Latest / Next Act with Jeff Ornstein / Darwin Shaw - Actor, Producer, Screenwriter & Director, Kindred Films
Transcript
- 0:01Jeff Ornstein: Hi everyone, and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein.
- 0:05Jeff Ornstein: I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness.
- 0:10Jeff Ornstein: Those building on past successes in some of the curious and inventive and sometimes unexpected ways they have achieved those, and stepping into moments that could define their legacy.
- 0:21Jeff Ornstein: We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead.
- 0:26Jeff Ornstein: So the best is yet to come.
- 0:29Jeff Ornstein: Today's guest is Darwin Shaw, actor, producer, screenwriter, director, and former medical doctor whose career spans major productions like Casino Real, House of Cards, Moon Knight, and The Bible.
- 0:42Jeff Ornstein: Alongside acting, Darwin is also the co-founder of Six Feet Films and Kindred Films, where he develops globally driven stories focused on humanity, crisis, and connection.
- 0:52Jeff Ornstein: Darwin, it's a pleasure to have you on.
- 0:54Jeff Ornstein: Thank you so much for having me.
- 0:56Jeff Ornstein: It's my pleasure.
- 0:57Jeff Ornstein: So as I cautioned you earlier, I'm going to share with our listeners right now that you are an Academy Award nominee, which is no small task, for a really beautiful film that I think probably touched a lot of people.
- 1:10Jeff Ornstein: And I went online and I did a little research about it, and it's it was a powerful story, even in abbreviated form that I saw.
- 1:18Jeff Ornstein: So can you tell us a little bit about like what was the genesis for The Last Ranger and the your wanting to do it or feeling like compelled to make that film?
- 1:32Darwin Shaw: Well, The Last Ranger started during the pandemic.
- 1:35Darwin Shaw: Me and my actor friends suddenly realized we weren't going to be able to work.
- 1:39Darwin Shaw: And I had this idea about creating a set of global stories which we could possibly shoot in three to five days around the world.
- 1:46Darwin Shaw: And when the pandemic was over, we would sort of sew them together and create a series.
- 1:51Darwin Shaw: Obviously, this became a complete obsession.
- 1:54Darwin Shaw: And me and my partner Will Hawkes spent the next couple of years developing over a hundred stories around the world with different communities, different teams.
- 2:03Darwin Shaw: And we came across about 24 we decided we were going to use.
- 2:08Darwin Shaw: And of those 24, there were two stories which really sung to us.
- 2:13Darwin Shaw: The first one was about a neurodiverse boy in Denmark, and we decided we were going to throw in whatever money we had and try and fly join the lockdown and film this first short.
- 2:26Darwin Shaw: And that went really well.
- 2:27Darwin Shaw: We had a wonderful director, Thomas Levin, and we produced this film which we were really proud of.
- 2:33Darwin Shaw: And then a friend of mine, David Lee, brought us a story about a rhino that was poached in 2012, and he had written a feature film about it.
- 2:42Darwin Shaw: And we thought this was a really beautiful story because this would also speak to nature that was also being affected by the pandemic.
- 2:50Darwin Shaw: So we developed this story and managed to get all our friends when lockdown ended to come to a big event we threw, and we did a big auction, and we had lots of donations with music and comedy, and we managed to raise about half our budget.
- 3:06Darwin Shaw: And then two weeks later, we flew to South Africa and we shot this film.
- 3:10Darwin Shaw: And this whole story developed from there, and it had the hundreds of people gave their time, money, energy, the creativity to help produce this story.
- 3:22Darwin Shaw: And we were very fortunate to get John Powell, the composer who created an incredible score with musicians from South Africa.
- 3:30Darwin Shaw: And eventually it became this beautiful piece which did really well.
- 3:35Jeff Ornstein: Well, congratulations.
- 3:37Jeff Ornstein: I mean, I read the brief synopsis and I got a lump in my throat, and then a happy surprise.
- 3:44Jeff Ornstein: And I'm not going to be a spoiler, so I'm not going to tell our listeners what goes on.
- 3:48Jeff Ornstein: I think just knowing that it was nominated for Academy Award out of the vast number of films that could have been considered is tremendous.
- 3:55Jeff Ornstein: So congratulations.
- 3:57Jeff Ornstein: But that's wearing your producer and writer hat, correct?
- 4:01Jeff Ornstein: Yeah.
- 4:02Jeff Ornstein: But you also have an actor's hat.
- 4:04Jeff Ornstein: And you were, am I understanding, you were a bad guy in James Bond's Casino Royale?
- 4:11Darwin Shaw: Yeah, that was my first sort of big movie job out of drama school.
- 4:16Darwin Shaw: And I was very fortunate to have the training at the London Academy, and we did a lot of fight training.
- 4:22Darwin Shaw: And after I graduated, me and my friends were all trying to figure out how we were going to get our break.
- 4:29Darwin Shaw: And I managed to get this audition because of all the training I'd had, I was in a really good position to book this job.
- 4:35Darwin Shaw: And yeah, we went to Prague and we had rehearsals for two weeks.
- 4:40Darwin Shaw: And it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life to this day.
- 4:44Darwin Shaw: And that that was the start of everything.
- 4:46Darwin Shaw: That was got me in my my break.
- 4:48Jeff Ornstein: That's a hard, tough act to follow.
- 4:50Jeff Ornstein: Am I allowed to ask?
- 4:51Jeff Ornstein: Did James Bond kick your ass?
- 4:53Jeff Ornstein: He certainly kicked my ass.
- 4:55Jeff Ornstein: Kicks everybody's ass.
- 4:57Darwin Shaw: He kicks everyone else, but actually, Daniel was such a gentleman.
- 5:00Darwin Shaw: It was a real sort of lesson in how a leading man actually exists in that film because he was just kind, generous.
- 5:08Darwin Shaw: To a beginning actor like myself, it was so nice to have someone being paternal and really supportive.
- 5:14Jeff Ornstein: That's nice to hear.
- 5:15Jeff Ornstein: He brought, I thought, as far as James Bonds go, he brought a lot of dimension to that character, very different from his predecessor.
- 5:22Jeff Ornstein: So I was sorry to see him go.
- 5:24Jeff Ornstein: It'll be interesting to see who the new fellow they bring in is, but we'll wait and see.
- 5:27Jeff Ornstein: Maybe he'll make a comeback as a new bad guy.
- 5:30Jeff Ornstein: I don't know much about the Prince of Persia, but can you share a little bit about your involvement in that film?
- 5:36Darwin Shaw: Well, that led from doing Casino Royale because the guy who was my stunt double, Glenn Foster, who went on to become Iron Man's double, he heard about he'd been brought on to the Prince of Persia, which was a big Bruckheimer film with Jake Gilnhall.
- 5:52Darwin Shaw: And they were looking for someone who looked Indian, could horse ride, and could also manage stage combat to do a big battle with Jake Girlenhall in this movie.
- 6:02Darwin Shaw: And he sort of mentioned it to me, so I wrote to the casting director, then I w rushed off to the horse riding stables and started practicing and learning how to come to bareback and be in a position that I could get into this room.
- 6:16Darwin Shaw: And fortunately, Mike Newell, the director who also did things like For Weddings and a Funeral, was we got on very well with him and he offered me the job.
- 6:26Darwin Shaw: So that led to a couple of months filming in Morocco and further training both on horseback and action.
- 6:34Darwin Shaw: And eventually we shot this incredible scene.
- 6:37Darwin Shaw: Actually, it's still one of the ones I'm very proud of.
- 6:41Jeff Ornstein: Excellent.
- 6:41Jeff Ornstein: Okay, so now I have to figure out if you'll answer, are you being typecast?
- 6:46Jeff Ornstein: Were you a bad guy again, or were you a good guy?
- 6:48Darwin Shaw: Overtly, I was a bad guy, but you find out that actually I was protecting the dagger of time.
- 6:52Darwin Shaw: So I actually was the heroic guy.
- 6:54Darwin Shaw: And sadly, the sequel never came out, but there was plans to develop the story, which should have been great.
- 6:59Darwin Shaw: Right.
- 7:00Jeff Ornstein: So I mean, there was a little bit of a hubbub about if that the they didn't bring a Persian actor to play the Persian role, and it's about talking about a cultural acquisition.
- 7:10Jeff Ornstein: I forgot what it's called.
- 7:11Jeff Ornstein: I don't see it.
- 7:12Jeff Ornstein: I thought it was great.
- 7:13Jeff Ornstein: I thought the movie was great.
- 7:14Jeff Ornstein: I'm gonna go back and watch it again and look for you now that I've met you.
- 7:17Jeff Ornstein: But tell me this.
- 7:19Jeff Ornstein: I understand that you are co-founder of Six Feet Films and Kindred Films.
- 7:24Jeff Ornstein: So are these two separate production houses?
- 7:27Jeff Ornstein: Are they connected or are they associated?
- 7:29Jeff Ornstein: How does that work?
- 7:30Darwin Shaw: Well, Six Feet Films is our production company, which we made our two shorts to date.
- 7:35Darwin Shaw: And that's a a normal production company.
- 7:38Darwin Shaw: But we also wanted to use these films in education, particularly with the last Rhino, The Last Ranger.
- 7:46Darwin Shaw: It was all about Rhino conservation.
- 7:47Darwin Shaw: So there's a lot of organizations which want to use this film to help raise funds from their from their donors and to bring more people into that sort of fight.
- 7:57Darwin Shaw: So we felt that if we had a non-profit, we could actually funnel, and as we make more projects, we can develop stories which actually have a social impact, but still maintain a high level of production value and narrative storytelling.
- 8:13Darwin Shaw: And for example, The Last Range is being shown in schools in the San Diego area.
- 8:19Darwin Shaw: So people can donate to that project, and that can also help get films made.
- 8:25Jeff Ornstein: Tell me this.
- 8:26Jeff Ornstein: Having been an Academy Award nominee, have you found that donors are more approachable or donors are reaching out to you more than they were in the past?
- 8:36Jeff Ornstein: Is that prestigious award nomination helped your business?
- 8:42Darwin Shaw: I'm not sure quite yet.
- 8:43Darwin Shaw: I think these things kind of have a bit of a lag period, but certainly it means that people take us a lot more seriously.
- 8:50Darwin Shaw: When we as a when my littering team reach out to people, we'll take a second look.
- 8:57Darwin Shaw: It's always hard to get in the door in a very challenging time and a challenging industry.
- 9:01Darwin Shaw: So everything you can have which gives a little bit more of a seal of approval is helpful.
- 9:06Jeff Ornstein: Right.
- 9:06Jeff Ornstein: Well, tell me this also, speaking about getting in the door.
- 9:10Jeff Ornstein: You walked out a door, you walked out a big door, the medical world.
- 9:14Jeff Ornstein: I mean, that must have you committed a lot of time and energy to receiving a medical degree.
- 9:22Jeff Ornstein: That's a big jump.
- 9:24Jeff Ornstein: Were you so drawn by the theater and your passion that you had inside a burning passion for the theater?
- 9:29Jeff Ornstein: Or were was there any disillusionment with working in the medical world?
- 9:34Darwin Shaw: I think there's a little combination of lots of things.
- 9:36Darwin Shaw: I always wanted to be a doctor and I trained long and hard for it.
- 9:40Darwin Shaw: When I was after I was working, there were challenges in the medical profession, which were hard, but it didn't really push me away.
- 9:50Darwin Shaw: It just was like, well, this if you want to change things, this is what you're gonna have to be involved in doing this in your career.
- 9:56Darwin Shaw: But it was only when I took a sort of sabbatical after my residence in the UK, and I moved to New York, and I started reading a book called The Artist's Way, and this sort of got me into taking some acting classes, and it was that experience which was so profound at that place where I was in my life.
- 10:15Darwin Shaw: I think it was I was still in my twenties, and suddenly being able after doing science for so long, suddenly getting a chance to explore humanity, and I think when you are in the medical field, you start to get a much more mechanistic view of what people are and what health is, and it does sort of blunt your emotions, and it was really cutting me off from a certain level of my humanity.
- 10:43Darwin Shaw: And then once I discovered the theatre, I realized there was so much stuff which I was wanting to express and wanting to explore, and just the thrill of being on stage was like nothing else.
- 10:56Darwin Shaw: It's still to this day.
- 10:59Jeff Ornstein: I'm a theater person.
- 11:00Jeff Ornstein: I mean, uh, I wouldn't turn down a movie role, but there's nothing like the stage.
- 11:05Jeff Ornstein: So before we move on, am I allowed to ask, were your parents disappointed that the son, the doctor, decided not to be a doctor anymore?
- 11:14Darwin Shaw: Yeah.
- 11:14Jeff Ornstein: Or were they just happy for you?
- 11:16Darwin Shaw: I think I mean my mum particularly was upset.
- 11:18Darwin Shaw: My dad, who I expected to be more frustrated about it, was actually very good.
- 11:23Darwin Shaw: He was just proud that I'd made it to be a doctor.
- 11:25Darwin Shaw: And I guess he didn't think that it was going to be a lifelong career.
- 11:28Darwin Shaw: He perhaps thought it was more of a little dallion.
- 11:32Darwin Shaw: But when I get the bit between my teeth, I don't give up.
- 11:36Jeff Ornstein: Well, that's fabulous.
- 11:36Jeff Ornstein: I mean, it just goes to show you that I just wanted you to be happy and pursue your dreams.
- 11:40Jeff Ornstein: So you've been an actor, you're a writer and a producer.
- 11:44Jeff Ornstein: I haven't spoken to you yet about your directing endeavors.
- 11:47Jeff Ornstein: Can you share a little bit about that?
- 11:50Darwin Shaw: Well, I've directed or co-directed a couple of projects over the years, but as of last year, I worked with some friends of mine to create a project called Children of Chaos.
- 12:01Darwin Shaw: And it's a proof of concept, sort of long short, it's a 40-minute piece.
- 12:07Darwin Shaw: And it's set in the heart of the neighborhood in Las Vegas, where a lot of the young homeless people live.
- 12:14Darwin Shaw: And it's basically a drama about pulling on real life stories and things that we discovered by lots of interviews about what it is actually like to live on the street as a young person.
- 12:26Darwin Shaw: But we've developed it into a much more narrative drama, so this is the worst day of their lives.
- 12:32Darwin Shaw: But the hope of this is that we can develop it into a TV show so we can tell compelling stories, but at the same time raise awareness and remind people that this is a huge problem, that people aren't invisible, they have their own stories and their own lives and dreams.
- 12:46Darwin Shaw: So again, I'm always interested in this balance between telling powerful drama, which just moves anyone, but at the same time makes you question some of your assumptions about people.
- 12:59Darwin Shaw: Right.
- 13:00Jeff Ornstein: What impacts you and changes you.
- 13:02Jeff Ornstein: So as an actor, what roles would appeal to you right now in this stage in your career and your development, and understanding that you're very affected by the world and the environment around you?
- 13:13Jeff Ornstein: Is there a role that if someone dangled it in front of you'd say, I'm gonna drop everything and play that role?
- 13:19Darwin Shaw: Well, at the moment, I'm as you can see by the beard, I'm playing another biblical role.
- 13:22Darwin Shaw: Um just been filming on The Chosen, which has been incredible fun.
- 13:26Darwin Shaw: But I think I would really like to do a sort of a romantic drama, like something powerful moves people's hearts.
- 13:36Darwin Shaw: We are in pretty dark times, and bubblegum movies and things are fun.
- 13:44Darwin Shaw: I mean, I love doing action films, it's really incredible fun to do, and it's great escapism.
- 13:50Darwin Shaw: But I'd love to play a part where the chance to bring your soul to something and really just explore for a period of time one of the most important things in human existence, which is love.
- 14:03Jeff Ornstein: Nice.
- 14:03Jeff Ornstein: You've been in these uh mega features, big blockbuster films, and then you've also taken on these really powerful, intimate, short films, and they must be very different.
- 14:24Jeff Ornstein: I'm sure yes, there are similarities, it's all about the story, it's all about the actors and characters bring to the audience.
- 14:31Jeff Ornstein: But in your world, can you weigh them out and say if you were to be handed 10 new projects tomorrow, would you prefer the bigger blockbusters or would you prefer these smaller intimate projects?
- 14:47Darwin Shaw: I mean, I think both things have different challenges.
- 14:50Darwin Shaw: I think one of the reasons why I enjoy directing and producing is it's it's really sort of multitasking and doing high pressure, being able to do many things, but also with my acting background, I think I have a good sort of language with actors and understand the process.
- 15:05Darwin Shaw: And I will always bring that sensitivity to whatever I do.
- 15:09Darwin Shaw: I think the medical background helped a lot with that.
- 15:12Darwin Shaw: And I don't see a massive difference between doing something huge.
- 15:16Darwin Shaw: I haven't done that yet, but it's just a different scale.
- 15:20Darwin Shaw: When you're doing a small film, you're having to also manage the finance, do deals for your constantly problem solving to try and get your your vision onto the screen with incredibly tight budget.
- 15:33Darwin Shaw: So being on something bigger would be great because you could actually just focus on the production on the creative side more, and also just have a bit more time.
- 15:41Darwin Shaw: I think time is the huge challenge for independent filmmakers because you may only have two hours to film a massive scene, whereas on a big film or a big TV show, you might have a day to shoot that scene.
- 15:55Darwin Shaw: And that difference allows more nuance and more shots and helps to create different things.
- 16:01Darwin Shaw: But there is something very immediate and very kind of raw and powerful about doing something when you have no resources because you have to be creative.
- 16:12Jeff Ornstein: That was my thoughts exactly, like the opportunity of time, which rarely presents itself in filmmaking, versus the immediacy and spontaneity of time pressure.
- 16:22Jeff Ornstein: They both can be a big asset or a drawback.
- 16:25Jeff Ornstein: So this podcast a lot of times is to a lot of our listeners is about people.
- 16:32Jeff Ornstein: Should I, shouldn't I?
- 16:33Jeff Ornstein: How do people get the courage to take that leap and to bring themselves to some decision that's going to take them in a new direction for which they have the passion, they have the vitality, but it's not for weak people?
- 16:48Jeff Ornstein: I mean, the theater is a tricky industry.
- 16:51Jeff Ornstein: So what advice would you give to folks that are think listening to you and hearing like you've had some great successes here?
- 16:59Jeff Ornstein: And obviously all well deserved, but still it's not an easy industry.
- 17:03Jeff Ornstein: So for people starting out later in life, do you think is there any any lesson learned that you would say if I could give share one lesson, this is what I would tell people?
- 17:15Darwin Shaw: It is definitely not easy.
- 17:17Darwin Shaw: I didn't I don't think I understood what that meant when I was in my 20s, because it doesn't feel like a risk because it just felt overpoweringly that this is what I have to do.
- 17:27Darwin Shaw: So I think primarily you have to have that real passion and that real that real love for it because you're not going to get through the hard times without it.
- 17:35Darwin Shaw: I think as I've got further down the road of my career, there's been huge amounts of ups and downs, and the same for every actor.
- 17:45Darwin Shaw: And you need to have that drive.
- 17:46Darwin Shaw: I think if you're doing it for your love of it, that can really get you far.
- 17:53Darwin Shaw: I think a problem is a lot of people I've met in recent years have opposing drives for it, whether it be financial or fame or some of the other trappings, which are all fun, right?
- 18:05Darwin Shaw: But they generally don't come to most of us.
- 18:08Darwin Shaw: Most of the time, 99.9% of people are just surviving but doing their work.
- 18:14Darwin Shaw: And you have to really love it to do that.
- 18:16Darwin Shaw: And I think it's only as an older person that I realize what that's the real sacrifice.
- 18:22Darwin Shaw: You're sort of gambling with your life a little bit in terms of material wealth.
- 18:26Darwin Shaw: But I would say that I've had an incredibly interesting life so far, and the experiences I've had, I wouldn't trade for anything.
- 18:35Darwin Shaw: So that to me is the most important thing.
- 18:38Darwin Shaw: And if something else comes, it comes.
- 18:40Darwin Shaw: But I think you need to have that love and you need to really be interested about it.
- 18:44Darwin Shaw: I mean, I think in terms of acting and theatre and film, there's reading plays, watching movies, it's got to really move you, and you've got to you've got to also find your own voice, and that takes time, and you know, you also have to live and have experiences which have something to bring, and it doesn't have to be huge and super impressive, but just by living, but really thinking and really understanding what's happened to you in your life, if that can lead to something which you can share.
- 19:18Darwin Shaw: So I'm kind of all for young people often ask me how to get into the industry, and should I be learning this instrument or singing or this course or that course?
- 19:27Darwin Shaw: And it's like you do all that stuff, but also live.
- 19:30Darwin Shaw: That's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to reflect the world, one aspect of it or several aspects, to an audience, and you have to find something to say, and that takes time.
- 19:42Jeff Ornstein: Right.
- 19:42Jeff Ornstein: You have a fantastic voice.
- 19:43Jeff Ornstein: I didn't even ask you to get it to ask you if you do voiceovers.
- 19:46Jeff Ornstein: But I wanted to ask you one last thing because it seems as like there's a common theme to your life story and passions.
- 19:55Jeff Ornstein: I mean, between the medical work and the incredible storytelling and the way you present your relationships with the other people around you, that empathy seems to really come through.
- 20:07Jeff Ornstein: I mean, if I was to share with people well, what was Darwin like?
- 20:10Jeff Ornstein: I would just say, well, he seems really empathetic.
- 20:14Jeff Ornstein: I mean, would you think that would be one of your defining characteristics?
- 20:19Darwin Shaw: I think so.
- 20:20Darwin Shaw: I mean, I think acting is an act of empathy.
- 20:24Darwin Shaw: You don't get to choose the parts you always play, but you have to step into the shoes of that character.
- 20:29Darwin Shaw: And when you do, you've got to be unjudgmental about them.
- 20:34Darwin Shaw: And whether I'm playing, you mentioned bad guys, but early in my career, I was getting a lot of terrorist parts and all this sort of stuff, which was frustrating because that's obviously that's not how I see myself.
- 20:46Darwin Shaw: But the job of an actor is to try and fill that with whatever part that is, you try and understand what brings someone.
- 20:54Darwin Shaw: That actually was what brought me to writing the first time was through like what would make someone make that decision, that choice in life.
- 21:02Darwin Shaw: And once you start to do that, and you start to really understand someone from the inside, you realize that you do that a few times, and you realize that everybody's they're the leading person in their body, in their life, and they have all these challenges, and most people don't do stuff without reason.
- 21:20Darwin Shaw: And I think empathy is the first step towards a better world, I think.
- 21:26Jeff Ornstein: Well, Darwin, it's been a pleasure having you on this, and I am going to follow you, and I am going to watch your Academy Award-nominated film as soon as I sign off with you.
- 21:38Jeff Ornstein: I love the story.
- 21:39Jeff Ornstein: I'm an animal lover.
- 21:41Jeff Ornstein: I don't want to share too much so the listeners can experience it fresh from the opening credits.
- 21:46Jeff Ornstein: But congratulations.
- 21:47Jeff Ornstein: You got a great perspective.
- 21:49Jeff Ornstein: I think you're the kind of person that our industry needs.
- 21:52Jeff Ornstein: And I was delighted to have had you on.
- 21:55Darwin Shaw: It's a great pleasure.
- 21:55Jeff Ornstein: Thanks so much, Jeff.
- 21:56Jeff Ornstein: Thank you so long.
- 21:58Jeff Ornstein: Thanks for tuning in to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein.
- 22:01Jeff Ornstein: Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextact podcast.com.
- 22:09Jeff Ornstein: Keep chasing your next act.
- 22:11Jeff Ornstein: The best is yet to come.