Take 29 - Actor and director Keegan Connor Tracy - Battlestar Galactica, The Magicians

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Any of us who've been in it for long enough, our entire career has been littered with jobs that we didn't get, projects that we thought were gonna go for sure, dozens of unproduced scripts littering the floor.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

All of us are running into both major and minor failures in Hollywood every single day.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

For every success, there is months, sometimes even years, failure. This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

That's the norm. Like everything in our business, your hands can count. It all bounces off you.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

That process takes place. That doesn't happen overnight. I was being told by my manager it's yours to lose. And I promptly lost it. And I remember thinking, like, well, that's it for me. I blew my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein, and we have on the other end the entertainment co-host, Noah Ebslin.

SPEAKER_02 1:14

I was about to say we have the non-entertaining co-host, uh Noah Ebslin here as well. Uh, I just want to say we are overjoyed to have the actor Keegan Connor Tracy on the podcast today. Keegan has over 75 acting credits, including such shows as Stargate, Psych, My Favorite Show of All Time, Battlestar Galactica, Life Unexpected V, and more recently, Supernatural, The Magicians, and The Twilight Zone, as well as too many others to list. Uh, welcome, Keegan.

SPEAKER_03 1:42

Thank you. Hi, thanks for having me. Thanks so much for bringing up Life Unexpected, which is perfect for this podcast because that was awful.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

So obviously, you are a very well-known actor. Noah loved Battlestar Galactica. I loved the 4400 among other shows. So obviously, because of the nature of our podcast, let's not start with the things that you're really good at. Let's start, let's start with directing because that's what you're trying to do now. So obviously you've gone through the building your career in in one part of the Hollywood industry, which is hard to do when you've done it successfully. What's it like when you have succeeded, but then you're doing something else, presumably starting not at the bottom, but basically starting again?

SPEAKER_03 2:32

Pretty close to it, yeah. Uh it's challenging. Um, you know, anybody who's sort of midlife and changing career tech, that it's a hard thing to do. I felt that I have all the skills set to move into that direction, but still at the end of the day, I now have to build a completely new relationship within the business and have people, you know, now give me, please give me an episode, give me a movie, whatever. They I have to prove myself all over again. And uh, you know, gosh, here I am, just back in the trenches again. I don't think I ever left the trenches. I mean, that's the real truth. You're always in the trenches in this business. I I think even at the top.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

When you're because obviously, when you're directing, if you're struggling to get somewhere, is there a part of you who's like, you know what? I know how to do the acting thing and I've been successful, and just sort of give up and go back to that because you know you could probably get work quite quickly and at a good level, or are you predetermined?

SPEAKER_03 3:35

There are moments, right? Like, look, I love directing. I think it is the bee's knees that I can get to make the decisions and craft the story on all the levels. Totally up my alley. It's my jam. I love it. But I will say that, for example, at this level, as I'm moving up, the movie that I did in November was a million dollars, 12 days, no overtime, with a baby during a pandemic. It was such insanity that there were moments where I thought I could just, I could just walk away right now. I could just, I could, you know, take off my Comtex and just go back to my life where I can have naps in the middle of the day and you know, people hold my umbrellas and give me a little drink with a straw, you know, instead of being a director standing in the pouring rain going, Oh, can I get this shot? Um so to answer your question, yes, there are moments when I've thought of it. But at the same time, there's there's like a powerlessness to being an actor that I, you know, I haven't loved and has grown particularly tiresome at this point. And I feel at least like being a director, well, it has its own whole host of other problems, of course. Like you're still hustling, but at least I feel like the hustle is like under my control. They're not gonna go, oh, you know what, we already had a brown haired director this year, so we're not gonna hire her, you know, which is the kind of shit that would happen to you as an actor. They can pick you for the dumbest reasons or get rid of you for the dumbest reasons. It has, it's such a subjective business where at least as a director, I feel like I can earn my spot there. I can show you something and say, look, I directed this. I know what I'm talking about.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

I I have a ton of director, actor-to-director related questions, but I want to start with something really basic. Uh, have you switched completely? You wouldn't be the first person, uh, actor in our podcast to say that they made a complete move from one field to another, or are you going to sort of keep one foot in everything as you move forward?

SPEAKER_03 5:25

That's a that's a that question is in the air for me as well. I think largely my weight, you know, I have a foot in both camps, mostly because right now I still have to finance my life as I become a director. My suspicion is that I will move to becoming a director and that will be exclusively what I am. And I will continue to push forward, moving into producing. And, you know, I have big goals and I think that that's where I'm gonna land is on the other side of the line. Right now, I mean, I love being an actor when I when the work is there and when I get to do something that that really moves me. I just but literally I just put something on tape as an actor, you know, half an hour before I sat down to do this. Um, so until such time as I'm established as a director, I'll have to do both. And I will always be there. If somebody wants to call me up and be like, hey, come and play this nutty part, I'll I will always be interested in doing that if it, if my schedule allows it.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Do you think the I and I I know the I know what I think um because I know a number of actors who have become really successful directors and they bring a ton to the table in regards to their experience as an actor, then becoming a director and you and knowing how to communicate with actors primarily is is a huge one. What do you think is going to be your sort of biggest challenge? Because you've already done a one you know movie and a and a short and other things. Have you are you, you know, as you kind of segue into this thing and you've begun to do it a little bit, what are some of the challenges that you're seeing as you move from one to another?

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Uh I think there's uh there's a couple, one of which is just first of all, just smashing down all new doors. Although I have relationships that say somebody who just came out of film school is not going to have. I've been standing on sets for 20 years. I've made relationships with producers and with crew and with DPs and with other actors and people who are now making things. So I do have that advantage. Um I think that that is one I think the actor-director part, particularly as a woman, will be somewhat of a challenge because I think it's easy for them to think you're a dilettante or, you know, but I I am not. I had to work really hard. It's a little different if you're on a show and they give you an episode. You know, that's a huge leg up that I haven't had. I've had to work and scrabble and hustle to get where I'm at. So, but I do think that there will be some challenge for them to go, oh, okay, she's serious and we can we can listen to her. I think to some degree, as a woman on a set, this was part of this career counseling thing that I did yesterday that really has me thinking about how you are perceived. You know, as an actor, your face is what you're selling. Yes, of course, what you're doing is also what you're selling, but you know, the first thing everybody's looking at is what you look like, and so how beautiful you could be or whatever is a big part of your brand as an actor and as a director, it's almost the opposite. Like, you know, this my my consultant that I was having this session with yesterday was like, you need to look less nice when you go to a meeting and when you go on set. And so what I'm really pointing at is being taken seriously as a woman. And I certainly feel like the way I lead a team, and when you see that I know exactly what I'm talking about when it comes to story, I have very specific reasons for my choices. I think I can easily gain the respect of a crew, but there is a certain something to being in a very male-dominated position as a woman, as a cute little woman, you know, whatever, that I think will present a challenge. And then finally, I would say the other challenge I would talk about would be just building really good coverage. I mean, that takes time to learn that skill. I have a lot of it and I feel really confident, especially when I'm working with a good, strong DP in my technical abilities. But certainly that is something that only experience can teach you how to build really great coverage. And I have to kind of watch the movie in my head in order to build my coverage. And I found doing my movie that that was more difficult at the beginning. And as I started to shoot things, I could cut the movie in my head and see it, and then I could build my coverage as I went along. But so those were what I would say would be the challenges in making this transition.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

So you you raised gender. Is now the best time to be trying to break in as a female director?

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Oh, I would say so. I would say it's probably the best time in history. I mean, there was, I heard an apocryphal story, uh, I forget where I heard it, about how they used to open the DGA meetings by saying, Good evening, gentlemen, and Ms. Lepone, because uh uh is that who it was? Patty Lepone, does that sound right? I hope I have that story right. But she was regardless, she was look it up, Google it, somebody Google it for me right now. Uh, she was the only woman in the DGA. You know, I was in a workshop just uh on last weekend, a um episodic TV director's workshop. And one of the very like successful, well-known uh gentlemen that was running the workshop, and I don't want to out anybody, but I just noticed like his language was very gendered. And I'm not necessarily really sensitive to that by and large. But for example, he would say, and the production designer, well, he's the guy who does this, and the whatever position he was mentioning, he would say, and he's the guy that does. And it was really just an unconscious bias in terms of the fact that he's comes from a different generation. When I can tell you, when I started, there was not a woman on a crew. The first time I saw I came on set and there was a female director, I remember my jaw being half on the floor because it was like I say all the time, it was like seeing a unicorn. Men were directors, men were producers, men were the writers, women were hair and makeup and scripty and craft services, you know, and this is a different day across the board for all of those positions. And so the long version of that answer is yes, I think now is the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

In some ways, was that part of the you know, did you just want to become a director because this is something you've always wanted to do? Or did has it felt over the last few years that actually if you wanted to do it, now is a good chance? And that almost pushed you to do it.

SPEAKER_03 11:18

I I think when I look back at the things I was doing all the way along over the last two decades of my career, I I think I always had an inkling to be a director, but there was no path. You know, I have um the Gina Davis Institute for Gender Studies in the Media, one of their sort of their sort of brand slogans is if she can see it, she can be it. And I'll tell you, I never saw it. So I didn't know I could be it. That was part of it. Part of it was, you know, I had a successful acting career, and I thought, do I really want to add into the mix something that's just as difficult? You know, I again I didn't see a path. Um but I think that the storyteller in me, had I known that I could have been a director, I dare say that that's what I should have done all the way along instead of being an actor. I think the thing about being an actor that makes me the most crazy is that it's just based on this, you know, and it doesn't matter how good the work you do is sometimes it's really based on what you look like. Are you thin enough? Are you pretty enough? Are you whatever the thing is that they're looking? Do you have the right color hair? I have not gotten jobs before because honestly, they were like, Well, the other girl's got brown hair, so you can't like that's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

So taking this back to the core of this podcast, the sort of rejection question. So I'm sure Noah's got lots of technical questions about actor to director. But I'm gonna ask a rejection question, actor to director. So, as you said, you know, there will have been things, parts you didn't get because your hair was the wrong color, you were too tall, whatever it is. And that's one type of rejection. And obviously, some of it will be maybe your performance wasn't good enough in the audition as well, obviously. As all um as a director, when somebody says we're not hiring you for something, that's a different type of rejection, obviously. I guess in some ways it's a deeper rejection. So are you finding being rejected in this new part of your career harder and more personal than when you were being rejected as an actor?

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Uh well, the good news is I'm not far enough yet to have gotten rejection. Uh you know, this is I'm still at this part where I I'm very close. I really feel like I'm on the precipice of the next stage for myself as a director. But right now I'm still trying to break in. Some of that is a bit on hold, I think, because of COVID. You know, like I have a credit now. I'm in the the like a I'm in the director's guild. I'm on my way. I really am. I have other things I'm waiting to cut together to put my reel and blah blah. So I think that's the preemptive question. Maybe come back to me in a year and talk to me about, you know, reading for shows and not getting them. I know certainly what rejection feels like. To some degree, I'm going to be used to it. Um, this is a new skill set, how to sell myself as a director, although I feel like the things I point to that sell me as a director all make very good sense and I have a very strong case for why I should be there. Um I don't know. I think you're gonna have to come back to me on the question of rejection as a director, because I think it's still waiting for me. I'm not quite there yet.

SPEAKER_02 14:19

Do you think there's a little bit of masochism built into what we all do? Because the moment any of us reaches a level of success that other people might aspire to, you instantly add a new level of success. And most of us, a new a new path to climb. For you, you've been you've had a huge, hugely successful career as an actor. And then you decide, you know what, I want to go and fail for a short while at this other thing while I'm still learning it, hopefully then have some successes build up. But I'm willing to now jump off this mountain that I'm at the top of or near the top of and start at the bottom of that. You think that's unique to what to us? Is that just ambition? Do we like being tortured this way?

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Um, you know, I think we have a particular masochism in the arts uh because it is so difficult and because it is often so subjective that, but what I would almost do is frame it the other way around, which is that we know it's shit, but we do it anyway, you know, versus I don't know, maybe there is no opposite to that. But I just think I don't know. Maybe it's I often I often say that being in the film industry is like a heroin addiction. You know, the highs are so high and the lows are so low, and you're always chasing that high. I think like once people get a, you know, I thought that about reality stars. I would think, why the hell would you do that? Why would you be on a show like that? And then I would think, yeah, you want to know why? Because they sent limels to their houses and they sent them flowers and they put them on in first class and flew them places for a little while. And then after that's done, you don't want to give that up. And we all have our version of that. You know, you as a writer, me as an actor, me as a director, any of us in film, I think, uh there's an element of that, and in the arts in particular, like I said. And um, I don't know, we're always chasing the dragon.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Let's let's talk about the, you know, I love the analogy of the heroin addict with the super highs and then the withdrawals and the lows and the depression and other things. And and and because we're a podcast that sort of delves into these things, I want to talk about some of the lows. I mean, you it looks like from your CV and from the IMDB that you've had no lows. You've worked very steadily. Now I know because I'm in the industry that you must have. What were some of those moments like? Did you ever think of like again, you're thinking that you want to do something new, but you're not necessarily walking away because you couldn't do it. This is a very big different thing you're doing.

SPEAKER_03 16:41

You know, I'm gonna, but I'm gonna interject there and be really brutally honest that that's not entirely true. I think what allowed me to raise my head and survey the landscape and move toward directing was yes, I'd always been interested in it, but I I think some of it was just a function of necessity. I I looked up and was like, this landscape is not the same landscape in which I have been working. I am no longer, you know, it's not until you're past the age that you look back and you're like, oh, every show is kind of about people between 15 and 35. And once you're past 35, it's not about you anymore. And then in particular, in this moment, as we finally start to look at other faces out there, you know, the piece of the pie that was available to me at one point, unfairly so, I dare say, uh, is now not the same piece of pie. And so that in part was like, I looked at my career that I was going like, what is happening? I better find something also, at least, you know. And then it just happened to be that as soon as I stepped into directing, I was like, no, no, no, this is where I should have been to begin with. It really is. So I cop to the fact that in part my my embracing of the direction of becoming a director was in part because I started to see my on-camera career falter in a way. I was not booking things the way I was before, and there's not the same amount of roles as there were before. Um, you know, so that's one that I will copy there. Uh, but if you want to talk about, oh my God, we could go back through my career and say, I love though that you that it looks on paper like it was just handy dandy. And by and large, yeah, like I didn't have big gaps. They felt like big gaps while I was in them. But you know, once I started to see the the roller coaster and the highs and lows, you start to understand, well, you you always come back. Um, but man, the lows are so low, they're awful because they're tied in large measure to to you when you are the product and people reject the product, it that hurts.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

So you is there is there a show or a movie that you missed out on that hurts, or is it more something you were on that got cancelled or bombed at the box office? Which which one hurts more? Is it the missed opportunity or the perceived failure of something you were attached to?

SPEAKER_03 19:01

There's all sorts of versions of that that we all have, I think as actors. For me, for example, if I read for something and I don't get it, there's you're not gonna get me to watch that show almost ever. Like I can't, you know, or uh, or even shows that I never had a shot at in the first place, but I'd be watching and going, like, I want to be on this show so bad, and I know I'm never gonna be on like Game of Thrones. I'm never gonna be on Game of Thrones. I just, you know, it's it just was not in the cards. But man, would I have loved that. I that's the place where I lament my inability to be in the running for that show, you know. Um, but when you talk about like a show that hurt, when it was funny that I sort of had forgotten about it, not really, but a little bit. Uh oh man, I have so many. The one where you mentioned Life Unexpected. I've never been fired off a show, but that I got fired off of that show. And uh oh my God. And then I had to go back and shoot for two days. It was just awful. We went through weeks of them approving us, like all the levels through the network and this and that. And we were waiting and waiting, and I was pinned, blah blah blah. And finally it comes through. I get this part and it's fabulous. And they're sending me like advanced episodes of what she's gonna do next, and it's great. And I show up on set and I walk in them, the hair makeup trailer, and Shiri was in there, and I looked at her and I was I remember saying too, I was like, wow, like thinking, oh, they're so they're so uh like advanced or something that I can't believe that they hired me to play your best friend because we look so similar right now. We both had like a little straight dark mom. And we I we sort of laughed at it, ha ha ha. And then we go out and we do our thing, and I go home that night and preparing to go to an awards show and do an interview, and part of it was about this show. And I get this phone call from my agent, and she's like, um, dear, you just got fired from that show. And I was like, What? Like, what how what? How? I mean, I have various theories about whatever. Like, I even had the casting director call me and said, I'm so sorry. This is what they said. They just feel like you're too similar to her. I'm like, why were you not thinking about it in the three weeks it took you to pick me in the first place? What are you talking about? And then I had to go back on set for two days, knowing I've been fired off of that show and be a professional. And it was a ghastly experience. It really, I still remember the director at the end. I was in like the little, uh, it was like a radio booth. And I mean, to his credit, I suppose. He was not a very nice gentleman, in my opinion. Uh, please don't go now. People are gonna go look it up and then I'm gonna be in trouble. Although he hates me already anyway, so who cares? Uh, but at the end, you know, it was wrapped, and I'm sort of standing there, I'm stuck in this booth because all the equipment has me like in there, and the director opens the door and he sticks his hand through and he goes, Thanks a lot, and like, and then just walks away and look the door shuts, and I'm standing in this booth like ah Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

So incredible story. So you'll have to forgive me as a non-entertainment person for asking this, but for the non-entertainment listeners, if you were fired, why did you have to go back and do two days there?

SPEAKER_03 21:52

So they just because I had to finish the episode, so they just they just wrote that character off, brought in a new best friend and whatever. But that was it for me.

SPEAKER_00 22:02

That's uh no one might be able to help me with this. Presumably you are a professional when you did it, but presumably there's some people in your industry who would have been like, right, I'm not going back to the set.

SPEAKER_03 22:12

Yeah. I kind of wish I would have. I think to myself, why did I go back? I don't you go back because you're you're always building relationships. Um and look, uh it was humiliating, it was awful. I've never been fired from anything. I'm an extremely professional, prepared, you know, I do my backstory. I'm like, I'm the kind of actor you want on your set. Um so that was demoralizing, but it was uh, I don't know, you you you grow some stones when you go into a situation like that and you have to face music that is not pleasant. And I did it and it didn't kill me. And I guess it made me stronger, you know. Uh wait till I tell you the other one. Like we well, we can talk. See, these things happen. They happen, and you'd dust yourself off, and you either quit and go get a job in another more reasonable profession, or you jump back into the fray. And I guess I just kept jumping, jumping back in.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

So I want to go back to something you said because it's a question I always enjoy asking people, and no one's ever given me this answer. So I love it. So I have asked quite a lot of writers when they've gone for a show and not got it, whether you know, whether they end up watching it and how they feel about watching it. Actually, so 4400, one of the shows that you were on, we had a writer who was on that, Robert Hewitt Wolf, who did a whole section about nearly getting Lord of the Rings and not getting it. And I said, Are you gonna are you going to you know watch it and hope it's terrible? And he, you know, he said, No, I'm gonna watch it and love it. And a lot of the writers say that. So for you, genuinely, when you didn't get something, do you not watch it because you're worried it will be good, or you just don't care who got it because it wasn't you, or there's a part of you that will just hurt you to watch it?

SPEAKER_03 23:53

You just don't want to torture yourself by and large. I mean, sometimes I'll watch it because I'm curious to see who they chose and why. And yeah, I'll judge the hell out of it. Often well, and sometimes not. Sometimes I'll be like, What? You know, honestly, there are things that I did not get, and I've watched the performance and thought, well, what the fuck? Honestly. Um, and sometimes I watch and I'm like, oh, she was amazing. Yeah, I totally see what, you know, I have both sides of that. Um I think I watch things very differently over the last, say, five years than I did earlier in my career. I think it was probably torture to watch anything with me earlier in my career. I was always parsing out the performances and how did they look and what was this? And once I became a director, uh, yes, I'm looking at performance. I always am going to understand that as an actor inherently. But I'm looking at everything. I'm looking now, I'm watching production design, I'm noting every shot. I'm looking at how many setups they're making, I'm following their coverage, I'm learning from it. So I have a very different way that I watch things now, and that doesn't bother me as much. Now I'm more watching, going, oh my God, how can I get one of these? Like I just watched Shadow and Bone and like devoured it. And I just think that's the show for me. I should be, that's a show I should direct. It's absolutely up my alley. And uh, so I just have a different, a different way of looking at it now.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

I I think, I think, by the way, I love Shadow and Bone as well. We just absorbed the show as well. Uh, we can talk about that for hours as well. But the I do want to talk about it's it's a it's a very different scenario when a writer doesn't get a project than when an actor doesn't get a project because we can't see the role that we didn't get. We were going to be part of a team and it was gonna be very big. It was a big show, like let's say like a game of thrones. You want to watch it, you hope you get it, you you often don't get things, and if you didn't watch all the shows you didn't get, you almost you'd never watch anything. You'd never watch anything, but if you got hired a career, but it's very different when you get fired from a show, then there's pain involved because you know all the storylines and the people, and it's personal, and there's a then probably more writers would be like, it's just too painful to engage with that. But I want to come back to the changing landscape you talked about a little bit of being an actor today, where it's becoming almost impossible, it seems, to sustain careers unless you're at the sort of the highest level. And I say this because I was having another conversation with a longtime journeyman actor who was also talking about this. This guy has been in everything. And he was just saying, you have no idea what it's like out there for an actor right now. It's just the hardest it's ever been. Are you are you finding that as well? And is that one of the reasons that motivated this move and why?

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Yeah, I mean, look, this is the first time, and I recognize that it's COVID. I also recognize I'm in a different age category at this point in time. Um, and and so that certainly has had a significant impact on what's available to me. But uh I have not been an actor on set now for since I did Twilight Zone in January, January, February of 2020. That's I'm like still going, what the hell is happening? I've never gotten a year without working in 20 years of being in film and television. It's been a dreadful year. I don't even know how to, in real honesty, like as an actor, I keep saying to people, I feel like I got fired and nobody told me, you know. I know it's a product of the time to some degree and it's a product of the stage and um in some ways a product of the fact that I'm very focused on my directing career. So there are, I also am fussy, you know, there are things that if I don't like them, I don't read for them because if I feel like I'm gonna go on set and be like, I just I just don't. I may have to soon because it's just I got bills to pay and I, you know, I would like to make another film and I have all of that. So did that answer your question?

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Yeah, that did.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

Yeah, I just feel depressed.

SPEAKER_00 27:41

So you talked about when you were when you were an actor and you looked around and there was no women in roles doing. Um there were there were no women in roles off camera, and now you're directing. How much of you are is it going to be about obviously you've got to establish yourself in this new career as we've discussed, but once you're there, and I can't see why you wouldn't get there, how much will you be thinking, right, what can I do now to make sure that we are and giving opportunities off camera and on camera to people that deserve it, and so not going for the obvious hires, and also you know, making sure that you get to run things the way you think they should be done and not on some of the old stereotypes.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Uh well, certainly I found when I was casting my movie, I I'm I'm thinking about diversity the same as everybody else's. I I really see now that we've had a very white landscape, and I don't want that any more than anybody else should. Um, so I feel like that just is somewhat instinctive in wanting to represent, like, look, when I just talked about Shadow and Bone, one of the things I love about that show, look at those faces. Those are faces we never used to see. I was never in rooms with people who looked like that, you know, and so I don't know, it feels like an easy thing to slip into for me as a director. I won't be in charge of hiring people unless I'm working on a feature, then I will have more power about who can who I can hire. But you know, when I'm doing my own projects, when I did my my first film, I tried as much as I could to make sure that there were women in all the positions I could get a hold of. Um and when I was trying to shoot, I tried to shoot a film in uh in during quarantine, and I was calling, like I was trying to make an entirely female producing, directing, you know, as many, just because it's not something that ever happens. Um, and I'm proud of the fact that um that that has happened on the projects that are under my control. And it would certainly always be something that I would be leaning into if I can as I move into positions of power and perhaps hiring people. I'm absolutely, you know, putting a handout to my fellow women who have not had the opportunities that that we probably should have, that we should have, not even probably, that we should have.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

One of the things we talk about quite a lot on this podcast is about sort of personal fulfillment and and sort of Noah likes to use the word soul in terms of sort of what you're achieving. If you had a choice tomorrow, if if you get a call from your agent, maybe it's two different agents now, and said, Do you want to be as an actor in this amazing film, which is everything you could possibly want? Or do you want to direct this film, which is a huge opportunity? Which would you, if it was binary, which would you choose?

SPEAKER_03 30:36

My scalp is tingling at this question. Like it makes me feel a little like I want to cry. I don't know. It's hard to say because I would have to look at what they were. There is a big piece of me though that says, no, I have to lean into being a director because I think it's my future.

SPEAKER_02 30:51

The by the way, I want to, Dan had once said to me that was the best question in 21 episodes or whatever. I want to throw that back at Dan. That was a really good question. I love that question of like, this is a soul's choice, right? What it it because we are defined by what we do, right? Because as a writer, I am a writer, the way I dress, the way I am, it sort of permeates my soul. And then when you start on a new path, you are becoming something else, you are metamorphosizing into something else. As you become a director, do you have a plan? Or are you, or is this something that you're kind of just taking one project at a time? And what and and and do you think having a plan is helpful? Or because Hollywood is so material, there's no way to have any sort of plan. And you just like having a birth plan.

SPEAKER_03 31:34

You can make a birth plan, but your baby's gonna be like, you know, I feel like Hollywood is the same. Um, particularly as a Canadian. Like I am there is the inner circle of Los Angeles, and then there are the outer ripples. And I'm I, you know, made a conscious choice to stay in Canada. For me, it was important um to raise my kids here. That was just a choice that I made. But it had, you know, that has an effect on you which circle you're in. And so uh to some degree, I'll I'm just remain at the mercy of the business, and that's gonna be what's going to happen as we move forward. But I can tell you that, yes, I mean, yes, do I have a plan? Yes, is it gonna go according to my plan? I doubt it. Uh, but I know that the work that I do as a director now really excites me in a way that the work that I was maybe doing as an actor was not exciting me. There is certain work as an actor that like fills me with a joy that I could not otherwise describe. And when you get to live another reality, there are very fleeting moments of it, but you live 100% in the shoes of that character. There's nothing like it in the world. But I love what I have discovered about myself and being a director, about my ability to lead a team, about my creativity, about my sort of emotional intelligence. I think when it comes to story and story arc. And I just like I love it. I love that I picked everything in the background and that that was my choice, and that this angle that you see is because I chose that, you know, by and large. Obviously, your DP can say, hey, what do you think of this? But you know, I I just I love being in charge, I really love being called Sir. I just want to tell you that right now.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

I'm gonna ask a Canada question. So um I think I speak on behalf of all British people. We love Canadians, we've always loved Canadians. And I actually I went to university in Toronto for a year, so I love I love Canada. I think I nearly moved there when I was young. Um being how much is being uh well, not so much being a Canadian, but choosing to be a Canadian who hasn't decided to move to Hollywood. How much do you think genuinely that has or will hold you back? And also in this new weird world of Zoom that got created over the last 12 months, yeah, is it less of a disadvantage because everyone's a version of remote?

SPEAKER_03 34:01

I think so. Yes, I think so. I think it would not have been as much of a detriment when I sort of made this decision 10-ish years ago or whatever. Um it's hard to say. Look, there are people who've made it from here and had huge careers starting here and then got sort of swept down and built things, you know, people like Seth Rogan or um Evangeline Lilly or you know, people that started here and eventually made the move because they had something that carried them to that move. Um, I could have moved to Los Angeles and been nothing. I could have had a much smaller career potentially than I did here. There are advantages and disadvantages. I think, as you said, that I certainly have access to people now because we can have a Zoom meeting and that is no big deal in a way that I would not necessarily have had before. Um I still think that if you're not there when this is all gone, I, you know, it can still have an effect on who's going to hire me. But at the same time, I'm aiming at this market here, at this niche. I feel like I've worked in episodic television, so it makes really good sense for me to put myself in the pool of episodic TV directors. It's a world I know from two decades of working in it. Um, and then like the hard projects will be things I'll have to fight for along the way. But I think I'm in a good position. They they want people that live here, they need female directors, they need Canadian directors. I think they get certain tax breaks if they hire Canadian directors. And so I'm just here to fill that niche, at least in the short term, as I'm building my career, and then we can go forward. Like, yeah, do I want to make super fancy films? Sure. But I I sometimes get, I was fortunate enough. One of the only reasons I keep Twitter is because it you can hook up with people, not hook up with that's not what I mean, but you can uh communicate with people that you would not otherwise uh communicate with. And I was uh talking in something, I think it was a workshop I did as a director, and they were saying, like, who do you want to be? And I was like, look, I'm not trying to be James Gunn, I'm trying to do whatever. And then I was able to send that to him and say, I sent to them, you know, I don't want to be James Gunn. I mean, I'd love to be James Gunn, but I'm probably not at this stage of my career gonna manage to be James Gunn.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

I I personally think there's a certain cachet at this second to being not in Hollywood that I had spent the last year in Hawaii and I felt it when I was away too. There's so many people here, the pool is so big, and when you're here, you kind of get ignored, or oh, he's just another one in um Hollywood trying to succeed. But when you're away and you have a little bit of credits, they're like, oh, that's the guy that managed to make it work somewhere else, or and you get this whole other mystique about you, I think, but only right now in time, I think with Zoom and other things, that it's totally okay to for the industry to bifurcate the way, the way it happens. And so I I, you know, I I and it's an amazing that you've been managing to do this for so long, even before that change occurred.

SPEAKER_03 36:52

Yeah, it certainly has changed casting tremendously. And I don't know if it's better or worse. Uh, I think some things are better, some things are worse. Like if you're the kind of person that likes to do 20 takes, well, fill your boots and do 20 takes and just send what you want. Um, but you know, it's a much bigger job for us. We all have to, all my crap is right here, all my lights and my mic and my, you know, you've got to cut it together now, and you can be the editor, and you've got to find a reader. Uh, so there are things about it that I don't love, and you can't take direction from a director. As a director, I can't give uh in the moment direction, which I think any director would rather be able to do. Um, although we could start, I think perhaps I think uh callbacks are doing a lot of times live Zoom, so you can give direction then. But yeah, I don't know. It's a new world, it has advantages, it has disadvantages. It's certainly, like I said, some of the meetings I took last year, I was like, I would never have had this meeting otherwise unless I flew to LA, which I have done, you know, and I'll do it again once it opens up. But for now, here's where we're here's how we roll.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Oh, look, this is fascinating. I'd actually like to keep going, but we have we have a podcast linked we have to stick to, so I'm gonna have to call it. Now we have one final question, which we always ask. Um, I guess you get a choice in this one. So we always ask someone if you could give one piece of advice to somebody entering the industry, what would it be? I guess you get the choice. Do you want that question to be advice to an actor, to a director, or to an actor wanting to become a director? You choose which of the three you want, but what piece of advice would you give somebody?

SPEAKER_03 38:24

Look, I think the easiest advice for me to give would be to somebody who wants to be an actor. And my advice would be just don't just do anything else if you can. Honestly, it will break your heart, even if you're successful. So, what I do say is get an education both worldly and I think, you know, go to school, go to college, do something. Like I went to university, I have a psych degree. I went to Europe and lived in Europe for a couple of years, speaking other languages, like to fill up your world with things that make you interesting, so that we want to watch you as someone. But also, I would I do mentorship with some women in film and television here in Vancouver. And I tell every actress that becomes one of my mentees, diversify right now. Do it now. Like if even if you think all you want to do is be an actor, figure out how you can be a producer, write a script, direct a short, do something so that you're not just standing there holding only one lollipop when the whole thing falls apart. You know, you need a lot of uh tools in your your toolkit. And I think it's probably the same, you know, if you want to be a director, well, go take an acting class so that you know how to talk to directors or to actors, you know, diversify your knowledge base.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

That's great. You're not the first person to say, actually, you know, the thing about like go and have a life and have so you're interesting. And yeah, the last person to say that was in the context of being a writer, because obviously that applies to writing experience, but yeah, absolutely, of course it should apply to anybody, not just in this industry, in any industry, like the more interesting you are, the more you've lived your life, the more you can bring to any table. For sure.

SPEAKER_03 39:54

Yeah, well, and how can you you know write the backstory of an actor, uh, you know, of a character as an actor, I always do backstory. Like if it's a any a part of any significance, I know everything that happened to them back to their childhood. That's what informs what you're seeing when I'm performing this character. And then I use much the same work when I'm working as a director. Like I know the arc of these characters. Um, but if you can't identify with all these other pieces of uh, you know, how can you write somebody or how can you create them or how can you direct them if you have no life to draw from, you know, there's nothing like the most boring people are people who never traveled, never put their neck out, never tried something different, never stumbled through speaking a language they didn't know in another country, or you know, just the things that you should do. Go up and experience the world. Any of us should do.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

I love your comment about having multiple lollipops because I I've been a mentor for a little while now, and I'm constantly saying don't have one script and knock on one door, have many scripts and knock on many doors because that's the only way that you're gonna make the odds work out in your favor. But yeah, many scripts and many lollipops, do many fields if you can, because it'll it'll help, and that's super valuable for people listening.

SPEAKER_03 41:06

But and I would also I would love to just say one last thing if that if I may, which is that I was um one of the producers from the movie that I did, and we've become friends and we talk about other projects, and she was saying, Oh, um, she did a thing last year where she was trying to get a hundred rejections. And I was like, What? That's kind of a genius idea. Because what you do is you flip the script, you're like, guess what? You I just checked off another one on my list because you know they're gonna happen. You know you're gonna get rejected. And if you put it in a different context, like now I'm out there, I'm pitching. I'm like, I can't sit around and wait for things to come to me. Then I'm gonna pitch ideas and then I can direct it or I can do whatever, right? And I just keep putting them on my list of rejections, like I'm that's how I'm preparing them. But I've actually had several of them make it to the next step. But in preparing for the rejection, sometimes you're gonna get yes, you know, but this the sting is different because my the way I'm looking at it, my perspective is different. Um, I'm used to rejection, I get tons of it. I get like you get rejected a hundred times a year if you're lucky as an actor, you know. So it's old hat, really, in lots of ways.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

An extraordinary piece of advice. I mean, Noah's been getting rejected at least a hundred times a year throughout his career, whether he wanted to or not. But I can see why presenting it in a positive way would make a difference. Look, this has been amazing. So, Keegan Connor Tracy, thank you very, very much indeed for coming on and sharing your insights. And we wish you the very best of luck, not that it sounds like you need it, in your new world of directing.

SPEAKER_03 42:37

Thank you. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. It was not as painful to talk about rejection as I thought it would be, although that's mostly because we didn't even get to some of the worst stories. So, you know, call me back in a year and I'll, I'm sure I'll have many more.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Thank you so much, I can't.

SPEAKER_03 42:52

Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

All right, that does it for us today. I want to thank you for tuning in to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. If you have any questions or comments, you can reach out to me on Twitter. I am at NEBslin.

SPEAKER_00 43:09

Wait, are we are we not bothering to talk about the other Twitter account given we have this great social engagement that people never bother to actually include me, whose idea it was to do this podcast in the first place.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

Do you have a Twitter account?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

I do have a Twitter account. It's at Dan Rutstein. And not only now do I have another Twitter account, I also have two other podcasts. And I've some of our listeners have been saying, Dan, please tell us about your other podcasts. So our other podcasts are. What are my other podcasts? Oh yes, United States of Dramerica, where I share a glass of whiskey and have a fascinating conversation. And America the Beautiful Game, where I talk about soccer in America and what it can learn from Europe.

SPEAKER_02 43:51

For our repeat listeners, uh, you can probably stop listening when Dan starts talking about his second and third podcast. Uh, that brings us to the end of another great episode. We, as always, want to thank our wives for putting up with our nonsense.

unknown 44:07

That's good.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

I'll do