32
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: so I have 20 million overall social platforms that is so rare, and something that I really love and enjoy, reaching out with people, generally speaking, things that only help people. And I love business, and I I'm so excited to be exploring this side of the business. But you know, I'm we're going to talk about business. I am the reach. Taylor Sewell, who is our food scientist and other co founder, has been in the food and beverage industry for over 10 years. She started in food law, and has done everything that you could possibly think of in that space, from being in the lab creating your Baja Blast at Taco Bell, to delicious, you know, clean, amazing sauces, to like everything domestically and international, she has been crowned the beverage Queen by Taco Bell, and in general, is such a fcking badass. And Alex, our COO has been in startups and scaling for over 10 years as well. He was at genies, the tech company, one of the first hires.
• 44:41
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: He's an amazing asset in our company, just the way that he set everything up. He also has a love for graphic design and tech, obviously, in general. So he built our website. Thank you.
• 44:55
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And Hudson, my husband, is our CMO. He's been in marketing also for, I mean, almost 1015, years now, in different sides of the industry, social, being one of them happens to be great because he helps me with my social so live in you know, social media manager, but in general, is so passionate about it. And so the four of us were kind of like we could make an incredible product. Let's try. And we're very lean. We've done everything that we can through just our own knowledge, leaning on each other, our own relationships. He built our website for under 3000 a lot of people spend over 100,000 websites for E commerce sites our beverages. So we've got three SKUs, three flavors.
• 45:41
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: We got those for free based on Taylor's relationships, so she handcrafted these beverages. But SKUs usually cost between 75 to$100,000 a SKU just. For our formula. So we own our formulations. It's absolutely delicious. It's a product that we are so passionate about. It does what it says, it does, which is also unique. It's not white labeled. A lot of cannabis beverages are made by the same manufacturer. They slap a name on it, or they slap a celebrity to it, and, you know, it tastes the same as a lot of other things. We also have a no dank policy, which means that you don't taste our weed in the drinks. And now I know what policy a no dank policy, no dank policy, no dank policy. So does anybody wanted to help describe
• 46:30
  Randall Kaplan: that you can take that away?
• 46:34
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: No, dank is like the taste of weed or the smell of weed, and so we have a no dank policy. You'll taste our drink and you won't be like, Wow, that tastes like weed. Okay, now the hemp derived versus the marijuana drive. So this is, like, a big thing in our industry. Is cannabis as a whole, obviously, marijuana has had lots of struggles in their industry, just federally speaking, it's been a really rough journey for them and and we were going to start as a marijuana based drink in Colorado. That was our plan.
• 47:09
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Taylor is incredibly cautious when it comes to every safety standard you could possibly think of. She was nervous about hemp derived because she didn't know a ton about it. But when we truly researched it, we realized that this is actually the best fit for our company. On a scientific level, the marijuana plant and the hemp plant are sister plants. They both produce THC and CBD. The marijuana plant produces more THC than CBD. The hemp plant produces more CBD than THC. Molecularly, they are exactly the same. So delta nine is what most people understand when it comes to hemp derived THC. It's the what's most commonly used. So that is what we have. The reason that we went with hemp is because we are treated like a normal business.
• 47:54
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: There is a bill in place called the Farm Bill, and hemp derived beverages are now allowed. Hemp products in general, with THC are now allowed, as long as they're under a certain dry weight volume, which we easily fall into. We can ship across state lines. We are federally in that legal bracket. We get all the write offs that a normal business does, which marijuana based companies do not. So it's incredibly lucky that we essentially wanted to start this business at this time and have the opportunity to go hemp and know that everything that we're doing is safe and clean. And you know, our hemp is organic, like we really take a lot of care into what goes into our product.
• 48:41
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: We also make sure that every single can gets tested to the point where we know the accuracy of every single cans potency, it's exactly where it needs to be, and that's something that's extremely important to us
• 48:55
  Randall Kaplan: for those tests, you test every can before it's bought canned, before it's bottle, yeah,
• 49:01
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: so to make sure that that five milligram is correct. So the industry as a whole, there's a lot of there can be a lot of inconsistency. So like a lot of people have had really bad experiences with edibles naturally. I understand that I've had, you know, one or two myself. And I just want to preface with I am, and still not really other than hippie water.
• 49:24
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I'm not a big cannabis user. I never was. I signed dare. I was like, no drugs. You know, I understood the category that my mom and dad place it under, even though, no, I think it's incorrect, but it was never something that was part of my lifestyle until now, and now that I know so much more about it, I understand it and I respect it, and I see how much healthier it is in so many ways, and it really makes me a better functioning person if I want to socialize, and, you know, enjoy the things in life that I still enjoy. So I'm so thankful for it. But, you know, an edible, it goes through your body differently. So the reason there's such a variable with edibles is that it takes, it can take anywhere between an hour to three hours to feel an edible, and it's because it has to get processed through your liver in order to feel something. So you get hit with, you know, say, if it's the same milligram count, you get all five milligram count at once. And you think you're taking a five milligram edible.
• 50:24
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: But sometimes it's inconsistent, and it might be way more than that, it might be way less than that. And it's, it's really tricky with cannabis beverages, it takes about 10 to 20 minutes, depending on the person, for you to immediately feel it or initially feel it, and it's gradual, and then it tapers off much faster. And so the reason we like that is because it's almost exactly like you would experience an alcohol beverage or alcoholic beverage. So you know, you don't. Know, sometimes you do, but you don't chug the can. Immediately, you sip it like you would a cocktail or a beer or a glass of wine. And in that 1015, minutes, you start to feel it like you would any other alcoholic beverage. And then you can start controlling the level that you want. You can take a break from it. You can keep sipping it. You can essentially control your high compared to an edible or a quick head high from smoking a joint and you,
• 51:20
  Randall Kaplan: and you buy this on your website, DTC only, yeah, so,
• 51:24
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: well, no, not yet. Not only. DTC is how we initially started, and we love DTC. It's, you know, our profit margins are good. We get it to as many people, you know, as we can. But we have seen a really big spike in our distribution. We're really exploring that. We thought it would take longer, but we've thankfully had a lot of great opportunities that we've taken advantage of. Ironically, Nashville and Tennessee as a whole, is a hub. It's a hot spot. They love it there. So we're in about eight stores currently, and we're about to grow significantly. I can't say it yet, and I desperately want to, but as we say, you wait till the ink is dry. But there's more and more opportunities that are coming our way that we are so incredibly thankful for. And like we were saying, with preparation, is luck, but it really is exciting to see hippie water in the wild and to see people enjoying it and experiencing it the way that we hoped that they would. You know, expanding into states as far as stores go, is very, very tricky for CPG, so we're really happy that it's it's growing the way that that it's growing. I
• 52:35
  Randall Kaplan: love it. I think I saw on your website, you use Klarna as your is payment tool.
• 52:42
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Oh, yes, yeah. So we have works. We can use that too. Which marijuana companies cannot, right?
• 52:48
  Randall Kaplan: I'm an investor in Klarna, so I was happy to see that. Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
• 52:50
  Randall Kaplan: Appreciate that. Very small, that they raised billions of dollars
• 52:56
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: well.
• 52:56
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: But the thing is, with a great example of some of the challenges that you can face in this industry, even though we're everything is above board and we're completely legal, there are some companies that just won't work with you. Yeah, banks won't touch marijuana. There's only certain banks, yeah, exactly. So there's a couple things, obviously, one that we work through that will take cannabis, but it's, it's incredibly difficult in that respect. You know, we have specific lawyers for cannabis in general to cover all bases. We couldn't use some credit card processors because they wouldn't work with us. Yeah? So there's, there's certain hurdles and challenges that other businesses don't have. But yeah, we're working through it. We're climbing the mountain. Can
• 53:40
  Randall Kaplan: you say how much money you put in to start the company? Yeah,
• 53:43
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: actually, I can. So we, like I said, we were really lean. We started with 30k to get it, but to where it was before our first inventory run with investors, and how much money have you raised? We have only raised on purpose around for our first run. Think it was 115,000 to get our inventory runs out initially, and now we're now we're raising a lot more. So that was strategic. We wanted to get it out there and really make it a product that people started believing in before our big race. You're talking to VC firms right now, yeah, which is also challenging because a lot of VCs don't invest in vice products, which we understand. And we were also a pre product race. We were pre seeds or, like, invest in this kind of risky product, because you don't really know the industry, and you're a VC that doesn't invest in vices, it's difficult, and we've seen a dramatic shift in that now that we're post launch. Yeah?
• 54:40
  Randall Kaplan: Well, I'm happy to give you some advice on that, and maybe some answers there as well. That would
• 54:44
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: be wonderful. Thank you, of course.
• 54:46
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So
• 54:46
  Randall Kaplan: let's talk about we have a little bit of time.
• 54:48
  Randall Kaplan: Last I want to talk about your podcast. So tell us about your podcast. Yeah, what you're trying to do with it, and I think you have a great niche that you have that you're attacking, addressing there,
• 55:01
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: yeah, so it's called Women in the nude podcast. It's kind of cheeky, but, you know, I started this podcast kind of because of PCOS, where I realized I had such a cool community of women, and not a lot of women have that. And I wanted to share that. You know, I had an issue with PCOS that I didn't know of and I hadn't heard of until it happened to me. I wanted to talk about that.
• 55:27
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I wanted to talk about women in business. I wanted to talk about mental health, self care, sex, all the taboo things that a lot of women don't have anything anyone to talk to about. I wanted to share that I want really cool people on the show, from different walks of life to different types of business. Our first season had a lot of incredible women, and I'm really excited for our second season, which we're gearing up for. But the idea is just that women should have other women to talk to, to share experiences with, from, you know, Parenthood to health issues to not choosing parenthood, whatever it is, there should be a place for it.
• 56:10
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: And I think it's it's really exciting for me, that I've kind of created that hug because it's really important for me, even just with hippie water, you know, starting a female founded business, it's I've been really lucky. I'm going to call it a champagne problem again, where, because of my reach, I've had doors open, but most women don't experience that. I actually talked to a team the other day that was a female and a male business. How do I say, Wow, I'm saying this super funky. They were co founders, one was a man and one was a woman, and he was saying how hard it has been for their initial start to their company, because he had to introduce her as his partner and co founder. Otherwise they thought she was a secretary.
• 57:00
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Every room that they went into was like, this was my. They thought it was her, his assistant, or thought that it was like, you know, someone lower than him, essentially. So he would, he started walking into rooms being like, Hey, this is my co founder, you know, so and so. So, you know, as as much as the business is changing and the glass ceiling is breaking, there are still certain things and certain like initial assumptions that I think are still there that need to to get moved. Yeah, so talking about it is how we step forward knowing that you're not the only one that that's happened to is how you start feeling better about yourself and figuring out how to combat it. So I think ultimately, communication as a whole is what I think humans need to get better at and and I'm you know, you got to start it somewhere. So are
• 57:51
  Randall Kaplan: you giving up your acting career to be CEO of this company. Because I think venture firms, in fact, I know venture firms are going to ask you the question, Are you 100% devoted to this? Because a lot of investors, yeah, they care about as they should. Yeah, they would. Because if you, if you're going on a movie for six months, you're the CEO, that's going to be hard and right? That's one question as a follow up question, what are your career goals? Is it to land a major motion picture? I mean, I know you passed on a role that ultimately grows $548.9 million in your career, which may have led to some other massive paydays as stars of major motion pictures. So is that your goals to win an Oscar. I'm
• 58:33
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: curious, what movie do you think that is?
• 58:35
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: That was
• 58:37
  Randall Kaplan: you were offered the role of gene gray and X Men, Apocalypse.
• 58:41
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: No, I was not offered that role. Oh, we could talk about this. Yeah, let's talk about this. Okay, so I did not pass on that role. I did a comic. I was an I was an art, I a model. I guess I like went and this guy drew me for a comic book. I was never offered that role. I wish I was offered that role. I never would have turned that down. But what I was in, I was still in that movie. I was totally unrelated. I sat in a trailer for about 10 hours for them to decide if they wanted me or not after the audition, which now is not legal, for them to decide between me and this other poor girl and another trailer.
• 59:23
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: We both got sent to hair and makeup as a test. I ended up getting it, which sucks for her, because she waited just as long as I did. I got on to set. This is X Men first class. I got under onto set, and I was there for like maybe 15 minutes. All I had to do was stand in front of a green screen that ended up being an aquarium and turn down the guy that was hitting on me.
• 59:48
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: That was my reality of X Men first class.
• 59:51
  Randall Kaplan: Okay, you made the movie. I made, I did
• 59:53
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: make it in the movie. Okay, yeah, okay, so
• 59:55
  Randall Kaplan: let's go back to career goals. Is it to win an Oscar? Is it? Is it to get paid$20 million a movie? Let's
• 1:00:06
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: start with your first question, which is, am I a full time CEO over hippie water? I acting will will always be first. However, I am extremely good at multitasking and hippie water. I am also a full time CEO. I'm very present.
• 1:00:25
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I take every meeting I possibly can. I would say 99.9% of the meetings I've been a part of. I deeply care about the company, not just because I'm here when it started, but just because I believe in the product and I believe in where it's going. I'm also committed to being a good CEO, but also striving in business. Of course, I'm here for hippie water, but I see my career as an entrepreneur and. A co founder, going many places, not just with hippie water. So that type of Avenue I'm committed to. In general, I'm committed to being a strong woman in business. So, you know, I'm not one of those celebrity companies where you attach my name. I post it on my social I show up for things every now and then, and that's it. I'm deeply a part of the creative process and for the projection of the company, so I'm very fully invested. Yes, things get complicated when Mark gets involved, but, you know, I've managed to do it, and I think I will, will still manage to do it, but I also am always, you know, wanting to put the company first. So whatever that means, however, I will never not be a part of it.
• 1:01:40
  Randall Kaplan: Let's go back to the acting goals, yes, so the acting goals,
• 1:01:44
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: my acting goals, they've, I guess, kind of gotten bigger. I mean, of course, you always want to be successful in your career. Of course, an Oscar or an Emmy is an amazing accomplishment. Of course, I want those things. I don't really know many actors that don't I want to be a part of cool projects. That's always my main goal is, like, do I like this character? Of course, I want to make money. Every actor does for the most part, even if it's just a side effect. You know, it's a sign of success in your career, but I also want to create, so I'm also writing and producing, and would like to take my stab at directing. And I love the industry. I love making things, and that will never not be a passion for me. So ultimately, a cool character and a cool project comes first and and then, yeah, hopefully from that becomes it being, you know, well known in the world, but also just respected in my industry, around coworkers and people that I like to work with.
• 1:02:45
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: All
• 1:02:46
  Randall Kaplan: right, we're the end of our show, and I always conclude the end of our show with something I called, fill in the blank to excellence. Are you ready to play? Oh,
• 1:02:53
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I'm terrible at these things. Go for it.
• 1:02:55
  Randall Kaplan: The biggest lesson I've learned in my life is to trust myself. My number one professional goal is
• 1:03:05
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: to never lose sight of my passion, so to never sacrifice my passion for someone else's success.
• 1:03:13
  Randall Kaplan: My number one personal goal is
• 1:03:17
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: to always grow.
• 1:03:20
  Randall Kaplan: My biggest regret is
• 1:03:27
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: not working on procrastination faster.
• 1:03:31
  Randall Kaplan: My biggest fear is
• 1:03:37
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: losing family members. Sorry, that was really dark, but losing family members,
• 1:03:41
  Randall Kaplan: the craziest thing that's happened in my career is
• 1:03:49
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: believing an audition and nailing the biggest project I've ever done,
• 1:03:56
  Randall Kaplan: which was Inherent Vice. And why do you consider that the biggest project? Because
• 1:04:03
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I got to work with people that I've admired for my entire career or entire life. We didn't talk about that one. Do we? We did? I did well with walking Phoenix.
• 1:04:12
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So it was called an inherent vice. Paul Thomas Anderson directed it. I was playing opposite Joaquin and Martin Short, and that cast was incredible. I included Josh Brolin and Venice Hill, Del Toro Owen Wilson, but I had one of my favorite experiences of my entire career, and it was offset. We were flying for press in New York. It was my first time on a private jet, and it was me, Nisha Del Toro, Martin Short, Josh Brolin and Joaquin, and we played bullshit and I swiped them. I won a lot of money on that plane, but overall, just being able to work with legends and and see like how that is done, because obviously prio liars was a huge success, and we loved it, and we loved the experience, and we had incredibly talented, talented people around. But a movie set like that, that big, with that many parts and that many people, and that many, like incredible actors, working side by side, the makeup and hair department, the wardrobe department, and everything like was, there was so much money involved. And I don't mean that in like a I mean that in a good way, like everything was quality. To see something like that come together and to play such a fun character. My character was called japonica Fenway, and I was a coke addict that was obsessed with Martin Short's character, who was a dentist who was. Yeah, selling cocaine under the table. And I had this crazy relationship with him. And it was just very fun. It was very fun. It was very crazy. I was driving this beautiful 60s Mercedes. It was, it was a, like a whirlwind film that was just so fun, so fun. And I remember saying on the red carpet, I said, if this is the last job I ever do, I will be happy, not because there's not so much more that I want to do, but because I got to experience so many incredible things that every actor hopes to experience on that set. And, you know, I was chosen for it. How cool is that, you know? So, yeah, that would, I would say, in my acting career, that was my biggest success, not because other things weren't great, but because that one is, like, one of those things that you always hope to achieve.
• 1:06:50
  Randall Kaplan: The funniest thing that's happened in my career is,
• 1:07:02
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: oh, I don't know. Feel like there's a lot of inappropriate things that I can't say on this show. Well,
• 1:07:08
  Randall Kaplan: let's, let's toe the line on that one a little bit we can. Let's push it a little bit.
• 1:07:21
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: There's It's been 25 years. There's a lot of funny things that have happened. We'll go with one that's still fun. It was around four in the morning, still filming Inherent Vice. We had the giggles. We had so much menthol in our eyes to make our eyes all look red, and we laughed so hard that I had like, a couple of them laughing on me and just snot. I had, like, people random snot everywhere on my body. That was weird, but so funny. It was one of those moments where you're like, you know, we couldn't get out of the car. It's so late, it's early.
• 1:07:52
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: It was really something stupid we were laughing at, and it was just one of those, like pinch me moments. But I can't tell you what we were laughing about, but I can tell you it was really funny, and there's a lot of snot on me, which is kind of gross, but it was fun.
• 1:08:13
  Randall Kaplan: The best advice I've ever received is hmm,
• 1:08:23
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: to say no, and that's my first instinct. 10
• 1:08:26
  Randall Kaplan: years from now, I'm going to be
• 1:08:31
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: 38 Okay, I'm gonna be selling my unicorn company.
• 1:08:39
  Randall Kaplan: I love that. My favorite actor or actress of all time is that's
• 1:08:45
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: like an impossible question I don't have, I genuinely don't have an answer for that I never have if
• 1:08:55
  Randall Kaplan: you could work with one actor or actress in the world, who would it be?
• 1:09:03
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Is it sad that I don't have an actor and actress I have a director?
• 1:09:04
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: No, okay, my answer to that is Quentin Tarantino, and I'm very upset because he's apparently not making any more movies, and I don't believe him, but that's, that's my goal.
• 1:09:15
  Randall Kaplan: Have you met him?
• 1:09:16
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I have not.
• 1:09:18
  Randall Kaplan: Can you just, it's interesting, like in in, in the tech world at some level, like we could just reach out, reach out. I mean, if you've achieved some success, you know, 90 90% of people are going to meet with you, isn't it that way in Hollywood,
• 1:09:36
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: not really. It's still that, like, you got to know somebody who knows somebody, who knows somebody. But not that, like, oh, I can look them up on LinkedIn. How many people away are they? It's like,
• 1:09:45
  Randall Kaplan: does your agency know? But agency? Yeah, for sure, for sure. Rep by
• 1:09:50
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: the same agency. No, that doesn't mean that they can't reach out.
• 1:09:52
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Yeah. What
• 1:09:56
  Randall Kaplan: do you think would happen if your agent who represents you,
• 1:09:59
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: it's usually like, gatekeeping, where they'll just like, Yeah, but
• 1:10:02
  Randall Kaplan: what if you just say, hey, you know, your agent called his agent and say, Hey, Sasha was just like, they have a cup of coffee with you.
• 1:10:09
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: You know what? You're right? I should do it. Why not?
• 1:10:11
  Randall Kaplan: I'm gonna challenge you to do I'm gonna challenge you tomorrow or on the driveway. Call your agent. If you don't do it, it's never gonna happen. As an entrepreneur, what could I lose?
• 1:10:19
  Randall Kaplan: Right? If you don't do it, you're not gonna lose that's my challenge. That's my challenge to you. I love that. Okay, the one thing I've dreamt about doing for a long time but haven't, is
• 1:10:33
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: diamond with great white sharks.
• 1:10:35
  Randall Kaplan: If you could go back in time and tell your 21 year old self, one piece of advice, what would it be?
• 1:10:44
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Set more boundaries.
• 1:10:46
  Randall Kaplan: If you could be one person in the world, who would it be? I? I see
• 1:10:53
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: these are the questions where I'm like, I fuck, I don't know I'm on the spot.
• 1:11:03
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I don't know. I'll get back to you on that one.
• 1:11:05
  Randall Kaplan: Is that terrible? No, it's not terrible.
• 1:11:07
  Randall Kaplan: I
• 1:11:08
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: don't know. I'm terrible with it. I'm terrible with this type of question. It's like, my favorite movie question, like, I like blackout. I don't know,
• 1:11:17
  Randall Kaplan: the one question that you wish I had asked you but didn't, is,
• 1:11:23
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: can I invest in hippie water? Well,
• 1:11:25
  Randall Kaplan: we got to know, bro, I do want to talk to you more about it, and I am excited to help you. By the way, I'm
• 1:11:30
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: just messing with you. Thank you. I
• 1:11:32
  Randall Kaplan: can definitely make some very, very helpful introductions here, and I am going to do that, by the way,
• 1:11:37
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: I appreciate that I'm
• 1:11:38
  Randall Kaplan: going to give you as much helpful advice as I as I can welcome all of that. We invested in a beverage company called Skin tea. Okay, cool with an awesome CEO. I'm going to introduce you to going to be very, very helpful to you. She's amazing. Oh, I love that.
• 1:11:52
  Randall Kaplan: Basamaru is her name, and she's a dynamo.
• 1:11:56
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Nice, absolutely
• 1:11:58
  Randall Kaplan: happy. Thank you. This has been awesome interview. I'm so happy for you to come, and I'm grateful for you, and just for all the people out there who don't know this, I reach out to you blindly. I think on LinkedIn, either LinkedIn, I sent you an email on LinkedIn, and he responded, yeah, which is great. I'm thrilled. And it's just the same thing, if you don't reach out to Quentin, it's true. And, you know, we love you're so right,
• 1:12:22
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: my husband is gonna love that you said that. That's this is the type of shit that he says to me.
• 1:12:26
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: So he's gonna improve.
• 1:12:27
  Randall Kaplan: We look around, you know, I have all these people who I want to interview and meet, and it's been so fun, and this has been awesome. But yeah, we always say, hey, if it's shocking now, the number of people responded as the show has gotten bigger and bigger, and as it's blown up, I'm getting a very high response rate, but I'm grateful for you being here.
• 1:12:44
  Randall Kaplan: Thank you so much. This has been awesome. Looking forward to getting as
• 1:12:48
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: well.
• 1:12:48
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: Likewise, thank you. Thank you.
• 1:12:50
  Sasha Pieterse Sheaffer: You.