From Background to Principal: Two Actors' Journeys in New Orleans and Beyond

Thank you for joining us. I'm TJ and I'm play, though and you're listening to no la film scene.

With TJ and play, though who to thunk?

Who to thunk it and, as you're listening, we're gonna be talking about things related to the entertainment community and Some New Orleans culture.

Maybe a few other surprises, but that's the gist, that's our focus, so we can share for both actors, both kind of new to it. I've been doing this in about four years, since 2019 and same for me.

I I got my start doing Background work. Some projects are under strike conditions right now, so we won't be mentioning things by name, but I got my start doing background and then I moved into principal work and I've been doing that for a little over a year now. Very cool.

I started background as well. And then the acting bug bit me. After a few projects like you said, we can't talk about them right now, even though we're not sag. That's our goal to be sag, sag after, and so we don't want to be steps. And then I started taking acting lessons with Jim Gleason locally here in New Orleans. And then I'm on my way to improv and then even voice acting during the pandemic, which that's a lot of fun. I've always felt like a cartoon might as well be one. And then TJ and I met one of the Exercises, one of the lab works of the Jim Gleason's class, called the circle exercise. I call it lab because it's more doing than studying and it's, it's fantastic.

I love it.

And then I introduced him to my teacher, david Hamilton, over to new bus improv and he got into improv and Then he actually started taking singing lessons. Olivia Peck, we would just happen to be talking and I had made the decision I needed to strengthen my voice because I wasn't doing. You need to do daily exercises too, just like just like an athlete to grow your voice and then get your range.

And then he goes oh yeah, I'm taking singing lessons. I just made the decision to do the who you taking with and it's actually someone we know. So there's a lot of cross-pollination With our classes. Same thing goes with the people we knew and know and have met, and maybe we haven't worked on so many projects together, but it's it's. It's a big family, which you'll hear about in the coming weeks.

That's a fact there that's a good way to put it cross-pollination. I've found that it's, although it's a big community, it's a small community it's. It's really easy to get to know people and I found the the acting community, in particular in the New Orleans area, to be very Welcoming. I've really enjoyed it. I've met a lot of really great people, worked with a lot of great people, and you mentioned the singing lessons, the voice lessons. I first met Olivia working on a project that she was producing, a movie that she wrote and produced and directed and More about that in the coming weeks. That's how I met Olivia and then introduced Brian to her for voice lessons and singing Voice. It's a muscle that you have to. You have to stretch and work and grow that.

Yeah, I think a lot of things we can share is it's all about overcoming the fear for years. I'm 53, so it's not that I sang super badly, it's just people be like, oh, you're singing and that gets into your head, oh, you want to be an actor, you think you're funny. All those negative voices Outside work their way into your head and that I say clamps to flow like a hose, clamps to flow the water coming up. Once you can get past that and just relax. I'm no virtuoso no-transcript, but I'm good enough where, if I can get to be in a cartoon by a certain company run by a mouse, I would be ready at least to give some basic work and belt out a few tunes and make the most right.

That's right. Yeah, like you said, we met in an acting class with Jim Gleason. I took some classes in New Orleans and I'm still studying. I'm trying to expand my range a little bit. Add to the tool belt, try to get some broad Experiences. I got into improv for the very thing that you mentioned is just overcoming some inhibitions, and I took the first couple of classes and now I'm hooked. I love it. I don't know if I'll ever be an improv performer, but I'm into the second level of class now at a new bus and I'm loving it. It's such a great time and it's. It's really helped with the acting stuff too. It helps you think a little bit more freely outside of the confines of just the words you have to say. It kind of has Expanded my thought process a whole lot, helps me think a little bit quicker on my feet now too.

Yeah, it removes that block of I have to do everything, perfect. What would be the most funny thing to say forget it. It just that's right. You say something, bam, I said something, and then we both work with it. If it makes no sense, you just kind of go. You know it's. It's just removing those blocks of fear and it's. It's left me speechless, which is funny for me.

If you know, so we're just using this as an intro and we wanted to say hi before getting ourselves started. We both had, separately, always had the interest of doing a podcast and as we got the talk and anyone do podcast yeah sure, synergy it all happened right at the same time. So we had a thought before we started recording and I'll ask you first, tj, what are seven things about yourself people may not know that you'd want to share, to get them a little enticed, hook them, get them interested in the podcast? Seven things seven things.

Let's see, I'm married. I've been married for 18 years. I've got two teenagers. My teenage son is a type one diabetic and is a pretty high-level Competitive swimmer. I am an absolute computer nerd. That Brian's laughing. He knows I'm. Yeah, I'm a nerd when it comes to computers and it's kind of kind of confusing. I don't. I don't think I look like I would be a computer nerd, but I am well, it takes all types to be in the realm of nerd.

That's right, I am also a huge sci-fi nerd. I love a lot of the sci-fi TV shows and movies that we can't really get into detail on. How many is that? What are we up to?

I'm on four and it's all right, but I believe that was four.

That's four. I said I think quick on my feet earlier and now I'm. Now I'm stuck.

That's number five. It happens. No matter how much you train, you can have a brain fart. Yeah well, it's something.

I'm trying to talk about yourself. It's hard to come up with stuff.

Chin there.

I'm pretty heavily bearded. I think that might be what I'm known for is having a pretty, pretty healthy beard. People ask me how long I've been growing it. I've been growing it for about eight years now. I've trimmed it about half the length that it is now one time and I keep it about where it is. I don't want to get too much longer because it frankly, just it gets caught in stuff. It gets in the way. Let's see, I think we're at six that was six.

One more you could do it one more.

I used to be heavily into cave diving.

I didn't even know that.

Wow, that's seven that's seven, all right, your turn play though.

Okay, I've never been in the cave diving diving, but I have dove into a watermelon and a hot tub at different times. Interesting, I had monkeys as pets growing up squirrel monkeys. Interesting, I was gonna be a priest right after high school, decided, wasn't? He came back to New Orleans. I was in San Antonio. I dated a vampire. After that Interesting I even lost town, was that for I?

think yeah.

I am a big nerd, also started with comic books. Love sci-fi, sword and sorcery and fantasy, but that's not the limit of my fandom. I love mystery. I've been listening to power and the Murdoch mysteries, which are from separate countries, so we can talk about that a little bit. Love Sherlock Holmes. Anything intelligent you know makes your brain work. Oh, tj and I talked about this. We share a love of Dungeons and Dragons. That's right.

Yeah, I was in a game and the guy in charge took cowboys and Indians figures and then molded them and painted them and put costumes on it and he had armies, not the little pewter figurines that they sold Right. He made his own stuff. And then, you know, that game went on for years, Loved it ended up, you know, stopping doing that. Would love to get into it again at some point. I never did magic, the gathering, I'm before the cards. You know it was, it was too much.

I didn't either.

I even tried the video games and it was too much for me. I am a huge pro wrestling fan but I don't watch it anymore. Say why? Well, there's so much of it on TV to keep up with it and so much of my time is acting classes and stuff. I had to make a decision. Just my own energy. Still love that. I met junkyard dog when I was a kid. Mid-south wrestling is partially in New Orleans and my friend was. His dad was a security guard, so we got to go back there and I had an autographed picture of him and I don't have any more and it's one of the things that kicked myself for not having. And I believe, number seven although doing this you may see that I can't count. Oh, and I had something I forgot Brain fart Wrestling fan. Oh, oh, that happens to the best of us. Yes, sir.

And I am nowhere near the best of us.

I was a Saint Super fan, and now what does that mean? New Orleans Saints To Super fans of the people you see, who dress up in costumes for the game, Faced paint, whole outfits. Well, I was Captain Crescent City and that's like a black and gold Captain Maru, and we did. We were invited to a lot of parades being here in New Orleans, and then there was pep rallies and prongs for those with special knees, which I loved helping out there doing some tailgating.

I didn't have the money to get into the games. One time I did, and it was front row and my fellow Super fan sold it to me for 30 bucks, which was like half the price, and he's taken so much money. And I had this black and gold shield and you can see me leaning over the thing you know, making sure I got on camera and I was in Drew Reeves' birthday video sung by Choppa Style. So that was my first thing. We'll talk about that later. Again, I had to give that up for the time and energy that it took away from my acting classes. But and my friend's still kind of hey, you're gonna, you want to come join us and I'm like I want to, but I just can't, man. It's just so and it breaks my heart. You know what I mean. It's it's even more so than the rest and he's like I want to go out and play, but Captain Crescent City, I would like to copyright him and make a comic book and a cartoon one day.

So it's. It's interesting that you were a pro wrestling fan. I also was into it pretty heavily. I had a friend in the military that he was. He was huge into it. I'm like you're crazy, that's, that's fake. Why would you watch that? And he's like, bro, it's about so much more than that. I'm like, how's that? He said well, think about it. They get paid to work out, travel, wrestle and be on TV and it's. It's more than just wrestling. The whole thing is like a soap opera. It's like a story that just it's a, instead of just one story on TV one time. The whole thing is a story from week to week, and then there's the behind the scenes drama that all gets worked into the story. It's all a big story.

Yes.

And I was coming back from Canada one time and I fancied myself to be relatively fit at the time and one of the girls on the trip was walking right next to me we were sleepy, I had getting off the plane, it was somewhere in in the North Michigan, somewhere like that and she's like how come you don't look like that? And I turned and looked and it was edge from WWE standing there. This was, you know, in his earlier days, when he was really big and he was really tanned and he was standing there. I stopped and looked at him and I was still watching the show at that time and he was nice. He said hello and I rounded the corner.

I have never been real big on going up and talking to people, but Stone Cold was standing there and there were a couple of others walked right by Stone Cold and at that time we were pretty close in size and shape. She said how come you don't look like that? And Edge was just like shredded and I said, because that's edge, that's a pro wrestler. She's like what I'm like? That's that's edge from WWE. So yeah, I didn't look like pro wrestler.

Oh no, when Royal Rumble came to town in 2001. January 2001 came to New Orleans. That's when they had will call tickets, which is you ordered them online and you picked them up at a Boot. But it was still new. Now we all just do it on our phones. And I wasn't dressed as a wrestler, but I was bald, I didn't even have the beard and I'm walking and I hear hey, it's tone calls a little brother.

You know, I wasn't even as as hefty as I am now, and hefty I mean, I've got some pounds on. I know you can't see it, but I'm confessing to you audience.

So that's not having some pounds.

Yeah, and not the money from Britain, but anyway. But as we walk past, we were skipping the line. So it was hey, it's, don't close, brother, where's he think he's gone? Hey, what are you doing, see, I'm going to get my ticket. So, uh, yeah, I just always love the store and it's used to call it a soap opera with testosterone poison.

Yeah it's right, it's, it's all the top, it's great.

And then those guys can really get hurt, you know. But uh, so before we started, don't even know if I mentioned in my seven Dungeons and Dragons.

Dungeons and Dragons. Yeah, let's circle back to that.

Yeah, I didn't know that you, you were an old gamer.

Yeah, you know I've. I've been into PC gaming since the late 90s. Before it was really an online thing and I remember I Remember having to put multiple discs in and I remember when it first started online you had to find the right room to get into to play. And I got into console gaming. For a little while it was on the Xbox and that was when I first started getting into you know great play where you're meeting people online and being able to communicate through the headset while you're playing and I I switched back out of console gaming and got back into PC gaming and now I'm strictly a PC gamer. Dungeons and Dragons. As a teenager I wasn't allowed to play because kids were going out into the woods and in caves and and getting killed.

Yeah, it's not really true, but yeah it was.

It was right that that was a scare of the 80s.

Yes, that that was the mindset of the parental units at the time. So not saying that I I didn't play with friends in the neighborhood. I just I wasn't able to be as into it as others were. Like we certainly weren't able to play at my house. I didn't have my own. You know characters. I'd have to borrow one from people and played a little bit in the military in the early days. But it was always at that time kind of hard to find the right group of people to play with. They could get together Because somebody always had, they were on duty or they were deployed or something was going on. It's been a minute since I played, but you know, I'd kind of like to get back into it. It's just hard to find time. It's it's tough to stay up to date and taking acting classes and everything that's going on it's, you know, just adulting. Sometimes it makes it difficult. I hate adult.

But there are podcasts where they just play Dungeons and Dragons.

It could be a secondary podcast for us to maybe even interesting episodes we bring a game, and Dungeons and Dragons doesn't have to be limited to the fantasy world. It could be modern times, it could be space. You can just adapt, whether it's using those rules or somebody there are different games and just do what you want. So there's some thoughts we can put in our heads. My first character was a cleric. People don't know. A cleric is a priest, can't have an edge weapon, bash people over the head with a mace. They're attributes strength, wisdom, a lot of good mace, and it's not the kind you spray, although you could probably make your own version in the game. You roll your dice and you get six attributes, three to eighteen. So if you have a eighteen and that's your strength you're probably gonna be a fighter. Intelligence, probably with a wizard, and then Wisdom good for clerics, because you have to be wise.

So that was my first character and I played that same character for years. Stop before the end of high school, Just stop playing. Graduated high school and then became religious and joined the seminary. So I was gonna be a priest, I was gonna be a cleric, not because of that. Just things turn out and I look back and oh, that's kind of funny. Well, I had had my wisdom teeth removed. I was born with three, I don't have the fourth one. Middle of the seminary in that one year. They yanked him out by the end of that year. Not because of that. I ended up saying this isn't for me. So when I lost my wisdom, I was no longer a cleric.

Interesting. Wisdom teeth. That was a big thing in the Navy. I started my military career in the Navy and transitioned to the Coast Guard and all the guys in I started out enlisted and I got commissioned later on in boot camp. A lot of the guys in my division were going into the submarine program and you had to have your wisdom teeth out before you could go because of the pressure and so it goes down. So I remember guys getting their wisdom teeth pulled during boot camp and they were laid up for a couple of days. You know, because it's a, you know the aftermath of that procedure is pretty rough. I didn't have to get mine out because I wasn't going in a boat that sinks on purpose. I just wouldn't. That wasn't my jam.

Then, after I got out of boot camp, I had one that was coming in, a little bit crooked, and at the time I worked in the medical field. So my clinic was right across the parking lot from dental and I went in there and the doctor was a Navy captain which is an O six, same as a colonel in other branches, and I don't know if he just didn't get the right angle, didn't put enough, but one of them just wasn't numbed up all the way and that dude put his knee in my chest and was pulling and I'm you know he was pretty painful and he leaned in and he said stop yelling, you're scaring the other patients. And he pulled that dude out without anesthesia. That was my experience with getting my wisdom teeth pulled Not fun, I was drugged. I wonder why people are scared of or hate to go to the dentist.

Wow, I'm speechless. I have found a new dentist. You know somebody I've been going to regularly for about a year or now, because after that it's not like I avoided them First. I couldn't afford it and he went ahead insurance through a work use order for FedEx because I work graveyard shift, doing something during the day was near impossible, you know.

I mean it wasn't a priority. Then I stopped working there and didn't have the insurance is like damn, I should have done some. But so, anyway, I think this is a good intro. Yeah, told people a little bit about us, you know. And actually tomorrow, ladies and gentlemen, we're going to talk with our first guest, a friend of ours just named Hick Sharon, and if you think Hick's gonna, be pretty well known in the acting community.

he will you know, someday people other than the people we know will listen to this. They don't know it, but it's going to be a battle of the beard. I've already lost.

DJ and Hick are going to be the beards. I'm hoping Hick will give me, give me some tips, because his is a straight illustrious.

It's full. I'm just going to say back here with the Tony Tony beard in the grade.

Thanks for listening to no film scene with TJ and Plato. Tune in next week where we talk to our very first guest, hick. Jeremy, we're talking to you, tj. See you next week. See you next week, brother.