Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 468: The Indie Filmmaker’s Survival Guide (No Hollywood Required) with Ethan Marten

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BPS 468: The Indie Filmmaker’s Survival Guide (No Hollywood Required) with Ethan Marten · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
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  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four sixty eight.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
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  Speaker 2: breath and try again.
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  Speaker 1: that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
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  Speaker 1: the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
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  Speaker 1: to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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  Speaker 3: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
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  Speaker 4: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now.
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  Speaker 2: Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage. Now. Unlike
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  Speaker 2: other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on
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• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: We have an active producer director. We talk growing up
• 1:42
  Speaker 4: as the son of an entertainment attorney for people such
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: as Desi Arnez, Mickey Rooney, and Mile of the Three Stooges.
• 1:48
  Speaker 4: We talk about that a little bit. We talk about
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: old TV a lot, so if you know who the
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: Bowerie Boys are, maybe who the Markes brothers are. We
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: touch upon that. But we also talk about a lot
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: about his career, and we also talk about his new
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: film Eyes of the which actually starts Eric Roberts and
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: he actually made it in his own hometown, far far
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  Speaker 4: away from Hollywood, and we're gonna talk about how he
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: did that, and also about upcoming projects like White Buffalo
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  Speaker 4: Movie with guests Ethan Martin hey Ethan, thanks Off for
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: coming on the show.
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  Speaker 3: Dave, thank you for having me.
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: Hey, everybody, my pleasure of having you on Ethan. And
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: you know, something that we were talking about in the
• 2:26
  Speaker 4: pre show interview is you know your whole your career
• 2:29
  Speaker 4: and obviously your career. You know you're out of Virginia Beach, Virginia,
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: and again you're the first person I've ever interviewed from Virginia. Uh, completely,
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: I believe. Uh now I'm completely mistaken, which is possible.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: But but you're not gonna ask me like some World
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: War two question like who's the most famous baseball player
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: to come out of Virginia? Are you?
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Oh, that's a good question. That was Actually I wasn't
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: going to ask that, but now I think I should.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Well, I would say Yogi Bera is probably one of
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: the most famous guys to come through here when the
• 2:59
  Speaker 3: Mets had their farm system here and even before that,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: when the Yankees played a lot of games back here,
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: Yogi Berrick came through. So there you have it. So
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I am an American now you know that for sure? Okay,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: glad we got that out of the way.
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: You passed the test. Yes, well, so I'll ask you
• 3:20
  Speaker 4: then an on World War two baseball question.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: I'll ask you a question just about you know, your
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: whole career, and I wanted to ask you know what
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: brought you?
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  Speaker 3: Am I about to get a Lifetime Achievement award? Am
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I already done?
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  Speaker 4: Is this it?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: This is the easy way to sort of break the ice.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: This is the uh sort of this is the road
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  Speaker 4: to the lifetime Achievement award. But yeah, but basically I'm
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: gonna break the ice. It's all over.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, there we go. Well, it's it's it's a pleasure
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  Speaker 3: to receive my Lifetime Achievement award from you, Dave. Thank you.
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  Speaker 3: It's an honor. It's an honor.
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  Speaker 4: It's my pleasure, my friend. I I you know, I
• 3:53
  Speaker 4: got I was given this task of giving you this award.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: And yeah, man, uh.
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  Speaker 3: The rug out from under me? Wow, that hurt.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: It's all right.
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  Speaker 3: I forgive you, man, I love you. It's all good.
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  Speaker 3: I'd like to thank my mother, my father, all the
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: little people. Those are the bunchkins. They're right over here. Anyway,
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry, go ahead, stream of consciousness, Dave.
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  Speaker 4: All right, here we go. So when you were growing up,
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  Speaker 4: did you always have this love affair of movies or
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: did you just sort of find yourself in this one day,
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: almost by a form of accident.
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  Speaker 3: If you will, a little of both. My dad was
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  Speaker 3: very well known. He was one of the foremost theatrical
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  Speaker 3: entertainment lawyers going. He produced more than one hundred and
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  Speaker 3: fifty motion pictures Broadway plays, and so we just kind
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: of me and my three older brothers grew up with
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: this atmosphere, even though he tried to protect us from
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: it all. And his client ranged everywhere from Desi Arnez
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  Speaker 3: Fernanda Lamis to Errol Flynn. He once tore up a
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  Speaker 3: fifty thousand dollars check for his hero, Oh my goodness,
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  Speaker 3: Judy Garland's counterpart, Mickey Rooney. He loved Mickey Rooney growing up,
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  Speaker 3: and he wanted to give Mickey some work. I think
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  Speaker 3: this was somewhere in the sixties, and he flew out
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  Speaker 3: to Hollywood to give Mickey a check and a job.
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  Speaker 3: I think it was like fifty thousand dollars, huge money
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  Speaker 3: back then. And he was sitting with Mickey's agent and
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: an hour ticked by no Mickey, and you know, Pop's
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: looking at the agent, going, where's Mickey stuck in traffic?
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  Speaker 3: He's stuck in trek. Two hours goes by three hours.
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  Speaker 3: My dad looks up, says, come on, what's going on.
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  Speaker 3: He goes, it's a the track. My dad tears up
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  Speaker 3: the check, hands it to the agent. You know, tell
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  Speaker 3: Mickey to straighten out. It broke my dad's heart because
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  Speaker 3: he was he loved Mickey Rooney growing up. Years later,
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  Speaker 3: when we built the movie studio in Suffolk, Virginia, Mickey
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  Speaker 3: Rooney was touring with Sugar Babies and the article broke
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  Speaker 3: while he was in town about the movie studio Atlantic
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  Speaker 3: Film Studios that we'd built here. Mickey picks up the phone,
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  Speaker 3: ends up getting my brother Jonathan on the phone and says,
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: you tell your old man. He saved my life because
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: he straightened up after that check got torn up because
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: he said nobody ever said no to him, and that's
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: when he set the bottle aside and got his life
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  Speaker 3: back in order. So when Mo Howard of the Three
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Stooges called the house looking for our old man, that's
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: when we knew he was big time. And so I
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: grew up in that.
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  Speaker 4: Wow, that is an amazing story by both. Actually, you know,
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  Speaker 4: Mickey Rooney, you know I've you know, obviously I knew
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  Speaker 4: him growing up again, a huge movie buff. But even
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  Speaker 4: just to have him call and just say something like
• 7:13
  Speaker 4: that about your father, I mean, that's amazing. Yeah, being
• 7:16
  Speaker 4: able to straighten him out like that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, tough love, I guess tough love. And I
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: mean my dad literally was broken hearted walking away from that.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: I think he ended up casting Maurice Chevalier. It was
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: for a film called Panic Button, and I was actually
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: I was in my mom's tummy at the time. He
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: was on the set somewhere in Italy where they were shooting.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: My mom was going to one of the famous star
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: female stars who was also the druggist on the set,
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: and she thought she had the flu, and she went up.
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  Speaker 3: My mom did, and she passed out in front of
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: the actress's Hoaxtel Broum, and she said, I think I've
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: got the flu. And she said, Jackie, you don't have
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: the flu, your preer. So my first taste of Hollywood
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  Speaker 3: came while I was still in mom's tummy. I was
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  Speaker 3: on Italian soil, I was preparing for my first motion
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  Speaker 3: picture and mom's belly.
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  Speaker 4: So again, you were just born into this and I
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: was born into it.
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  Speaker 3: And the funny thing was Pop wanted to protect all
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  Speaker 3: of us from the motion picture business, which he thought was,
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  Speaker 3: you know, a little rough and tumble. And he was offered,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: he was offered the position the head one of the
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: studios out in Hollywood, and he turned it down because
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: he was a New York guy. You know, he was
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: born in Hell's kitchen and he pulled himself up by
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: his own bootstraps. He did not want the kids growing
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: up in la He thought that the palm trees and
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: the smell of eucalyptus would somehow, you know, make us
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: less than the New Yorkers. He wanted us to have
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: New York in our blood.
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And do you feel you have New York in
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  Speaker 4: your blood right now?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely? Absolutely. I love Virginia. Virginia is a beautiful place.
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  Speaker 3: I raised my daughter here and I'll always be a
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: New Yorker. It's just a different energy, oh.
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, completely different energy. You know even when I go
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'm from Philly and even when I go
• 9:34
  Speaker 4: up to New York, you can feel that, you can
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: feel the different energy between the two cities.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. I was in college in California for two years
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: and they used to say to me, slow down, what
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: are you on speed? I mean, you're just manic, You're crazy.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: And when I went back home to New York after
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: being out in California for two years, all my friends said,
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: what the heck is the matter with you? You want quelutes
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: or something?
• 9:56
  Speaker 5: Come on, we'll be right back after a wh from
• 10:00
  Speaker 5: our sponsor and now back to the show.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: Pick it up. So thirty years in Virginia, now I'm
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: you know, I've learned to kind of settle down and
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: just go at a nice medium pace. It's nice.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, the fast paced to what you're talking about,
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: because even you know, I tend to talk fast. I
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: tend to move fast. And when my friends from down
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: South come up to visit me, they're like, wow, everyone
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: up here moves. I had this woman I was used
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: to work for who was from Georgia, and she used
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: to say, you because you Northerners talk way too fast
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: and you do way too much.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Right, and you're thinking the complete opposite when you're down south.
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know it's it's just it's a cultural difference.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: You know. They always say that that America is really
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: five different countries put together.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Interesting, what five are they.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: There's like the Deep South, there's the there's like I
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: guess you could call it the mid Atlantic, which would
• 11:02
  Speaker 4: be like you know, all of New England and in
• 11:05
  Speaker 4: New York and Pennsylvania. There's the Midwest. There is the
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: West Coast, and then there is the other states kind
• 11:13
  Speaker 4: of like Montana and I forget what they actually call those,
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: but those are the five states.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: I would imagine Alaskan, Hawaii are their own state of beings.
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, they're pretty much were pushed out. They're pretty much like,
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: you know, not a part of the continental United States.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: And of course there's.
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: Guum, but you know, yeah, and then then in Puerto.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Rico there you read in my mind, you know, being
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: an actor, it's one of the interesting things I tend
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: to pick up on the personalities, the mannerisms, the patterns
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: of wherever I am. I think it's almost like growing
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: up in the military. You adapt, and it's not because
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: you're trying to put one over on anybody. I think
• 11:53
  Speaker 3: actors adapt and it just when you're in rome you
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: try and connect with people on their level, and it's
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: just it's something that subconsciously just happens. So it's it's interesting.
• 12:06
  Speaker 3: That's why whatever I go somewhere. It's like a a
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: quick adjustment.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: So, you know, as we talked about that adjustment, Ethan,
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: I want to actually take a sort of take a
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: step back and actually ask you a question. When you
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: actually started, you know, getting into this business. I mean,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: and your dad said that he wanted to sort of,
• 12:25
  Speaker 4: you know, protect you from this business when you when
• 12:28
  Speaker 4: you started to get into it. You know what was
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: his initial reaction.
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: The initial reaction was, you know what you want to do.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: That's fantastic. You want to know what you want to
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: do in life. Okay, I'm taking you out to your
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: favorite dinner. So he takes me to Mayako's Japan in
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: New York, which was our favorite Japanese restaurant. Miyako's was
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: the first Japanese restaurant that opened to New York. It
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: was so popular. It was like going to a speakeasy
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: because it was open during World War two and only
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: the hipsters knew how to get in, because you basically
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: would go up some steps, down some steps through a
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: garden to like a back door, and it was literally
• 13:14
  Speaker 3: like getting into a speakeasy. It was so incredible that
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: even Eleanor Roosevelt used to go to this restaurant during
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: World War two, so that was like we grew up
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: Japanese food was our favorite food, so you know, we
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: were always kind of frugal because Pop grew up in
• 13:32
  Speaker 3: the depression, so you ate what was on your plate.
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: There was no waste and rarely did you order anything
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: you wanted off the menu. But on this night, it
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: was like passover. Why is this night different from all
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: other nights? You can order whatever you want off the menu,
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: and I went crazy. I was like, oh wow, yum
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: food everything. Oh, the clear soup, the suimono, the sounamono,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: everything was fantastic. And Pop says, well you like the meal?
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: I said, oh, Pop, this is incredible. He said, have
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: you had enough? I said yeah, yeah, yeah? Are you sure? Yeah? Yeah,
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: he says, and you really want to be an actor? Yeah,
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Bob more than anything. He says, okay, and you've had
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: enough to eat? So yeah, why he said, because that's
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: the last full meal you're ever going to have. He
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: was like, you're never and so be sure this is
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: what you want. And you know he was half joking
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: and half not. He was really concerned that I was
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: never going to eat again. So he's going to make
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: sure at least he sent me off with a good meal,
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: and that was his response. He supported me all the way,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: you know, and he came out to all the shows,
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: all the openings, all the theater, but he was always
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: worried for me.
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: So at this point, Ethan went, when you you've only
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: had that that your quote unquote last meal, or as
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: you as you as you went on your co go
• 15:00
  Speaker 4: ahead and become an actor.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: You did?
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: Did? When at that point, what was your sort of
• 15:04
  Speaker 4: your first gig from there on this road of of
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: what you decided to go want to be an actor?
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: Interesting? I think when I finally decided that I could
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: come out of the acting closet really admit acting is
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: what I wanted to do. Uh. I think the first
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: in the paid professionally was Mother's Day. I think it
• 15:30
  Speaker 3: was originally titled Vindicated, a Mother's Revenge and it was
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: with THEO Huxtable for Malcolm Jamal Warner and uh Jose
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Ferrera was in that one, and it was great. I
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: remember the first call that you know came that said yeah,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: after three auditions, I thought, oh maybe I got another callback.
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: You know, this is exciting. They said you got the
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: part and I audibly I screamed. I was like, I mean,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: you would have thought I got to see Reggie Jackson
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: hit his fourth home run in the World Series. It
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: was incredible. I just remember jumping up and down being
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: so excited. And as it turned out, my brother Jonathan
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: and my brother Seth were also cast in this television movie.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: So the director who ended up winning I think an
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Emmy Award for this TV movie grabbed my brother Richard
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: because he was hanging around the set to watch his brothers,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: and she said, well, I might as well put the
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: fourth Martin brother in here. So that was the first
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: time all four of us were on camera in a
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: film together. So I was exciting. And all Jose Ferrera
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: wanted to do was golf, So in between takes he
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: lean out, hey, kid, yeah, where's the closest golf course,
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: and don't scrap your lines so I can get eighteen
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: rounds in. So that was my pressure. I had to
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: get my lines right on the first take so that
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: Husse Ferrara could get out on the links. And I'm
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: proud to say, yeah, I got him out there. I
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: got him out on time.
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: That was actually me. My next question I was going
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: to say, did did did Jose Ferrera get in those
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: eighteen holes of golf? Yes?
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: He did, Yes he did. He said, good job kid,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: I'm out of here. Boom. I got a pat on
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: the back from Jusse Ferrara because he got to golf.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: So it's funny too that you fantastic well that the
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: they mentioned the fourth Martin brother. I was actually gonna say,
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: it's almost like sort of like the Marx Brothers when
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: they had the four of them together all in all.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: The old look at you you've been reading. Yes, we
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: growing up in our house was like one long, episodic
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: Marx Brothers movie. Mom played the role of Margaret Dumont.
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: We tormented her. She loved it, but man, we tortured her,
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: and she was our Margaret Dumont. Pop was like the
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: ring leader. So there were really five boys that she
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: had to deal with.
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: No, I've seen Duck Soup, and I've seen a lot
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: of the March Brothers.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Good Man, okay, nuts.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Yeah, And you know, I'm just a huge
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: movie head, so I've seen a lot of different stuff.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: You know, I know this is a little bit of
• 18:18
  Speaker 4: a segue, but you know what you know what I
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: was watching the other day, And I don't know if
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: you've ever heard of these guys. Have you ever heard
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: of the Bowerie Boys?
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: Are you kidding? The Bowerie butch. Let's see Mugs. As
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: a matter of fact, one of mom's nicknames was Mugs,
• 18:37
  Speaker 3: So there you go. As a matter of fact, for
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: my birthday not too long ago, my brother Seth actually
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: sent me a picture of Hunt's Hall.
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: Who played satch Yep satch So.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: I remember them when they were the dead End Kids
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: before they became the Bowery Boys and the east Side Kids,
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: but they were the dead End Kids, yeah.
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: And I remember there were there was movies were a
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: little more dramatic, you know, because people were getting shot at.
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: And then when they became the the Bowerie Boys, it
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: became a not for the first couple of movies, but
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: eventually became a little a lot more lighthearted, you know
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: what I mean, instead of like the serious sort of
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: incidences like happening like there was there was one where
• 19:17
  Speaker 4: one of their friends died in a boxing ring and
• 19:19
  Speaker 4: they had to sort of find his brother, and the
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: brother went on a revenge kick.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: And mouse is in the milk the mouse is in
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: the milk. That's the episode. As a matter of fact,
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: dead End Kids. Uh, you know that was with Jimmy
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Cagney and Humphrey Bogart And you're right, those were really
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: serious movies. And yeah they is they went, remember the
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: mark of the Squealer, when when somebody's a rent, they
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: get the mark of the squealer. They had him pinned
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: in the hideout. We're gonna slit his face from you know,
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: the mouth to the ear. Yeah, they got a lot
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: more lighthearted after that. I guess they didn't. I think
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: that would be good for weekly serials.
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: and now back to the show.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess when they became more more, much more
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: slapstick and I and I you know again, I think
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: that probably worked out for him because they sort of
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: you know, it was you them of the Stooges at
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: that point we really started to stand out exactly.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: It's funny. My first agent, uh, Marty and Charlie, her
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: husband was one of the original dead End Kids. Wow,
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: right off the Broadway stage. So he's actually and he
• 20:43
  Speaker 3: so he acted with all these guys on stage as
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: the original dead End Kids, and he's actually still up
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: and run it. I'll hook you guys up. He's got
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: some stories.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: Oh please do uh you know, because I actually was
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: telling somebody the other day. There was one of the
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: later Bowery Boys entitled Hold Up for Uranium, and there
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: was a sequel to it called I think, uh Breaking
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: Las Vegas or something with Las Vegas. And that was
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: actually the last movie for Leo Gorsey because his dad,
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: Bernard Gorcy, had actually died before the movie actually started filming,
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: and he actually died in an auto accident. And and
• 21:21
  Speaker 4: that was actually a lot of controversy about that because
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: Leo showed up to set completely inebriated, and you could,
• 21:29
  Speaker 4: I mean, his performance was was you could tell something
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: was wrong. And and I mean when they when you
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: start watching it and you know it's afterwards apparently you know,
• 21:38
  Speaker 4: there's a lot more problems behind the set. But I mean,
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: it's just interesting to hear all all of these, you know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: all these things, because this is all the you know,
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: the Hollywood Golden Era. You know, this is all all
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: that you know, interesting interesting stuff, and everyone from that
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: era is either you know, in their late eighties, early.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Nineties if there's still around.
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so uh but yeah, so you know, as
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: we sort of segued off of the whole day.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I can't believe you asked me about that. That's great.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: Nobody's ever asked me about The dead End Kids before.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: That's that was my childhood. Dead End Kids, anything having
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: to do with Broadway and you know, motion pictures and
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Lenny Bruce. So yeah, and the producers the original Tira Mustelle,
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Gene Wilder. Oh, to give you an idea of my childhood,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: you know, I grew up being able to sing Springtime
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: for Hitler by the time I was in kindergarten, which
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: made me kind of a different kind of kid. I
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: could I could perform Lenny Bruce routines by the time
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: I was in first grade. I never actually thought about
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: that before, but yeah, which made me really popular with
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: the principal.
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: They're probably Ethan. Now we can't be singing Springtime for Hitler,
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: even though even though Dick Sean was very good in
• 22:58
  Speaker 4: the film and Boomerang. Now, well, well, I'm glad I
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: could ask you a question.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: You have to, Yeah, go for go for it, keep going,
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: love where this is going?
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: So I actually was gonna you know, bring sort of
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: bring this back to you know, talking about your acting career,
• 23:15
  Speaker 4: and I'll get into.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: It that except my lifetime achieving a word? How can
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: I forget exactly?
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, just going sort of going back and and you know,
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: talking about the young Indiana Jones chronicles. So I just
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: wanted to ask, you know, obviously, how were you able
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: to sort of you know, we went from this Mother's
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: Day with Ma Gonnajow Warner. You know when when you
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: were from there, did you finally say okay, now, you
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: know obviously you probably talked to your dad and said,
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: you know, now I'm starting to get work. I'm starting
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: to become, you know, an actor who has to you know,
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: Goldies audition.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: He's a Jewish father. He never stopped worrying are you eating?
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: And you're not eating enough? Keep eating? I mean he
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: was happy. They were They were ecstatic when I got work,
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: and you know, but it was like, when's the next
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: job coming? Are you? Are you eating enough? That was it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: If I was eating, he was happy. I had a
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: roof over my head and I was eating. Then he
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: was happy. He's you know, that was the thing. So
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: I'm auditioning for this TV movie, you know, and it's
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: really cool. And my agent at the time kept sending
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: me down for policemen. For some reason, she was bound
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: and determined to get me cast as a policeman in
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: something I was the young cop. Didn't matter if it
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: was a black police officer, if it was a sixty
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: five year old retired police officer, it could be an
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: Indonesian police officer. She sent me for every police officer.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: I remember one time going down to audition for the
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: finn Cannons and Craig and his brother Mark were kind
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: of mentors to me, and they gave me some of
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: my first work behind the camera. And They're like, Ethan,
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: what are you doing here? And I'm like, what do
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: you mean what I'm here at audition for my latest
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: police officer role. He says, Ethan, the guy's sixty five
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: years old, he's retired, and he's black.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: And I looked at.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: Him, and in those days, you know, it's like a
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: seven eight hour drive one way to these auditions in Wilmington.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: And I looked at him and I just shook my
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: head and we had a little laugh together. I said, well,
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: as long as I'm here, do you mind if I
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: auditioned just so I could make it worth my while.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: He says, yeah, go ahead. So I do my thing,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: and I do my little thirty second prep and I
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: give it to him and he says, wow, that was great.
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: It really was. He said, if you were any one
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: of these things, I could manipulate it for you. But
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: what a Shane you were. Really that was great. See
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: you next time, you know. And I had to turn
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: around and take a nice eight hour trip right back
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: to Virginia Beach. I used to go to these things
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: and this might be something for your young acting audience.
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: And I used to like to go present myself as
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: myself to you know, the casting people, and then get
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: into character and do my thing. And there was this
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: one guy, J Michael Hunter, who at this point had
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: a resume that was as long as my arm. Now
• 26:34
  Speaker 3: I'm short, I'm like five six on a good day,
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: five to five and three quarters, dark hair, swarthy. He
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: was an all American, six p two, blonde hair, blue eyes,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: you know, just a scrapping young American. My life where
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: it would come down to a choice between this guy
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: and me, and I'm you know, two three, and I
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: had one or two things on my resume that were legitimate,
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: and he had about thirty or forty. And I think
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: one day he took mercy on me and he said, hey,
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: when you go in there, do you go in in
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: character or do you go in and then present yourself
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: then get into character. I said, oh the latter. He says,
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: don't do that.
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: So why not?
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: He says, they don't care if you can act or not.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: So what they're casting directors? What do you mean they
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: don't care if I can act or not? He says, no,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: they got jobs to maintain. They don't want to know
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: that you can turn it on and turn it off
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: because you may not be the same guy who shows
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: up on set that showed up in the audition. No,
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: when you go in there, you go in character and
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: then you get the hell out and you leave in character.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I'm like, well, okay, I got nothing else to lose.
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: It's not like I get everything that I audition for.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: I'll give it a sh So in Indiana Jones, I
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: went in and I knew that the finn Cannons knew me.
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: You know, there's my twentieth audition with him, and they
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: had yet to cast me in anything. And they loved me,
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: but they just hadn't cast me yet, and I went
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: in in character. As a matter of fact, my agent
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: sent me for another police officer. And it was nineteen twenties,
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: ten pan Alley, a bunch of Jews running around. Now,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: my dad's first words were, Mammy, it was Al Jolson.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: I grew up with Al Jolson playing an Eddie Canter
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: and all these things. This I was home and I
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: was being sent to audition for another police officer. And
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: I looked at Craig and I said, buddy, these are
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: my people. You must have something that's more appropriate for
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: me than police officer. And he said, yeah, I think
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: I got something. So he gave me Irving Berlin. And
• 28:57
  Speaker 3: I go in and I just I'm going in in character,
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: and I mean, I didn't present. Ethan Martin disappeared. Irving
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Berlin walked in, and Irving Berlin walked out, and lo
• 29:11
  Speaker 3: and behold, I landed it. I mean, on the way out,
• 29:16
  Speaker 3: they said, we don't even have to you know, we
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: don't even have to call you. You're in. That was perfect.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: And I just walked and I didn't answer, Miss Ethan.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: I just gave him the finger to the nose the salute.
• 29:29
  Speaker 3: I was irving Berlin and I walked out and that's
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: how I got the Indiana Jones part. On set, the
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: director Sid McCartney was so fantastic, and I had a
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: real theatrical background, lots of improv and comedy as well,
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: and so I would always improv, not wildly, but the
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: character would always take over. So I I have a
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: great respect for writers.
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 30:09
  Speaker 5: and now back to the show.
• 30:12
  Speaker 3: Mom wrote twenty books, so my respect for the written
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: word is tremendous. But man, when the character would take over,
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: stuff would just come out of my mouth because it
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: was a character speaking through me. And there's an old
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: Jewish way of expressing yourself, you know, where you call
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: a youngster a boy chick. And I remember I threw in.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: I called, uh is it Sean Patrick Flannery, who was
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: playing the young indie. I said, well, boy chick, it's simple.
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: You can't stop thinking about her because and then we
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: all break in the song and they let it play out. Kut,
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: what's this, boy chick? I said, Oh, that's that's the
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: real deal, that's authentic. Said are you sure? I said, sid,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: I swear to God, I swear on a stack of
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: holy Bibles that'll make you look like a genius like
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: you grew up in tin Panaley he left it in
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: and lo and behold, that's stuck. So I was allowed.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: I was allowed some free range. And I don't think
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: there's a role where I haven't slipped some improvisation into
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: it ever since.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: You know, that is a very good tip, by the way,
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: for the all the actors out there. And you know, honestly, Ethan,
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: I also think helps that you showed up, you know,
• 31:30
  Speaker 4: prepare for the role. And I think, you know, when
• 31:32
  Speaker 4: you just sort of hit it out of the ballpark
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: like that, you know when when you're just of just
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: sort of my perspective in my experience. I remember one time,
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: and I remember we were in a cat. I was
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: with a friend of mine who was casting a movie.
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: He's casting his own movie, and this guy came in
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: and I remember he just basically he do you remember
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: the comedian Sam Kinnison.
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: Sure, I promised, since you've got headsets on, I won't
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: imitate him.
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: Before I h there was a guy who came and
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: he was basically he kind of portrayed the character Sam Kinnison,
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: and I just but the thing is, I still remember it.
• 32:11
  Speaker 4: I remember everything he said, I remember him coming in
• 32:14
  Speaker 4: the room, I remember how he left the room, and
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: I you know, I think the guy he didn't end
• 32:19
  Speaker 4: up getting the part, but I mean, my god, I mean,
• 32:21
  Speaker 4: he blew the roof off the place with that, with
• 32:23
  Speaker 4: that audition, and it just reminds as you were, as
• 32:25
  Speaker 4: you were, you know, you know, telling me the story
• 32:27
  Speaker 4: of the audition for Young Indiana Jones, it just reminded
• 32:30
  Speaker 4: me of that so much, where he actually came in
• 32:32
  Speaker 4: as a character, left as the character, and he just
• 32:35
  Speaker 4: it just was so on point.
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: You know, it's funny. I'll tell you another I'll it'll
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: seem like I'm taking a tangent, but I'll bring it
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: right back to your point. When I was youngster and
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: really just kind of starting now before I was getting
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: cast in things, my heroes, my parents, my mom, my dad,
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: my three older brothers. Two of my brothers, Jonathan and
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: Seth Ractors, and they took a special interest in me
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: when I decided I really wanted to do this, and
• 33:12
  Speaker 3: Jonathan trained me. Seth one day he said, you know
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: what here and he flipped he flipped the script at me,
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: you know, a little frenches. I opened it up and
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: it's Sam Shephard True West and he said, start reading.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: So I got to do the opening scene with my
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: big brother. This is the first time he was going
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: to actually do a scene with me. And we were
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: in his apartment in the city and his friends because
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: he was going to NYU and his pals from the
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: class were there, and so to me, this was a huge,
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: big deal. My big brother is doing a scene with me,
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: with his NYU acting buddies all around him. Holy sh
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: all right, this is cool. So we finished this and
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: this guy in the corner leans in says, well, you know,
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: the kid can act, and that was his friend, Kevin Spacey.
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: We fast forward years later and Spacey is hanging out
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: with Seth at mom and Dad's apartment they moved out
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: of the Larchmont. They were in the city before they
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: moved down to Virginia, and their mutual friend who was
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: also in the apartment that they Dave Silver, and they
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: all knew each other. But Silver calls the apartment looking
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: for Seth and Spacey picks up the phone and it's
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: mom and Dad's place, so he picks up the phone.
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: Is Johnny Carson and he starts doing Carson and Silver
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: didn't believe that. My old man knew Carson, but he
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: knew about my dad's history, so he knew all the people.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: So he's like, well, you know, if you're Johnny Carson,
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: then where's Ed McMahon And without skipping a beat, Spacey
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: puts his hand over, you know, the mouthpiece, and he
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: turns to Seth in character as Carson. Oh why is it?
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: Then everybody thinks were joined at the hip. He wasn't portraying,
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: he wasn't doing an imitation. He became the character. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: this is what I tell people. Don't portray, don't imitate,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: you become the character. Years later, Seth told Silver that
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: it was actually Spacey doing Carson, and he couldn't believe
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: it because he so bought a hook line and Sinker
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: that that was Carson. When Seth told Spacey, yeah, you know,
• 35:44
  Speaker 3: I told Silver, he's like, now these guys were all friends.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: But he said, no, you blew it. You killed the illusion.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: And it was just so interesting to see the way
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: his acting mind worked. You don't portray, you become you
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: are it, and so much so that you keep the
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: illusion going because that's the art, that's what makes it fantastic.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: So we come back to your original point. It's not
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: that you portray these people. When you go in as
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: an actor, you become and you leave them with that
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: because you're making the casting director's job easy. They want
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: to keep working too. Your job is to make them
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: so secure that when they recommend you it reflects well
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: on them. They want it. I mean, that's the first
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: thing you learn when you audition. You go in and man,
• 36:41
  Speaker 3: they've rooting for you. They really are. You don't have
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: to be nervous about these people on the other side
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: of the table. They are as nervous as you are.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: They need you to be that good because it makes
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: their job easier. You do it right, man, they can
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: move on to the next one boom. You save them time, effort,
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: and energy. So don't give them anything to think about.
• 36:59
  Speaker 3: Don't ask extraneous questions. Do the audition, be the person,
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: then get the hell out. Don't say another word. Don't
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: give them a reason to second guess you.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: You know, that's a very good point. By the way, Ethan,
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: don't make them second guess you, or don't allow them
• 37:13
  Speaker 4: to second guess you I one time. I remember there
• 37:16
  Speaker 4: was this actress one time who is? She was leaving
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: the audition. Do you want to know what she said
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: to the casting director.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: She I'll feel empathy pains, but go ahead.
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: She said, I really hope I get this part. But
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: every time I have no, no, no, she says every time,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: But every time I get a big part, something bad
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: happens to me. Oh Jesus, and the casting directors.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Somebody dies on the set. I don't know what happens
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: every time I get cast. Somebody gets poisoned, somebody died.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: So the casting director follows up and says, well, what
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: do you mean? And she says, well, the last film
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: I had I was a I had a principal role,
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: but I broke my ankle two days before filming and
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: I had to show up on crutches and they had
• 38:06
  Speaker 4: to recast you know, that day. And and he goes, oh,
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: okay then and you know, and she leaves, and he goes, well,
• 38:14
  Speaker 4: I can never hire her. She she has put that
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: image in his head now that if he casts her,
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: she's going to, you know, end up hurting herself or
• 38:22
  Speaker 4: doing something horrible.
• 38:24
  Speaker 3: So let that be lessons. All you actors out there sh.
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: Be very quiet, you know, and either I wanted to
• 38:35
  Speaker 4: ask you a question about because you touched on this
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: briefly about directors, you know, and it's something I always
• 38:42
  Speaker 4: look for from a different perspective because it's as actors
• 38:45
  Speaker 4: view directors. I wanted to always I always want to
• 38:48
  Speaker 4: get your take on this. I always ask different actors
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: this question about working with different directors of all these
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: different styles. In your opinion, Ethan, with all your experience
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: and all the projects that you have worked on, what
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: are some of the key things that you feel communication
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: You knew what I was got was going.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's when and I've been on both sides,
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: and I think it helps for actors and for crew
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: to have, you know, had each other's experience. What you
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: want more than anything is trust. As an actor, you
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: want to be able to trust and fully trust you're
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: and the director needs to believe in the performer and
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: the performer's ability. Once you have a way of communicating
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: with each other, you know, because a director wants to
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: manipulate the actor. The director has to get something out
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: of the actor. It's kind of like being an actor,
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: you know, you have an objective, you have specifics, you
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: have your methodology of how you're going to those goals.
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: and now back to the show.
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: When you know, if you're a director, some people like
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: specific directions. Go to the corner, turn right at Fifth Street,
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: and then left onto Lexington. Boom, you're there. Some people like,
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: now you're going to go to the corner and you're
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: going to see a shell station and it's got this great,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: big beauty. Right after you see the shell, turn right
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: at the shells station and then you go down about
• 40:38
  Speaker 3: two or three more blocks and you're going to see
• 40:40
  Speaker 3: a dinosaur. That's where we So you have to learn
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: right off the bat, how is it with the other
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: so that you get what you want. Works for the
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: actor too. Actor kind of has to direct the director
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: into directing them the way they need to be, and
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: you want to do it in a way that builds
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: trust and that relationship. So it's it's very funny. The
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: magic as if is a great thing, you know for
• 41:12
  Speaker 3: the actor and for the director. Hey, it's it's as
• 41:15
  Speaker 3: if you're tasting wine for the first time, and you know,
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: you give them the sensations that they can feel in
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: their mouth. Some people need that sensory direction. Some people
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: just you know, no, just tell me to drink it
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: and make a you know it's sour. Okay, great, I
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: got it. I know what to do. It's good.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: As I've had different directors on as well, they always
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: try it. They always said to me, Dave, avoid the
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: whole result directing and and that is the whole like okay,
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: you're angry and this and that, and some of the
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: directors that I've had on here, they've worked with people
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: like you know, Ron Perlman and other you know, other actors,
• 41:52
  Speaker 4: and they said sometimes they'll actually just say, look, just
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: if nobody speaks slower, just tell me that. Just tell
• 41:58
  Speaker 4: me to speak faster, you know what I mean. It's
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: it's quick, shortened to the point.
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: I think very few actors that pride themselves on being
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: actors want a line reading. And I think the most
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: annoying thing that a director can do is say, here,
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: just do it like this, and then they perform it
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: for you. And you know, it's kind of like when
• 42:24
  Speaker 3: you're a little kid, because actors are we're insecure little kids,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: no matter how secure we seem we're acting. We're insecure.
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: We want approval, we want the love and agulation. We
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: want an add a boy or an at a girl.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Don't It's kind of like when you're that little kid
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: and mom says, go over and kiss your grandma goodbye.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: You don't want to be told. Now you're only kissing
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: r goodbye because you've been told and it doesn't feel
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: like it's a sincere goodbye kiss because somebody had to
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: tell you to do it, and you're stubborn that way,
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: and you know that's an actor. Don't give me a
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: line reading. Just communicate with me. Take the time to
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: build that method of communication where it becomes like psychic communication.
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: I can anticipate exactly what you want because you, mister
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: MS director, you have taken the time to get to
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: know me. You know how best to reach me to
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: pull the best stuff out of me, and I trust you.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: The flip side of that is when you so blow
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: trust with your actor or your director that neither one
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: of you trusts the other one. So it's like when
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: you hear something you're thinking, well, I know that's the
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: wrong thing. That's still a totally wrong thing, and that's
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: a horrible place to be as a director or an actor.
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: So building trust and communication those are the best things
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: you can give each other on a set.
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that is a a great point, Ethan is is
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: trust in communication. Uh, particularly communication. I've you know, I've
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: experienced sometimes where there hasn't been a lot of communication
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: sometimes on sets, and uh, I think, yeah, I mean.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Where the communication is basically like a Meisner exercise, which
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: in New York means you have you ever done any
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: of the Meisner the repetition exercises?
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: No? I haven't.
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'll give you an example. Everybody in your audience
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: knows Meisner without even knowing that they know Meisner, because
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: when DeNiro's looking in the mirror, are you talking to me?
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: Are you talking to me? He's actually doing a simple
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: Meisner exercise. It's that repetition exercise. They're just repeating each
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: other until something organic comes in. But in New York, well,
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: the repetition, you know, breaks down into fuck you, fuck
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: you right away. So that's where that comes in. So
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: if that's the communication that's happening on set, when it's
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: broken down into fuck you, and that's the second or
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: third thing that's bad. Communication just in case you didn't
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: know that, Thank you, Thank you. I'll be here all
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: week rare to tip your waiters and waitresses.
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: I'm learning all the time, Ethan, I'm learning all the time.
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: So you know, you know, and this is something too
• 45:22
  Speaker 4: that as we sort of progress, you know, obviously through
• 45:25
  Speaker 4: your career. You know, in two thousand and five, you
• 45:27
  Speaker 4: know you have your you know, producing credit, and.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: Know, well, okay, what did I produce into it? What
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: did I'm curious?
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: Well, the reason it was called play Player's Joy. But
• 45:41
  Speaker 4: now the reason I bring it up is because it
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: ties in with my next question, and that is, you know,
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: as actors, you know, they sort of talk about different projects.
• 45:48
  Speaker 4: One thing that you know, sometimes I recommend to actors
• 45:51
  Speaker 4: is is if you really want to play a certain role,
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: write a script with yourself and mind to play that role.
• 45:59
  Speaker 4: And one of the other things I recommend is also
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: always and always try to make yourself a producer because
• 46:06
  Speaker 4: you can actually protect that role. So that and and
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: that's just something I usually tell actors to do is
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: again the first part is more important than anything else.
• 46:14
  Speaker 4: But again, writing that script and putting that part in there.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: But I want to ask you know when you know,
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: at this point you decided to actually start producing. Was
• 46:22
  Speaker 4: there was there any sort of reason why you actually
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: went behind the camera and then started producing. I mean,
• 46:27
  Speaker 4: did you always have an interest in producing?
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: No, none, whatsoever. It came from one of the finn Cannons.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: It was.
• 46:39
  Speaker 3: Craigton Cannon again. As he was mentoring me. He said, Ethan,
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: you know, listen, you're a really good actor. He said,
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: you'll be stuck in under fives and day player roles
• 46:51
  Speaker 3: for the rest of your life because you're choosing to
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: live here in this area on the East Coast, and
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: you should be doing more. He said, start producing your
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: own stuff so that you can actually build into and
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: expand into greater roles. That way, people see your work
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: and then you'll start getting cast in more significant stuff
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: because basically it's like that casting director you go in
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: and you give them some maturity that that same person's
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: going to show up on the set. Well, you know,
• 47:26
  Speaker 3: they want to see that you've already been entrusted with
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: something larger, that you could handle it, that you could
• 47:31
  Speaker 3: hit a home run for him. So he said, start
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: producing your own stuff. So my brother John was directing
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: this play and it was Player's Joy, and it was a
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: very Spalding Gray esque show about baseball. Something you know,
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: being Seth and John all grew up around was baseball
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: or lives or baseball. So we understood this and, as
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: you know, an allegorical story for life just really resonating.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: So I thought, Okay, for a few thousand dollars, I
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: can actually bring this to life, get it filmed, and
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: I'll get my first taste of actually producing from the
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: ground up a motion picture of full length. So that's
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: exactly why I did that. I wanted to get my
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: feet wet, and I thought that this was something that
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: would be incredibly worthwhile and manageable. And the guy who
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: starred in it and wrote it, Ralph Elias. He did
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: an incredible job, very Spaulding Gray esque. I wish someday,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: when I actually win my real Lifetime Achievement Award, I'm
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: going to make sure that this guy gets his due
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: and it gets seen by much wider audience because it's
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: a powerful performance.
• 48:53
  Speaker 4: And I hope one day Ethan you do get that
• 48:56
  Speaker 4: real Lifetime Achievement award.
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: Not that the day Bullets Time Achievement Award isn't something
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: special because it is it is. Thank you, thank you,
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: You're very welcome. You're very welcome.
• 49:09
  Speaker 4: I've carved out a little niche here in the internet.
• 49:12
  Speaker 4: And so you know, that's just the you know, an
• 49:14
  Speaker 4: amazing story, because I always wondered that too, about you know,
• 49:18
  Speaker 4: whenever somebody goes who's in front of the camera goes behind,
• 49:21
  Speaker 4: and whoever's behind goes in front. You know, because I've
• 49:24
  Speaker 4: seen certain people have been able to sort of transcend
• 49:27
  Speaker 4: this and actually do both with like you have. And
• 49:29
  Speaker 4: you've been able to sort of you know, you've been
• 49:31
  Speaker 4: in front of the camera well and done well. You've
• 49:33
  Speaker 4: been behind the camera and done well. So what is
• 49:36
  Speaker 4: sort of the one thing that you've noticed behind the
• 49:38
  Speaker 4: camera that's sort of that one trademark to do well?
• 49:42
  Speaker 4: Because some people would say, well, it's management skills, and
• 49:45
  Speaker 4: other people say, well, it's communication, and other people will say, well,
• 49:48
  Speaker 4: maybe it's just finding the right passion, passion, passion.
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: It's here.
• 49:56
  Speaker 5: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:02
  Speaker 5: and now back to the show.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: Every indie filmmaker is a salesman. Every actor is a salesman.
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: You have to sell, and most of us we hate
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: to sell, and we don't want to be salespeople. So
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: here's my trick. If you believe in it, it's not sales.
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: It's like when you're a little kid. It's as if
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: you have to get the car keys for that once
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: in a lifetime date. And you don't think to yourself, well,
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: if I punctuate this word, mom and dad will really
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: believe me, it'll be very believable. No, you have to
• 50:44
  Speaker 3: have those keys, you have to have that car. You've
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: got to be on this date because this is the
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: love of your life. You're seventeen. You know you're going
• 50:53
  Speaker 3: to get married and have the most beautiful children and
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: life is going to be incredible. When you're doing a
• 51:01
  Speaker 3: motion picture, you hopefully so passionate about the story. If
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: you're an actor, you're passionate about the character you're playing.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: You believe in it. If you don't believe in it,
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: then it sales, and then it's very difficult because you
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: can't sell something you don't believe in. Nobody. Nobody will
• 51:26
  Speaker 3: buy it, and if they do, you feel horrible about
• 51:30
  Speaker 3: it and guilty, and you have to totally throw yourself
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: into the story. You have to totally throw yourself into
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: the character, and it works if you're a If you're
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: a sound person and you you hate what you're doing,
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: your sound is gonna be awful. But if you love it, man,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: you're you're looking at all the details. You're you're gonna
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: get all the wild sounds. You're you're gonna get the
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: footsteps leading up, You're you're gonna get the snap of
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: the fingers. You're gonna get the the slapping of the waves,
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: the water hitting up against the seawall. It's just you
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: have to have that passion and that love and that
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: belief in what you're doing. And that works for in
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: front of the camera, it works for behind the camera.
• 52:12
  Speaker 4: You know, there's a saying I once learned in sales Ethan,
• 52:15
  Speaker 4: and that was everything in this world is sales, and
• 52:18
  Speaker 4: all sales is problem solving. And that's just something that
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: that sort of stuck with me. And I know, I
• 52:24
  Speaker 4: know exactly what you mean by if you don't believe
• 52:27
  Speaker 4: in the product, you feel bad about it. You know
• 52:29
  Speaker 4: what you mean, You don't feel like there's anything, there's
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: nothing special about it.
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: You got a lot more problems to solve if you
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: don't believe in it, and it becomes drudgery if you
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: don't believe in it, and then that's a job as
• 52:43
  Speaker 3: opposed to a passion and something you love doing. And
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: I wake up every day and I just I'm excited.
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: I'm happy because you know, I get to do what
• 52:55
  Speaker 3: I love to do. I mean, first and foremost, I'm
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: a father, and I think I love being a father
• 53:01
  Speaker 3: more than anything else in the universe. Hi, Hannah. But
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: when it comes to my vocation, when it comes to
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: what you know, how I make my living, I wouldn't
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: want to do it any other way. I love telling stories,
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: I love creating characters. I can do that all day
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: and it'll seem like no time has passed. Now, that's
• 53:26
  Speaker 3: that's lucky. If you're lucky enough to do.
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: That exactly, Ethan, you have created a life that you
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: never need a vacation from.
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's just that every once in a while, it'd
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: be nice to do that part Gin and BALI, that'd
• 53:42
  Speaker 3: be great. That'd be great.
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: And as we talk about passion and everything, I want
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: to talk about your new film Eyes of the Roschie.
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: Oh. Absolutely.
• 53:52
  Speaker 4: And you know I actually was able to get a
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: chance to watch it. By the way, your performance was fantastic.
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: And I'm not just saying that because you're on the podcast,
• 54:00
  Speaker 4: by the way, I actually really do mean that your
• 54:03
  Speaker 4: per performance was fantastic.
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: So you're saying I could actually be receiving the Day
• 54:07
  Speaker 3: Bullist's Lifetime Achievement Award for the performance in the Eyes
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: of the Roaschi.
• 54:12
  Speaker 4: You have exactly right, I have. I'm pulled. See, it's
• 54:16
  Speaker 4: kind of like that. There's there's that old screamwrinning method.
• 54:18
  Speaker 4: I give it to you, I take it away. I
• 54:19
  Speaker 4: give it to you, I take it away, and.
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: You gave it to me and I took it and
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: that's great. Or maybe I forced it down your throat
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: and took it. Anyway, Well, I'm curious. For me, there
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: were so many great performances in that movie. Oh what
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: is it about? Uh? The interactions and the performances. Why
• 54:39
  Speaker 3: did they stand out for you?
• 54:41
  Speaker 4: So I'm gonna break it down to three scenes that
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: I think, Really there's always one scene in my opinion
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: of every movie, no matter what movie you pick up,
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: there's always one scene that defines the movie.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: And I everybody has their favorite, so I can't wait
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: to hear yours.
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: Well my scene, Well, the three I was gonna say,
• 55:00
  Speaker 4: where the one with you and Eric Roberts in the
• 55:02
  Speaker 4: hotel room.
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: Okay, Uh, there's the the first scene or the last.
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: The first scene, okay, where where you're sort of yeah,
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: you're at the desk and Eric Roberts won walks in.
• 55:13
  Speaker 4: There's that scene. The the second scene is is with
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: Eric Roberts, and I'm sorry, I don't know the other
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: actor's name. They sort of come in the scheme masks
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: and uh, there's.
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: Well that that would be Eric Roberts and my brothers
• 55:27
  Speaker 3: Seth as Itchy.
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: So and and I mean that that scene too, And
• 55:32
  Speaker 4: I'm I'm sorry I didn't know's now on poetry.
• 55:34
  Speaker 3: No, that's alright, that's all right. I told you there'd
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: be an there'd be a Martin Brothers quiz at the
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: end of this.
• 55:40
  Speaker 4: And I've I've failed the pop quiz.
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: No, that's all right, that's right. So I think the
• 55:44
  Speaker 3: right scene go ahead.
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: And that that scene right there? Uh, and I I
• 55:48
  Speaker 4: I don't want to spoil anything for anybody. I know,
• 55:50
  Speaker 4: I know it's hard.
• 55:51
  Speaker 3: I want to talk and break these scenes down because again,
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: those were my acting teachers, my brothers, and you know,
• 55:59
  Speaker 3: I love what them work, and that seemed I don't
• 56:02
  Speaker 3: think it's given anything away to say that was hysterical.
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: Oh yes, yes, it was, especially the part about the well,
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: this isn't given anything away, the part about the door.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: That's why I actually laughed out loud and I was like,
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: that is that is, you know, freaking hysterical. And then
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: that was my and then that scene and then the
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: third scene was with with you at the end, and
• 56:22
  Speaker 4: again I don't want to give too much away, but
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: it was you with you at the end, and that
• 56:26
  Speaker 4: that to me, that third scene was the basically the
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: antithesis of the whole movie.
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's amazing. There were so many good performances, and
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: I appreciate those kind words, you know. I look at
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: Stacy Whittle, who plays Eric Roberts love interest in the film,
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: and it's it's a tough role to break out in,
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: and I thought she did an extraordinary job. And it's
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: not one of the flashyear uh parts to play uh,
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: and she did it so well and she had to
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: portray so much any different emotions. Amanda Dunn as Blanche,
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: the angeneu of the film, again so versatile, can go
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: from comedy to drama and the drop of a hat
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: and be so good at all of them. Chris van Cleeve,
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: that one scene where he breaks out into song, I mean,
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: for me, that was That's one of the scenes that
• 57:28
  Speaker 3: I love in this film because it seems that our
• 57:32
  Speaker 3: status is a cult phenomenon is sealed in that one
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: moment during the film. But Jonathan is Marty that's seen
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: in the taxicab near the end of the film. I mean,
• 57:46
  Speaker 3: you can literally cut that tension with a knife. And
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: the way the music makes you think you're about to
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: watch a comic scene and we play that little sleight
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: of hand and then you know, an audience of four
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: hundred people jump out of their seats because we took
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: you did a little sleight of hand on them. There's
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: just so many cool behind the scenes elements that you
• 58:11
  Speaker 3: wouldn't realize are part of a film. And unless you're
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: behind the scenes, you got ah, you know, this wasn't
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: a mistake. This happened in purpose, and that's kind of
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: a cool thing too. But anyway, thank you, thank you.
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: Oh you're very welcome. And I and again and John,
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: I'm not just saying that because you know obviously on
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: the podcast with me, you know, I thought, you know,
• 58:30
  Speaker 4: this was a you know, a really really interesting movie.
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: And again, I think your performance was phenomenal, and I
• 58:36
  Speaker 4: want to sort of ask.
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: Was that a surprise?
• 58:39
  Speaker 4: No, no, no, no.
• 58:40
  Speaker 3: I mean you see a lot of indie films, and
• 58:42
  Speaker 3: I know you'll talk to a lot of indie people.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: What is it when you're watching all these films, because
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: I know you want to be listen when you're a
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: podcaster supporting indie films, and I don't think it's fair
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: to compare uh an indie film with the re sources
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: that it has. Shouldn't be direct. You know, you're trying
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: to achieve something and you're trying to achieve it on
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: micro budgets usually, and it's not fair to just put
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: them head to head with the resources of a major studio.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: So you're wanting to be it's pleasantly surprised you. Well,
• 59:23
  Speaker 3: the I would know I was going to turn the
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: tables on you, did you Well.
• 59:28
  Speaker 4: No, I I what happens is I get to see
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: a ton of movies, A ton of movies that that's
• 59:33
  Speaker 4: you know, you know obviously someone just sent to me, Hey,
• 59:35
  Speaker 4: Dave watched this. Do you want to send a home
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: I was on the podcast, and I sometimes I watch
• 59:41
  Speaker 4: them and I say to myself, I understand, you know
• 59:45
  Speaker 4: where they're coming from with this. Other times I watch
• 59:48
  Speaker 4: them and I say, wow, you know, for the budget
• 59:51
  Speaker 4: they had, they did a lot more. It doesn't look
• 59:53
  Speaker 4: like a fifty thousand or one hundred thousand or what
• 59:55
  Speaker 4: have you film. It looks like a multi million dollar film.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: Be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: now back to the show.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: And I'm able to sort of, you know, see different
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 4: ways of how things are done. And that's sometimes when
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 4: you know, you just see different things and you're just
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 4: sort of blown away by different things. And I just
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 4: think your performance and this was was very well done.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 4: I think it was. You know, it was uh well,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: I wasn't gonna say this either, but I'll say it now.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 4: I think you stole the show.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 3: Okay, I don't know.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 4: I usually I you know, because again you're on the podcast,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 4: and sometimes, you know, I don't want to seem like
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 4: I'm just sort of talking up my guests, but no,
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: I really think you did. And you know, that's just
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: you know, I always try.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 3: To me, I'm proud to be part of this ensemble.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: I you know, I just think there were so many
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: fine performances in this I'm very happy to just be
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: amongst what I think was a troop, a fine ensemble,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: and I'm just really happy to be part of this
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: this rep company. So that's what I'll say, and thank
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: you again for your kind words. I just want to
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 3: be able to keep making more of these type of
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: films and bring more of these types of characters to light,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: So so.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: Thank you, oh my my pleasure. And I want to
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 4: just sort of follow that up with the one question.
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: You're a producer of Isaac Roche as well, so I
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: wanted to ask, when you're wearing your producer's hat, you know,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 4: was this screenplay sort of presented to you? Did you
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 4: sort of you know, did you know the you know,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: you know what I mean? Or did you sort of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 4: if you'll find it one way or the other, you know,
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: I wanted to ask you how did you know? Because
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 4: obviously the road to production is very long. Obviously the
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: road of productor is very long. So I wanted to
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 4: ask you, Ethan, you know, how did you go about
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: getting all these pieces together?
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 3: Originally, when I was speaking to Grandmaster Adam and he
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 3: had his own ideas of what he wanted to produce.
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: And somebody who became our one of our associate producers,
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: Mary Mann. She'd been following him around for a year
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: and she wrote a book based on some of his stories,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: some of his travels, some of the things that actually
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: happened in his life, and then a bunch of fiction.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: And they gave me some of it to read one day,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: and Mary had written something that was, you know, pretty
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 3: extraordinary in a book form, and Adam had kind of
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: re edited some of her stuff and it was like
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: ideas that were in his head but didn't translate well
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: on paper. Un List had here read this and it
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: was about four or five pages, single spaced, and you know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: the pika width was, you know, barely fitting on the page.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: And there was like six or seven characters, and I
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 3: basically read them straight through, and I was editing and
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: rewriting as I was reading and playing these seven characters.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 3: So you know, it was like a split personality come
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: to life. And I remember Mary going through her copy
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: of what I was reading. She had a hard copy,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 3: and she was looking for where I was getting what
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: I was performing from. And she looked at me when
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: I was done she said, oh, that was pretty good.
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: I can't find any of what you just did on
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: my paper that I wrote, but that was really good.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: So I looked at him and I said, look, what
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: you have here is a book form, not a screenplay.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: We're going to have to write a screenplay. And we
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: set about writing a screenplay. And when that screenplay was
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: finally written by a very talented writer out of Spain,
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: it would have cost about thirty million dollars to produce.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: It was just beyond the present capability. So the director
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: and at the time the ad John Marknill and Joseph
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: mom took about writing a new screenplay and they inserted
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: a heck of a lot more testosterone in it, and
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: it kind of took a different direction because Adam wanted
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: a lot more spirituality and Buddhism, and you know, I
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: think he wanted it more in the direction of Karate
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: Kid than The Godfather, even though he loves The Godfather.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 3: So it was a constant state of negotiating between the
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: writers and Adam to get enough of his teachings in
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: while making something that we thought could be commercially viable.
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: And basically what you see was the product of about
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: a year, year and a half's work and negotiation, so guided,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: and I would say, you know, I helped to write
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 3: additional materi and sort of Mary, but it was with
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: a heavy guiding hand ushering this presence screenplay into being.
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 4: And so you know that's interesting. You were able to
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: take it into development, you know what I mean? And actually,
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: you know, sort of sheper that along because you know
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 4: that that is you know obviously, so when when you
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: were finally got that script and you were you said,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: this is this is that, this is the script that
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: we could go with, you know what was there? What
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 4: was the next step? Was it, you know, sort of
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 4: finding the money? Was we always planning to shoot in
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 4: that that Virginia Beach area?
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 3: Uh?
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: You know, so what was the next step.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: I have a firm commitment with the state of Virginia.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: I've told these guys listen, I raise my daughter here,
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: I live here, this is home. Whenever I can, I
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: will be shooting in this area. And they've been very
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: good and very cooperative. And I know all the key locations,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: and I know the crew. You know, these crew members
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: have worked with everybody from Nicholson to Spielber, you know,
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: to Tom cruise. The locations you know, so many of
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 3: them have never been on film before. I can with
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: the turn of a camera, I can be in the
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: tropics or the desert. So it just lends itself in
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: so many ways. So yes, I knew I was going
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: to be here. The money raising is actually not the
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: most difficult part for me, which might be funny to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: other people. The roughest part, I think it's just once
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: you have the film, ushering it and through post production
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: to make sure that what you've captured, you know, comes
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: to life in an even better way. All along the
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: process you want to keep making it better than what
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: you were hoping for or thought it could be. And
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: you know, the toughest toughest part is distribution. It's the
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: distribution Russian. All young filmmakers have an idea of where
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: are you're going to bring this film before you make it,
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: unless you just don't care. And you know, if the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: story is just you have to tell it because it
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 3: will kill you not to tell your story, which is great,
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: then go for it. But you know it's show business,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: so have an idea of where you're bringing it, who
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: you're bringing it to. That's why we're so fortunate to
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: have Eric Roberts, who brings such a great performance, gives
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: us some name credibility, and you know, without Eric Roberts
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: in it, a lot of people wouldn't have even looked
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: at the film, you know. And this is why we've
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: developed such a fun cult following, because people came along
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: to see Eric Roberts, and then they discovered all this
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: incredible talent that came along with them. And I got
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: to say thank you one hundred times over to Eric,
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: because you know, he came in he was a he
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: was a prince. He was very giving, both as an
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: actor and you know, just to everybody, cast, crew, He understood,
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 3: he'd he's been more than four hundred films and he
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: just had such patience for everybody. And he you know,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: I thanked him at one point for being such a
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: good teacher. He said, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: I'm not anybody. And I said, yeah, yeah, you did.
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 3: Because you were generous with crew, you were generous with
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: other cast. He's an actor's actor, he's a director's actor.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: He's just he was great. I don't think there was
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: anybody on that set that didn't have a great experience
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: with him.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about Eric Roberts
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: as well. I've had some friends both as actors and
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: filmmakers who got to work with Eric, and again nothing
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: but good things to say about him.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I have nothing but the utmost respect, both for
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: what he did on camera and what he did behind
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: the scenes.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 4: So now, and also Ethan, just that you sort of
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 4: mentioned this and I wanted to ask you about this.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 4: I'm glad you brought it up. Was distribution you know,
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 4: that's sort of like the new keyword because of all this,
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: because you know, it's a lot easier quote unquote easier
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: to make it any film now, but it's a lot
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 4: harder to get people to see it because you know,
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: it's a war of eyeballs and ears right.
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, it's the democratization of film once film
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: went digital and it's only been a little over ten
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: years where it really went from experimental. You know, the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: ag HBX Panasonic, it was the first camera to you know,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: use the P two cards. And my film company at
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 3: the time Star Circle Pictures. It's my company now is
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: light Ah Films. I gave Star Circle to my brother Richard,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: and so he has carried on Star Circle to this
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: day and Waveform Studios.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: and now back to the show.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 3: But we were the first in the world to produce
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: a complete film with that Panasonic AGHBX two hundred. So
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: that was the first time P two cards that digital
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: technology could be used. So we did a previs of
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: the film, the storyboards we shot and edited right there
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: on set, and in two days we had a twenty
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: plus minute film fully edited rough When we rapped and
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: I remember speaking to the guy from Fast Company magazine.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: I think he ended up winning a Pulitzer Prize and
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: I can't think of his name right now, but you know,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: I said to him, within ten years, digital will be
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: how the majority of films are made. And he was like, well,
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: I think that's a bit ambitious. I said, you watch.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 5: You know.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: It's rather than ship one thousand film prints all over
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: the country with a push of a button, they'll be
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: able to, you know, send the film to theater. So
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: it's on shipping, you're going to save on processing, you're
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: going to shave and here we are. So film has
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: been democratized. The great thing about that is anybody with
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: a passion to tell a story can tell the story.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: The bad thing about it is anybody who's got the
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: passion to tell a story can tell a story. So
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: some of these are great and should be made and
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: wouldn't have been made, and some of them are horrible
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: and never should have seen the light of day. But
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: anybody wants to make a film can make a film.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: So how do you get your film seen? Well, you know,
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: if you're trying to make money at it, there's a
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: lot of luck and there's a lot of business that
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: goes into it. I'm very fortunate for me. It's kind
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 3: of full circle. When I was a kid, one of
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: my dad's business associates was Independent International Corporate Pitchers Corporation
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: president Samuel Sherman, and sam wanted to see the film.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: He was going to give me some pointers. And he's
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: one of the most knowledgeable guys in the business, and
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: he still has huge connections, and he's got a vast
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 3: library of films, some of the classics, some of his own.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: And it screens about an hour and forty seven minutes.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: Rochi does I send it to him. Hour and fifty
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: seven minutes later, he's on the phone of me. I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: love this film. He says, you have a very saleable
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: motion picture. I'm going to represent it for you. We're
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 3: going to get this sold. Be patient. It's rough out
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: there right now, but I'm going to get you a
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: distribution deal. So for me, I'm really lucky. I'm in
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: the hands of you know, an old time men of
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: motion pictures, Sam Sherman. Not everybody has that. So for me,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: all I got to do is provide Sam with you know, materials,
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 3: is he shops it for us for other guys. You
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: know again, that's another reason why you have to believe
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: in what you're working on, because it's your passion, it's
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: your never give up, never say die attitude. It's networking
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: and being seen and seeing people and you know, finding
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: the people who you can trap and show your film to.
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 3: This is this is how when you're starting out, you
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: gotta do it. You got to know people, You've got
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: to break down doors, you have to get past the gatekeepers.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 3: That's how you do it.
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, again you mentioned a little bit
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 4: of luck as well, and also you mentioned about you know,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 4: knowing what you're gonna do with your film. Honestly, I
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: had friends who've had different you know, variations of experiences
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: of luck of you know, of of highs and lows
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 4: doing all sorts of different ways to release their films.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: And you know, some have just released it on YouTube
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: and said here it is, it's free. You know, we're
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: just hoping to get some other uh you know, other
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: funding from this because look what we did for nothing,
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: Imagine what we could do for something.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: And then also some have just gone through different distribution methods.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 4: I've had people in here who've gotten it on every
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 4: single thing you can think of, Xbox, PlayStation, Comcast, et cetera.
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 4: And then you know, obviously you know, everyone has different
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 4: experiences with all that. And I think you know, knowing
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 4: where it's gonna go and knowing what your plan is
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: before you start to do this, and knowing what the
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: audience is going to be and where they are, it's
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 4: all that is so critical nowadays.
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it also helps to know do you have to
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: make money? Have you spent every last dime? Are you
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: totally broke as a result, or yeah, do you have
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: a bottomless uh bottomless pockets?
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: If your bottom line is I got a story to
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: tell and I want to tell it. And now I
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: just want people to see it. You're going to measure
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: success differently than somebody who's got to make their money
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 3: back or else. And so know why you're making this
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: motion picture, this movie before you make it. Don't do
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: it for the fame, Guys, don't do it because you
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: want to be famous. Do it because you have to
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: tell this story, or you don't know what you're gonna
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: do with yourself. You know, become an actor because it's
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: in your for anything else. If you're doing it for
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: the fame, you know you're lost. You're lost. One out
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: of a million of you are gonna make it. So
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: do it because you love it. Make your movie because
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: you love this story and you just have to tell
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: that motion picture. Then the rest is gravy.
• 1:15:57
  Speaker 4: I could not agree more. Ethan. I've experienced too many
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 4: people who like the idea of becoming an actor, or
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 4: like the idea of becoming a filmmaker, but they don't
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 4: actually like the process of it, because that process is
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 4: a lot of hard work. For whether you're an actor, writer, director, producer,
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 4: it's all hard work, a lot of patience, a lot
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 4: of timing, creating a network, creating a portfolio, and it's
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 4: just a lot of people just want that whole to
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 4: be seen mentality. And I've talked about that too on
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 4: the podcast with some of my past guests as well,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 4: where they're the heart's not in it, but the but
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: the brain is, if you know what I mean, Like
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 4: they know they want this, but you know they don't
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 4: want to actually have to pay for it.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: Look, some of those people are going to quote unquote
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 3: make it, but they're the exception. And I don't know,
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: you know, it just doesn't sound satisfying to me if
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: you're not enjoying it. I mean, you know, if that's
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: what you want to do, okay, but it's kind of
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: like being stuck in a nine to five job. I mean,
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: most actors I know, including myself, else we're horrible at
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: nine to five. It's a box that we just can't
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: wait to break out of. So what would be extraordinary
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: to me is somebody who doesn't like that creative field
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: and that feels like a box. I mean, you know,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: if you enjoy the nine to five world and you
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: just want that security and you want to paycheck, be
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: be happy there. And if you want a taste of film,
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: then go finance some indie actor producer to help them
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: make their passion happen.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, I know exactly where you're coming from, too,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: Ethan about somebody will make it and you know, and
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: you know, just it's just sort of interesting to hear
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 4: all these perspectives, you know what I mean. That's at
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 4: the end of the day. That's why one of the
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: reasons why I started this podcast. Also, you mentioned nine
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 4: to five and I was, you know, people who know
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: the history of this podcast, I started this podcast because
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: I was passed over for a promotion at my nine
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 4: to five job that was rightfully past. They passed me over.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: Let's get them and you know, well, you know what
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: they said to me, can you trade? Oh, believe me?
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 4: The last the last people. People don't don't tell me, Ethan.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 4: There's one guy. I don't hold vandettas, but this one guy,
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 4: oh man, he and I he's he.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: He's listening and I hope he's got a good hideout.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 4: Oh well, I actually, uh, if he ever is listening,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: I would love him to get in contact with me because, honestly,
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 4: me and this guy, the last meeting we ever had
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: with each other, we actually just told each other what
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: we really think of one another. And yeah, it was
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 4: like I've never in all of my life, of all
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 4: thirty years that I've been on this planet, Ethan, I
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 4: have never thought that a boss for myself, we're going
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 4: to get into a fistfight, me and this guy. I
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: really thought I was going to lay this guy out.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 4: I honestly a lot of hatred for this guy.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: A lot, And those were the good feelings. You're not kidding, man,
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: You're like, you know what he did you the greatest favor.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: He set you free, he set you on your course.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 4: So basically what happened was three, you know, two years
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: ago actually three years ago now twenty fourteen. I got
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 4: passed over for a promotion that was rightfully mine and
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: he gave it to somebody else, and then that guy left,
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: and then they wouldn't give me the job anyway. And
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 4: then finally he and I just started having it out.
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: And I have the crazy stories I have from that place.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 4: Nobody would ever believe it, and you know, it's just
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 4: that's what was killing me. And I wanted to do
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 4: more film stuff, and it was like every time I
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: was trying to get out that door, I couldn't get
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: you know, I have friends who do any films, like Dave,
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: we could use you. Okay, great, but you know what
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 4: do you want me to do?
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 3: Oh?
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 4: You want me to make another project that's never going
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: to get seen, because what that happens is ethan is
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 4: I make a lot. I used to be very very
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: active in this Philadelphia area scene. A lot of these
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: projects would get halfway done.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 5: and now back to the show.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 4: We're all the way done, and then nobody would ever see.
• 1:20:11
  Speaker 4: It would sit in some guy's hard drive, or would
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 4: sit in mini DV tapes in some guy's shelf, and
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 4: it became very very frustrating, you know what I mean. So, yes,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: it was sort of like this EBB and flow And
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 4: now you know, now with this podcast, I made this
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 4: my outlet, and I also wanted to make a free
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 4: film school at the same time, because I didn't go
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 4: to school for film. I was an idiot, went to
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: school for business, and so so yeah, you know, it's
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: kind of like a free film school, not only for me,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: but for everybody else as well, if you know what
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 4: I mean.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: Yes, I do. And the best film school there is
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: is making mushroom pictures and getting on other people's sets.
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: Yes, yes, it is so, Ethan. I know we've been
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: talking for about, you know, an hour fifteen ish.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: Roughly, it only felt like an hour ten, maybe an
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: hour six even it was great.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 4: Oh, thank you, You're very welcome.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: So has it really been an hour fifteen? Yeah? It
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: really has, Sorry, listeners.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 4: I just wanted to ask you in closing, Ethan, we
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 4: talked about so much.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're getting rid of me? Huh, okay, fine, see
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: if I care, go ahead. Where's this guy? I want
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 3: to talk to him now? Now I see why he
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: almost took you down. Okay, fine, here I tell you what.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 3: I'll tell you one of my stories about nine to five,
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: and then you can ask your final question. Sounds get
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: rid of me? I had an employer, let's say who.
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: It was radio station, and they originally hired me because
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: I thought I was an out of the box kind
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: of thinker, and you know, it was a little different,
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 3: little quirky, and you know, it was creative, great, and
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 3: they spent the entire time trying to stick me in
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 3: the box. They love the creativity, but they didn't want
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 3: me to be creative, which I found very stifling. And
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 3: my boss was a bit of a yeller, call her
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: old yeller. So one day I'm into her office and
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: she's keening at me, screaming about something. And it started
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: as just loud talk and then it got into screaming
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: and without saying a word, because I'm just sitting there,
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 3: you know, going this can't be happening, but it was.
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 3: So I'm looking around the room while she's yelling at me,
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 3: and I noticed she's got that Dale Carnegie diploma on
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: her wall. Now you remember Dale Carnegie had wind friends
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: and influenced people. Oh yeah, right, so she was a
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 3: grad Carnegie course. So I just stood up, walked around
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 3: her desk while she's yelling at me, and she's screaming
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: at me, wondering what the hell I'm doing, And I
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 3: just lift the diploma off her wall and I gently
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: lay it in front of her and I say, I
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: think you need a refresher course, and I walked out
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 3: of the office while the screams got louder and louder.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: That was that pretty much summed up my nine to
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: five experience. It's us against them. Yeah, I obviously did
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 3: not belong in that nine to five world. What's your
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 3: last question.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 4: Well, my last question, Ethan, I.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: Was time's up. I think it's an hour in sixteen minutes?
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: Now you blew it, Dave? You could have all right? No, no, no, go.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: Ahead, go ahead? No, I was gonna say, was either.
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: I think that sums up My My final question was, yeah,
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: is it?
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 4: Is there is there anything that we didn't get a
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 4: chance to talk about they may wanted to talk about,
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 4: or is there anything that you wanted to say to
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 4: sort of put a period in this whole conversation. But
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 4: I think that nine to five story kind of put
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 4: a put a very nice sum up of the whole conversation.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 4: But unless you unless you wanted to throw something else
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: out there.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: Well, there is just one other project that I'm currently
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: working on that I want to bring to people's attention.
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: In addition to Eyes of the Roachie, which you know
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 3: is everything from dark comedy to a bit of a
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 3: splatterfest the other end of the spectrum, I have a
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: documentary about Native American wisdom called White Buffalo and America,
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 3: and that has been an incredible passion project that my
• 1:24:11
  Speaker 3: brothers and I have been working on since nineteen ninety four.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: And that'll be finished by the end of this year.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: So again I say to all the filmmakers who are
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 3: participating in this podcast, do it because you love it.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: Because you may be married to your project for more
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 3: years than you can imagine, so make it a happy marriage.
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 4: And that sounds like not an amazing project, Ethan, but
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 4: that is an amazing way to sort of sum up
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 4: this whole conversation is you have to love it.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: Beautiful.
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 4: I love this, and Ethan, I wanted to ask, where
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 4: can we'll find you out online?
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 3: Let's see various places. I have a website Ethan Martin
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 3: dot com and I spell my name a little strangely.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: It's Ethan e t h a N Martin m a
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: r t e n dot com. And from there you
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 3: can hit the facebooks for Eyes of the Rowshee for
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 3: Actor producer, activists, that's me for White Buffalo and American Prophecy.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: And then of course the Twitter and the Instagram and
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: the trailers are online and I think I inundated you
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: with links, so if you want to share any of those,
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: you go right ahead and on my website. Your readers
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: may be interested in a backstory that I tell about
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: my father and his getting the distribution for Plan nine
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: from Outer Space, the worst movie of all time.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 4: You know, I was just talking about Plan nine from
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 4: last night, by the way, you were with who friends
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 4: of mine. Here's an interesting little tidbit about Plan nine. Okay,
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 4: I actually became friends with Oh god, i'm blacking on
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: his name right now. He was one of the officers
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 4: in the movie. Okay, I forget what his name is.
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: I can't put him blacking on this. Uh, but anyways,
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 4: he ended up we he and I ended up talking
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 4: for a while over the phone. This is before I
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 4: made the podcast. And now he's actually a last surviving
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: member of Plan nine. Oh really, yeah, he's a the
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 4: because everybody else now has passed away, but he is
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 4: the last person and I can't remember. I'm I'm sorry,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: I'm dropped blacking on his name, but but you know,
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 4: it's just interesting because I was talking people about that,
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 4: and I have his autograph. I'm actually rearranging my office
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 4: right now, and I have a lot of stuff. But
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: I was just talking about that because people brought it up,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 4: and I was just saying, you know, hey, you know,
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 4: by the way, I know, this is a little story
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 4: about that guy, so uh, but you know. He It's
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: just it's always all this stuff is interesting to me,
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 4: all of it. It's just you know, who knows who,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 4: who started and what. It's just it's very interesting to
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 4: see all these different perspectives exactly. And I will also
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 4: link to all of your your social media stuff in
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 4: the show notes. By the way, By the way, your
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 4: social media is on point. You know that one retweet,
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 4: I just got a ton of people, you know, retweeting
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 4: that same thing and favoring it. So we also have
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 4: a mutual friend. By the way, I've got to mention Kevin.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 3: Tann Oh sure, he was one of the actors in Roschie. Yep,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 3: and he actually we have two really good friends, because
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 3: I think that's the reason why you discovered Eyes of
• 1:27:23
  Speaker 3: the Roaschie. Carolyn Sames, Yes, yes we do. God bless her.
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 3: She is our our Twitter our Twitter queen.
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 4: Yes, she actually recommended I talk to you.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: Well, God God bless her for that, because she has
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 3: been quite a friend to a lot of indie films. Yeah,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: it's her and Francis Mottley. Just these these are people
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 3: who just you know, they just love indie film and
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: they have been they have been angels to a lot
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 3: of the indie filmmakers out there. I don't think I
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: would have achieved the cult status that Roche is starting
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: to achieve without their efforts, so thank you to them
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: as well. But how do you know Kevin?
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 4: Kevin and I met years ago, and I forget where
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: we met at, but we were kim friends on Ken.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 4: We reconnected on Facebook and then we start talking again
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 4: and again here and there. But that's how we know
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: each other because I remember he was always son in
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 4: Philadelphia again bringing all back full circle, and he gets
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 4: punched in the gut by Mac when he's choking on
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 4: I forget a piece of food as they're in Chinatown.
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: Perfect. Was there a Johnny Alonso connection with Kevin? By
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 3: any chance?
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 4: There was?
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: Not?
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 4: Okay, But it's again it's all about networking, right, You
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 4: never know who knows who, That's right, Ethan Martin. I
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 4: want to say thank you so much for.
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 3: Coming on the show, sir, Well, if you want to,
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: you can go ahead. I take good night, Gracie, You're welcome,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 3: and thank you, Dave. It was a lot of fun.
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 4: Oh, my pleasure, my pleasure at all. I was actually
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 4: gonna say I gonna mention the what was he who
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 4: used to say that good night missus.
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 3: Wherever Calabash, wherever you are. Yes, hey, that would be
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: Jimmy Duranty.
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 4: For some reason, all you young folks, I keep thinking
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 4: of Red Skelton, and I was like, that's not it,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 4: that's not right. But there you go.
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 3: So there's a lot of you know, listen, you can
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 3: edit this and you can say it's just like Jimmy Duranty,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 3: good night missus Calibash, wherever you are.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then there will be no one will be
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 4: the wiser.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 4: Uh, Ethan. I want to say best of luck and
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 4: again thanks for coming on, and I will talk to
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 4: you very very soon.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: For it slash for sixty eight. Thank you so much
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 2: for listening to guys, as always, keep on writing no
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: matter what.
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 4: I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: Screenwriting dot tv.
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 4: Ye