Take 99 - Former soldier, TV host Chef Andre Rush, Kitchen Commando

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 literature.

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

SPEAKER_03 0:27

This is one of the only businesses I can think of where failure is the default.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

That's the to be able to persevere. Like everything in our business here, man's gonna be helpful.

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And I truly think that's it for me. I do my one big shot. What I've realized from that moment is it's never one big shot. There will be other shots.

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Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy of the Hollywood.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

It sounds awful when you say it. Let somebody with a more charming accent do this bit. Screaming into the Hollywood Abyss is brought to you by Scriptation, the Emmy Award-winning app for anyone that reads scripts, makes notes, organise them into layers, and save hours of time by automatically transferring those notes into new script revisions. Sitha listeners can get a free month of Scriptation by going to scriptation.com backslash Sither. Now that's how you do it, Noah. Welcome back to Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, a podcast about rejection, failure, and adversity in the entertainment industry. I am as ever your non-entertainment co-host, Dan Rutstein, and I am your entertainment co-host, Noah Epson.

SPEAKER_02 1:57

On today's Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss, I'm thrilled to introduce Chef Andre Rush to our show. Chef Rush is a former U.S. Army Master Sergeant, a former White House chef to Barack Obama, a current writer and memoirist, and host of his own cooking show, Kitchen Commando. As a fun aside, on top of all this, he also finds time to do 2,222 push-ups every day, which is roughly 2,222 more push-ups than Dan does every day.

SPEAKER_03 2:31

So this is one of these interviews, Chef Rush, where I'm not quite sure where to start. So our podcast, our traditional guests have been people who run shows in Hollywood talking about how difficult the industry is. Now, you have obviously worked in some of the most difficult places that one can. So either in terms of personal safety, obviously serving with the army, and thank you for your service, but in terms of working in an environment of high stress and lots of things could go wrong, like the White House. Um why did you choose to now work in TV, which has its own series of pitfalls and ways of going wrong?

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Well, you know, I've already been to Iraq, Afghanistan, so I said, why not? So might as well just dump and uh jump and dive in. But uh seriously, you know, it was um people used to always ask me why did I never get into you know TV or hosting or show beers, becoming an actor or doing stuff. And my job in my industry was I was always the guy that was pushing everybody else in front. You know, I put guys on, you know, Food Network and push them over here. I was always cheering them on, rooting them, and I was like, no, no, that's not me, that's not me. I don't want to do that. I'm okay with doing what I'm doing. And uh I was kind of like the back hype man, right? Even though I had a lot of accolades under my belt, I was just always the supportive leader, right? But also can be the supportive follower, you know, that leaves that's from behind. And um, when I got the opportunity uh to do that, I had a long conversation with my mom. I'm a mama's boy at the time when she was alive. And when something had happened over at the White House, I decided, you know what, you know, and she was very religious, and so I said, you know what, why not? And so without knowing what to do or how to do it, I just kind of dived in head first uh into this abyss of sharks. That's basically what I had no idea. It was a good thing I'm a I'm a whale, you know, with teeth as whale, but uh it was very interesting, and I had no idea. And the craziest thing about it is I did it all myself. You know, I didn't have any agents, any managers, I didn't have any help, I didn't have anything whatsoever. I didn't have any social media, I didn't have 100% of nothing. I didn't know what I was doing or how to do it. All I know was that I wanted to do it, and all I knew also around there was that because I was helping a lot of people, you know, in the military, but my circle was very small because I can only do so much. And my my family is a family of I use the word servitude. Servitude means giving back, you know, brothers in the merchant marines, other brothers, uh officer in the uh Navy, my other sister was an officer in the Air Force, my other sister, you know, uh helped the blind, my other sister was a special education teacher, other sister was a counselor, so it was always in our blood already from a young age, you know, and plus with my mother and my father being a preacher, and um I just said I'm gonna figure out what to do. And uh, but in the areas it said, if you want to be impactful, you need to be more impactful. And so even though people say, I don't want to be the front person, I don't want to be the front person, uh, I decided to be a speaker. And so I've heard people speak a million times, but I've never been in front of people speaking. And I'll use the word when I said, God, give you an opportunity to say you need to speak. You can't go up and say, I'm shy, I don't know, I'm getting nervous. You have one chance and one opportunity. My dad used to always tell me is that two things be the hardest worker in the room, and the next thing is someone always wants you to fail. And it's true on both accords, right? No matter who it is and what it is, because somebody always wants to take your space. And I found it out at a very young age, uh, unfortunately and fortunately, until this until this very day. And so being coming to that realm of it, even with Kitchen Commando, uh, the funny thing about it is, which I appreciate with uh Chef Ramsey is he let me put my own twist to it. He let me incorporate that military mindset structure. And so when people come to me, I was just at an event and I had all these kids, I mean young kids coming to me and say, I want to be a chef now, I want to be that. Thank you so much. The mothers, the fathers, and everybody saying, you know, the show is great, but it's very inspirational. And that's a that's a great word for a cooking show, a reality show. Say it's very inspirational. You gave me courage, you made me think about things differently, you reinforced my mindset, you reinforced my passion for cooking and for life, and made me see that can-do and will-do kind of uh attitude.

SPEAKER_03 7:11

Fantastic. Um I'm gonna tell you very briefly my Chef Ramsey story, um, which uh made chime for a lot of people. Well, I was hosting an award ceremony, and we were giving him an award for service to things he'd done for Britain, and we were very clear that he wasn't allowed to swear during his speech. Um, and I think he deliberately put extra swear words in it, um, which upset a lot of the guests, but that's what he does, and it's uh he seems to have served him quite well. Um so you obviously, particularly when you're at the White House, you will have seen and come across all sorts of people from the Hollywood realm because they obviously come through the White House and maybe particularly during Barack Obama's time there. Did you have any concept of how, as you said, shark-infested the world of Hollywood is in terms of actually trying to get a TV show made and how it all works?

SPEAKER_00 8:07

No. You know, you can, it's kind of like, you know, that's a great question because you people kind of assume about the the politics of the White House and you know, government and Pentagon and so forth, which I've been in all those places, they don't understand about the deep dive into it. They just make an assumption. You know, they can see media and assume because media controls everything, of course. So media will lead you to whatever you want to think or how you want to think, and you make up your own assumption about it. And that's a crazy thing. But when you actually see things firsthand and like, that's not what I saw, that's not what happened. But guess what? Other million people seeing that, so it's what happened. And so, in in the Hollywood area, I've seen so many, you know, celebrities, entertainers, sports guys, and so forth. And I'm not a I'm not a fanboy. Um, I never have been, I never will be. And I've seen a lot of people because it's just my demeanor growing up in Mississippi, where my my dad kind of taught me to be kind of like steadfast and solid that way. But I respect everyone on that part of it. But here in Hollywood, like I'm in LA right now, I just got back to LA yesterday and uh live in DC as well. But LA, when I first got a hold of it, I was like, it kind of brought my PTSD back up to a level. I mean, I have it, but I was like, and it's hard because you you go to it and you just you want to treat everybody equally, you want everybody to be the same. Me being atone to politics, I use the word, is I can hear certain things in first certain energy. I'm an energy person. So when you come at me and you say things and you do things, people they want to try to fluff stuff or they're trying to say, I want to offer you this, I can do this for you, I can do that for you. Or if they're taking your money or they're taking this or taking that from you, or taking your time, it's very, it's very hard because time is one of the most important things you can have in this world besides family and God, and you you lose it, you can't get it back. You wasted my time. Time is very important, you know, it's more important than anything in the world. It's like when we get older, it's like, I wish I could have gone back and did X, Y, and Z. Now, mind you, I wasted a lot of time with a lot of people in entertainment, but that was part of my process. All those failures was part of who I am and where I am right now.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

Although our bread and butter on this podcast is Hollywood horror stories, Hollywood failure stories. I want to back up a little bit. I I people probably don't know this about me, but I started my career before Hollywood. One of my first jobs was in a restaurant, and then later on, plus boy, just a low-level restaurant guy. And then later on, I worked uh as a promoter and I would turn restaurants into entertainment venues. And I had a lot of dealings with chefs and a lot of dealings with restaurant owners. And one of the things that someone said that always stuck in my mind is every day they go to the restaurant, it's like fighting a war. Now, these are not military people, but so so no offense there, because fighting a full war is probably much more significant. But but every day at the restaurant, they're fighting their own little mini war. And the end of the night, they've sort of set out all the battles, and then they start again every day. So, my question to you is backing up a little bit what are some wars, you know, quote unquote, that you fought in the White House while cooking? And what were some of the biggest failures? This is a failure podcast where you had to pivot, where there was a head of state out there, and the something went wrong, and you in your kitchen had to do something to sort of save the night.

SPEAKER_00 11:34

Uh, great questions. Um honestly, some of the wars in the in the White House, everything is so heavily stacked, especially if you're gonna do, and I I I say this, and I say this where people can understand where you guys, you have you heard of saying food can end wars and food can start wars? Like people don't know how crucial it is when people sit down and eat at a table to congregate, you know, and they're having a conversation and it's over food. Whether that food be great, it may be cold or be tasty, it affects their attitude. Food is morale, food is that energy that comes through. So when we do an event and everything, everything is heavily stacked. For instance, a salad. You can have five people doing one salad, one strand that's going this way, that way. If you don't do it the right way, usually it can cost you your job. But that's a reason why you're there, right? And some little things that happen, we always have a backup and a double backup and an extra backup. And when you say some of the things that might happen is that somebody may ask for something where they have a menu and it's like, well, I don't want to eat this, but somehow it slipped through the the world wide world of you know logic, and they say, I want this instead. And you have to try to rush to try to get something. Well, we're White House, they don't have a grocery store. So you have to kind of fluff it out or try to make it up. Um, and that could be one of the guests, not like one of the head people, because everybody knows protocol already. So there wasn't a lot of things like that. Now, with that being said, some of the other things is um what's the word? Some of the other things could be internalizing people, internalizing people. Everybody there can I'm a very humble guy. I came from very humble beginnings. I grew up in the projects. I I was I didn't we didn't have a lot of money, we'd have that. I remember that. I live by that to this very day. So whenever I'm around someone that doesn't have something, or around people that does have something, it's all the same to me. Right? A lot of people forget where they came from, and that happens a lot, you know. And so when that when that comes, it could be because of your religion or because of where you came from, or even because of your color. Things happen that way. It's human nature. That's one person, it's not everyone. So you have to deal with things like that. And I've had to deal with things like that a lot.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

You you seem like a really uh upfront guy. So what was if if you were there at the time, what was your conversation with Barack Obama when he wanted to put mustard on his hamburgers?

SPEAKER_00 14:15

What was mustard on hamburgers? Uh I'm a mustard on hamburger type of guy. I'm from Mississippi. So that was no part, but I just make it fresh. I get crowned mustards and beat the hell out of it. And you know, I'll put a little uh pickle relish inside of it with a little squeeze of mail and turn into something totally different.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

What's the um so obviously I not not the White House, obviously, but I I was a diplomat for the British government and we were hosting at embassies, we would host people, and as you say, with the principles, their their requirements are sent to you, you know, two weeks in advance. I mean, we uh I remember we had a member of the British royal family coming, and he could only have room temperature sparkling water and you know all this sort of stuff. Um but as you say, those ones, even if some of them are surprising, you've got plenty of time because that's all cleared. But it's the it's as you say, it's the level below where suddenly you're about to serve and somebody suddenly decides that they're you know they're not eating something or whatever. What's the what's the most unusual last minute request that you had to deal with?

SPEAKER_00 15:25

The most unusual last minute request, uh unusual. Someone wanted, I mean, probably most awkward is someone knows what the menu is, like you said. You know, you have all your attaches, everything ahead of time. They know 100% what the menu is, and it comes right in front of them and sits down and they say, I I can't eat this. Right? And it's like right there, the conversation part of it, not in a big setting, but in an intimate setting where everybody knows, and then that's when who am I gonna blame? What person is gonna get blamed for this foo pa, whatever. So that's probably like the most, like the most difficult thing. Uh one time someone spilled something on uh someone, which was some wine, that was pretty awkward, um, pretty bad, uh, and it was red wine, but nothing like nothing catastrophic per se.

SPEAKER_03 16:21

Yeah. I mean, obviously, to Noah's question earlier about the sort of chefs describe, the ones who haven't been military chefs describe, you know, running a kitchen is going to war every day. You've obviously done both. Um when you're in the kitchen and people are shouting at each other and everyone's worried because things aren't quite ready. For you, because you've been in a genuine theatre of war and you've seen obviously a different level of stress. Do you just sort of does everything sort of wash over you a bit because none of this is as bad as some of the other things that you've seen? Does that make you calmer in a kitchen than people who've never worked outside that environment? Um, I'm usually the one doing a yelling in a kitchen.

SPEAKER_00 17:08

So I'm okay with that. It's better yelling and grabbing them. I mean, no, honestly, uh I'm I I've competed all over the world and I I get a high off of that energy, right? Some people, I tell people literally, I said, if you don't see me stressing, there's no reason for you to stress. At the worst of the times where people are just like panicking, and I'll look at them, I'll say, relax. Relax, breathe, slow it the fuck down and let's get to work. Do not stress on that part of it. I don't like that energy come because it is kind of um um it's it's kind of sickening. It's like a virus, it goes it'll spread to other people, even when they're calm and collective. You know, that person can throw off the whole vibe of the energy of everybody else. Now, when we're doing stuff like that, I mean, uh it's a different no one yells yells in the White House, no one's yelling at anyone, it doesn't happen that way. You have to have a certain decor, certain demeanor, you have to be all the way. I mean, of course, some people get a little, you know, uh spoon up their butts sometimes, but that's just human nature as well. But in real working environments, yelling, I mean, I was trained that whole part when we're doing competition stand-up 24 hours, trying to get stuff out, yelling, making sure everybody got it going over. But for me, that was part of my comfort zone. So I tell people, make the most, the worst situations part of your comfort zone. If you're going over, for instance, you talk about war, you're going over in our Iraq or you're going to war in your wartime situations. The one thing you have to always know when you hear those bombs or bullets or uh ammo coming from each direction, you can't just pick up your weapon and fire because somebody may be in the front of you, behind you, back of you, or whatever, and guess what happens? And that happens sometimes. That's because people panic, they don't think, they don't stop, they don't like take your time and do it. And it's the same way, like saying in the kitchen, you have to be aware and acute of your surroundings.

SPEAKER_03 19:01

Yeah, understood. So look, this podcast is about rejection failure and adversity. Um, so I think I'm gonna ask an adversity question. So uh if my understanding of this is right, you were in the gym at the Pentagon during 9-11. Um, can you just talk us through what happened at that time and why you changed the things you did in your life as a result?

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Um what happened was um the whole entire world changed. Every person, every demeanor, there was uh for once in that split second, there was no hate, there was no racism, there was no division, there was only support. And that's when countries came together, and that's when I also knew 100% that um uh I developed the onset of PTSD. And uh I used my cooking to combat that along with physical fitness and so forth, to the point to where it was overwhelming to me because sometimes we're called alpha males or alpha females or people with you know, grown men that have to have a facade and be tougher than everybody else, right? And um that was a hard one, but it was also a part-time where we we try to connect with each other and try to make it last as long and support each other on that part of it, you know. Uh doing that, also being on a recovery and seeing the things you see, you sometimes put yourself in situations that you don't want to be, but you have to be. All right, and it was funny because just um uh last year, one of my my guys from the DOD, uh, which was an officer, uh, reached out to me. He knows what I'm doing, and he reached out to me. I hadn't talked to him since 9-11. And he said, Chef, he said, I'm hurting. I'm hurting. And I was like, You're hurting. He was like, from then. Because we all trained together. We lost people, we lost brothers, we lost sisters, we lost people together. And when he said that to me, it just it broke me down. You know, this is you know, 20 years later, and he's saying this to me that he's been doing it. He's like, I'm rejecting my wife, I'm doing this with my kids. And I'm like, it's like all these years, he and people, what they don't understand about this word is that about how mental health and wellness is about something traumatic, it doesn't just happen and then it goes away. This is all these years later, and he's still carrying that with him. Now I stopped and pulled over on the side of the road, and and we talked for about an hour or an hour and a half, and I said, What's the next steps? Get him to the next steps to do what he needs to do because if this is what going on all this time, what else is next? Right? Where he was to the brink where he says an ideation, and that's important to me because I know it because I've been there myself and I'm still there, I still have those. Times where I can wake up and see things or be in a place that I'm not in or have my heart beating really fast. But at the same time, I have to remember my mission. I have to remember my kids. I have to remember the family. I have to remember everything that I've done and who's lost. And so we have to put in that service for the ones that are not here. And that's the reason why I do these push-ups.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Well, I mean, thank you for that. And that's so fascinating. I had read, like Dan did, that you now do military advocacy work and suicide prevention work. And what is something that you, you know, like you can't probably, you know, you said you spoke to him for 90 minutes, so obviously this is often a conversation, but that when somebody is hurting and they call Chef Rush, what is something that you tell them to try to get them, you know, beyond the hurt or to a place where they're just going to keep going on?

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Um, you know, um, I'll be very honest with you guys. Um, I I have a big social media, and I answer all of my DMs, my messages myself. I vet them, meaning that I go through and I look for keywords and things. Um and it's hard because um I get it from so many different angles. And now I get it a lot from kids. Uh I did a Snapchat. Snapchat did a thing on me, and I had 28,000 kids that came over to my Instagram and just reached out to me saying, Thank you, thank you. I'm being bullied, I'm being this, because I said I was bullied also as a kid. I said I have problems, I said I have go-through things. And you let them know that even as you're a man with 24-inch biceps, that you're still human and you don't have to act tough like a tough person. But some of the things I tell people is that, you know, you're and I I I talk about that in my show. I call it uh uh peace of mind. With peace of mind is mental health. I say you gotta take care of yourself before you can take care of anyone else. And I said, if you're not taking care of yourself, and unfortunately I've had um too many uh people that um didn't make it, and and and it's it's a reminisce where I said, What would happen if you're not here? And people say nothing, I would just be gone. But I I have to make them think about present tense or future tense. You have a kid or a child, you have someone, a future person that could be the next president, that could be invent cancer, that can do this, that can do that. Even if that's not the case, think about you and who all you affect. It it is really, really hard because you you have to put yourself in a in a place, in a situation that says you're worth it, you're your biggest value, your biggest worth. I've been in it so many times when I get up in the morning and meditate at three o'clock in the morning, I I meditate about the things that's the worst things of my life because I can't think about things that's positive, because this is a this is a very difficult world, right? And the thing about human nature is that even though they say I think about everything positive, somebody can cut you off in a car and give you the finger and it's just rusted forever. It's gone. Your balance is gone and you're upset for the rest of the day. I think about everything that's bad because something bad is gonna happen. But if nothing bad happened, guess what? It's a great day. But I also go in that mirror and I look at myself and I say one affirmation every time, I say, hey, you're worth it. Today we're gonna do this, we're gonna conquer this, and today I'm gonna do this. The same way I did with the TV thing. I said, I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I've never acted before. I've never been, I'm on reality, I've never done this, I've never been speaking. But anything I said I want to do, I have to look at myself straight in the eye. I have to tell myself, I have to physically say it out loud. And I tell these person, go and look at yourself, talk to yourself, do journaling, journaling and talk it and read it out loud. Say it. I used to go and I used to have a recording of myself on my phone. I'll record myself and I'll talk to myself. And then I'll replay it to myself later. And it was like me talking to myself, saying, Hey, don't remember what we're here for. Don't forget your mission. Don't remember you have X, Y, and Z. We are doing this tomorrow. We have this going on for the next year, and we got this going on. We're halfway to our goal, or we made this goal. Now let's keep it going. Every day is the first day. The top of uh one mountain is the bottom of the next. We have to always remember that. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

And and so back to the T the TV thing. Uh, what is one thing in the world of TV that has surprised you uh both in a in a positive way and has surprised you in a negative way? So they can be two different things.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Um positive way and in a negative way. Uh positive way is that the amount of support you can get once you have it down packed. If you have that community partner TV where everybody's on the same sheet of a cord, um, and they're all it's not just you're not just uh an actor or someone just filling in a place because you know, we can all feel like we're going through a fast food restaurant and I hate that feeling. You know, I want to feel like I'm worth it, I'm doing it, I'm doing this, and we're all on the same team. Uh, and on the bad part of it is if you have the worst part of those people that think that they're the most important part about any and everything, whether it be the stagehand or somebody working independently or whatever. Like I said, I'm an energy guy. So if one person is messing up the groove for everyone else, and I I tell people that I say, hey, if you see me changing, then there's a reason why. I'm not gonna change on you. I'm gonna be the same day I am just day forward, just don't become complacent on me. Unfortunately, sometimes people get a little bit too complacent and they become complacent, and then that just throws everything off. I'll stay the same, but I'll say you won't be here next time.

SPEAKER_03 27:37

You obviously you've got you've got a TV show, which is a huge deal. Um and it's obviously something that you care about, it's a skill set that you've got, you know, you're going into restaurants and helping them sort of improve what they need to do, and that feels like a very natural place for you given what you've been doing your career, which is obviously why you've got this show. Now that you're in it, are you thinking, I like Hollywood and I like this world, and what else can I do here, which maybe either is my comfort zone or is outside my comfort zone? You know, is this where you want to be, or is this the TV show, and then you're gonna go back to all the other things you do, of which there are many? You know what?

SPEAKER_00 28:26

That's a great question. Uh, I got the bug. I'm I'm on the bug, I'm on a trip. You know, I I I felt doing what I was doing at the show and genuining people. I mean, you hear the tears, you get the hugs, you get this, you get that, and so forth. And even though it was really hard and I had no idea what I was doing in the beginning, but I had to work it out. Nobody knew that. But at the same time, I feel like, you know, from kids saying, Oh, you should be a superhero, you should be this, you should be an actor. And then when I get people saying, you know, in the comments, Chef, you should go into acting, you should be this right here, you should be that right there. And I'm like, you know what? Maybe I could. You know, the more thing about people, the funny story is I what I know about Hollywood, and I talk about celebrities and actors and whoever, people will go crazy over them just for the roles they play in, not for the people who they are. They can be complete buttholes, and you won't even know. But because they played a role, you there you think they're just the greatest people in the world, and you get millions and millions of people, but behind the scenes, they could be terrible. And I've had some that are terrible. I'm like, man, you're an asshole. I have no idea. And they're like, Did you just say that? I mean, yeah, I said that to you. And yeah, ma'am, I told you to. But at the same time, if you genuinely believe in what you do and you can actually give back to people and make them feel truly inspired by it organically, then I'm all for that as well. You know, to each his own. Anybody can do what they choose to do. But I also see why a lot of uh celebrities or actors or so forth don't communicate, don't say anything to anyone, they kind of shun themselves away from people and become very distant, is because sometimes it becomes that line. People don't understand when you I I taught etiquettes, right? Um, so I um I taught the etiquettes on how to jump in, how to jump out, how to do this, how to do that, how to talk, how to communicate, yada, yada, yada. People have to understand is when they give you a second, take that second and bow out. Don't just keep going for it. Don't you're gonna overstead and you're gonna kill it. Not only for you, but you're gonna kill it for the next person, the next person, the next person. Because everybody keeps doing it. You gotta think you're just one person out of a million. So if everybody just keeps going, then you're gonna feel that part where, okay, I can't do this with anyone else. You know, people tell me all the time, Chef, you're gonna have to stop talking to people, you're gonna have to kind of stop back off of that, back off of that. You can't answer all your emails, you can't answer all these messages. You know, I'm like, well, I'm saving someone's life. Someone needs some encouragement. If I can just say, hey, keep going, don't give up, you know, do what you need to do and hang up, that takes those seconds out of my life to inspire somebody else.

SPEAKER_03 31:04

So, Chef, this is this is a I'm very much enjoying this conversation. It saddens me that we are unfortunately are near the end and the beginning of the conversation. So I've got probably the penultimate question. I want to go back to uh what I guess we would describe on this podcast as one of our sort of traditional rejection and failure questions. Now, obviously, from what you've talked about, you had a great upbringing in terms of the values instilled in you by your parents and and you know the importance of family. And you know, look where you are today in terms of obviously the TV show, but what your military service inspiring other people, obviously, you know, the importance of mental health. Going back to your maybe teenage years or just before or just after, when was a time in your life where you you personally were really struggling for direction and doing the right thing?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Um that's uh that question is uh is is hard because um believe it, I was an extreme introvert when I was younger. Uh I was um my dad, as soon as I could walk, my dad put me to work. Right? He believed the girls went to school and the boys went to work. And uh we didn't have a lot of money, and so I wound up wearing the same shoes for a long time, same things. I didn't do the things other kids did, and I was very, very resentful. I was I wanted to be a kid. I was a star athlete, but I even do school because I had to go to work and do a lot of things, getting up at you know, four or five o'clock in the morning where the other kids were just having a nice, you know, dating and going to proms. I never did any of that stuff, didn't have any girlfriends, didn't have anything. So I was just like, I was very quiet, uh, even bullied a lot, even though when I was bigger and I was much stronger. But I was just that person that did that. And, you know, going into my teenage years after that, I felt the whole I was I wasn't depressed, I was sad. I was sad because I wish I had the things that other kids had had growing growing up, right? You know, the cars and this and that and so forth. But when I went to the military, when I decided to go to the military, I remember I mind you, I had an art scholarship, I had a track scholarship, had a football scholarship, uh, I was scheduled for Olympics, I was I was a star runner, all those things, and which was hurt because I was doing stuff for my family. And when I went to military as a young, um, out of my teenage years, um, I realized that I was, and I'll say this word, I was better than everybody else. The reason why I was better than everybody else is because I did everything that everybody else, those young kids didn't do. They didn't get up early in the morning, they didn't have structure, they didn't have a tough dad, you know, to push them through. They didn't have anyone to teach them the ins and the outs and the ups and the downs. They didn't have anyone that said, hey, life is gonna be hard and it's gonna knock you on your butt. They don't have anyone that says you're gonna fail, you know, but that's part of the growth and the process, and everybody else wants you to fail. They didn't have anyone to say work harder than everybody else. So when I came into the military young, I ran faster, I was stronger, I was bigger, I was better. They put me in a leader's position, even though there was the first time I seen this rainbow of colors, because in Mississippi it was only black and white, I was able to relate to each and every person, regardless of the colors or the religion. And that's something that I didn't know I had until I found out I had it.

SPEAKER_03 34:44

Yeah, extraordinary. That's uh oh, look, and these are never easy questions, um, but thank you. That's a fantastic, candid answer. Thank you. I'll I'll hand over to Noah for the last question.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

So this is uh tricky because we always ask the same last question, and normally on this podcast, we have uh a lot of screenwriters and showrunners. So we ask is if you could give one piece of advice to somebody who wants to be a screenwriter or TV writer, what would that be? But I want to do a little variation for you because you've had three amazingly successful careers, and it seems like you've managed to become the most successful version of yourself and one of the most successful people on the planet. So if you could give one piece of advice to somebody who wants to become the most successful person that they can possibly become, what would that be?

SPEAKER_00 35:34

The most in uh okay, say it again, the most in successful, like really good at what they do.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Take their live their life, the best version of their life that they can possibly live.

SPEAKER_00 35:46

You know, I actually had this said this to some kids yesterday. I was doing some videos, some kids the other day, um and uh they were saying the same thing. They were young. I went over, did some videos, and uh they were feeling down and out. And um I said to them they were because of all the fears they've had, they were getting to this in this part where they wouldn't want to do anything, and they were very stagnant and whatever. I said, that's the problem. That's part of it. Try. Go ahead, don't limit yourself. Push it out there. You know, it's kind of like, you know, even with me, with you know, your I banking account, you know, it's something I got a little money, I'm putting in a bank, I'm putting in the savings, I'm not doing anything, I don't risk anything. You have to take risks, you have to take chances. It's 50%. 50% yes, 50% no. Take that chance and just do it. I mean, mean personally, when I did this, I moved from DC having a place, and then I moved here in LA when the pandemic happened. You know, at the worst possible time where I was stagnant and I sat here and did sizzles and pitches and whatnot. I didn't even know what the hell a sizzle was or what a pitch was. But they said do it, and I did it. And I tell people all the time is that look at yourself and do the opposite of what you would normally do. Stop just doing the same thing, the monotony of saying, Well, that's not who I am, that's not my character. You know, people say, Oh, Chef, you're so funny and so that's not who I am, but I love doing it. And it also breaks up and it makes a comfort zone for other people that look at you. People don't look at me like the big intimidating guy. They're like, man, he has a great personality, he's fun, he's like it, he's whimsical, and so forth and so on. So I tell people, get out of your comfort zone and just do what you want to do, regardless of that part of it. And if you fail, do it again and write it down and take notes of it and keep succeeding. It's easy.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

Fantastic. Well, great answer to end the pop-off. So, Chef Andre Rush, thank you very much for sparing the time to join us today in between your push-ups. Um, it's uh it's been fantastic to have you on, and here answers your question from the extraordinary life that you've led. So, thank you very much indeed.

SPEAKER_00 37:55

Thank you guys so much. Uh it was brilliant. You're amazing.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Well, that's a wrap on this episode of Screaming Into the Hollywood Abyss. As always, this episode was brought to you by scriptation, screen, writing, and annotation software makes my life easier and makes your life easier as well. Um we like to take our lives with us recording these episodes in offices, in basement, in closet, in bathrooms, anywhere we get a little space to record an interview, and of course we'll face it.

SPEAKER_03 38:34

If you want to find us on social media, you can find us at LFI on Twitter, tweeting a variety of writer-based nonsense and some terrible hugs and occasionally begging for sponsorship. If you want to find tweets, hopefully about football whiskey, you can find me at Rusty. If you're interested in buying a copy of Script Fation, if you go to www.scriptfation.com backslash sither, S-I-T-H-A, you will receive a special discount. Thank you very much for listening. As always, we appreciate you. Please give us any feedback, mostly positive stuff about these, and we will see you next week.

SPEAKER_02 39:20

And if you do say a negative thing about these, is that you can make the free.