Kristyn 00:00
Hey guys and welcome to the Stan Kirsch Studios podcast Where Working Actors Talk. Each episode we sit down with different industry professionals who share their experiences, provide advice and talk about issues that are relevant today. This week, our incredible SKS coaches share a cocktail and get real about their world as actors, their struggles, their wins, how they find balance, silence perfectionism, how they feel about post pandemic auditioning, and what their real thoughts are on being memorized for auditions. Nothing is off the table in this happy hour Round Table Talk. So with that I give you team SKS!

Brock 00:36
Happy Happy Hour!

Aleks 00:49
Yes. Angela, what do you have right now? Oh my goodness!

Angela 00:54
I have class after this, so this is non-alcoholic. But it’s just espresso and then one of those giant rectangular ice cubes and then frothed oat milk, and then cinnamon on top.

Kristyn 01:07
I told everyone I was gonna have Phill make those famous margaritas from the taco party –

Brock 01:18
You’d be on the floor by the end of the call!

Kristyn 01:19
I would on the floor! So we’re doing rose all day. Not all day. What do you have there, Aleks?

Aleks 01:29
I have just simple red wine. I’m keeping it very chill that way. I wanted to do whiskey sour. I tried it earlier today. And I’m like, ‘whew, no!’

Brock 01:38
Red wine is a perfect drink for dad of 2.

Kristyn 01:40
Tell us Brock, what are you drinking this afteroon?

Brock 01:46
I went on I went on a goddamn hunt this morning. Its a pre-made Espresso Martini and I found it at the Whole Foods.

Kristyn 01:56
Is it good? I’m always scared of the pre-made.

Brock 02:00
Yeah, I’ve used a couple of them before, it’s a company called ON THE ROCKS. So they have like old fashions or cosmos or like a spicy pineapple margarita. And they’re always really good. And they just came out, or at least they just started selling them at Whole Foods, the Espresso Martini which is…

Kristyn 02:14
Oh, so the spicy marg is good? Colleen, are you mock-tailing or cocktailing?

Colleen 02:23
Kombucha! Mocktail!

Brock 02:26
Very healthy. Gut health is important as well.

Colleen 02:29
Thank you for that Brock, thank you!

Aleks 02:31
Brock, Kristyn, we’re the ones bringing the alcohol to the chat. Angela and Colleen are going to be air tight.. Kids are napping right now. And I am drinking.

Kristyn 02:50
We welcome you to our happy hour and drop us a message. If you are drinking anything coffee, cocktail mocktail, let us know what you got. I wanted to let you guys know where this idea was inspired from. At the beginning of the year, we had a meeting, the five of us. It was so inspiring listening to these four, just talk and riff and not be in ‘teacher mode,’ just be ‘go mode.’ They were just there to talk about what they’re going through in the business, what they love, what they hate, it was so real. And they have so much wisdom, there’s so much chemistry between the four of them. And I was like, I need people to see this, you have so much genius to share. We wanted to create this feeling of the four of them at a bar just talking about life and work and the industry. It makes me think of like, this is so random, when you were a kid and you’re at the grocery store, and all of a sudden you see your teacher out at the grocery store, looking totally normal and just being human. And you’re like, ‘What is this? This is crazy!’ So with that said, I have emailed the teachers. I gathered all the questions that you guys posted. Some of you had emailed me and some of you had put them in the community, which I’m so excited that you guys are active in the community and part of the community, this online community. One of the things we also talked about was, we obviously do have in-person classes back but so many of the classes are still on Zoom. And there’s this beautiful community outside of just Tuesday night class or Thursday morning class and you can pull from each other and there’s so many resources within this family and we want you to know there’s more than the 12 people in your class and they’re all like-minded, awesome, good people, just like the people in your class. With that said, I’m gonna turn my camera off and we’re just going to watch the magic unfold.

Colleen 05:10
Angela, would you mind, we were chit chatting about like how busy your day was and what you’re doing next after class. I think maybe one of the things that people don’t know is how we spend our days… I think it’s hella valuable that the teachers are actors, working actors and pursuing this and actively in the trenches. What was your day like today?

Brock 05:42
A light day for you, just a casual light day.

Angela 05:42
I just got an email from from my management team, the development guy at my management company, saying that a project I’m writing that we’re taking to market this quarter, that the illustrator is getting two versions of a pitch deck to me by the end of the week. So that stuff’s coming in while these other things are coming in and it’s just like – I got up at seven and started preparing for teaching, coaching, live zoom callback, got a call from my agent that I was on avail for a commercial, which was fun, and then jumped on Zoom for coachings from 9:45 until class got out at 3:20, basically. Class was so fun, it fills me up, it was so great. But then literally logged off and logged straight into a live Zoom callback, and had no time in between the two, and stepped up and had a really, really fun time with the director and then got off with four minutes to spare for this, just enough time to make this and I need to bounce from this by 5:30, so that I have enough time with traffic to get over to Groundlings and then have an advanced improv class there from 7:00 till 10:30. And then drive home to Long Beach and prepare for a full day tomorrow. The feature or the series? Series. Keeping all the balls in the air.

Colleen 07:38
I love everything about that Angela.

Brock 07:40
That’s so good, all these projects. I was voice memo-ing Angela the other day, I had a little bit of a ‘come to Jesus’ from Kameron the other day. And I was like, Angela would love this. Like, I’d love to tell you this like thing that I heard –

Colleen 07:55
Oh my gosh, I want to know!

Brock 07:56
I was telling Angela to like when we went to THAT 90’S SHOW premiere.. I was like, ‘Yeah, writing is like some days I’ll like write two pages and then I’m tapped creatively and you know, emotionally and exhausted and all that kind of stuff and I realized, oh, that’s just me.’ I was telling Kameron that and he goes, ‘That’s not gonna fly. You’ve got to be able to bounce from project to project and keep multiple things going at a time. You’re getting exhausted now.’ But we always talk about a muscle that you have to strengthen for acting, in class. He goes, ‘No successful writer, someone who’s selling a pilot right now to ABC, or did in December, that’s now getting made into a pilot, they probably had three or four different things in the in the fire at one time. This is the one that just happened to go. You’ve got to build up that muscle, you’ve got to write your two pages and when you’re tapped from that project, then you got to close that tab, open a new one, work on that new thing. Start moving your mind in that direction, then maybe whatever you run into, on that other tab, whatever you’re working on over here, unblocks that thing that you were not understanding. It’s just like you and the coaches probably bang out three different scenes for three auditions – bang, bang, bang, bang and not be fazed by it because you built that muscle. It’s the same thing, it’s just a different part of your creativity that you’ve got to build up. Doing two pages and then kind of being like, ‘oh, it’s time for Game Show Network is just not gonna work.’

Aleks 09:33
I love that. I love that actually. Jerry Seinfeld talked about that because him and Larry David was show running for SEINFELD for a long time and Larry left to do CUERB YOUR ENTHUSIASM and Jerry Seinfeld was was juggling showrunning, writing, starring on top of… I think he was still doing stand up at that time. The consistency of the quality of the episodes never wavered throughout, season six on untill season nine. When it ended he was asked, ‘How did you maintain that?’ He said ‘I wrote every day,’ – talk about the power of compound interest – ‘I worked every single day at writing jokes, it didn’t matter any given day, whether or not the joke was good or not just the act of getting your mind into I’m going to be writing this thing.’ He created that compound interest, worked that muscle that you’re talking about, so that by the time he’s in the writers room with with the SEINFELD writers, he’s able to riff and work on those jokes, and it never wavered. There’s no episode where the show jumped the shark. And that is absolutely inspiring to me. And it’s great to hear it confirmed with you, Brock. It’s that muscle, you’re right.

Brock 10:43
And it’s interesting too, these past two weeks is where I put that into practice and it is nice. Sometimes I’d go to bed and think, ‘I only did that today, I only was brainstorming today, I never actually got anything down or a draft or something, there’s so much more I could have done, I didn’t get all that I want done by this week.’ And finally, this week, I was implementing that little “come to Jesus moment” that he had with me and I went to bed a little bit better. I felt a little bit more creatively filled. I felt like I’d done well with it. I just feel like the trajectory skyrocketed me a little bit, in a couple senses of the things I’ve been working on this this past week. And funny enough, moves were just made and I got to do it. The reps (agents and managers) are not calling and saying, ‘how’s it going? Do have a new version for me?’ They’re waiting for me to say, ‘Hi, I have this and I’m ready to do X, Y and Z. Can you set those meetings? Or can you set those pitches? Or can we jump on a call to do X, Y and Z?’ And that’s their call to action. But you’ve got to be the one that calls them to action. Does that make sense?

Colleen 11:53
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. What is the way to ward off burnout in that situation, when we’re hyper functioning?

Angela 12:07
I think I just described this crazy day, which happens often, but it’s not every day. I have just started writing and making this a huge part of my day. But today, I didn’t have time. So that wasn’t a part of today, but it will be tomorrow. My Thursday class. some of us are reading/listening to The Inner Game of Tennis, this month and there was this section in it that I was just listening to yesterday about non judgmental awareness. Not getting into the mentality of, ‘Oh, I didn’t write today, therefore I suck, I’m bad, or I’m behind,’ taking all of that out and just accepting, ‘I didn’t write today, let’s add it to the schedule tomorrow’ rather than ‘I gotta write for six hours because I have the time today!’ I’ve accepted these two hours (or whatever you can schedule) are the time and I’m going to continue to find balance. But I think when you shorten the time and make it more consistent, I think that helps the burnout as opposed to, ‘I have a full day, so I must do it all,’ and it gets aggressive and difficult to maintain. I think judgment towards ourself is the biggest game changer.

Brock 13:29
Just because right at this moment, I have a free day after 10:15 doesn’t mean that more coachings, for example, aren’t going to come… and so being flexible and being able to be malleable with your time and your energy and where you’re placing it throughout the day and knowing that like sometimes you’ll have another obligation or a doctor’s appointment or something else and you realize that’s okay. You might not write today, or it might be at 6pm, even though you hate writing at night or something like that.

Aleks 14:01
There was a there was a term you coined, Colleen, “radical acceptance,” at the beginning of COVID that stuck with me because there was a feeling that we have all this free time we should be doing this, we should do that, you should be getting in shape and learning a skill and learning a language and playing a musical instrument… and when we had one of our meetings, distanced six feet apart with masks and you were talking about “radical acceptance” – how do we go from here where we are to where we need to be while taking those breaks. Brock, you mentioned working on this tab and then you close this tab, you go to the next one, and then maybe your brain taking a rest from this thing makes you get that aha moment, that eurkea and you bring it back? I think you are touching on that very same thing, the rest moment of it, we underestimated the power of our subconscious mind. When we’re not working on something, Stan used to say, ‘let it marinate.’ Let it marinate. And it took me being a coach, as long as I have, to realize that’s actually a real thing – that I can put something out of my mind and then when I come back, I’ll see all of these different things. Oh my gosh, and I think that works with the creative process as well… Taking a little bit of a rest so that you don’t burn out, you fill your cup again, so that you’re able to give to whatever project you are working on.

Brock 15:28
Totally, those breaks are so important, especially in the self tape world… I was coaching a girl and there were three takes that were super great, they’re all a little different. It was a long scene, so she’s not sending all three, we had to pick one. I liked all three and she kept going back to look at them. I said, ‘you have dinner plans in 30 minutes, go to dinner, go have dessert, go watch Game Show Network and then come back and look. It’s not due until tomorrow until 11am. So come back from dinner or do it when you first wake up and take a look at it.’ It’s the same thing with headshots, right? You look at your headshots, you pick your 20 and think, ‘all these are fucking brilliant, I can play everything.’ You wake up and you see, ‘Oh, I can’t play everything. 1, 2, and 3 are the exact same photo.’ You have a new perception with fresh eyes.

Aleks 16:17
It’s crazy. Has this ever happened to you where you put yourself on tape for something and you immediately look at it after you finish taping, you watch playback immediately you’re think, ‘great, that’s the tape,’ you send it off, send off that eco cast you feel good about it. Then the next morning, you’re like, ‘I want to see my amazing work,’ I click on it and think, ‘I should have picked take four instead of take three because take four hits something else.’ And so now I’ve started to do it myself and I do it with my Wednesday peeps where I say ‘take 15 minutes after you finish. If it’s not due immediately after our session, take 15, walk away and go do something, grab a drink, treat, coffee, whatever you need… then look at it. Take off your actor hat off, put on your director hat and and take a look at that.’ And it’s made a world of difference. I’ve never done it with headshots though.

Angela 17:13
The reverse of that is how I know if I liked an audition. I think it’s important that we give ourselves props when we do like an audition of ours because we’re also humble or hard on ourselves. I think we should like step up when we have an audition that we like. The way I tell if my audition was good is if I’m so excited to watch it again, and then selfishly want to watch it again. And it’s not because I’m a really self absorbed person, it’s just because I’m really tickled by whatever that was. And if I have that urge to want to send it to my parents or my boyfriend or whoever, then I know that it was good. If I’m watching it sometimes I’ll feel like, ‘okay, fine, I’m not gonna win them all.’ Can I back up for a second? Colleen, I’m always so amazed that you do so very much. Studio-wise and working and when you were working with this publicist and going to events and you know, every friggin’ show ever. I’m always amazed at how much you are doing. How do you fight the burnout that we were talking about before? What are things that you do in your life? Because I need to learn from you.

Colleen 18:24
Wow. Well, I think it’s always work in progress. I have, in the past, thought ‘I’m scheduling just enough, and I’m keeping things intact.’ And then before I know it, there’s tears out of nowhere when I finally get the chance to rest. I was tired and wired. You know what I mean? But I can’t disengage. So actually last year… and this is all personal stuff, it’s better if I think that it’s just the four of us talking… I actually had a talk with Kristyn and I said, ‘I feel some burnout happening.’ Every single day, I want to show up for everyone, all the time. But we decided that I would take off Thursdays and I would take off Saturdays. I know today’s Thursday. I don’t know if people request me, Kristyn doesn’t even tell me. Just having those boundaries has been very helpful. Then what I found, because it’s this constant thing that needs to be polished and shaped because I’m an ever-evolving being, is that when I have time off, I feel like I should be doing something. I’m antsy, I get a little bit like anxious, you know? So it was during a meditation that I thought what I could do for myself is create something akin to what I have for my my goddaughter. I have this bag for my goddaughter. She has a whole dresser drawer here of all this stuff that she gets to play with when she comes over – we’ve got Peppa Pig, we’ve got paint, we’ve got puffy paint, puzzles. I needed that for myself, a bag of stuff I could go, get out and enjoy. Because otherwise I think, ‘well I have work and I have career and I also have to get hobby so I can talk about something,’ and that’s become so overwhelming. I’m starting to create this bag, I have this huge bag and started with a coloring book, I got one that has a lot of curse words in it, like, ‘She said, fuck this shit and lived happily ever after.’ So that when I am in that state and I feel wound up, rather than scrolling through Twitter or checking in on the Ukraine war, I have immediate things that bring me joy. But I really still struggle with downtime and I think that’s constantly being in fight or flight, you know, fight, flight, freeze or fawn. To create that for myself has been super beneficial – and having specific days off.

Brock 21:45
But what did you do today, on your Thursday day off?

Angela 21:49
Come here with us?

Colleen 21:50
I went for a walk and I saw a family of three coyotes. Coyotes in the daylight! Yes, I think that their food sources are a little scarce. I took some pictures of coyotes, I just think they’re so beautiful. I went for that walk and it was really lovely. And there’s some snow on the mountains. I live in the San Gabriel Valley, so the mountains have snow in the distance, I took some good pictures. Then I played around with some plants. I love plants. It sounds cliche, ‘I’m a plant mom.’

Angela 22:48
Come over to my house and make my plants better. I have plants that were like 30 leaves… and then later there’s only one leaf.

Colleen 22:57
I will, I absolutely will. So anyway, that’s how I ward burnout off. But I tell you, I think the first step is realizing you’re feeling burned out and looking at the contributing factors. I hate to get sort of like nerdy on it… but what are the contributing factors? Often I’ve spent too much time with a belly full of coffee without any food or I’ve read things that made me feel diminished – maybe I can move that out of my life. I think in order to be a “lifer” in this industry you have to master or engage in the the mental game you have to game.

Aleks 23:50
What’s your mindset. How do you silence perfectionism, that desire to book? Whoo, isn’t that the question? I’ll tell you how I do it. How does the master do it, Aleks? Every single audition that I get, my knee jerk reaction is like, ‘Oh, I gotta book this right?’ And that’s where that pressure comes from. It starts so small and so sinister, it’s such a small little thing that exponentially gets bigger. You get the audition and you’re like, ‘hell yeah, I’m gonna book this,’ and you start working on it and then the idea of, ‘I want to book this,’ continues throughout this entire creative process. By the time I put it on on camera, I am in a place where I’ve made all my decisions, I’ve done all my work and that little thought that started of, ‘I’m gonna book this,’ has turned into ‘well I gotta book this because I psyched myself up.’ I found that when I just find the literal joy in the in the acting and don’t give a fuck about the audition, it feels amazing. I sometimes do this in class… I think ‘fuck the casting director, fuck the producer, fuck all of that shit! I’m doing this for me, I am doing this so I can make myself laugh or move myself!’ Finding the little joy of from when I was 18, I loved acting for the sake of acting, I was so excited, ‘ooh, this character is weird and cool and quirky and funny.’ And finding the joy is the way that I was able to take off the fetters of ‘will I need to book this,’ because my value as an actor is not tied to whether or not I book anything at all. I act, I have so many clips on my phone, scenes, monologues that nobody in this world will ever see, my wife included. I just did it for the fun of it. I taped it myself, because it was fun. If there’s a play that I read, a monologue, and I want to learn that, or a speech I heard somewhere, I think, ‘yeah, I like that, I’m gonna want to learn that, I’m gonna put myself on tape, and I’m gonna watch it.’ And it makes me feel like an actor without needing somebody else to tell me, you’re an actor.

Brock 26:23
You know, it’s so funny you say that, now that I think about it… that’s probably a really fun use of people’s time during Potluck week. It’s probably something we could encourage during our classes, do something you really want and that is only for you. If you want to feel really fucking good about yourself, go tape it for potluck week and submit it and watch it and critique it in class. And then you can go back and look at it and feel really fucking good about yourself if you ever nee something like that. Because I think that’s how I phrased it is, if you’re doing potluck, make sure you can put it on actors access.

Aleks 26:57
I think it brings agency back to acting. One of the questions we were asked is ‘what do you do in the downtimes, when you’re not getting the auditions?’ In the beginning of COVID, there was this massive push to do monologues. And I love that so much that I just I tell every single actor who will listen to me: have monologues or read monologues because when you are working on something, regardless of whether or not you’re being paid to audition to, you’re working on something at home, a role that you would never get cast for, but really want, then when you get an audition, you show up differently. You’re not starved creatively, ‘I haven’t acted in weeks and this is my first audition.’ There’s like an energy to that. If you’ve been acting this entire time for yourself, and then you get an audition, it’ll feel like just another Tuesday. Yeah, another Wednesday. It kind of brought my signature back to my acting, I don’t do it for my agents, or the casting or anything like that. It’s kind of freeing now, because now I’ll mess around with the scene because I can, because who cares… it’s mine.

Brock 28:18
And you probably make “bigger swings”, or you’re not so worried about trying to give what some casting director wants because, ‘this is just for my eyes, and not even my wife’s eyes… so I’m going to bring myself to it.’ I always taught my classes to “do you.” Do your version of the breakdown. What’s your version of an anxious teenager? You know? You’re helping yourself without really knowing you’re helping yourself in those instances, because you’re not trying to fulfill the breakdown only.

Aleks 28:54
Yeah, I hope so. I love that, Brock. That’s a great way of putting it because it just started as, ‘you know, I’m gonna act for me. Yeah, that’s good. I do I do for myself. Yeah.’ Larry Moss once asked everybody in a room if anybody feel that pain in the pit of your stomach? When you haven’t had an audition for a while, you haven’t booked in a while, and you feel like you should be doing something, you should be creating something there’s this pull to be productive and even if you’re burnt out, because if you really love this if you really want it…’ Larry asked if we ever had that when we were in school or training. Every actor in the room said no, because we were always working on stuff. You’re working on plays, you’re working on scenes… your actor, your artist beast inside of you that wants you to act was being fed, so it wasn’t relying on auditions to be artistic. And I think that’s important.

Angela 29:56
Going back to writing, like we were talking about earlier, that’s unleashed a whole lot for me too. No desperation around other people putting me in their projects… if I’m over here, creating my own projects, whether they’re seen or not, it makes you feel so empowered. And you’re still working your creative muscles, and putting your own, in my case, comedic voice on paper, which is still your artistic voice, whether you’re acting through it or writing through it. I don’t know shit about writing at the end of the day. One of my students the other day said, ‘oh, it’s page 30-something, so we’re definitely in Act 2,’ and my response was, “are we?’ When I say writing, I don’t mean that I know at all what I’m doing. But it’s just fun to put stuff down and figure it out and use Google to figure out where to put stuff and how to format things and whatever. But I want to go back to what you said earlier – of that feeling of wanting to book a job, especially a show you love or a role that you love, or a big role that you haven’t had the opportunity for yet… I have built amnesia for myself, I will forget every audition the second that it’s over. I don’t tell anyone about any auditions I have. Because I don’t want someone else asking me about it. And I will never look at dates ever, not once will I make myself available. I will fly back from Greece, do whatever it takes, if I book this dream job. The second I look at a date, I just can’t help it that in my brain I’m going to feel that pang of nervousness. I also will give myself 20 minutes of ‘I got an audition for that I’m so excited!’ I’m gonna have my 20 minutes of excitement and then all that gets to go away, and I have a job to do and I’m going to break this shit down. And then I’m gonna step into it and play and be messy and be me and raw… and then I can get excited again. I can’t have the excitement, or the nerves or the “bigness” be in the breaking it down process or in the performance.

Brock 32:15
That’s why I stopped telling my mom about every audition, because she’ll ask, ‘where’s this shoot?’ and I’ll say, ‘in Vancouver,’ and she asks, ‘would they fly you first class?’

Angela 32:34
Priscilla wants to know!

Brock 32:38
Yes! But I can’t memorize with all the questions.

Angela 32:43
So true! Colleen, you always ask, ‘Hey, how was that audition?’ And I’m like, ‘what audition? I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And I’ll rip up the sides and put the audition emails in the folder of “auditions 2023” and then forget. Forget, forget, forget – the only way to protect your heart.

Aleks 33:04
Yeah, it is a matter of protecting the heart, isn’t it? I think having a ritual, is good. I forget as well. I take the sides and I crumple them up toss them in the garbage. I’m a horrible basketball player, so they end up everywhere. But just the act of doing that is so liberating. Especially if I’ve had the thoughts of needing to book – I like the tape and I send it off and I toss it in there and I just feel fantastic. It’s it’s weird psychokinetic thing that happens.

Angela 33:52
I felt good just thinking about you doing it.

Aleks 33:54
Crumpling up paper is an underrated thing. I encourage everybody to crumple up some paper if you’re feeling you know less than and it’ll it’ll change your life.

Angela 34:10
Did any of you struggle with stage fright during auditions in front of casting? I struggle with stage fright all the fucking time. I’m not one of those people that doesn’t get nervous. My dad’s a musician and plays in front of 40,000 people all the time, he gets nervous, like crazy too. I don’t know if it’s genetic, but for me that has never gone away. The only thing that helps is preparedness. That is the armor that helps everything. I was super nervous for my Zoom callback today and then got into it and had so much fun, but I think everyone deals with nerves differently. I am really one of those people who struggles with or like works through it.

Brock 34:52
Something I used to do when we were still in person – if they said, ‘how are you?’ I’d actually say, ‘I’m good. I’m just a little nervous.’ Saying that helped, because they’re like, ‘Oh my God, no, let’s have fun. Let’s do it.’ Saying it out loud, made it actually go away just a little, just being a little bit upfront with it and being honest with yourself. Because sometimes if you just confront it and say, ‘I’m kind of, just a little bit nervous, but I’m good,’ it helps more than trying to hide how nervous you are. That was something that was super helpful for me.

Angela 35:36
I also saw Michelle Monaghan speaking at SAG-AFTRA once and she was talking about her latest movie and an actor was like, ‘can you tell us about a bad audition that you had early in your career?’ She was like, ‘early in your career? I can tell you about just the other day, because the higher up you get, the worse it gets because you’re opposite someone like George Clooney!’ , So I like to think that the nerves we feel now, that’s how its gonna be. And we can do stuff to help us improve, instead of fighting it. We have to find the tools to move through these things. Do you get nervous, Colleen?

Colleen 36:17
I was very nervous for this. Showing up as an actual human without scripted lines. Last week, I wasn’t nervous at all when I went on set.

Brock 36:32
Wait, how was filming THE ROOKIE?

Angela 36:34
I want to hear it!

Colleen 36:35
It was really good. It was awesome. I’m like the flip side of Angela – neurotic and I keep all my sides. (Holds up paper) These are my audition sides for THE ROOKIE. I have all my thoughts written in and I took it with me on set, just to have – it feels like my secret weapon, if I need anything, it’s there. It was a challenging emotional scene, but I felt a sense of ease doing it. I was super happy that I’ve gotten to that point. Because I used to get so nervous. I could feel the nerves in my teeth – what is that? I think it’s just that I keep getting more years in this business. The more years I get, the more my headshots change, and the more the more my physical reaction to stimulus changes.

Angela 37:45
I will say experience does help. I look at my first few TV jobs and I was so deeply terrified and for good reason. I got yelled at by Aaron Sorkin, it was a stressful start. Ultimately now, it’s so very different walking on set. If I’m on set playing a nurse, which I’ve played a bunch, that’s feels very different from walking on set for something else that I haven’t done as much. I think the practice of doing it, it does get easier. But the nerves are just a sign that we care. And I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

Aleks 38:25
Yeah, I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. Because we do care. And I really early on in my life, before I was an actor, I did martial arts a lot. There was gradings and tournaments and sparring sessions, exhibitions… I remember feeling so scared. My martial arts instructor said to me, ‘nervousness is good. That means you care, it is just a different way to look at excitement.’ That resonated with me for a long time. I’m kind of masochistic. The more nervous I am, the more I want to do the thing. I love roller coasters. I love being on stage. When I did my play last year, I remember having an out of body experience during one of the first performances. I was doing Shakespeare, literally saying my lines, and I’m watching myself doing it and thinking, ‘wow, I can’t believe I’m doing Shakespeare on the stage and I should probably be focusing on what’s about to happen.’ I was psyching myself up, ‘I love this, yeah, I’m nervous – perfect bring it on, let’s do it!’ And it’s kind of shielded me a little bit from the nerves that I remember having to feel. Now having said that, if I’m opposite Aaron Sorkin, this might all go out the window. If he ever yelled at me, I think I’d poop myself.

Angela 40:06
If I book anything opposite Will Ferrell it’s gonna take everything in my power to not just completely fall apart. Aleks, when you were having your out of body experience, we’re you just shocked at how good you are?

Aleks 40:18
No! No, it was so interesting because I’m doing my thing and my scene partner is literally holding me like this. And he chases me down the stairs and he has this big monologue, he takes me and throws me off the stage and I have to land not in the audience. When I had my out of body experience, I was speaking to him and I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I don’t think I tucked my shirt in, I have this red shirt popping out and at the same time I’m thinking, ‘oh my god, I’m doing Shakespeare, isn’t this so cool? Oh, shit, I gotta go down the stairs!’ When I came off stage and the pressure was off, I was excited to do that again, like a roller coaster. I want to feel like I’m falling again.

Angela 41:18
Brock, can I ask a question? When you were on THE MIDDLE and they built an episode around you – the “LaLa Land” episode, you were at Capitol Records recording a song just for you… You were in the middle of your own musical after having been the supporting character for so long… what was that like to step up into? Were you nervous for that? Or did it just feel like a natural progression because you had been on the show for so long? I’ve been wanting to ask you that forever.

Brock 41:47
A little bit of both. I mean, I definitely had nerves. Mostly the nerves come from the table read more than anything. I just wanted to make sure that what they wrote, I’m delivering on the 10 scenes that I’m in, as opposed to just the cute little 2. They’re not going to change the entire storyline, but I wanted to make sure that I fucking “Simone Biles-ed” it and stuck the landing at the table read. So much of what I saw at THE MIDDLE was, if you stick the landing at the table read, usually “copy paste”, it’s in the final shooting draft. If you didn’t stick the landing, then they would adjust the script. There was an episode in particular, a scene that was not fucking funny, nothing stuck. And they put more stuff on Eden, they gave Eden more stuff to do. So the table read was where the most the nerves came from. But after the table read I was in the car going back home and I thought, ‘I’m good. Now I’m excited. Now I can get excited for it.’ When the spinoff came though, that’s when I felt a little bit of nerves and they stuck through the entirety of the pilot. Even though the pilot was mainly the character Sue, I knew that if I could stick the landing for this character, film a week, maybe have a week off and then maybe fillm two in a row and then maybe a month off and then come back. Stamina-wise, I have no idea what it’s like to do week after week after week and working five days a week and 12 hour days, five days a week. So I was nervous about that, I’ve never experienced that from just a stamina perspective. There were a few episodes that we had a really gorgeous arc from my perspective, but a lot of the times I’m there as the funny best friend, right? So I wouldn’t really have a lot of the legwork in terms of the character starting in one emotional place and ending in another. So that was where the majority of that nerves came in. But that big episode, after the table read, I thought, ‘okay, I’m good. I know that the rest of it’s gonna be okay because I just stuck the landing in the table read and I know I can do that again, on set and I can enjoy it and talk in between setups and not have to study lines and make sure I know what I’m doing.’

Angela 44:36
Colleen has crushed table read situations. I met Camille Chen at a table read on a show and I was like, ‘Who is that? She’s so good.’ You can really get a lot of things from from somebody in a table read.

Colleen 44:51
I had a table read that I kind of used to my benefit. I was on STATION 19 and I didn’t love how they were styling me. Because I started out as an abused wife and then I was sleeping with one of the hottest firefighters. And they’re still wardrobing me in a way and doing my hair and makeup in a way that felt so frumpy. So I came to the Zoom table read, hair done, lit to the gods with more youthful modern makeup on. I just wanted them to see me. This was done during early pandemic – keeping masks on all the time, a lot of separation of people. I couldn’t like go to craft services and chit chat, there was none of that. So I use that table read to my advantage. And when I came in to film for that episode, they said, ‘Okay, we want to know what you did for that table read because we have new directives on your hair. We want to know exactly what lipstick you are wearing. The show runner was crazy about it’. And I was like, ‘Oh, praise be! That was what I wanted to do.’ I guess I’m a manipulative person is what I’m understanding right now. (laughs) But I wanted to manipulate how they saw me, and I think one can do that. During table reads, I was surprised by how the series regulars (who have so many episodes guaranteed) put so little effort into getting their setup looking good. Sometimes their cameras were shooting up their nose and they were struggling to unmute themselves. I had no guaranteed episodes – I was working hard for every episode I got, so I showed up ready to ready to rock. Alan Ritchson who was an SKS-er and is now “Reacher” on the show REACHER, he has such an incredible Instagram feed. And he does a lot of a lot of posts about being on set, showing what it looks like, what the camera setup looks like. He talks about being completely memorized for every table read, because he had to fight to get this job. He was on a show BLUE MOUNTAIN STATE that went off the air and he had to fight to get it brought back, rebooted. So he fights for everything and doesn’t take any of this shit for granted. So I really admire that he is completely memorized. He has positioned himself as ready to be the lead of the show, even though he’s already the lead of the show. He’s on the poster.

Aleks 48:05
I love that, not resting on your laurels thinking, ‘now I booked this and now everything else will come to me just like this.’ The hustle continues and it will always always continue. There was a rapper who hit a number one single and he’s like, ‘cool, I’m gonna sit back and wait for the for the deals to come and the concerts and everything.’ And they were like, ‘No, now that you’ve got a hit, now you gotta keep going. You gotta go back to it and write some more, it never stops.’ I think there’s a little bit of comfort in that. Yeah, that what you’re doing right now is what you’ll be doing when your career levels up. Yeah, I love that. I love that.

Colleen 48:56
And it’s not in a way of desperation. It’s saying, ‘I love this project. I want to be here and I’m the leader. I’m the number one on the the callsheets. I am the titular character.’ Talking about watching TV… David Green asked –

Brock 49:19
‘which 2022 TV shows and movies do you recommend that actors should watch, to study?’ I really liked that question.

Angela 49:30
Colleen I know you have an answer.

Colleen 49:31
I do but I feel like I’ve been talking a little too much. Anyone else jump in.

Aleks 49:37
Award season is happening right now. That’s a really great place to start. What is a nominated? What is winning? If anybody’s in SAG-AFTRA, we’re getting screeners now for everything. I’m very excited to see SEVERANCE. Watch what’s winning awards, what’s turning heads, what’s been nominated and what’s winning? Pure and simple.

Brock 50:05
I love award season. Oh my god, it’s my Super Bowl.

Angela 50:09
Is it your favorite season?

Aleks 50:13
I was on the SAG-AFTRA nominating committee, so I got everything. If you haven’t seen TRIANGLE OF SADNESS, please do.

Brock 50:23
I didn’t even know what that was until it was nominated.

Aleks 50:25
It won the Palm D’Or at Cannes and it was one of those movies where you think you know where it’s going… that movie made me laugh, it was gross, at the very end I realized I had no idea how it was going to end. I didn’t know who’s the bad guy or the good guy. Everything was crazy. The movie changes tones three times. You adjust, ‘now we’re on this deserted island. Okay, cool. What’s gonna happen? Oh, okay. So Lord of the Flies. Yeah. Okay, cool. Cool.’ Because I was on the nominating committee and watching a whole bunch of these movies… it contextualized award seasons for me. Watching the Academy Awards, I’ve seen all those movies and it makes you feel like an actor in Hollywood in the real sense of the word. Go see TRIANGLE OF SADNESS.

Brock 51:43
When I first read that question from David, I immediately thought of SUCCESSION. I’m watching SUCCESSION for joy. I don’t know if I’ll ever get an audition for succession, that’s not my wheelhouse. So I would also recommend watching shows where you belong on that show, where your talents lie. Right now I’m rewatching SAMANTHA WHO?, that’s right up my wheelhouse. I’m watching thinking, ‘what is Christina Applegate doing? What’s Jennifer Esposito doing?’ It’s an old show from ABC. The same network is currently casting a pilot called PUBLIC DEFENDERS. I can only imagine the genre is going to be very similar, the network knows exactly what they’re doing. It’s a delicious single camera comedy for ABC. Go watch SUCCESSION, go watch THE LAST OF US, but also look at what is being picked up that you see yourself on? And what are those shows? What are those co-stars like? What are those guest stars doing? Where’s their tone, where’s their turns, how sharp are their turns, how thrown away are their turns, and understand where you lie in that world, so you can better assess yourself. I think there’s a category of shows to watch because you love to watch good fucking TV. And then shows to watch as a student, as well.

Angela 53:16
And if there are any casting offices that you’ve built a relationship with over time, know every single project of theirs because there’s a good chance that you will be called in for one of those. If you already have that relationship built, you want to be ready before that audition comes in.

Aleks 53:32
That’s right. I would even extend that to showrunners and executive producers, even the directors. Directors can have a certain style that they’re doing. Two hours ago, I coached someone on an audition for a series regular on PUBLIC DEFENDERS. Really, really funny. It was a bit broad and I encouraged them to think of it as a mockumentary – throw it away a little bit. And we’ve mined so much more out of that, because the subtleties came out in the way that it was written. Beautiful.

Angela 54:13
I want to hear Colleen’s answer to this question.

Brock 54:15
Yes, I know you’ve got a slew of shows.

Colleen 54:19
I try and watch at least one new show a week. I have different categories. Angela was saying every casting office that calls you in you need to know their shows backwards and forwards. The very first episode of TV I watched in 2023 was an episode of THE ROOKIE, because that office has been calling me in, they’re very loyal. So at the beginning of the year I wanted to re-immerse myself into the world of THE ROOKIE. When I got the audition soon after that, I felt confident. I watched shows that are the lowest hanging fruit audition-wise. It’s business. I never like call my sister at the end of the week, saying, ‘ Girl, did you see THE ROOKIE this week?’ The best business decision is seeing who calls you in, who are you most likely to be called in for, and knowing those show those shows inside and outside, backwards, forwards all sorts of ways. And then there are shows that are in the zeitgeist, like WHITE LOTUS – everyone was buzzing about WHITE LOTUS, buzzing about YELLOWJACKETS. I just happened to really like those shows, I felt really lucky. The next one that I’m going to be watching is THE LAST OF US, which so many people have been talking about. Zombie related projects are not necessarily my comfort food. But I’d like to be able to engage about it with the people. I want to speak that language. The creatives that I follow on social media, who I want to be collaborators with, I see what projects they are talking. I like to know what they’re talking about, what’s in their environment, and what’s getting them excited because I want to be in their environment and getting them excited. I watched WILL TRENT because it’s a one hour drama, the world I typically live in. However it shoots in Atlanta, so I watched I watched two of them and then put it on the backburner. I watch HANDMAID’S TALE because I find a lot of value in the show, not because they’re holding a lot of open calls here for the show that shoots in Canada. Tell Priscilla (Brock’s mom) that they’re not flying me first class. Alansa asked about how the four of us stay in touch with casting directors… for me, I have a shortlist of casting directors, writers, directors, producers, people that are on the shows that I want to collaborate on and be on – I touch base with them via social media. I don’t believe we’re going to go back in the casting room anytime soon in person. I think of UDK as the canary in the coal mine, they have given up their their offices in Valley Village and they’re one of the biggest casting companies in LA. So if they’re not going back to the office, I don’t think a lot of other companies will. I don’t think postcards are a thing anymore. But I do think we can interact on social media with them. If there’s a casting director has cast you previously, I think it’s a fantastic thing to post a scene from that project and shout out the great memories, tag them in that. If you are posted in a still from a particular show, because there’s fan pages for all these shows, comment on it and then also tag them. ‘I loved this episode, what you don’t see as I’m standing on three apple boxes, thank you to Jamie Castro for putting me here,’ you can use what you already have happening.

Brock 58:40
After booking something, I’ll send a message to my manager and ask if they mind passing this along to the casting director, just forwarding it to them? All she has to do is forward to casting and it’s a message saying, ‘hey just finished shooting this, thanks so much, see you soon.’ And more than likely, they write a couple sentences back that I get forwarded from my manager to me. As opposed to going through a DM or something like that, it is just going through your manager.

Aleks 59:28
One thing that I did with casting offices that never called me in, but who I do want to collaborate with is… during the Artios Awards, all of the nominations come out and I was sending notes of, ‘congrats on your nomination or congrats on the win, that was so amazing.’ Casting offices get so much fewer congratulations than the directors, producers, actors who get nominated for these things. And I got a got a response. A casting director said it made their day and thanked me. And I know they hear it often from actors, ‘Hey, I would like an audition for this thing,’ but they don’t hear congratulations. When it’s an award that you got for doing your job incredibly well, it’s nice to have congrats from an actor who would like to work with you someday. And the feedback has been incredibly positive. Because not asking for something but celebrating something.

Angela 1:00:37
Everyone loves to pat themselves on the back or talk about themselves or feel good, and if you’re doing it from a genuine place, that’s everything. I agree Colleen, not DM-ing casting, because bear in mind that all actors are flooding the gates of the casting directors. Writers don’t often hear from actors. So if you saw and loved an episode of something that they wrote, or you were on a show, and didn’t get to meet the writer, but you wanted to, just connect with them, ‘hey, I played this character and I’ve just been such a fan of your work,’ just making it so sincere. You’d be surprised how many doors that opens. I’m not really big on social media for my career. But I’m going to start to make the shift towards that, but the few posts that I have done for work… in one of them I tagged the casting director and she’d only started calling me in post-pandemic, so I didn’t really know her, I didn’t think we had a relationship. But I believe they think that they have a relationship with us because they’re seeing our face even though we’re not seeing theirs. She responded by saying how much their office loves me. And I was shocked. I think we just have to stand in our power and own it a little bit more and use your agents and managers and not tiptoe around things. Just come at it.

Aleks 1:01:54
Brock, I love having the intermediary like your manager, your agents sending the congratulations, reaching out directly. That’s brilliant.

Brock 1:02:02
I think we have to toe the line of being proactive and making sure that we’re like doing our job – and also not coming across as desperate. I don’t want casting’s reaction to be, ‘we get it, thank you, you’re trying to get an audition for public defenders, we get it.’ Sending it through my manager makes it seem a little bit more professional. Or reaching out to some business connector, if you’re trying to make some sort of work happen. If you’re talking to them, ‘hey, I have XY and Z that I would love to talk to you about, let me know if you have the bandwidth, and do you feel comfortable with me sending it directly to you, or would you prefer going to go through your reps?’ I try to make it professional and not desperate. I posted something from when Angela and I had our little date the other week and a director DM-ed me and gushed about Angela and added, ‘Oh, by the way, I saw you in BROS, I miss THE MIDDLE. And he DM-ed me about you too! But this director opened the door, so I engaged back. And this casting director.. he’s booked and blessed he is.

Angela 1:03:45
He directed one episode of a show that I did three episodes of, and the episode that he directed, I had very little to do. But he really left an impression on me and the only way I connected with him was through me tagging him in something from that episode. I opened the door and now he comments on all my stuff.

Brock 1:04:05
He and I both agree that it’s just a matter of time before you pop off and become a superstar.

Colleen 1:04:11
That’s absolutely amazing. Can I add one other thing? I also feel like you can continue to make a connection after filming is complete. One of the directors that I loved on STATION 19, we bonded because we both loved the BORAT sequel. I thought it was so funny. I messaged him and asked if he’d watched PAUL T GOLDMAN, It’s directed by the same guy who did BORAT SUBSEQUENT MOVIE FILM. And truly, I don’t know if we’ll ever work together again, but it mentally helps me feel like we are collaborators. Last year, I loved a project that I auditioned for, I even had my manager follow up with that casting director. I eventually just emailed the writer/director of the project, and I said, ‘I love this film so much, I think it’s going to be amazing, I cannot wait to see it. And I hope you have the best time filming it.’ I knew I was no longer in the running for this role, but I really want to have a community of people that are creating amazing projects, especially for women of a certain age. I wanted to build that that bridg. Last thing I want to say, in thinking about award season, I think it’s also important to take a look at like at the NAACP Image Awards, the Imagen Awards, the Independent Spirit Awards. I was disappointed with lack of representation within the Oscar nominees. There’s a lot of fantastic projects that don’t get a spotlight just because the system can be a little racist, misogynist, and xenophobic.

Angela 1:04:16
I started listening to Barry Katz’ podcast “Industry Standard,” because I was listening to so many interviews with actors, but he talks to people behind the camera and all the executives. It’s really helpful to understand what all those development roles are and what they all do. I didn’t understand any of that. And that really helped me, so if anyone’s looking for a good podcast. I also think like there’s a there’s a big benefit of just learning about the industry, beyond us actors. I’m still trying to learn the differences between everything. Who’s doing the money? And what’s the difference between studio versus network and who’s making this decisions? I started looking at Deadline. I would encourage everyone to look at Deadline and look at what’s being picked up and then what studio they are from. When ABC picks up something from Warner Brothers, that show must be pretty fucking good, because that’s not as lucrative for ABC. Of course, CBS Studios and CBS and Paramount+ are more incentivized to make those shows. If CBS is picking up something from FOX, you better believe it’s probably pretty good. Or there’s a certain quota to meet: we have to do three show pickups, three pilots from an outside studio, and maybe one or two pickups from inside.

Aleks 1:14:32
We’re starting to see on audition sides, there’s a note from casting that says you don’t have to memorize sides before the audition or interview. Can we all talk about that for a second? Anybody want to take that before?

Colleen 1:14:47
Oh, you can go for it.

Aleks 1:14:48
Because of COVID and self taping, there has been more and more asked of us actors, including everything behind the camera. There have been a lot of auditions that are sent Thursday evening at 8pm and it’s got sent by Friday morning at 9am. SAG-AFTRA sent out a survey asking about audition turn around time, there were rumblings of SAG-AFTRA clamping down on that demanding an appropriate amount of time for actors to work so that they’re not doing sub-par work because they’re strapped for time. To combat the potential demands from SAG-AFTRA, casting has started telling actors they don’t have to memorize lines. It is checking off a box for the Union, so that we’re not being overworked or over demanded. But I want to impress upon everybody here, anybody who’s going to be watching this: memorize your lines, memorize your lines, memorize your lines. There’s no other way to put it. Being fully prepared is knowing your lines backwards and forwards. Study your lines and be unfuckwithable. That’s what SKS is all about, right? Is to be unfuckwithable. I can’t imagine going to an audition unprepared or paraphrasing. I hear Stan’s voice in my head, ‘No, that’s just not how we do things.’ I feel like this new messaging from casting is going to make a lot of actors think, ‘Oh, cool. It’s all right. I can just not work on my lines.’

Colleen 1:17:00
I cosign with what Alex said 100%. I get a lot of information about the character from the specificity of the written words. Someone else asked, ‘Can you guys talk about whether having a big rep is always better or is having a smaller rep okay?’

Angela 1:17:21
I don’t think the word “always” ever exists in this industry, I think it depends on your situation. If you have a manager who aggressively believes in you, gets you, knows what they want to do with you, and if you’re giving that manager the tools to get you in and they happen to be at a bigger place, great if they’re a manager that is that is at a much smaller place but all of those things are still true, and they’re a hustler, that’s great. The only thing where it’s not great is if they don’t have the relationships with the offices that you’re trying to get in for, that’s not so helpful. You want to make sure that they already have those relationships in place and that their the right fit for you. But the size of the manager, I’m not sure that it matters as much. On the commercial side, from my own experience, having had very little success commercially and now I’ve done a complete 180… I have found that having a stronger agent on the commercial side really does help you. I was talking to a commercial casting director about this and I asked him point blank – does that really matter? And he said yes because they assume that the better actors are going to be at those bigger agencies. I have found it to be a very eye opening experience, a shift of agencies on the commercial side really has made a huge difference. I think for theatrical agents, the same rule applies for finding a manager – it’s really more about them understanding you and then having the relationships that you need, the size doesn’t matter.

Colleen 1:19:20
I also would argue that finding a rep who pitches is important. Picking up the phone or emailing on your behalf, not just clicking the “submit” button on Breakdown Services. Some people when they look at their submission report, they are sometime shocked my how few auditions they get versus how often they were submitted. My question is: how many of those roles were you actually pitched for? Or was your rep just clicking “submit” and hoping for the best? Because my mom can click on the “submit” button. I want to ask: what do you guys think about living a little further outside of LA? Aleks, you a little further out of LA proper, I live a little outside.

Aleks 1:19:57
Ha, even farther than that – I have a Canadian agent. She’ll send me auditions but she’ll say, ‘look, money-wise, unless it’s UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN, or THE LAST OF US, which is shooting up in Canada (and I’m throwing that out to the universe), it’s not worth it for production to fly you all the way out. It doesn’t necessarily matter to just audition, but to when you book it, then it starts to matter. Just this morning, I had to turn down an audition, because I’m not in Atlanta local hire. And the casting director was clear, ‘if you are an LA or New York actor pretending to be in Atlanta, and I watched your tape, you will have wasted your time and my time,’ she put that in the submission notes. This particular CD wanted somebody from Atlanta, period. And there is a hustle to this thing. If a casting director clearly states that she wants Atlanta talent, it would be a waste of everybody’s time.

Angela 1:21:47
I will say in terms of living outside of LA proper… it really depends on where you are in your career. Right now, I tend to audition commercially in person quite a bit. I’m so grateful to have made it to this point. But it has made juggling whatever your day job (mine happens to be jumping on zoom with actors through Stan Kirsch Studios) juggling that with the timing of needing to be in person. I’m not going to want to drive an hour each way just for a 10 minute audition – that it has that has been a challenge. I haven’t always been auditioning in person for commercials. So if that’s not where you are, or what your focus is right now, and you are living outside of LA – that’s not something you’re gonna have to deal with. You’re really just coming in to LA for COVID tests and jobs. I will say that drive to COVID test and to film is the most joyful drive you have ever had. Because you are working! For COVID testing, I ask if I can get tested in Long Beach for most of my jobs. So wherever you are, you can just ask production if there’s another location near your area. I did one in Palm Springs once because I was out of town, and they found a place locally there. So if you’re wondering if you can work in LA and live slightly outside of LA? It is possible, but you want to look at how much you are actually going to need to be in LA. And what does that look like compared to your survival job and all the things that you’re juggling? But I think it’s worth it to live where you love.

Colleen 1:23:24
Living just outside of LA proper has made me so much more intentional with when and where I will show up. I can’t go to every screening or every event. So when I do attend an event, I let people know that this thing means a lot to me, so I’m showing the hell up. And while I’m in the area, I’m also going to have coffee with my friend Ari, and I’m also going to stop by and meet my friend’s kid. I used to feel like I was pulled all over the place because I my location made so that I could get to everything all the time, but being intentional has been such a gift. Wow, that was a quick hour and a half. I feel like we should do this again.

Angela 1:24:23
I love you guys so much.

Aleks 1:24:29
Thank you.

Colleen 1:24:30
I’ll see you all at the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai