03. Ethan McDowell, "From Wyoming to Hollywood"

In this episode of The Power of Human Stories, Rolando Vega interviews actor and producer Ethan McDowell, who shares his journey from a small town in Wyoming to the bustling film industry in Los Angeles and beyond. Ethan discusses his early passion for film, the challenges of breaking into acting, and his breakthrough role in the crowdfunded series Space Command. He reflects on the dynamics of the acting industry, the importance of commercial work, and the supportive environment of the Atlanta film scene. Throughout the conversation, Ethan emphasizes the value of persistence, creativity, and community in the pursuit of a successful acting career. In this engaging conversation, Ethan McDowell shares his journey from Los Angeles to Atlanta, highlighting the significant increase in audition opportunities and the challenges of the acting industry. He reflects on his experiences working with notable figures in the entertainment world, including Queen Latifah and Bradley Cooper, and discusses the impact of shows like The Walking Dead on the Atlanta community. As he navigates the ups and downs of his career, Ethan emphasizes the importance of staying true to oneself and maintaining connections with good people. Now based in New York City, he looks forward to new opportunities while cherishing the lessons learned along the way.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Every person carries a story. Stories shaped by choices, by struggle, by growth. This is where those stories are told. This is the power of human stories.

SPEAKER_02 0:30

Welcome to another episode of The Power of Human Stories. Today's guest is Ethan McDowell. He's a good friend of mine. Oh my gosh, probably been 10 plus years that we've known each other. Yeah, 10 plus, yeah. Ethan is an American actor and producer working across film and television. He grew up in Lovell, Wyoming, and has been active in the entertainment industry since the mid-2000s. His television credits, which are many and some really cool ones, include appearances on HBO's The Righteous Gemstones, The Walking Dead, DC's Doom Patrol, Marvel's Miss Marvel, among other projects. He's also known for his work in the long-running science fiction series Space Command, where he plays Captain Jack Kemmer, a role he's returned to across multiple installments as the project has developed over time. In addition to acting, Ethan has worked as a producer, contributing both on-screen and behind the scenes to independent and serialized productions. Ethan, thanks for being here. Welcome to the power of human stories. Thank you very much, Rolanda man.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

It's an honor. It's an honor to be a part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Yeah, so like I said, I um me and you met uh 10 plus years ago, I think, due to a mutual friend of ours, Mike Ortiz, um, which he may end up on this podcast at some point. You should. Yeah, yeah. And we met when we were doing production for one of Vega Productions' early short films. It was definitely like a fun project to be a part of in the science fiction universe that Mike created, uh just enveloped world in the world.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

It's expansive. It's characters all across the map, is yeah, very, very in-depth.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

That became downward, and you became the lead at Downward. So you were in central Pennsylvania with a bunch of college students shooting this like DIY sci-fi movie in the woods.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

I loved it, man. I loved it.

SPEAKER_02 2:34

Yeah, you looked sick in the costume, though.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

It was tough. I felt real tough. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:39

Yeah, it was it was an epic time and it almost feels like a whole nother life. It does.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Well, it almost is, man. Yeah, it's a long time ago. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:49

And a lot's changed. Yeah. And a lot's changed since then. And I think that's why I was like, I need to get Ethan on the podcast because first I want to catch up with him and hear how his career's unfolded. Because I've watched on the sidelines, you I I've watched you be part of like some pretty awesome productions. And I'm in the back of my mind, I'm I've always wanted to just dig in and ask you all these questions about what's it's been like. And before we get to that, which we're gonna get to that, because I think that's sure the juicy part of your career. I want to start. I don't think I've ever sat down with you and actually just heard your story from like the beginning and where you grew up and ultimately like like what was your world early on back back in Wyoming?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, well, so my my mother grew up in California, my dad grew up in Oregon, and they met in a small town in do you know where the Antelope Valley is, just north of Los Angeles. So they were living there, and they my dad got a job opportunity to move to middle of nowhere, Wyoming, in a sense. And they said, Yeah, let's take it. Um, fast forwarding, yeah, we kind of moved all across Wyoming just when I have an older brother as well, just when we were growing up, um, we finally landed in Lovell, which is at the time was 2,300 people total. So I graduated with like 63 kids, and the whole high school had I think like 400-something kids and all that stuff. So just growing up, uh the film industry and everything like that was pretty much just what you watched on TV, you know, and that's as far as we knew. But where my kind of passion for film and all that stuff kind of started was um through high school, we had uh uh an English class where we had to do a book report. And in the book report, you could get your little group together. And we asked the teacher, I said, Hey, her name is Mrs. Cummerfeld. And I said, Mrs. Cummerfeld, could I uh, you know, could me and my buddies just do a short film version of this? Uh it's a short story called The Lottery, which if you haven't seen it, it's kind of dark, but it's very good. And she actually rolled the dice and said, Yeah, I'll let these Yahoo kids go out into the world during school hours and make some terrible short film. And we did that, and that literally kind of sparked it for me. I was just like uh we're we're just running around, just like what we were doing in Pennsylvania on downward. We're just running around in a field, making each other laugh and having a good time. And I thought, if there's ever a possibility that I could do this forever, I want to try that. But that's kind of where that whole thing started.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Wow. And after that, like, did you get multiple chances where you were, or did you have to move to like explore this?

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, well, so it was. I think growing up in a small town, I don't know if it's across the board for everybody, but I really felt like it was never a possibility. So that's about as far as it went was just doing that short film, a couple other short films. I went to the University of Wyoming, got a degree, got my bachelor's degree in kinesiology. So yeah, I was gonna be a physical therapist, or I was thinking like a physician's assistant and going the proper route. My my brother was out in California where my mom actually grew up in Lancaster, California.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

So I moved out there. I was living with my grandmother at the time. She had uh a friend who was doing a play, and she said, Hey, do you want to uh do you want to be a stage runner on a play? And I said, I don't know what that is. I don't know what that is. Well, so from that whole thing, I was always shooting short films with my friends, but not never taking school as serious as I should have been. So when I moved to California, I got in that little play and saw how many people are just having fun. And I was never, I was never in theater really. Nothing, no acting, no nothing, just watching films and loving it. And then uh, yeah, they uh a woman in the crowd came in, she said, Hey, I need to I need a cop and I need a waiter for a show called Guys and Dolls. And I said, I don't know what that is. She said it's a musical, and I said, I can't sing either. And she's like, doesn't matter, just go up there and do this and that. I said, Okay, sure. So I show up there, and in that play is where I met my wife.

SPEAKER_02 7:14

Oh my goodness. Wow. I did not know that story.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, Bananu was a hotbox dancer, and I was a Cuban waiter.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Uh-huh. You know, for some reason I thought you would have been the cop. Like you had a little Okay.

unknown 7:31

There you go.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

You have that. Um, I I wondered if it was the story was gonna go like, hey, you have a like a look about you. Have you ever thought about doing X? You know, have you ever have you gotten that before?

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Uh not really. And you hear stories of like walking down the street, somebody's like, you're gonna be a big star. But yeah, no, it didn't work that way for me.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

I think when I met you, I I always thought, oh, you have like kind of this all-American, you know, really just good guy vibes. And everybody who knows Ethan is like, that's the vibes he gives off. So I thought, I wonder if he has that ability to transform into that kind of darker, you know, more sinister of role if he needs it, or if he'll always play kind of these nice guy roles and we'll eventually talk about some of the roles you've gotten to play that explore your, you know, the spectrum there. So then you meet your wife. What happens next? How does how does this thing act that you're like discovering you have a knack for? How does it evolve?

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Yeah, well, so Athena was also an actor, she had done a lot of theater and things, and we thought, well, if we're gonna take it serious, we're so close to Los Angeles, we might as well just move down into the city and really try to pursue it. So I had taken like a random acting class and just just trying to figure out what it was. And I knew that I wanted to do it. I'd I think one of the hardest things for me, Rolando, is early on I had to admit that I was an actor. Because I I carried and I think a lot of actors have that, or maybe even a lot of creatives, but it's like you're so protective of wanting to put what you work hard on or what you feel that you enjoy out into the world. And for me, it was it was tough to just you know really admit, like, hey, I'm an actor and this is what I do, because every time if you say that, it comes with a whole slew of you know, like judgments and like you, that's a tough road, and all that. And and everything that everybody says is pretty true, but it's also tough to be like, yeah, I guess like fully committing that I'm an actor.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

But yeah, anyways. What do you think that is? Is like is that an imposter syndrome kind of thing?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

Yeah, imposter syndrome, and it's I mean, acting in in a way is is kind of silly, you know, in a way, it's like forever being a kid, which is also the most endearing part of it, I think. Because I I like the idea, like even for like big scary action scenes, it's just people having fun playing pretend in in the oversea of it all. And I think, yeah, kind of an imposter syndrome that filters in. It is kind of like, well, okay, I can do this for now, but then what am I really gonna do for when I grow up? And here we are years and years later. And I still haven't grown up, Orlando. I'm still playing pretend.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

Is that a self-inflicted pressure, or is that a pressure you felt from parents, from family, from other people?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

A mixture of both. Probably I think all of it's kind of more self-inflicted because of worry, and uh, I don't know, man. I forever have been you know like a people pleaser, and that's okay. I think it's kind of genetic. It's just where I grew up, everybody seems pretty nice, and everybody kind of gets along. Well, it doesn't get along, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 10:47

I know, I know what you mean. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I think a lot of that all filters into it, but I mean, there's always influences from the outside whether it comes from yeah, I mean, just people in standing. So, like if I say that I'm an actor, there's gonna be a conversation, well, what have you done? Which is fine, that's great. And you say, Well, I've done this, this, and that. And then they say, I've never watched any of that. So, you know, then it's doesn't matter, but it's just kind of funny. Like, it's always something that will end on kind of a negative note, is what I've noticed. Not to not like pessimistically, but it's just like like, oh, I don't watch TV. Like, oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Is that different outside of the major towns, the major movie towns like LA and New York? Like, because if you're in LA, New York, how does that conversation end? Is it, oh, you're just delusional, uh, you're just another person? Because I in the when I was in that town uh many moons ago, I miss it, but I also don't miss that that dread of like everybody's trying to do the same thing I'm trying to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah. In LA, I always sensed uh, oh, you what's your real thing? And then what's your dream thing? I mean, we had my buddy Rob on first episode. Nashville's like that. Nashville, you're a musician for your passion and you're trying to make that work, but you're also over here like coding or waiting tables or doing something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. What you just described, that negative end to the conversation. Does that happen out in LA?

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, I think now I don't really it doesn't bother me as much. I think forever it bothered me, but yeah, and not not so much negative, but it's more of like, okay, that's great, but what's next? You know, which is always everybody always hears that. And that's kind of a cliche that's true, because it really is. I think for all creatives, if you want to keep creating, you have to look forward, but then you kind of miss what you're doing at the moment. So that's kind of a tough juggle.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

But oh dude, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Yeah, if that makes sense, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

So then you're in LA. Do you go out and just start you know, getting rejected? Do you get a lucky break? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 12:53

You start getting rejected for the rest of your life. Um yeah, no, it was it started with kind of like student films. So like it I figured like if there's a way to get in, you you know, yeah, to start doing student films just so you can kind of learn, and then it's funny looking back, man. Like, even like how you and I met, like it I was doing a bunch of odd jobs, man, which is just the name of the game. But when we met, I was Batman at Six Flags Magic Mountain, which is hilarious to me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

You have a Batman Bruce Wayne look to you, you know. Thank you, man. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah, you can pull it off. Yeah, but it's just kind of funny, man, to be you know out there making kids laugh and stuff. And then a guy, Sean Parks, who was the Green Lantern, got a gig at the hand prop room. The hand prop room is a mega, mega prop store for film and television out in Los Angeles, and they have offices all over, but so yeah, prop shops, you know, you go in, you rent props for TV and film. I was in charge of making sure everything came back fine. I was in the returns department, but it had it feels like a working operating museum of television history. So, like they have the big giant slabs of cow beef hanging up that's rubber, but that's like Rocky III was punching those things. You know, it's like, whoa, Sylvester Stallone was punching that thing. But, anyways, working at that prop shop, I met Natalie Plumley, who was also working with me in the returns department. And she was saying, Well, hey, there's a uh I got a buddy named Mike Ortiz who is kind of looking for a newscaster for Quarry, and it's just kind of a random chain of people being like, Hey, can you do this, this, and that? I thought, yeah, then sure enough, man, I meet you guys, and then from that, you know, it progresses into another production, then another production, then you just keep going. And then fast forward 10 years, man, here we are, and it's all because of Natalie saying, Hey, I got a buddy who's doing a thing, and that's kind of how that all started in LA to get stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

That's incredible. So, okay, so you're working the prop room. Did were you also doing other student shorts at all?

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I I would try to get in, just try to learn auditioning and things like that, like going to like UCLA and USC films and AFI films, and you can kind of tell which schools had different uh different approaches towards filmmaking. Like I feel like AFI really took it serious because they were, you know, that was like their thesis project, kind of like what Mitch was doing in uh Pennsylvania. Um and then from there, I I was on a Western short film or something, and the guy playing the main villain, I was his right-hand man. He said, Hey, I got an agent who you know you might be good for, that kind of thing. Again, people reaching out saying, try this, go talk to this person. And I did. I went and talked to the agent, and she signed me, and then I thought, all right, we're off to the races. I'm in the big time now. And then I was with that agent for seven years, and I think I got two things from it. Which when you think seven years is a long time to not be getting much, but I thought that's just how it was. That was like back then I didn't know the business side of it. Like, well, it is a business, and if it's not working, you gotta move on. If it is working, great, you can still expand. Right. But yeah, from there, I uh one gig that I got was a uh my first role that well, sorry, man, I'll go back a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Go for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

So you were saying like uh like short films, I was doing a lot of that. You get credit, you get your demo reel, you can build up. A lot of it's not great, some of it's very fun, you meet great people. But uh I I realized, well, I need to kind of learn what being on an actual set is like, so I started doing background work where you go in and you know, I I was in uh with the Changeling that was a Clint Eastwood movie with Angelina Joe Lee and me and some buddies. Just funny, like you're just dressed in the 1920s and walking around downtown LA, it's sunshine and beautiful. They say, you know, all right, camera rolling and action, and all of a sudden the rain starts falling from the sky. It's just it was just a neat experience of like now. This is there's a little bit more money in this production than the one that we were shooting on the in the alleyway late at night. But yeah, doing uh doing extra work, I feel like I really learned a lot of like the pacing of what what TV is like and things like that. And it I was doing that to get your SAG card. You have to get X amount of I don't know if they still do that actually, but you have to get vouchers. Three vouchers gets you in the union. And then my agent got me just a co-star role. So co-star is when you have about one line, give or take, you're in and out of the scene. Guest star is when you kind of follow your story a bit more, a little bit more involved, and then the series regular is who the story's about.

SPEAKER_02 17:52

That's great. I mean, even I, you're educating me because I thought those are just like interchangeable terms. Oh, gotcha. So okay. So yeah, I haven't been in the main, you know, industry for many, many, many years. So uh I never got to like to understand that that distinction, especially like if you know, auditioning for for talent and stuff. So all right, so you got a co-star role. What was yeah, do you remember what that was for?

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, it was called 35 and ticking. It was a film, it was right before Kevin Hart skyrocketed into superstar. I think he was already like on his way up. And talented cast, and the director's name is Russ Parr. And it was an audition to be a creepy stalker. There, there's uh uh an NBA basketball player's in a bar, like hitting on a girl, and I come in and I'm like being really creepy to the guy. For me, it was such a big deal because that was my first time, yes, being on a film set. Kevin Hart's there, and I had known that he was like doing funny, like his stand-up and all that stuff. And from the that was my experience. I had uh it's called a honeywagon. So a honeywagon is when actors get a trailer and you sit in your trailer, you know, and you wait, and then they they come and get you and say, Oh, so you're ready for your scene or whatever it may be. But I had a half honeywagon, so it means you have half a trailer. So it's okay, yeah. So I was so excited, like, wow, I really made it. And I was had the honeywagon, got changed, came out, did my scene, went back after lunch to change, and they said, Oh no, no, that's not your trailer anymore, you're all done. So I was like, Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

It's uh long ways away from like the trailer village that people like Robert Downey Jr. get, you know, yeah, an actual city that you live in, and yeah, that's apparently what he's been getting on Avengers Doomsday. Is he has he has a city of trailers where like he invites the co-stars, or sorry, get whatever guest stars to come on and be like, hey, you don't get this at your trailer, come on over to mine.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Check it out. We have a whole barbecue or whatever, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

So honeywagon trailer city, you're somewhere in the middle there, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:06

Right in the right sweet spot. I'm in a sweet spot. Yeah. But yeah, it was just always funny, man, to kind of slowly see opportunities progress and progress, but just that that feeling of like actually being in a trailer and like kind of seeing what that means as an actor was really interesting to me. Um, but yeah, so it it took me doing the the background work to get the sag. That gig got me in, and I think I got paid like I don't know, 250 bucks or something like that. But then I had to turn around and pay SAG dues, which was like three grand. So it's like okay, wait a minute. Just kind of funny at the time because I'm Batman at Six Flags, you know. Kind of interesting.

SPEAKER_02 20:46

For the record, I I think we paid you more than film. You know, uh we were very proud to pay our our actors as a student film back then. Oh, it was amazing, man.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Are you kidding me? But I and that that doesn't go over my head, you know what I mean? Like you guys are putting money out, you don't have to do that. It was wonderful, man.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

Yeah. So um you pay your dues because that means you get in, right? Right. You you're in. What's next?

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah, so I think for every actor, there's that moment like to get into the union. I I think it's a wonderful thing. Like it it really is like how they protect you, and when any you can ask any question you need about any contract and all that, that's great. But it's also as soon as you sign in at that level, you can't do any more student films that aren't SAG, you can't do any independent projects. There's a lot of things that that kind of takes your legs out from under you, at least it feels that way. But I mean, if you look more positively at it, it's like, well, just moving on to bigger and better as it goes. But yeah, so getting in the union, then you start getting different opportunities. And I remember I I I booked a Valvelline commercial, which is pretty cool. And that the commercial work is a whole different thing. Everybody's like, oh, don't do commercials, or people are like, Yes, absolutely do commercials because uh financially it's great. It's a quick day, and you meet you know very, very talented directors that are making major feature films, but it's like opportunities for cinematographers who normally just shoot, actually directing their vision and commercials and telling stories. But that was my introduction into that. And it's also a different kind of animal because it's Valvelline. And Valvelline, believe it or not, Rolando is a very large company, and they have a lot of people that really want to make sure this is right. So it's neat to see like the suit side of things as well. I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 22:34

I that's a nice way of saying that, the suit side of things, because as a producer, I'm I've never made up a commercial at the level of Valvelyen. So for the record. But the times I have been involved in larger productions, the more cooks in the kitchen. As an actor, that must be a different experience than as a as someone who has to um play a role in the whole thing. As a producer, you're you're casting, you're before that, you're storyboarding, you're writing, and then at the shoot, you're you're making sure everything goes well. And then in post, it's like you're interacting with these people that have an opinion every step of the way. You only have to deal with that on the day of. I'm gonna use a nice word, collaborative nature. Ah, yes, very nice, yes. Of a lot a lot of people with a lot of opinions. So you see that side of the industry, commercial work. Does that like make you want to do more commercial work?

SPEAKER_01 23:37

Uh, it does, yeah, yeah. I think that that definitely made me want to do more just larger projects as a whole, because I I understand like there it all kind of comes down to money, is what can make things happen. You know, like there's differences between having an actual crane shot, you know, with a camera coming in as the car drives by and explodes versus uh okay, we don't have a car, we don't have a crane, we have ooh, look at that. There's a popsicle. We can use this popsicle stick for a weapon, you know, whatever. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's yeah, I definitely wanted to move forward and learn that aspect. So that's where like kind of producing came along for me. Like, not I mean, you're producing stuff much higher level than what I'm doing, sir.

SPEAKER_02 24:20

I don't know, buddy. I everybody has this idea of what we do, and I am humbled. I on the last podcast, uh Veronny and I talked about that. That I think everybody has perception of other people and what they're up to. And I look at other people and think, wow, those people are really doing amazing stuff. So I'm I'm humbled. Uh so you got into producing or or got interested into it, in it.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So then that's when I working at the prop shop at the same time and all that, I realized I could start making my own short films and trying to take it more serious. A lot of it, I don't know, man. Like for for me making films, I always wanted to make people laugh, whether it was comedy or action comedy, all that stuff. But when I it could be again like self-judgment, but me going back and looking at it, I'm like, oh, it's just not good that I could do better, which is just me kicking myself. But I learned all the ropes, so I re I realized like, okay, yeah, you don't just show up to a building and just start shooting. You can, sure. But then all of a sudden, what if something happens? You know, so then you realize, oh, okay, so you need actual like location permits and you need to cover all bases just to make sure that yeah, nobody gets in trouble. We're all have a good time, everybody's covered.

SPEAKER_02 25:37

C Y A.

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Correct, correct. Yeah, so it's being an actor, you really don't have to worry about that, like you said. So it's funny showing up on set, like even for big productions. Something that always gets me is they're like, Oh, everything is fine. You can see the sweat going down their forehead, everything's fine. Just stay in your trailer and you can hear people screaming outside, you know. So, like that kind of dynamic of they keep the actors safe so we can create and you know, do what we do. And they don't because we don't really need to make know that they're that the wardrobe truck just fell into a river or whatever, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

Right, right. Or that you know, this scene's running late, so you were scheduled to come in before lunch, and now you know you have to do it after lunch, and we didn't have a lunch for you, so you have to sit in a trailer without food for several hours, and then you show up and then you do your thing, and it's like I then it's over time, and I it's yeah, and it all adds up and all shifts the schedule and yeah. So you're you got interested in that or at least you got experienced in that. What happened, like what's the next big thing that happens uh as as you keep exploring, you know, the next step in your career?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yeah, so going out, like I think like making films for me was a was a great experience because then you start learning about festivals and things like that. But then I realized like there weren't many opportunities coming in that were like tipping the needle forward in the sense of like bigger and better projects. Yes, I was doing some great indie stuff. I was doing you know, still doing things that I I thought were great and I'm learning and all that stuff. But there was uh an audition that came through, man. I was still again at the prop shop. An audition came through for like this sci-fi series, and it said uh it was a worldwide talent search that anybody in the world can, you know, you can either do there was Cadet Bradbury who's like a like the pilot and flying stuff, or there's Captain, it was Matt Kimmer, Captain Matt Kimmer.

SPEAKER_03 27:34

Matt, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Well, yeah, yeah. So that uh Matt Kimmer was like the captain of the ship and all this stuff. I thought, well, yeah, ooh, I want to be a captain, you know, that'd be cool. So sure enough, I my wife helped me out and we shot the audition tape, and you send it into the ether and try to forget about it the best you can while crossing your fingers. And for the contest, they had uh I think it was over like 7,000 submissions for both roles, and they put it up on a website so you can see like you're on you're in the top 500 here, then you're in the top 250. And I was making it through all these lists, and I got to the top 20. I was still on the list, and I thought, whoa. And the director and writers, they were they've worked on all kinds of sci-fi things like Star Trek The Next Generation. They wrote for like He-Man back in the day, and Smurfs, like cartoons and Lazarus Man, all kinds of stuff. He's been in the sci-fi realm forever. That's Mark Zik Zickry, right? Mark Zickry, yeah. He wrote The Twilight Zone Companion when he was like 22 years old or something. But anyways, yeah, so it was just kind of a big deal that from the comfort of my own home, I could submit a tape and hope for the best. But it made it to the the top 20 and then it released to the top five, and I I wasn't on the list anymore. So it's like, oh, you know, yeah, that it's kind of a bummer, but still an amazing thing for an actor, and then you just forget about it, move on. But after the list dropped, all of a sudden there was an email in my my mailbox, and it was from Mark, the director, and he said, Hey Ethan, we really we really liked your tape, but there's another character that we would be if you were interested in possibly playing this, it's kind of a smaller character named Jack Kimmer. So it's Matt Kimmer was technically Jack Kimmer's great-grandson or something in the timeline of this whole thing. I thought, oh, that looks cool. And then I I met and we did um we did like a callback thing, and we're doing like fight scenes, and there's a spaceship set, and I'm blowing my mind like, what is going on? This is crazy. And sure enough, they they had a thing, uh, it was like a final read. And I met with Mark and Elaine Zickri in a in a cafe where they were just saying, like, all right, well, so we have these scenes, it's it's between you and another guy. If you want to read through this, I said, Yeah, sure. So in a restaurant, I do my little uh my audition, and one's like a kind of a funny speech from the first film, and they reach across the table and shook my hand and said, Hey, yeah, you're you're the guy. So I my mind was blown, and they said, Well, what are you doing this weekend? Because we have a panel to reveal the winners of the worldwide talent search at San Diego Comic Con. If you're available, I said, Yeah, sure. Like I still get chills, man. Isn't that funny? Yeah, chills. It's just kind of neat, man. But yeah, it got got uh got the role of Jack Kimmer and how the schedule shifted.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

They uh they kind of made the story more about my character because I was gonna ask about because I know your role as the main role, right?

SPEAKER_01 30:36

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, originally it was gonna be the Matt Kimmer story with uh with like his side of the missions, and I I I forget why it shifted, but they they went back in time to try my character, and then that kind of went from there. But yeah, pretty pretty amazing, man. And then being on set there, like that was hands down the biggest thing I'd ever done. I was yeah, my very first day, I'm with Doug Jones, who's in love Doug Jones, man. Great guy, he's he's very talented, he's in everything.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

Everything. And if you didn't know, you you don't know when you're watching him, too, because he's like embedded in a creature of some kind, you know.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah, Pan's Labyrinth, is yeah, the shape of water.

SPEAKER_02 31:20

Is if it's a tall, skinny creature, it's Doug Jones.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Yeah, and he's the nicest guy in the world.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Oh my god, great guy. All his interviews I've seen are amazing, and uh yeah, that's incredible. So you're working alongside, I think, these kind of like big um legacy actors that have been in the industry for a while that have developed the reputation, especially from the sci-fi space. And I'm gonna show my lack of like sci-fi TV knowledge here, but Mark Ziggri's like resume was just like, especially in the late 90s and early 2000s, it's hitting all the top uh sci-fi. So he's got all these connections. And because of that, he has all these connections. And as an outside observer on on all this, because I I was kind of riding your space command wave when we were making downward.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

Yeah, yeah, it was all timed up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:11

Yeah, because we were making downward, and we're like, oh, the this guy that's our lead, he's in this big thing. Let's talk about that. And I was watching, you know, it was also a crowdfunded expert experience too. So watching Mark like do the thing on a much larger level that we're doing was we were crowdsourcing our film the same time.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:32

And he's doing like really fan fancy things like in having investors' shares and all that stuff. And but I I see the people he's pulling in um from his network, and it's such a cool, I think, um, example of when you do good work over time, even if you're not at in the limelight, like he like a lot of people don't know who he is, but he knows so many people. Um, he did great work, great guy. He was able to kind of call in his favors. Yeah, uh, yeah, yeah. And because of that, you know, he got some really cool people uh like Doug Jones, like Robert Picardo, yeah, uh Michael Harney. He played your dad, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:12

He's my dad, yeah, yeah. Yeah, uh all those guys, great people too, man. Just talented folks, like you said, that that are have a legacy about them. But sorry, man.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

Yeah, yeah. So I and you got to work uh with Mira Ferlin, right? Yeah. Before she passed away.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

Yeah, lovely human being, man. Lovely human being.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Yeah, for those that don't know, she was um in Lost, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:33

She played um uh Rousseau, I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:40

So you're in this set, you're about to be surrounded by these actors. What are you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Like it was nuts. It was nuts. Yeah. For me, it was really surreal, man, because it is like, like you said, like it's I feel like for Space Command, because it's crowdfunded, like it really is kind of a it at the time was like a new thing that everybody was kind of trying, and the fact that he did it at such a level that like I don't know, man. We pumped out a two-hour feature film out of that that was fully crowdfunded. So it's like people, like you said, that cared about projects that he'd been on, who love Robert Picardo and Star Trek, you know, who follow all these people's careers, they just want to see them in things.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

And he even had JJ Abrams do like a little bit of endorsement at one point, too.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah, yeah. He he wrote a book with Guillermo del Toro called The Cadin of Curiosities, which is very cool. It's like uh sketches and things that Guillermo did, but he was hanging out with Guillermo, but sure enough, there's a little tidbit of Guillermo saying, I really love it. It's just cool.

SPEAKER_03 34:43

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:44

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

But yeah, really, really surreal for me, man, to just to be a part of all that. And then to be the vehicle, like like the the main character, then it goes back into like that kind of that imposter syndrome, because like I was I just shot the audition in my living room, you know what I mean? And now I'm hanging out with you know, Bill Moomie from he was in the in the Twilight Zone, man. He worked with Alfred Hitchcock, you know what I mean? He's a legend. But yeah, it very surreal for me though, man.

SPEAKER_02 35:13

And it was the start of not just one project, right? The it was the start of, I think, a trilogy.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Or yeah, yeah, it kind of progressed, man. So it's we shot it as a two-hour feature. It's called Space Command Redemption, and it they realized like, well, if we shoot more, we could either separate them into one-hour episodes or we can keep them as collective films. So we shot them as films. That first one happened, and then they were gearing up, they thought, okay, well, we have we have another idea, and they were trying to think of like what kind of a storyline to connect and all this stuff, and some things happened, and I got the phone call. I think I was at a a meeting again, same same restaurant where they shook my hand and say, hey, let's go to Comic-Con. I was at one of the team meetings, and because we were kind of discussing what's the future of Space Command, because I I was pretty much done. I thought that was that was my my story, and they'll go into Matt Kimmer's stuff, my great-great-grandson, or whatever. But they thought, well, what if we fast forward just like two years and we could still follow Jack's character and all this stuff? So I'm like, oh, that sounds great. But so they they gave me uh they gave me another shot, man, to to come back aboard and we had the same crew back in and tell another two-hour adventure. And that could also be, you know, episodes three and four, breaking that up. And then from there they continue to go on and on and on, and then they're going now in both directions. They got like a an animatic of Mike Harney's character, and it's really cool, man. Just kind of like what Mike Ortiz is doing with with um with Breeze, like like just yeah, expanding the entire universe that we were once a part of, man, a downward it's the ability to just kind of um explore different mediums.

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Um I think a lot of uh series have done that. I mean, it's hard as consumers sometimes to keep up with so much, like especially when things are canon, like when uh like Star Wars does these comics after um you know the latest episode to explain some backstory and gaps, uh like why Palpatine's alive or something, and it's a comes out in a comic, and then that's canon, and then as a fan, you don't engage with that. Sometimes that's a hard thing to do, but as a creative, it gives you another avenue when funding is not there, or do you just want to explore a different medium? And um, I'm seeing a lot more of that of mixed mediums exploring these these intellectual properties, um, and because people are wanting to engage uh in the right circumstances for sure.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah, and if you're liking the stories and the characters, the fact that you can like get a graphic novel or something to explore that further, man. I think it's a cool opportunity. Even like even like this with podcasts, man, you can go on podcast adventures uh and you know, then hear more stories. Just cool.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Yeah, yeah. I mean, uh when I started this, I was like, does the world really need another podcast? Because it seems like Yeah, we do, Rolando, we do. Thanks for your encouragement, man. Because at the end of the yeah, you better believe it. It's 2026, and I think it was if it was 10 years ago, oh my gosh, it'd be such a novel idea. But um, you know, when we get to sit down with people like you and just hear, like, wow, this is what it's like. It's um it's one thing to make assumptions from somebody's IMDB page, right? And it's another thing to hear it firsthand and and hear how people are just normal humans that are just doing really great work together. And I'm sure there's some juicy stories along the way, you know. Um so you do space command. When what what does that turn into for you? Is that a launching pad or is that just another step in the journey?

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Uh originally it felt like a launching pad, man, just because of the amount of attention that it was getting. Um and then because it was crowdfunded, like we're still technically shooting Space Command. You know, it's been, I don't know, man, yeah. I mean, well, like we said, like probably 10, 12 years, something like that. But well, so it wasn't quite the launching pad that I thought that it was gonna be, which doesn't matter though, because uh I would not give those experiences back for anything. I you know, some of my best friends now are from that from that production. It's it's really, really cool. But yeah, so after that we were back to the grind, and we had one of my buddies, uh Brian McClearman. He's from from Space Command, he plays uh Cadet Bradbury. He had moved out to Atlanta, Georgia, and he was saying, like, hey, you could you really should like kind of look into this. Like it there's a market here, it's kind of booming a little bit. There, you know, there's been a nice market in Atlanta, Georgia for a long time, just dealing with productions and TV shows and things like that. And Athena and I, my my wife and I were just like, All right, she was kind of like, let's get out of here. Yeah, okay. We're just you know, we're working eight jobs apiece.

SPEAKER_02 40:08

And and to be clear, Athena is also acting in the background, not in the background, like doing her own. I'm I saw her on TV. I was like, wait, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like that DiCaprio meme, like that's that's Athena, you know. So just to give some backstory there, is she she's landing roles too, right?

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Oh, yeah, big, big roles, man. She's worked like she was she's in a show called George and Tammy opposite Michael Shannon, if you know who that is, but in that room in the scene is Walton Goggins, is uh Steve Zahn, is uh who else? It's just a big room full of big stars, and my wife's just toe-to-toe with him. It's wonderful, man. It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 40:51

Oh man.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

Yeah, but yeah, so that that came to be from us deciding, well, let's let's move to Atlanta and give it a shot. Brian, our buddy, had moved out and kind of set the ground for us, and you know, we even lived like in the same apartment complex at Sam. We had our little actor commun community thing there for a bit. And through that, we we got an agent, um, you know, set up a meeting. It in Atlanta, Georgia, there was like a much, much more welcoming, like what would you say, like not just like a little pod of actors and creatives who were all kind of actually helping each other out. In Los Angeles, it kind of felt like everybody for themselves, a little a little bit more cutthroat. Yeah, kind of cutthroat.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

I mean, I I think you can say that. I think LA has that culture. It's hard to it's hard to say it out loud, but it's true. I mean, one thing I could tell, I I was an intern there and I was sitting at lunch one time in Beverly Hills at a Chipotle, because that's all I could afford as an unpaid intern. Delicious. Yeah. Meanwhile, there were other people there too. So it's like indicative of the industry. And these agents, again, I don't know, I'm not, I don't mean to be people bashing here, but these agents were really discussing the nature of their business and the competitive nature of it. And as a young, bright-eyed, like wanna wannabe filmmaker, I was like, oh my gosh, like yeah, turning pale white, like yeah, it's just like visceral like cutthroat nature of competition. And yeah, because if you win, you win big. Um it's hard. So Atlanta maybe could have been probably inf infru influenced by that southern hospitality culture, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 42:30

Uh absolutely, I think, yeah. Absolutely, man. It it it was like uh people seem more accessible and more helpful, if that makes sense. So there was uh there's a casting team called Feldstein Paris. There were big casting directors in in the Georgia in the southeast, and they they would do like Twitter meetups and they'd say, Hey, we're gonna be at so-and-so restaurant. Come on in, meet us and say hi. In Los Angeles, that wasn't a thing. Yeah, sure. If you paid, you know, like 200 bucks, you'd maybe say, like, here, do this scene. Great job, and then don't let the door hit you on the way out, kind of thing. But this, you could legitimately go up and just meet these casting directors who want to meet the actors and see who they are and be like, oh, this, you know, start using their talents to be able to put people in projects where they would fit best. And it was kind of strange timing. We we had moved to Atlanta, um, went to that Twitter meetup, and uh at the same time I had gotten a meeting with one of the agencies, and and I just asked one of the casting directors, I said, Hey, like what do you think about this agency? They said, Oh, they're great. They had gone to college together. So he said, Well, yeah, tell them I say hi or whatever it may be when you have your meeting. So then I go into the meeting and I get lucky, and I just, you know, be in myself as it is, and again, shake the hand, say, All right, you're in. And then it was off to the races, man. Atlanta, Georgia was a uh it was it felt unreal to the amount of opportunities that came. So, like in Los Angeles, we would maybe have Six auditions a year that were like like real auditions. And that was pretty decent, which is ridiculous if you think about it. Like only six for the whole year, man. No, that's not gonna do anything. But like the first year, man, was probably I don't know, like 115 auditions or 120 for the whole year, which is that's a whole different ballgame, man. So you gotta be able to it was a new muscle to learn. Like first, exciting because Athena would have five auditions due on a Wednesday and it's a Monday. I would have three auditions, one due Tuesday, one due Thursday. So we would just box them all together, and you know, Athena would have about you know 32 pages of dialogue memorized in her brain. I would have, you know, like 15, whatever, and we would just hack it out and you send the tape off and try to forget it. But it was exciting and we were working and it felt wonderful, and then it's still the same business because you don't book all 115.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

Right, it's a numbers game, but you have you have more opportunities, but you're still getting you're getting a lot more rejections though, too.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Yeah, so that's another mental side of it. It's like, oh, how long can I do this for? You know what I mean? But uh yeah, sure enough, man. I got got a phone call. Um, one of the casting directors uh got got me on a show, man. I I got his name's George Pierre, was the casting director, man. He was the first cat wonderful guy, hilarious, hardworking, and he got me on my very first television show, and it was it was crazy, man.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

It was called Star. Star, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

Star was like my first, it was on Fox. So I was we shot on location in a hospital, and I was Queen Latifah's doctor. I was uh Dr. Thomas. It was Dr. Thomas crazy, man. Yeah, so yeah, I'm like hanging out kind of with Queen Latifah or walking down a hall and got on an elevator and she's like, How's it going, Doctor? You can call me law. I'm like, You're Queen Latifa. You know, it's crazy, man. It was nuts. But yeah, and that that kind of set the tone of like, okay, it's possible.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

You know, we can actually there's opportunity here. Yeah, there's like the odds are more in your favor, although they're still hard. It's you felt yeah, like this is happening.

SPEAKER_01 46:17

Yeah, it really did, man. It really felt like uh yes, it's hard, but it we've already been doing it, you know. So it's just it really felt like there's a huge opportunity to do some big things, especially based on auditions that were coming in for mega, mega shows. And then we actually started kind of getting on them, man. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_02 46:37

Yeah, I'm looking at your IMDB here, and that was in 2017-ish.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

Okay, yeah. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_02 46:45

So, you know, after that, you did a short, you're on the show called Inheritance. Uh, you played a paramedic on Dynasty. Yeah, you're in you're a MacGyver as a guard. Uh yeah, you know, you keep going. I'll I see a lot of like law enforcement in the in your yeah, oh, heavy heavy law enforcement, good and bad, across the board.

SPEAKER_01 47:08

Yeah. But yeah, what's what's strange about those, man, is like people like connecting with those. So like the uh inheritance was actually a film that shot back in LA, and a guy that also played Robin at Six Flags was the lead in that. So that's how I got into that. And then I got somebody that I was in a sword fighting company with into that as well. So it's just kind of funny how everybody helps each other out.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

Yeah, it's all the network, you know.

SPEAKER_01 47:32

Yeah, but like for McGyver, I was uh working opposite Cheryl Lee Ralph, who's now in Abbott Elementary, who's you know, an emmy winner and very talented. But it's crazy to see, yeah, I was had a scene of dialogue with her, just you know, telling her she can't drive her van up to this mansion. This is so funny, man.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

I see here you you played Kevin Costner in the Bobby Brown story.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was that was my first experience, man, for uh um for like getting lash back on Twitter, you know, like back that was when Twitter was Twitter before X. So that was my first time of being ripped apart, which is so funny, man. Because I was watching it real time. I think I think Athena was on a show, actually. We were filming somewhere, we're on location, and so we're at a hotel watching the the Bobby Brown story air live. So I thought, well, I'm gonna get on Twitter and see what happens. And sure enough, man, they're like, he doesn't look anything like Kevin Costner, he's ugly. So I thought it'd be funny to chime back in, like, well, I don't know if it's the hair or the suit, but either way, thanks for watching. It was just funny, man, to be ripped apart over something that you know. Again, just another muscle you have to learn about.

SPEAKER_02 48:40

Yeah, and then I a couple uh credits after I see Ascendance. Yeah, yeah. So for the audience, uh in his uh prequel, uh, but we shot after downward. Um movie magic. Movie magic, yeah, yeah. And that was another brain child of uh of Mike after meeting some great folks in New Zealand. Uh, he's like, I want to shoot another movie in this universe in New Zealand, Rolando. Do you want to help produce? I.e., hey, can you help us, you know, get this off the ground and fundraise and bring in contacts? And then I said, Well, is Ethan and is everybody gonna be a part of it again? He's like, Yeah, yeah. I'm like, oh, I just that's the one regret I have is I didn't get to go to music.

SPEAKER_01 49:28

You should have gone, man. Yeah, you definitely should have been there, man. You should have been there.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

But that movie looks so cool.

SPEAKER_01 49:34

Uh, it's beautiful, man. But yeah, but you even that experience, Rolando. I'd I have said it before, but it's been years, man. But thank you, man. That was that was one of the best experiences of my life, honestly, man. Like it was uh not only was it just great people, it was just fun to be able to connect like American creatives and a team of New Zealand creatives, mix us together. We we made a rule uh that we had to bring some uh United States candy and we had to eat some New Zealand candy. So we had to trade. I always thought that was pretty funny, man.

SPEAKER_02 50:05

That's awesome. Yeah, everything I heard, even from the the DP that went down there and Mike, me staying connected to Mike the whole time. You guys had a great time. The visuals of that movie are just so incredible. It was one of the last. I have the posters of all the movies we've produced. Yeah, yeah. It was in the last Vega production films, you know, yeah, man. Under the banner of Vega Productions, and just incredibly shot. What was it like donning the suit again? You know, the that armored suit.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Yeah, so Mike, I forgot who you guys found. I forgot who made it. It was like a composite suit, but that was it was actually really comfortable. It was warm, it was padded, and it was I don't know, man, just walking around in the New Zealand backdrop dressed as a super soldier is not a bad day.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

Yeah, not a bad day, and those visuals, man. Every time I I because I sometimes show people like, hey, you want to see some films I've done? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great, man. And because a lot of people don't know me like that anymore. Uh yeah, yeah. And we show some of those panic, like just shots and and drone shots of like these New Zealand visuals that you associate automatically with like Lower the Rings. And yeah, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe we shot in those same mountains and valleys. So I yeah, I can't believe you were there and you got to do it.

SPEAKER_01 51:25

So but no, I really appreciate it, man. Like it, and it's just like even still, man, like the people that you meet, like we're still buddies with all the New Zealanders on like Facebook and stuff like that. You know what I mean? It's they're just really good people, and it's even funny. Like, I remember we're shooting a scene, I'm in my robot suit. We got uh there's three of us pushing through through like this wooded area. So we have the cameras in a van, they're driving alongside as our as our like Dolly following. And I can't see anything because I look kind of like the Mandalorian a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

Yeah, but it's all fogged over. We're not supposed to talk about that because that could be I mean uh not not the Mandalorian, but like something uh for the record, uh those concept arts uh you know were created long before you know Jinjaran graced the screen, you know. Correct, correct, and Grogu and everything, but continue, continue.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Right, right, right, right, right. So yeah, just disregard what I just said, but but yeah, well, so walking in it because it's cold out, it's raining, so there's like that fog, but I'm warm, I'm sweating, so the visor inside of the helmet I can't see. There's a fan in there that would work for about five minutes before my sweat would just shut it out. I remember we're walking, I'm trying to look tough, you know. We're going through the woods and that van's going, and all of a sudden I hear Aaron Falby, the director, like, uh Ethan, where are you? And sure enough, man, I fell right into a hole, man. We're walking straight and I just disappeared into a hole. I'm like, whoa, and I couldn't see anything, but it's just really funny, man. I could hear laughing from the van.

SPEAKER_02 52:58

Like, my goodness. It's it's again, that feels like a whole lifetime ago.

SPEAKER_01 53:04

It really is, man. It really is. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

Yeah, and maybe maybe we'll dust off the costume in the future. I don't know. I think we should.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

You know, I think I'll have to stretch a bit more, probably, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely should.

SPEAKER_02 53:15

So after that, um, I'm just gonna rattle off some, you know, yeah, go some uh credits here. Got um bounty like TV and and film, Bounty Killer, Dead Silent, The Gifted, Um Raising Dion, Bluff City Law, uh, Teen Teenage Bounty Hunters. We're in the 2020s, you know. Uh and eventually I see this really big series that like made history in the Atlanta region, and I see your credit with four episodes in it.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

I appreciate it, man.

SPEAKER_02 53:52

Yeah. So tell us about that experience and how'd you get it?

SPEAKER_01 53:55

Yeah, well, so again, it's just getting the auditions, you kind of roll the dice, and there was a a casting team that was in charge of The Walking Dead for a whole I I don't know if it was the whole season, but there's 11 seasons of that original show. And everybody knew it was the final season. They were winding down. They were talking about maybe doing spinoffs kind of a thing, and they were looking for the Reapers, which was like this band of kind of military, rough-neck guys that were still surviving and doing their thing. So I thought, okay, they're gonna get a good handful of people, but all we had was I think two scenes with maybe one or two lines of dialogue, meaning all you have to say is, yes, sir, and scene. Great, great. Now try it again and whatever. But so again, you roll the dice, do your audition, submit it in. I got the call, man. I couldn't believe it because it really, like you said, that that show has been on I don't know longer than we've known each other, I think.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Rolando, you know, that intellectual property is still ongoing in so many offshoots, right?

SPEAKER_01 54:58

Yeah, and it's doing great, man. Yeah, that like being a part of that was that was a finely oiled machine that had been going because it was it, you know, people that I grew up watching on television, I got to sit in a chair next to him. I always say it was funny, like sitting next to Norman Reedis one day, and he's you know, I mean, this is me being name droppy or whatever, but it's no, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Do it, do it for the do it for the clout, Ethan. Do it for the clout.

SPEAKER_01 55:24

Well, I'm from a little teeny tiny town in Wyoming, man. Like, what am I doing sitting next to Norman Redis? It's nuts to me. It's we'll forever be. But yeah, he's he's on his phone, like they're doing some, you know, checking emails, whatever. Jeffrey Dean Morgan comes in, Negan, and he comes in and starts like doing this to him. Norman Redis gets upset. He's like, Hey, hey, man, what are you doing? These are my love punches, man. You know, either just playing around, like, hey, that's Negan.

SPEAKER_03 55:53

That's Negan.

SPEAKER_02 55:54

And they're all they're all like super friends because they've been working together for years.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

Yeah, they're like family, man, and and that really feeds into it. Like you could tell, even like the camera guys, everybody, like they would you could tell they just hang out and they've been hanging out for years and years and years, and just to be a part of that size of production and that that has that lore about it, that has that that following was really interesting, man. Like from that, you know, not that it's the end all of things, but like like I've met a lot of great people who are just fans of the show now. Who because I was on that show, like, you know, people draw pictures of our characters, and you know, like a young lady, like I was at a uh convention, you know, doing the autograph thing and sign, and she asked me to like sign my name so she could tattoo it. That's crazy to me. Wow, which is yeah, it's really neat though. Like it's really like as well.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

I love you, Ethan, but I don't think I would tattoo your name on my body.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

I get it, I get it. But yeah, no, just really cool, man. Like the fact that that that that show means so much to so many people, and that I got to be a part of it, man, was really uh really interesting and really yeah, like exciting and uh something that's kind of funny, man. So right when I started filming that was right when the pandemic hit. So this is 2020, and we had to do the vaccinations and stuff, and it was kind of mandatory at the time to work, but it was really funny to be getting a vaccine for something that like nobody knows quite where it's gonna go on a show about something that happened where nobody knew and now there's zombies. It was really funny, man. So that's so actually on the back.

SPEAKER_02 57:32

I've never thought it about it like that. Uh and I even even this virus at the time, we didn't know what it was like, you know, being so close to where I'm at in the northeast, you know, that it was a scary time. And it's like, hmm, do I want to watch a post-apocalyptic show about zombies right now? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 57:51

Well, maybe something that makes me smile, maybe. How about how about that? How about feel good?

SPEAKER_02 57:56

One of the things you you talked about, and it's I've always wondered did you get any insights in your time there about how important of a show Walking Dead is to a city like Atlanta? Because by the time you arrive there, I assume that that whole thing was like a well-oiled machine, just like you said, a production, a city, like of of talent. But the amount of revenue that comes into that city because of that show, what what are the stakes? What are like what's the the feeling that you get when you walk in there and notice, wow, this thing is means a great deal to the people of Atlanta here?

SPEAKER_01 58:39

Yeah, it's uh well so where that shoots is a town called Sinoia was kind of like the the ground, like where the studio is and stuff like that. So from Atlanta to all of that surrounding area has been shot for you know over a decade of the show. So you can definitely tell, like people, like there's restaurants where you go in and like people like it's all signed of all the people who visited here from the show. But financially, what I learned coming into it is that you cannot say one word about anything whatsoever to spoil any sort of anything, if that makes sense. Meaning, like scripts that like I never got an entire script of the episode, so I didn't even know what was happening with my character. It was so hush hush. Which is funny because I show up on set. Yes, I realize we're these Reaper guys were, you know, we're all kind of bad or good. Maybe we're good. We could be bad, probably bad. I don't know, because I didn't get the thing. But it was interesting to kind of have to ask them, and they wouldn't be completely open with like, well, this could be this, this could be that. So what I learned from an actor is that um it just comes down to building your character and do what you got to do and and get on the screen and hope that it lines up with what's going on. But then stepping outside of that, there's barriers where people are outside like trying to take pictures and seeing where the location is and who's this, because they can get a shot and all this.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

Right, because it's ongoing, it's not going away anytime soon from that those studios outside of Atlanta and Georgia for the most part, so people can camp out. Whereas if you're doing a movie for several weeks or months, you can only get a little bit and it's gone and yeah, it disappears forever.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:15

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

But yeah, the infrastructure-wise, man, yeah. I mean, it it brought in so many different job opportunities for people, but also people to come and like the fan side of it to visit the locations to see the things, like it created almost like a museum approach for some of those places, so yeah, all around, man. Like restaurants, everything grew, everything, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:36

So I'm gonna go a little fast now on your on the rest of your credits. Yeah, talk about Miss Marvel. What was that like?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

Miss Marvel, again, that was kind of a hush-hush kind of thing because uh on the first day that Miss Marvel got to wear her actual uniform, like the first time she had it on, I was in a room hanging out with her and like her her character family, and you know, big top head honchos are in there, and we're all kind of looking like, what am I doing in this room? This is crazy to me. Again, little boy from Wyoming, just having a good time.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:09

Did you ever did you ever meet Kevin Feige?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:12

He was in the room, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:13

He was in there with his hat, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:16

Had his hat, had great shoes. Yeah, yeah. He had some had I don't know what kind of Jordans they were, but yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:21

That's incredible. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Nuts to me, man. But yeah, but for that, that shows me how much time you can take to make uh like one scene. Like it they were using like Humvee trucks were on hydraulics to explode up out as Miss Marvel crashes down. So you get to see all the working parts of that and just stunt teams, timing, hundreds of extras, and all of it comes down to one little moment, you know what I mean? Like I and they will take the time, you spend the money to get that moment. Yeah. So that what I learned from that is that Marvel that that's why it costs so much to do that because there's so many moving parts, but when they get it, they get it, and it looks great. But yeah, for me, I I just learned how to geek out more about I'm on a superhero show.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:07

Oh, dude, and then you got to do the other side of that same coin on the DC side, Doom Patrol. Uh okay, so uh confession, I haven't watched Doom Patrol, but okay, I got a text. My my sister watched it and she texted me. Is that Ethan? Oh, that's funny. Yeah, so you know, you played this creepy, dark character. It what's his name again?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

It's uh Charles Forsyth. So he's he's yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:39

So talk a little bit about that role. What was that like?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:41

Yeah, so that role started out as a co-star role. So it was just a one-screen, again, which is just like kind of in for the day and out, and then they I guess they liked what I was doing and saw that that character could grow into something more. So then they called me back for another episode and expanded more and more. And my guy was the head of the Bureau of Normalcy, which is kind of like just a like a government faction who's doing things they should not be doing, and I was the head honcho of that, so I was just torturing superheroes, which is crazy, man. But really fun again, you know, great people like working with Matt Bomer and Matt uh Matt Matthew Zook, who plays like uh he's one of the main superheroes. Matthew Zook was the character in costume, Matt Bomer was the character out of costume, and they're the same person. But getting to work with them and the whole team, uh being on sets in those types of settings, man, with like I mean like a extreme heat room, and then it's like a freezer, a sauna, and a jail sale, but it's all like futuristic but vintage at the same time. And you know, I get to hang out in a set that's the mansion where the Doom Patrol hangs out. It's crazy, man. It's nuts. But yeah, for the record, Doom Patrol was a was a great experience, and it's probably not for kids to watch, so you know, enter at your own risk. There's some there's some things that happen that area for adults only, I'll tell you that much. It's a great experience.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

And is your character a part of those doing those things?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

Some I think it's more of the Doom Patrol doing stuff, it's more of the maybe language. There's some heavy language, but uh, and yeah, my guy is definitely not doing nice things to people for sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:19

Okay, so I mean, even to some of the names we've talked about, the properties we've talked about at this point in your career, you know, how are you feeling? You know, from before you get on HBO, like how are things moving fast now for you? Yeah. So are you still in Georgia this whole time at that at that moment?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:44

Yeah, that was all Georgia, man. Yeah, yeah. So we moved to Georgia in at the end of 2017, actually, yeah, like September 2017. And then it really felt like like this is it. Like literally the things that both Athena and I were getting, and all of our friends in our little acting community, people were on TV shows, people are being series regulars on shows, people are being lead stars in these things, and you could see the trajectory just climbing and climbing and climbing, and you can feel it, man. You can feel it. And then yeah, pandemic hit, uh, which is uh shifted for everybody, and then we had the uh like the strikes and things like that. So all of a sudden it's a readjustment because the whole everything shifted, which you know, for for everybody, of course. And then it's kind of like a a reset. You got to figure out, okay, so everything kind of went away. So now what does that mean? And then you keep gearing back up and going and going and going. Lesser opportunities, and like uh like even like with like theater and stuff, like kind of bigger names or taking theater roles, so you can't really do that as much. Like in this, I feel like I'm kind of like in the middle ground of like I get great opportunities and I'm you know thankful for all of it, but it's definitely fewer and far between. So it's like a life adjustment of like, okay, well, now we gotta still, you know, you gotta still live life and figure out it can't just be all movies, movies, movies, and TV. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:09

What did you honestly, if you don't mind me asking, did you have to supplement your your income, your lifestyle with like not cool menial work to like make things happen? Or did some of these uh projects help you kind of ride that wave?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:25

Yeah, uh so for at one point, man, it was actually going well that we we didn't have to work, which is so crazy to me, man. That the opera it was nuts. Yeah, we're literally like working actors who were yeah, if we could just solely focus on acting, and then it kept like kind of going in that direction, man. But then yeah, once it slowed down, you gotta be like, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:45

Did you have any royalty stuff come in from like random shows that you had been on?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

Yeah, yeah. The residuals that come in.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:52

Yeah, there's a guy, there's a guy on on TikTok and on Instagram that shares like, here's what my residual from this random show I did years ago, and it's like 37 cents, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

Like, yeah, yeah, like for you mentioned MacGyver, man. I I still will get some that'll be like two dollars. Oh, just kind of funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:09

Like, all right, all right. You should frame them at that point.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

Yeah, yeah, put them up up on the wall, and yeah. But yeah, they still come in, man. It's uh that was the thing with residuals, man. It's uh it's a it's pretty exciting to know that the work that you do just doesn't go away, like it still gets to come back, and then when you get a residual check that's decent, it's like, oh, people are still actually watching and enjoying the show. So that's kind of a neat, neat side of it as well. Yeah, but yeah, so when it came to supplemental income, man, it definitely, yeah, you know, weighted tables forever. Like right now, I'm doing uh like photography for real estate, like real estate photography. So I'm walking all over with a camera and doing that kind of stuff. I'm working at like a hardware store and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:53

Like it's just it's just really strange, man, to to have like these, I wouldn't say it's ups and downs, it's just like a weird it's a combination of life experiences that vary greatly.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:05

Yeah. But it is I think a difficult part about acting is is the perseverance, man. It really is. I think with anybody that that's if you want to do something that you believe in. I mean, like this, man, like even like doing you have to take the time to set up this podcast. You have to take the time to produce it, to make it right, to make it what you want to be, man. It's exciting, it's scary, it's I'm pumped that you're doing it. How do you feel, man? How do you feel about setting it up and diving in? It's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

It's part of that whole kind of idea of uh been doing this for a long time, this career, and I'm thinking, oh, is this do I need to do this? Or like, and that's I I I reduce it down to uh it's not a business decision, yeah. Everybody needs content. And if you're watching this, it's probably because I put a little clip on LinkedIn and uh because I want you to see it, but it's more of like you it's I'm gonna connect it back to something you said. And it's at some point I looked in my network, you know, I don't know if it was like one or two, three years ago, and I looked to my left and I looked to my right, and I saw these amazing people that I met along the way, whether I met them 10 years ago, 12 years ago, five years ago, they were all in their stages of persevering like you are. Yeah. And staying connected to them, I have seen them uh either drill down into their specialty to become just super talented in what they do, or have such a combination of life experiences that makes their story really interesting. And honestly, when I was thinking of my short list, I was like, I gotta get Ethan on here.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:46

I appreciate it, man. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:48

Because I don't know. I mean, I'm a big movie guy, so like your story I'm gonna just gravitate to because oh, what was it like to work across Bradley Cooper? And we're gonna talk about that in a second. Sure, you know, but I just feel like there's also a realism to uh the ups and the downs, and they don't have to be downs, they are just different. Um that we're all trying to make a living, first of all, to like feed our families, feed ourselves. You gotta do that. Yeah, and and if you're in a city like you are today in New York.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:23

Um New York right now. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:25

And so wherever you are, you're gonna try to figure out how to how do I live here? How do I survive? And then how do I, you know, pursue the thing I want to do and still survive? And how do I self-actualize as a person? Am I am I, you know, safe and confident in my identity of who I am and all these things? And ultimate ultimately I looked around me and I saw these amazing people pursuing their careers, and I was like, oh, let me just start a podcast with really interesting people and and have it be very conversational like this. And and it it happens to be that I first episode was a voiceover artist, second episode was a composer. You know, now you're you know you're an actor. I might have like leaders and people from higher education space and all these places, people that I've met along the way.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:10

Um yeah, walks of life, man. Walks of life doing, like you said, doing what they do best.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:14

But ultimately, it's about perspective and it's about realizing that our stories are unfolding in different ways. And it's nice to just sometimes not compare but give get perspective because I like that. Um ultimately your story is I'm hearing is success and perseverance because it's like your next big thing could be right around the corner, but you don't know it. And it's it's past like four failures. And yeah, yeah, yeah. And but it's more about I'm more interested in the guy who keeps saying yes to it every single day and just opens your himself up to possibilities because of the attitude that you have, the approach you have to people. I think that's really interesting because I don't think if other people were in your shoes, I don't think they would come out of it the way you have.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:08

I appreciate it, man. Yeah, but thanks, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:11

So tell me, yeah, tell me about um post-COVID.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

Um, how'd you how'd you end up getting you know the rights of gemstones gig?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:24

Yeah, all right. So again, it was like, yeah, so post-COVID, then we had like uh the writer strike and the the sag strike and all that stuff. So everything shifted around and everybody was kind of wondering what's going on, you know. I feel like it always kind of brings down the conversations like, um, what are we gonna do? Like, what are we doing with our life? But they uh the righteous gemstones was they hadn't announced that it was gonna be the last season yet, I think. They were just looking to do it, but they were looking for a Civil War, like casting an entire Civil War episode, which is really funny, man. If you've seen the show, it has nothing to do with the Civil War at all. So that was like, oh, interesting. But again, they go out to all the actors in Atlanta and surrounding Southeast, and they say, Well, all right, we need people who you know could fit the part, but we're gonna cast, man, I don't know, probably 12. I think it was like 12 roles to fill these different like vignettes that the main character would be walking through.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:19

And just for the record, it's like the past, it's like the ancestor of the main character that they're telling the backstory of how these guys got to inspired by the calling of how it all began.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:33

Yeah, yeah. So this it's the episode's called Prelude. So it's a prelude to the gemstone family. And I I auditioned for I think three roles. I auditioned for three of them. One was the in the episode, the very beginning, there's a priest guy who is played by uh the guy from The Walking Dead who played Eugene in The Walking Dead. Um, and so it's funny to see like who they cast and what roles I played for another one that was just a guy that dies real quick, and then the captain guy that I that I wound up booking. But when I got it, it was I was geeking out because I've I've been a uh Danny McBride fan. I just I like his comedy, man. It's he just does a good job of being that bad guy. So just that alone, I thought, okay. But again, they they don't give you the whole the whole information of like who you're working with, who's the lead person, but I knew it had to be somebody big because the whole episode, like this is the beginning of the Jimstone legacy and all that stuff. So onset, hush hush, nobody knows what it is. So on the the call sheet, when you get a call sheet, it says, These are your directors, here's like what the weather's gonna be, here's the other actors you'll be in your scenes, here's the setup scene, whatever. The top of the list, the number one on the call sheet is always like the lead star. All it had was the character name. So again, like being the actor, like, oh, it's somebody big, and they're not gonna put their name because what if like paparazzi gets it and they say, Look who's gonna be in this, and it spoils it. So again, real hush hush. One of the other guys playing the soldier that's in the scene with me, he came up to me and goes, Hey, do you know who it is? I said, No. I said, Who is it? He goes, I can't say. All I'm gonna say is that he directed a little Netflix movie called Maestro. I said, get out of here. So he and I, two full-grown men, be like, What? It's gonna be Bradley Cooper? It's nuts, man. But so yeah, they hush hush, nobody knew anything. We go on set, the or on location. We're in uh Wilmington, uh, South Carolina, and we're in this field. They have an entire cabin that that set design built that they burned to the ground, so it's like smoldering, and they have a gigantic like Gatlin gun. They have, I don't know, hundreds of extras, like all in uniform, Civil War uniform, horses, people walking around, bodies laying around. It was really, really crazy. Like they I feel like they shot pretty much a gigantic Civil War feature film in the span of six days, was like I think all the shoot was there, eight days or something like that. Anyways, the director uh was uh uh uh Danny McBride. So I'm already geeking out that I'm gonna get to meet Danny McBride. And now they say that Bradley Cooper's gonna be in it. The rumor has it, but we show up on set, and you can tell all the guys are kind of giddy because there's Bradley Cooper. Like, we're work, guys, we we made it. We made it, we're working with Bradley Cooper. Real nice guy, man. He just really, really locked in, really focused on his character, like cares about where the story's going, why every actor's doing what they're doing. Danny McBride was very, very friendly, man. Like he was joking around. Like, I thought we were gonna get fired, man. Me and two of the other Civil War guys, we're not supposed to take any photos, but of course, we're like, okay, guys, let's come over here and let's take a photo. Stupid. But we did. We took a photo, and sure enough, here comes Danny McBride out of Video Village, come walking over at the oh no, we're gonna get fired. But he comes up, hey guys, how's it going? Good to see you. I'm glad you're here. It's gonna be a lot of fun. You know what I mean? I'm like, oh, he's cool, he's a great guy. But experience-wise, man, yeah, like that's I feel like the level that those guys are working at is like kind of the tip top of it all, man. I mean, and uh be toe-to-toe with Bradley Cooper is was uh a learning experience, man. Like I like to see how focused that he was on making it right for the character and how Danny McBride was like folding that in. Because I think being a journeyman actor that who's in in and out of these different scenes and in and out of these different projects, something that I feel like I've never really had that time where I can like fully commit to a character and be like, I am this, not the not that you have to be like method or whatever, but but like to be able to take that time to be as focused as possible on a character.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:54

I I never does that make sense to you. No, I get it. I think I I don't take that time, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:58

To be able to actually live in the character and explore uh what could be, especially if you have recurring, you know, um scenes or or episodes. I I yeah so you got a chance to explore that for even just for that one prelude episode.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

Yeah, to explore that, but more like to learn, just to learn from from Bradley Cooper's approach towards it as well.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:22

You just mean like if you saw his approach to his character and you learned like what to take.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:27

Correct. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, like, oh, okay, I could utilize that just in yeah, just like in further projects.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:33

But dude, that's like those like priceless little nuggets of of information that you wouldn't have gotten unless you start across you know someone like Bradley Cooper.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:43

Like if you had gone to you know, acting school, maybe you could pick those up, but yeah, yeah, but yeah, but again, man, and it's also like to feel kind of like that pressure of like, okay, HBO show, an entire Civil War set with entire moving pieces where you know, like at the end of our little exchange, I ride by right away on horse set or horseback. I mean, and we have on the set, man, there was hundreds of extras behind me that all march behind me. So if I mess up my line, we have to reset everything, you know what I mean? So it's kind of like a lot of pressure, yeah. Yeah, but it it's it's in the best way, though. It's like, well, this is what we're here for, you know. You know, you work to a certain level, and when you get an opportunity, hopefully you hit it. If you don't, that's all right. Dust it off. You'll get it next time, possibly. If you do get it, great, it's wonderful.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:39

So, where are things today? How are things looking for you? Uh, what we missed this in the in the kind of transition. What led you to New York?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:49

Yeah, well, so my wife was she's always kind of wanted to do stand-up comedy, man. Athena, she's always been very hilarious, yeah. She is hilarious, man. And she's kind of having had an itch to do it, and she thought, well, let's uh, if we're gonna go somewhere to to make that happen, I think New York's the spot to be. So we went ahead and we shifted gears, man. And it it was good timing because it was things were shifting in Atlanta. It felt like a little bit, you know, all the things were slowing down, and it's that that moment to be like, well, if we're gonna make a change, let's let's do it now, because it's a good time to do it. And it's uh I think in Atlanta it was just almost too quiet. Like it reminds me of Wyoming a bit too much, which is great. Like if you're ready to settle down and do that, but we're still kind of going, going, going. So we thought, well, why not go into the biggest, most busiest place in the whole world almost? You know, and here we are, man. We're in in New York figuring it out. It's cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:47

And if you were to guess what is potentially coming down the pipeline in terms of the relationships you've built and the opportunities you're looking at right now, what does uh 2026 look like for you?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:06

Um, very optimistic, man. I I I have signed with a new manager, I got my agents in Atlanta, they're still working hard. Like from a creative standpoint and work-wise, I I think it's gonna be a wonderful year, man. I think that there's opportunities that have already kind of come my way. That if those are the opportunities that I'm getting at this early in the year, then I think it's gonna be a great year, man. And in terms of life, I walk so much more in New York City than I ever have in my life, man. So I actually feel better, you know what I mean? Like I feel as a whole. We have a little dog, so it's funny to get the dog out. In Georgia, the dog can run and play in in the fields forever. But here he's got to survive the streets in New York City, baby. But it's fun, man. It's fun to get to walk around and the accessibility of the city, and I think there's a lot of nice opportunity, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:59

Yeah, different energy for sure. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so it takes a bit.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:04

We have a five-story walk-up, we gotta walk up, man. There's no elevator, so I thought I'd get used to it and get strong. No, I just get get angry.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:16

So uh as we look to wrap up this conversation, I'd like always to kind of take a step back and look at you know, your entire career up until now, and that's still unfolding. Um what would you say is like a major lesson or kind of takeaway that you have learned or just uh that's materialized for you? Like um major one or two lessons uh that maybe you could even share with a version of your younger self.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:53

Yeah. So I think a big, big lesson that I've learned through it all is it it's important to make sure that you are keeping your head on straight, if that makes sense. Like the idea of like because for a moment I I it only became like gotta get that gig, you know, gotta get acting, acting, acting, you know, film, film, film, TV, TV, TV. But then you kind of like let things around you kind of fall off the wayside, which isn't good, man. Like health and stuff like that. You gotta, you gotta take care of yourself, man. And I think so, like looking back when I was younger, I was I was always trying to, it's kind of like that people pleaser kind of thing. Like I was always felt like I needed to do the right thing. So that's like even like for my education, man. I went to, you know, got my degree in something, I just threw out the window. Like, why why didn't I go? If I knew what I wanted to do, why not just believe in what I feel and try for it? You know what I mean? So that that was a big lesson. So like now that I've I guess kind of refocused and repurpose life towards like I know what I want to do, and I know some avenues I'd like to try, and I I know that I'm a creative, so it's as long as I can fulfill that while still maintaining my health and maintaining life moving forward, and you know, hopefully have much more good days than bad. And I think that that's the most important thing, man. Just surround yourself with good people and yeah, like it make sure that you have a good time in life while you can I guess like find a way to be able to relax and be healthy.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:32

Yeah, no, I know I I think I heard you saying basically that you were gonna be more true to you to yourself, I think, if you know, moving forward and um and that it's okay to pursue something that you're passionate about. Um so let's say five to ten years from now you're really doing it, you're doing the thing, and it's not so much project-to-project anymore. You have stability, you have relationships, you got a great manager, an agent, you feel like you have a vision of success in your mind. What do you hope is still true about yourself as an actor and as a person, even in that vision of success? What doesn't change?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:24

Yeah, I think what doesn't change for me would I still like the idea of showing up somewhere and being excited to be with the people who are around me, if that makes sense. I think if like on the flip side of that, if you go into a room and you don't feel comfortable and you don't feel right, you know something's off, get out of there. So that's what I look forward to. I want to be able to I mean, like this, man. Like you and I haven't talked in over a decade, man. And the fact that you know you reach out, man, we can still hang out and you take the time to do it, man. I I really appreciate it, man. So it's like it's things like this being able to Yeah, you're saying connections, yeah, connections with people that you actually care about, man, and have a good time and you know, common common thread of just like, hey, you're a good person, I'm a good person. Let's uh let's let's hang out. You know what I mean? Like that, that kind of a feel is what I think. Yeah. So regardless of clout and all that. Yeah, because there's there is a lot more comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:25

There is uh always a threat there of like success creating those kind of barriers for genuine connection in the future of or do people want something from me, or do you have enough margin to actually have people in your life if you're busy or your attention is needed elsewhere? I always wonder how these celebrities actually have relationships that are healthy with like normal everyday people, uh, when they're in you know, in that limelight of uh of like can they be themselves truly? And I hope right and I hope you never have that problem where you feel like you can't be yourself. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's yourself that's gotten you to where you are today, you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's it's funny, man. Like, like you said, like I I imagine, you know, pick anybody who you anybody in the world can recognize if they walk into a grocery store, what that creates for everybody there. It's really strange, man. And they're there's they're just there to shop, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 1:27:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, um the story is ongoing, you know, and I just love the fact that we caught up after a decade, um, you know, getting a chance to hear the ups and the downs, and that all ultimately like there's so much potential here. Um, and maybe we'll revisit it, you know. Let's do it. And yeah, if you have time on your schedule, because I'm sure you will be like busy because you'll be more famous and stuff. But in the it'll happen. It'll happen. In the meantime, thanks again, Ethan. Um, thanks for being here, thanks for sharing. Um, I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:01

Thank you, man. I really appreciate it too, man. Just the fact of being a part of something that you're putting the time and the effort to brighten people's days, man, it's a it's a big deal. So thank you, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:11

Absolutely. All right. This is the power of human stories. See you next time.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:25

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