Latest / Next Act with Jeff Ornstein / Marc Baron – Award-Winning Screenwriter, Producer & SAG-AFTRA National Board Member

Transcript

Marc Baron – Award-Winning Screenwriter, Producer & SAG-AFTRA National Board Member · Next Act with Jeff Ornstein

• 0:01
  Jeff Ornstein: Hi everyone, and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein.
• 0:05
  Jeff Ornstein: I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness.
• 0:10
  Jeff Ornstein: Those building on past successes in some of the curious and inventive and sometimes unexpected ways they have achieved those, and stepping into moments that could define their legacy.
• 0:21
  Jeff Ornstein: We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead.
• 0:26
  Jeff Ornstein: So the best is yet to come.
• 0:29
  Jeff Ornstein: Mark Barron is an award-winning actor, screenwriter, director, and producer whose career spans theater, film, television, and voiceover.
• 0:37
  Jeff Ornstein: He's a long-serving sag after leader and shepherd emeritus of the Lambs, the nation's first professional theatrical club.
• 0:45
  Jeff Ornstein: Mark develops independent feature films like Megaballs and Come Back in Vienna, mentoring emerging writers along the way.
• 0:52
  Jeff Ornstein: He brings decades of creative experience, a deep connection to his artistic family legacy, and a passion for helping others find their voice in the arts.
• 1:00
  Jeff Ornstein: Welcome.
• 1:01
  Jeff Ornstein: Hi, thank you.
• 1:03
  Jeff Ornstein: Good to be here.
• 1:04
  Jeff Ornstein: You're very welcome.
• 1:05
  Jeff Ornstein: So, of course, I was intrigued to learn more about the lambs, because I have to be honest, I'd never heard about it, and it's quite a historical s story behind it.
• 1:17
  Jeff Ornstein: And not only does it date back to what was it, 1878 in the United States and longer in in England, but the other thing that I found was curious was out of the 36 shepherds, only two have served longer than you.
• 1:33
  Jeff Ornstein: You're one of the longest serving shepherds in that rich history.
• 1:37
  Marc Baron: Actually, I think it was there are seven more than me.
• 1:41
  Marc Baron: Oh, really?
• 1:42
  Marc Baron: Because some of them would serve a year and then they go out and they come back a year later.
• 1:47
  Marc Baron: So I'm the eighth longest serving.
• 1:50
  Marc Baron: The seven, sixth, and fifth, all each are one year longer than me.
• 1:55
  Marc Baron: Okay.
• 1:56
  Marc Baron: The longest serving was Tom Dylan, who did 17 years, and he left the office to become president of the Actors Fund.
• 2:04
  Jeff Ornstein: Oh, wow.
• 2:04
  Jeff Ornstein: He kept his mentoring and his dedication to the arts very clear.
• 2:08
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah, he he jumped out at me for sure, Tom Dillon.
• 2:11
  Jeff Ornstein: So that really goes to a commitment to our industry, to craft, and you have a long-standing history of mentoring.
• 2:20
  Jeff Ornstein: One of the things I found was interesting was that you felt that you were mentored, or you expressed in in my notes, that you were mentored by two incredible artists, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick.
• 2:35
  Jeff Ornstein: What's interesting about those guys is they're sort of like the unexpected romantic interests, you know, they sort of outside the envelope.
• 2:45
  Jeff Ornstein: And obviously great comedic actors, different generations, but there's something similar about their theatrical DNA.
• 2:53
  Jeff Ornstein: What was your experience with them?
• 2:55
  Marc Baron: Well, I I think mentoring is not the quite the right word.
• 2:58
  Marc Baron: They were more about encouragement.
• 3:00
  Marc Baron: I used to do a lot of stand-in work or double work for actors.
• 3:03
  Marc Baron: It became my my way of paying my rent.
• 3:07
  Marc Baron: And I did a film that I called my masterclass where Sid Dillamette was the director, and the cast was Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, Matthew Broderick, and I was standing in and doubling occasionally for Matthew Broderick.
• 3:19
  Marc Baron: And by day three, it was an amazing experience.
• 3:22
  Marc Baron: Dustin, hysterical, funny man on the set.
• 3:25
  Marc Baron: Sean was going through some vocal problems, but he was chatting often, and Matthew Broderick and I became nice acquaintances.
• 3:34
  Marc Baron: I still see and hear from him.
• 3:36
  Marc Baron: And Sidney Omette was writing a book about making movies, and I became the soundboard.
• 3:40
  Marc Baron: So I was getting an education you don't get anywhere else.
• 3:44
  Marc Baron: And we were filming over the holidays, and I was off in the corner writing a night before Christmas, all through the set.
• 3:51
  Marc Baron: No one was stirring Lamette.
• 3:54
  Marc Baron: And I wrote it for the whole cast and crew.
• 3:57
  Marc Baron: Sure.
• 3:57
  Marc Baron: And one day when I was working on it, Matthew saw me writing this little thing and he grabbed it and he says, I'll be right back.
• 4:03
  Marc Baron: And he walks away and he comes back five minutes later with Dustin Hoffman.
• 4:07
  Marc Baron: He's like, You wrote this?
• 4:08
  Marc Baron: It's like, yeah.
• 4:09
  Marc Baron: And then from that, every day on, the two of them kept saying, You need to start writing and making your own projects.
• 4:15
  Marc Baron: In fact, I'm developing a project now when we did reach out for Dustin.
• 4:19
  Marc Baron: That was nice.
• 4:20
  Marc Baron: You know, he remembered me and was very kind, but it was, you know, here's the agent to send the project to.
• 4:25
  Marc Baron: Our team has decided he's kind of aged out of the role.
• 4:29
  Marc Baron: And Matthew, I almost always seem to run into him at least once a year somewhere, and always very friendly.
• 4:35
  Marc Baron: And so it was a great experience.
• 4:37
  Marc Baron: Very nice.
• 4:38
  Jeff Ornstein: So your experience has had you singing, acting, directing, writing, and voiceover.
• 4:46
  Jeff Ornstein: Are those things that you have comfortably mentored young people as they're coming up through the ranks and all those, or is there one in particular that stands out?
• 4:55
  Marc Baron: Uh for me, I think I've been helping more people with their screenwriting lately.
• 5:00
  Marc Baron: I was in the Navy when I came out in the 70s.
• 5:04
  Marc Baron: I had a computer when Steve Job was making them in his garage.
• 5:08
  Marc Baron: And when I would get on a set and writers, whether playwrights or screenwriters heard I had a computer, everybody's like, oh, would you put this on your computer so it could be easily edited?
• 5:18
  Marc Baron: And that's how I started picking up skills.
• 5:20
  Marc Baron: And then with the encouragement of Dustin and Matthew, I went into it much more.
• 5:25
  Marc Baron: So I've been working as a script rewriter, as a script doctor, as a co-writer, and now I've got a few projects on my own.
• 5:32
  Marc Baron: And so what I'm doing is I'm sharing now what I've learned in the process to help others get a good start into writing their own material.
• 5:40
  Jeff Ornstein: Mm-hmm.
• 5:41
  Jeff Ornstein: Okay, so I've got the works of Megaballs and Comeback in Vienna, and I I'm I'm not familiar with Comeback in Vienna, but they are both comedic in nature, correct?
• 5:52
  Jeff Ornstein: So is that something that's running through your veins?
• 5:54
  Jeff Ornstein: Am I getting?
• 5:55
  Marc Baron: Well, Megaballs is all outright comedy, and Comeback in Vienna is a romantic comedy, but we kind of the meters are to look towards the comedy side.
• 6:05
  Marc Baron: In fact, the tagline that is we're calling it the unromantic comedy.
• 6:09
  Marc Baron: You know, I'm a person, I I love smart comedy.
• 6:12
  Marc Baron: I mean, I, you know, you look back at some of the comedies of Billy Wilder, or obviously Woody Allen in his heyday, or uh even the silent films, Chaplin and Keaton, or a new director I've recently learned to love is Jacques Tati of France.
• 6:28
  Marc Baron: You know, the visual comedy.
• 6:30
  Marc Baron: So I do tend to lean that way.
• 6:31
  Marc Baron: And especially I think, you know, whenever life gets tough in the world, comedy is a better way out of it.
• 6:37
  Jeff Ornstein: Right, right.
• 6:38
  Jeff Ornstein: You know, it's got such a universal appeal.
• 6:40
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, and people love to laugh.
• 6:42
  Jeff Ornstein: So I I guess they love to be frightened to death because horror is very popular, and people love to laugh.
• 6:47
  Jeff Ornstein: You know, that's a little bit of the escapism that film or theater, you know, provide for us.
• 6:52
  Jeff Ornstein: And do I understand that you were speaking with Susan Sarandon or some she had some sort of tangential?
• 6:58
  Marc Baron: Yeah, I well during during the actor's strike, I was a strike captain, and we had a line where we had a lot of what we call high-profile members come down.
• 7:06
  Marc Baron: Among them was F.
• 7:07
  Marc Baron: Marie Abraham and Susan Sarandon.
• 7:10
  Marc Baron: And she came down fairly frequently, and I got to know her and her assistant.
• 7:14
  Marc Baron: And uh about a year later, after the strike, I reached out and said, you know, I've got this project, and you'd be perfect in the female lead.
• 7:22
  Marc Baron: Do you read a script?
• 7:23
  Marc Baron: I guess I was lucky that I built enough trust that they agreed to read the script.
• 7:28
  Marc Baron: And yeah, they they really like it.
• 7:30
  Marc Baron: Uh, we can officially say she is interested in the project.
• 7:33
  Marc Baron: We're now working in the process to attach her, and also in the process, in fact, we just had a Zoom meeting this morning between Los Angeles, New York, and Vienna, where it'll shoot, and discussing now uh strategy on going after the male co-star.
• 7:49
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 7:49
  Jeff Ornstein: Well, you know, there's always been for many years a long talk about actresses' careers, you know, sizzling after 40, and certainly romantic roles sizzling after 40.
• 8:01
  Jeff Ornstein: So Susan Sarandin, who still is incredibly beautiful and photogenic, will capture hearts at any age on the film.
• 8:09
  Jeff Ornstein: But I bet you, you know, that it is a unique role being offered because it's not commonplace mainstay in many films today for a comedic actress of her age to be in a romantic comedy.
• 8:23
  Marc Baron: Well, that and I think that's part of the appeal.
• 8:24
  Marc Baron: There is an ageism in the industry, and obviously the first one that goes the romantic issue.
• 8:31
  Marc Baron: And you know, hey, let's face it, we're not 25 anymore, and people in their advanced years still fall in love and have a love life.
• 8:39
  Marc Baron: And uh that's one of the things, and just by coincidence, see, now this particular comeback in Vienna is loosely based on a play that I directed at The Lambs back in the mid-90s and made an arrangement for the playwright to convert it to screenplay, so it's been developed that long.
• 8:57
  Marc Baron: But it really took off during COVID when I met this Austrian producer and said, I have this story that could be retold to Vienna, and so that's how it's been developed.
• 9:07
  Marc Baron: But what was really interesting when I met Susan and her assistant on the line, that is the leak character.
• 9:14
  Marc Baron: It is about an aging movie star and her young assistant.
• 9:18
  Marc Baron: Mm-hmm.
• 9:19
  Marc Baron: And the craziness that goes on when the presumed dead ex-husband, ex-co-star shows up.
• 9:26
  Marc Baron: Oh, wow.
• 9:27
  Marc Baron: And the mayhem ensues, I suspect.
• 9:29
  Marc Baron: Yes, and then accusations that somebody thinks he's a spy, so it becomes almost farcical.
• 9:36
  Jeff Ornstein: I love it.
• 9:37
  Jeff Ornstein: And certainly only Vienna, I've actually worked there myself.
• 9:41
  Jeff Ornstein: It's a very charismatic town.
• 9:44
  Jeff Ornstein: And the the streets and the architecture and even the people, I would imagine it's almost Vienna is a character in the film as well.
• 9:52
  Marc Baron: Exactly.
• 9:53
  Marc Baron: In fact, we say it's not only a love story in Vienna, but it's a love story to Vienna.
• 9:58
  Marc Baron: Nice.
• 9:58
  Marc Baron: Nice.
• 9:58
  Marc Baron: And uh my mother was born and raised here.
• 10:01
  Marc Baron: My mother was a classmate of Hedy Lamarr.
• 10:03
  Marc Baron: Smart.
• 10:04
  Marc Baron: And I had this very rich family history, and we've written that into the lead character.
• 10:09
  Marc Baron: So in the story of the link, that's why the the character is in Vienna, because she has this family history, she has mine.
• 10:15
  Marc Baron: And the people in Vienna have been very welcoming.
• 10:19
  Marc Baron: For example, we have a scene in a 300-year-old church, which in real life has a statue sculpted by my grandfather.
• 10:27
  Marc Baron: Oh, wow.
• 10:28
  Marc Baron: And in the scene, we we've already approached the church and they've read the script, and their attitude is, yeah, let us know when you want it.
• 10:34
  Marc Baron: Not even a question about money.
• 10:36
  Marc Baron: It's just like, yeah, we're ready.
• 10:38
  Jeff Ornstein: That's great.
• 10:39
  Jeff Ornstein: I think, you know, going to see a film that's got in quote a an exotic location or a location that many Americans may not have visited would add a certain appeal to it.
• 10:48
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, do you find these locations also do you pick the locations for the the scripts that you write or you develop with others as an important component, or is it all about the characters, the ph the physical human characters?
• 11:00
  Marc Baron: Well, it depends on the nature of the story.
• 11:02
  Marc Baron: This particular story uh comeback was originally uh a play that took place during the Cannes Film Festival.
• 11:10
  Marc Baron: But it adapted very easily to Vienna.
• 11:14
  Marc Baron: And we I in in the rewrites we agreed the title would have the word Vienna, because as you said, just it it creates an image, just the title when we hear Vienna.
• 11:23
  Marc Baron: Absolutely.
• 11:24
  Marc Baron: It's a very romantic city in many ways, like Paris.
• 11:27
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 11:28
  Marc Baron: But more mysterious.
• 11:29
  Marc Baron: Yeah, it's unknown, it's very imperialistic, you know, it still has the the castles and all these wonderful things, and music plays a big part of Vienna, and that's a part of the story.
• 11:40
  Marc Baron: The other story, Megaballs, is set in New York, because that's where I wrote and where I saw, but it could be transferred to any other city in the U.S.
• 11:51
  Marc Baron: where the mob story would work.
• 11:53
  Marc Baron: So it could be Philadelphia, it could be Boston, right, or or it could be Chicago, it could be any goes without saying.
• 12:00
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 12:01
  Marc Baron: But another consideration anybody when you're writing is a story is where the tax deals are.
• 12:06
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 12:06
  Marc Baron: Because that's a big, big part of the financing.
• 12:09
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 12:09
  Jeff Ornstein: So we're in a challenging day right now in our industry, and even you know, the big budget films with the big recognizable bankable stars are not necessarily flying into distribution and leaves an opportunity for more uh budget-friendly, you know, uh productions, the one to two million dollar range, I guess.
• 12:33
  Jeff Ornstein: But of course, then you're not necessarily gonna get the mega box office draw name unless you find someone like Susan Sarandon who's, you know, said, uh, I love this script, I love working with you, I'm gonna go for this.
• 12:45
  Jeff Ornstein: Where do you find, when you've been working on projects or developing projects, where do you find the most success in soliciting backers for your work?
• 12:57
  Marc Baron: Uh it's a combination.
• 12:58
  Marc Baron: I think in today, what what I will term as an independent film is a much smaller budget, meaning you're able to finance it independently.
• 13:07
  Marc Baron: And financing could happen through friends and relatives who pony up some money, maybe some business contacts, product deals, and all that.
• 13:15
  Marc Baron: Generally, I think those films come in at under a half million dollars.
• 13:19
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 13:20
  Marc Baron: Okay.
• 13:20
  Marc Baron: As your budget goes up, you need more ways to attract the money.
• 13:24
  Marc Baron: And part of that has to do with the finding a saleable talent because now you bring in pre-sales.
• 13:29
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 13:30
  Marc Baron: And you really need to have somebody who knows how to budget.
• 13:33
  Marc Baron: When you write, I don't encourage people to write thinking totally in terms of budget, but there are aspects of writing you should concern, like, you know, crowd scenes, a lot of speaking roles.
• 13:43
  Marc Baron: These are things that will raise your budget.
• 13:45
  Marc Baron: Megaballs originally was budgeted a million dollars.
• 13:48
  Marc Baron: That was based in New York.
• 13:50
  Marc Baron: And then we went to uh before COVID hit, we went to uh Sundance and Toronto and pitched, and we got some good meetings out of it, but their uh distributed told us we need to bring the budget up higher because comedies and dramas really still need some known talent to help sell it.
• 14:09
  Jeff Ornstein: Mm-hmm.
• 14:10
  Marc Baron: Interesting.
• 14:10
  Marc Baron: So we were told there was a sweep spot between three to five.
• 14:14
  Marc Baron: So megabols that comes in at just over three.
• 14:18
  Marc Baron: But now, since we started doing the budget on that years ago, because of the strike and rates have gone up, it's probably getting closer to four million now.
• 14:26
  Marc Baron: Wow.
• 14:27
  Marc Baron: The comeback in Vienna is a little different because while it would feel like an American film, uh it's actually going to be legally an Austrian film.
• 14:37
  Marc Baron: I do have dual citizenship.
• 14:40
  Marc Baron: The project will be shot under an Austrian company.
• 14:44
  Marc Baron: So that the process of financing is different there, the budgeting.
• 14:48
  Marc Baron: They have budgeted at 6 million euro instead of 7 million US.
• 14:54
  Marc Baron: But once you start getting over that half million, you start need to get some kind of a pre-sales.
• 14:58
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 14:59
  Marc Baron: You know, even an actor that may have not been seen in a long time that still has a name, they're still looking for a job that has a certain quality level, and they'll equate that with the budget.
• 15:10
  Jeff Ornstein: So six million dollars is quite a sum of money.
• 15:13
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, are you raising that by friends and is that my godfather calling?
• 15:17
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah, that is.
• 15:18
  Jeff Ornstein: That's that's when I have a client calling, it's um I have the godfather play.
• 15:23
  Jeff Ornstein: It's usually a life or death situation.
• 15:26
  Jeff Ornstein: That's quite a sum of money.
• 15:28
  Jeff Ornstein: But uh so when you when you you know you're talking about the comedy's three to five million, does that get you a Matthew Broderick interested in the production?
• 15:37
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean a big name like that?
• 15:39
  Marc Baron: It depends on when you're filming and how many days they're needed.
• 15:43
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 15:44
  Marc Baron: I would love to get Matthew in my film.
• 15:45
  Marc Baron: I think he's right for the role.
• 15:47
  Marc Baron: Uh I would certainly approach him when I get to that point.
• 15:50
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 15:50
  Marc Baron: But it's kind of a chicken and the egg because in order to get the talent, you need the money, but in order to get the money, you need the talent.
• 15:58
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 15:58
  Marc Baron: Planets all have to align at the same time, I guess.
• 16:01
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 16:02
  Marc Baron: And you and you're juggling different sources.
• 16:04
  Marc Baron: Like, for example, on comeback.
• 16:06
  Marc Baron: So we've already had some meetings at the EFM, and some distributors and salespeople have looked at the project, and they said, based on Susan Sarandon, they estimate a minimum sale value of X million.
• 16:19
  Marc Baron: Now, depending who we get for the male co-star, that will go up.
• 16:23
  Marc Baron: And then you see how much of that they'll give you in advance.
• 16:26
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 16:27
  Marc Baron: And now you might have a couple of million to make up, which you start doing with uh private equity product deals, you know.
• 16:34
  Marc Baron: So I'll give you an example.
• 16:35
  Marc Baron: My producer did a film during COVID in Salzburg with F.
• 16:39
  Marc Baron: Mary Abraham.
• 16:40
  Marc Baron: It's a retelling of the magic flute, and they needed a Mercedes limousine for one shot.
• 16:45
  Marc Baron: And they re they met the requirements that Mercedes wants.
• 16:49
  Marc Baron: So Mercedes gave them the limousine, and they gave them 20 production vehicles for free.
• 16:55
  Marc Baron: Oh, nice.
• 16:56
  Marc Baron: So that saved money they didn't need to raise the budget.
• 16:59
  Marc Baron: So in Vienna, I have this church for free.
• 17:02
  Marc Baron: I have the Vienna Johann Strauss Orchestra, which is about 80 years old, is giving us for free their entire recording library.
• 17:10
  Marc Baron: Wow.
• 17:11
  Marc Baron: So now I've got some great music to plug in that it's not going to cost me.
• 17:15
  Marc Baron: Which is usually a big expense.
• 17:17
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 17:18
  Marc Baron: So there's always combinations of things, either you get contributions of money in or you get service deals or items you don't need to pay for given for free.
• 17:27
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 17:28
  Jeff Ornstein: I can feel this movie, Vienna, the architecture, the orchestra, Susan Saranzin's doe doe, doe-filled eyes.
• 17:36
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, I can feel it already.
• 17:38
  Jeff Ornstein: It's captivating me.
• 17:39
  Jeff Ornstein: So it's interesting because you've spoken also, the producers gave me some crypt notes, as you imagine, about resilience.
• 17:47
  Jeff Ornstein: And several of the people that come on this podcast talk about that.
• 17:50
  Jeff Ornstein: Because, you know, dealing with the rejection or the frustration of not breaking through.
• 17:57
  Jeff Ornstein: Yeah, what's so interesting is that everyone I speak with breaks through in terms of like they're confident enough to know I'm going to face this adversarial or you know, perceived adversarial component in my lifetime, in my career.
• 18:13
  Jeff Ornstein: But yet all the people I talk to are survivors.
• 18:16
  Jeff Ornstein: So it's very interesting.
• 18:18
  Jeff Ornstein: So you have counseled people about how to deal with a slow-moving career or or rejection.
• 18:27
  Marc Baron: I think it's a it's a it when you look at this as an art form, which it is both an art and a business, it's like when you look at any artist, a painter, a sculptor, or whatever, they all go through tough times, you know, but they're dedicated to their art.
• 18:43
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 18:44
  Marc Baron: You have to approach this knowing it's not gonna happen quickly, and it can take a lifetime to achieve even a modicum success.
• 18:53
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 18:54
  Marc Baron: And what I tell people, the job is to just survive.
• 18:57
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 18:58
  Marc Baron: You can't go in this business hoping I'm gonna be a star in five years from now.
• 19:02
  Marc Baron: No, I mean the realistic goal is that in five years from now I want to be making my living doing this.
• 19:07
  Marc Baron: Right, right.
• 19:08
  Marc Baron: But not, you know, pay my rent and pay my bills.
• 19:11
  Marc Baron: I've been lucky that on the SAG After Board, there's a lot of actors that I've gotten to know over the years that you wouldn't know their names, but if you saw their face, you would recognize them.
• 19:21
  Marc Baron: And they all are making their living in the business, and that's an achievable goal.
• 19:26
  Marc Baron: And if you prepared for the tough times, it's easy.
• 19:29
  Marc Baron: I think I had, as my example, my grandfather who was a sculptor.
• 19:33
  Marc Baron: Now he died when I was fairly young.
• 19:35
  Marc Baron: I was like 13.
• 19:36
  Marc Baron: But he was, you know, a coming and up known artist in Vienna up until the war broke out and came to New York and was a nobody and and literally just got through doing whatever he could do to keep producing the art.
• 19:52
  Jeff Ornstein: Well, what's wonderful about it is I have found in my short like five years being in the industry, if you will, is that it's an incredibly supportive group of people.
• 20:04
  Jeff Ornstein: You know, you as an outsider, you might think, oh, theater people, they're gonna be competitive or they're gonna be cutthroat.
• 20:10
  Jeff Ornstein: You know, you have the the diva image in in that Hollywood's created for you.
• 20:14
  Jeff Ornstein: And it's not.
• 20:15
  Jeff Ornstein: I mean, the people from producers and writers and directors and cameramen and actors, and they're all really supportive of one another.
• 20:23
  Jeff Ornstein: And like you said, they come back, you circulate, you make friendships, and then your phone rings, and here's another project, and would you want to participate?
• 20:32
  Jeff Ornstein: So you're right.
• 20:33
  Jeff Ornstein: Staying alive with the with the commitment to this is what I I'm meant to do, which is so wonderful.
• 20:41
  Marc Baron: And you know what's interesting, the the strike that we re we had now, I can't believe it's two years already, but the one thing that came out of it you never hear people talk about is it created this tremendous sense of community.
• 20:55
  Marc Baron: You're out there every day working, walking the lines, you're walking with people who, you know, had done five days of extra work one year, and next to them you're walk working with Oscar-winning performers like Susan and F.
• 21:10
  Marc Baron: Murray Abraham, and the list goes on and on.
• 21:13
  Marc Baron: And everybody felt we're all in this together for the same thing.
• 21:17
  Jeff Ornstein: Right, right.
• 21:17
  Jeff Ornstein: That's exactly right.
• 21:19
  Jeff Ornstein: All right, so uh we are, of course, his as historically is proven, we always are, way over time.
• 21:25
  Jeff Ornstein: So I have a question for you.
• 21:27
  Jeff Ornstein: If you could give a young person one bit of advice when you're starting out, whether it's about how to perfect your craft or who to become friends with or how to deal with each other, one one piece of basic advice for them to just chew on and let it kind of be an ember in the back of their brain.
• 21:43
  Jeff Ornstein: Do you have a a sage or piece of wisdom you could share?
• 21:46
  Marc Baron: I think I would repeat what Dustin told me and what he said in the film Tutsi as an acting teacher, and that is don't wait for the work, make the work.
• 21:57
  Marc Baron: Great.
• 21:59
  Jeff Ornstein: I love it.
• 22:00
  Jeff Ornstein: I love it.
• 22:00
  Jeff Ornstein: So that's we had an actress on a few episodes ago, and she said no one knew what to do with her.
• 22:06
  Jeff Ornstein: No one knew what to do with her.
• 22:08
  Jeff Ornstein: And someone said, I don't know what to do with you.
• 22:11
  Jeff Ornstein: And she went home and she said, Okay, I'll write my own role.
• 22:15
  Jeff Ornstein: And she did, and she had a fair amount of success with it.
• 22:17
  Jeff Ornstein: So your advice is right on track with other people who have demonstrated a lot of commitment and success in the industry.
• 22:25
  Marc Baron: You we all have one of these wonderful devices which shoot 4K and you can make a short film already without any real expense.
• 22:34
  Marc Baron: Right.
• 22:35
  Marc Baron: Get together with some other actors that you're like-minded, sit down in an afternoon, write a five-minute, 10-minute short, go make it.
• 22:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Right.
• 22:42
  Jeff Ornstein: Look, it was wonderful having you on.
• 22:45
  Jeff Ornstein: I I love the transcontinental element of your story and your work and your passion.
• 22:51
  Jeff Ornstein: And I wish you best of luck, and I'm going to be keeping my eyes open and my social media open to try and track you.
• 22:57
  Jeff Ornstein: Thanks for tuning in to Next Dack with Jeff Orenstein.
• 23:00
  Jeff Ornstein: Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextdackpodcast.com.
• 23:08
  Jeff Ornstein: Keep chasing your next act.
• 23:10
  Jeff Ornstein: The best is yet to come.