How Not To Make it In Hollywood

[00:00:00] Entertainment Insights Don't take life too seriously. Welcome to Brainsky Unleashed.

[00:00:07] Ladies and gentlemen, yes we have another episode of Brainsky Unleashed.

[00:00:14] Joined today by a very special guest. This guest is an author, he is an actor,

[00:00:20] he's got an upcoming movie coming out, he's got a book out.

[00:00:24] Fascinating story. I can't wait to dig in. We're joined by David Hearn,

[00:00:29] author of How Not To Make It In Hollywood. Thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:00:33] How do you do, Thomas? Great to be with you. Thank you so much for having me.

[00:00:38] Absolutely. So let's start off with the book, shall we?

[00:00:41] You mean?

[00:00:43] Well, why'd you write that?

[00:00:45] I just happened to have it right here.

[00:00:48] Look at that.

[00:00:48] There it is.

[00:00:49] Oh my gosh.

[00:00:50] It just happens here. How Not To Make It In Hollywood.

[00:00:55] Yes indeed.

[00:00:55] All right. Why'd you write it?

[00:00:58] Well, having spent a decade there of my life, I kind of realized that

[00:01:10] my experience there is a lot more common than most people.

[00:01:14] You know, like people pick up books they want to read how famous people made it.

[00:01:19] How did Marilyn Monroe begin her career? How did so-and-so become successful?

[00:01:25] But for every one of those actors, there's about a thousand that didn't make it.

[00:01:31] So I said, I want to write a book for the people who didn't get where they're going

[00:01:38] because their experiences can be very similar.

[00:01:42] And also, for every actor that made it, there was a period in their life when they

[00:01:50] were struggling.

[00:01:51] I could have used a little advice myself for the years that I lived there.

[00:01:56] So I thought, well, I want to write a book that will tell the truth,

[00:02:02] let people know how it works and offer kind of a little pat on the back on the way

[00:02:08] to kind of let you know it's all right.

[00:02:10] There's a lot of roadblocks.

[00:02:12] There's a lot of difficulty.

[00:02:14] Here's how it works.

[00:02:15] Here's how I worked my way through it.

[00:02:18] Good luck.

[00:02:19] And here's a little bit of advice for you.

[00:02:22] So one of the overarching themes in your book has to do with failure.

[00:02:28] Yes.

[00:02:29] Failure, I mean, this is something that we deal with in any realm of life.

[00:02:33] It doesn't matter whether it's acting or business or school or whatever.

[00:02:38] I mean, we all deal with failure.

[00:02:41] What would your main advice be to anyone when it comes to handling failure?

[00:02:46] Because it's going to happen.

[00:02:49] Yeah.

[00:02:50] Yeah.

[00:02:50] Good question.

[00:02:51] Thank you for that.

[00:02:53] Probably if there's anything I want to impart to people,

[00:02:56] it's how to fail with a measure of grace because it's going to happen.

[00:03:01] I mean, a lie of an actor's life is full of rejection.

[00:03:06] It's just fact.

[00:03:08] So you got to toughen up a little bit.

[00:03:11] You have to understand that casting is a very complex process.

[00:03:16] There's all kinds of reasons why you will or will not get a given role.

[00:03:20] There can be things at work that you're not pretty to.

[00:03:24] So usually like when I go to an audition or something like that,

[00:03:29] you give it your best and then you got to just put it out of your mind

[00:03:33] because sometimes the phone rings, sometimes it doesn't.

[00:03:38] And the more you understand that there are factors at work that aren't directly related

[00:03:44] to you, it takes the heat off of you.

[00:03:47] So you can enjoy kind of going about the process

[00:03:50] and don't put yourself down if you don't get something.

[00:03:54] There may be something they're looking for that you would have no way of knowing about

[00:03:59] and it may or may not be because you did or didn't do a really good audition.

[00:04:05] What you can do is do your very, very best every time.

[00:04:11] That's where you come away feeling good, knowing that you gave it your best

[00:04:17] and the rest is out of your hands.

[00:04:20] You know, David, to me, I'm hearing you say that

[00:04:23] and I'm taking it bigger than your book.

[00:04:25] I mean, that to me is practical advice in every possible way.

[00:04:30] You figure if you fail at anything in life,

[00:04:33] as long as you put your absolute heart and soul into it, you did your best.

[00:04:37] You can walk away and hold your head high.

[00:04:40] An interesting point, and again, I think this applies to a lot of things,

[00:04:45] is when you're dealing with decision makers and you are, in your case,

[00:04:51] acting in front of them, you're auditioning in front of them

[00:04:54] and you really want the part, but they may not want you for this reason.

[00:04:57] And it may have nothing to do with your performance per se,

[00:05:00] as much as it may be, you know what?

[00:05:02] I think this role may be better suited for a guy with a slightly bigger nose.

[00:05:05] I'm just saying.

[00:05:07] Exactly.

[00:05:08] You know, and so beating yourself up is never really the answer.

[00:05:12] So I kind of like where you're going with failing with grace.

[00:05:15] But what does failing with grace actually look like?

[00:05:22] Well, there's one thing in the book that I go through called the bell curve of agony,

[00:05:30] which is the period in between your audition

[00:05:33] and when you find out if you did or didn't get the part.

[00:05:37] And no matter how old you are, how many years you've been in the industry,

[00:05:41] it never gets any easier.

[00:05:44] It's always, you always want the part who doesn't want to work.

[00:05:50] But you have to kind of get larger than that.

[00:05:56] And it'll spare you a whole lot of grief too.

[00:06:01] Believe me, there is more than enough rejection out there.

[00:06:06] You don't need to double it on yourself, right?

[00:06:10] You know, just get onto the next thing and do it really well.

[00:06:16] Now, you the book is, you know, how not to make it in Hollywood.

[00:06:22] One of the things that I believe is critical to any actor or anyone for that matter

[00:06:28] is getting calling attention to yourself.

[00:06:31] You know, if you have no attention called to yourself, you will not be seen.

[00:06:35] What is a good way of calling attention to yourself without looking like a total douchebag?

[00:06:40] Personally, I have a couple of little tricks that I do on that one.

[00:06:48] I like to have the lines down.

[00:06:52] People will notice that.

[00:06:56] I tend to be a good learner.

[00:06:58] And I mean, I can get a couple of script pages and have it down in a few minutes.

[00:07:03] Um, so that impresses.

[00:07:06] There have been occasions when, you know, if I walk in there and I know

[00:07:09] the dialogue and I don't need to stand there holding the script, um, that's a plus.

[00:07:16] It shows that you did some work on your own and you're ready for it.

[00:07:21] Also, if you read the dialogue carefully, you can usually get a sense of the character.

[00:07:28] Not always, because you don't always know the context from a couple of script pages.

[00:07:33] But if you can get an idea from the script as to what kind of character the,

[00:07:39] you know, the part is, if you walk in there and throw out something, take a risk,

[00:07:46] you know, just throw something at them in the guise of the character.

[00:07:51] That can be a real plus too.

[00:07:53] During the audition, the people that are sitting there essentially judging you,

[00:07:59] maybe they had one idea for the character and then you give them something different.

[00:08:03] Or is something that really brings that character to life in a way

[00:08:07] that's going to get probably increase your chances of the part.

[00:08:10] Right.

[00:08:10] But well, let me ask you this though.

[00:08:12] Is the only way to even get noticed at all in Hollywood to have an agent promoting you?

[00:08:18] Or is there anything that you could do outside of an agent that really calls enough

[00:08:21] attention you were, you know, someone may be reaching out to you?

[00:08:24] That's a real deep question right there.

[00:08:27] Because as I out the book, getting an agent for whatever reason,

[00:08:32] I don't know why was just murder down there.

[00:08:36] I have an agent here.

[00:08:38] I'm in Oakland, California.

[00:08:39] I have an agent in San Francisco.

[00:08:41] Getting an agent here was strangely easy after a decade down there,

[00:08:48] just beating my head against the wall.

[00:08:51] I just, I mean, to this day, I still don't know why.

[00:08:56] I joke in the book, do I have a sign on my back that says do not represent?

[00:09:04] It's like it's very impenetrable.

[00:09:06] I don't know what it is with Hollywood agents.

[00:09:09] My agent up here is terrific.

[00:09:11] And they picked me up very quickly after seeing that I had some film credits.

[00:09:16] But I don't know.

[00:09:18] That's a mystery for the ages right there, Thomas.

[00:09:21] Okay.

[00:09:22] Why is it so hard to get an agent in Hollywood?

[00:09:28] You can do stuff on your own.

[00:09:30] You can go to independent auditions.

[00:09:32] But without an agent, you can't really get up on the substantive work

[00:09:36] in film and television and stage.

[00:09:40] I think one of the reasons why I was asking is relevant to today's

[00:09:45] news of the day.

[00:09:47] And if people are listening to this or watching this podcast three years from now,

[00:09:51] maybe you'll remember, maybe you won't.

[00:09:53] But news of the day right now is you have someone who is currently

[00:09:59] going from a general nobody, unknown person who happened to be

[00:10:06] doing like part of a man on the street or woman on the street interview in Nashville.

[00:10:11] And now they're talking about television.

[00:10:14] Is it 15 minutes of fame?

[00:10:15] Is it going to get any bigger?

[00:10:16] This is that that Hawk to a girl, you know, God bless her by the way.

[00:10:21] God bless her.

[00:10:23] But I mean, now you're talking about being famous for ridiculousness,

[00:10:27] for absolutely off the wall things.

[00:10:32] Is it me or is that becoming more common now?

[00:10:36] You're talking about what I call reality television pollution.

[00:10:42] Reality television has sort of infected the industry.

[00:10:48] You know, there was a time when you would go to the movies or put on the TV.

[00:10:51] Only people you would see are actors.

[00:10:55] This new phenomenon of people becoming celebrities for some dumb viral

[00:11:01] something that they put out there.

[00:11:04] That has nothing to do with showbiz.

[00:11:07] That's more the infrastructure of social media that can make a quote star out of somebody.

[00:11:18] Sometimes they last, sometimes they don't.

[00:11:21] I sort of erase all in that from my purview because when you're an actor,

[00:11:28] it's a practice, it's a job, it's a science.

[00:11:33] It's something you have to study and get really good at.

[00:11:37] I was once sent on an audition for a reality television show

[00:11:42] and I was completely all of us, you know, because I'm a character actor.

[00:11:47] I need dialogue and direction and an understanding of the character and all that stuff.

[00:11:54] Reality television is just people being their obnoxious selves

[00:11:58] doing dopey circus acts on video.

[00:12:04] Is it trending?

[00:12:10] I mean, you know, it's one thing to say this is nonsensical.

[00:12:17] But is it trending that direction to where you're now

[00:12:21] as an actor, you are competing against people for some of these, you know, smaller roles.

[00:12:27] You know, have have hoctua as a cameo versus a regular trained actor.

[00:12:33] I mean, is that the direction industry's going?

[00:12:36] Rules have changed since I was there.

[00:12:38] In fact, I've heard that since I was there,

[00:12:44] agents will now not even entertain representing you unless you have a certain amount of

[00:12:52] of social media followers.

[00:12:55] Well, I'm still far behind that eight ball.

[00:12:59] You can forget it.

[00:13:00] I mean, I've been acting since I was five years old

[00:13:03] and I still don't have enough Facebook followers.

[00:13:07] I mean, you know, that would disqualify me right off the top.

[00:13:11] So I don't know.

[00:13:12] You know, there may be other things like that

[00:13:16] that they've input that I'm unaware of.

[00:13:18] I'm OK because I'm in my little niche with my agent here in San Francisco.

[00:13:24] But God help the struggling actor now.

[00:13:27] Right.

[00:13:28] So the key number one is after we record this,

[00:13:31] I'm going to have to send you a Facebook friend request

[00:13:33] to really help you up because that's one more.

[00:13:37] But two, I think one of the takeaways from what we're talking about,

[00:13:40] unfortunately, is having to really increase your social media presence.

[00:13:44] And that's that's sort of it's probably, I guess, an unfortunate frustration

[00:13:49] that can't be ignored if you're trying to get into Hollywood.

[00:13:52] Correct.

[00:13:53] Yeah, now it is.

[00:13:56] I mean, I'm lucky I don't have to deal with it

[00:13:59] because I'm already represented and I'm already busy doing what I do up here.

[00:14:04] But for young new actors, I would say, yeah,

[00:14:08] get your social media stuff in order.

[00:14:11] It certainly can't hurt.

[00:14:14] And if you do have a number of followers that will help.

[00:14:18] I feel completely like a fish out of water talking about this

[00:14:23] because it's I didn't I didn't encounter it right.

[00:14:26] I was still there.

[00:14:28] Well, of course, I was there in the 80s.

[00:14:30] So I was busy in the old days trucking around on the street

[00:14:34] with my pictures and resumes and VHS tapes of my film jobs.

[00:14:40] So it's changed significantly since then.

[00:14:43] But now you've got a movie coming up, so let's talk about that.

[00:14:46] What's the name of the movie?

[00:14:46] When's it come out?

[00:14:47] OK, the name of the movie is Thirsty.

[00:14:49] It stars Kyra Sedgwick and Thor Burge.

[00:14:54] And it there I just went to a screening of it a couple of weeks ago.

[00:15:02] The very first time I saw it, I'm pretty pleased with it.

[00:15:06] It's a story about a young woman who works for the public defender's office.

[00:15:11] She's married with young babies at home and she decides to run for the mayor of Oakland.

[00:15:17] So it's a very contemporary story.

[00:15:19] It's got politics, it's got sex, it's got religion, it's got all the hot button political sort of issues.

[00:15:27] But we've into a story of this woman's run for the mayor of Oakland.

[00:15:34] I'm in the early part of the movie, the ingenue, the lead woman who was played by Jamie Newman.

[00:15:46] I'm her boss at the public defender's office.

[00:15:49] I'm the guy that runs the public defender's office.

[00:15:56] I had a tremendously wonderful time doing it.

[00:16:00] It was a very interesting experience.

[00:16:03] It was a very nice cast and crew.

[00:16:06] Very happy place to be.

[00:16:11] I think it shows in the movie.

[00:16:13] It's a good movie.

[00:16:16] They're looking for a distributor right now.

[00:16:19] I expect that it'll either be in theaters by the end of the year

[00:16:24] or on Netflix and Hulu by the first part of next year,

[00:16:28] depending upon what kind of distributor they get.

[00:16:30] Okay, so without distribution yet, it's in the can but it's being marketed.

[00:16:37] And at some point, God willing, some little pick and roll will be able to see it and enjoy it.

[00:16:41] You said you saw a screening of it.

[00:16:43] Was it a full theater?

[00:16:46] How were people's reactions aside from your own?

[00:16:48] It was largely a cast and crew just first time screening.

[00:16:53] So most people were busy applauding for themselves.

[00:16:56] I was very pleased with the way that it looks.

[00:17:02] I think it's going to be one of those movies that people are sort of chatting about

[00:17:07] because it's full of relevant stuff to today.

[00:17:12] I think it'll probably be what would really be terrific is if it's controversial

[00:17:18] because nothing brings people out like a controversy.

[00:17:21] That is true.

[00:17:22] Any controversial film, one side or the other, will get half the country.

[00:17:26] You'll never get it all.

[00:17:29] You'll get half and that's still not a horrible number no matter how you look at it.

[00:17:32] Hopefully, you'll bring a little bit of the other half too out of curiosity.

[00:17:36] That's true.

[00:17:36] If you're up for a little bit of a challenging story,

[00:17:43] I think it'll do reasonably well.

[00:17:46] I appreciate having you on the program because I've been able to glean some insight off of this

[00:17:53] that even though your book is very much geared towards something in Hollywood,

[00:17:59] I'm a business guy.

[00:18:02] My background is business and I'm not talking about business in terms of I've got an MBA

[00:18:06] and I'm a corporate suit.

[00:18:09] I'm a small business guy.

[00:18:10] I'm an entrepreneur.

[00:18:13] Basically, what you've described is applicable to anyone who wants to take a chance in

[00:18:18] anything in life.

[00:18:20] It's completely applicable regardless of where it fits in.

[00:18:24] I highly recommend people do pick up the book.

[00:18:27] Obviously, when the movie comes out, I want to see it and will I see it on Netflix or Hulu?

[00:18:32] I have no idea.

[00:18:33] If it's going to be in a theater, I'm going to grab my wife and say,

[00:18:35] listen, you got to see this because I know this guy.

[00:18:41] Is there anything else that you would want to impart for the audience

[00:18:44] and just share a little bit of last-minute wisdom before we go?

[00:18:50] I would love for people who aren't in show business to read my book.

[00:18:57] I tried to make it very accessible to people.

[00:19:01] I'm sort of chatting with you.

[00:19:03] I'm bringing you along on a little journey with me.

[00:19:08] So far, I've got a few people who have read it who are not in the business

[00:19:12] who thoroughly enjoyed it.

[00:19:14] That means a lot to me.

[00:19:16] I wanted it to be funny and entertaining enough that anybody from any stripe

[00:19:22] could pick it up and really enjoy the experience of it.

[00:19:26] It's available on Amazon Books right now

[00:19:29] and will be available on other distributors as well.

[00:19:35] I try to give the reader some fun, some entertainment, and some knowledge to boot.

[00:19:43] Before we go, I'm just going to ask.

[00:19:46] If you divulge, you would be wonderful.

[00:19:48] Is there any single moment story thing that happened during your Hollywood career

[00:19:55] that is just crazy, juicy, insane?

[00:20:00] Obviously, I don't need to name names because I understand how that works.

[00:20:03] But is there anything that's in your head, top of mind,

[00:20:06] that you go, man, that was one of the most bizarre things

[00:20:08] a human being could be either a part of or witness?

[00:20:10] I don't have to think too long about that one.

[00:20:16] I was once in a movie on the Playboy channel,

[00:20:22] which was just the lamest, trashiest most,

[00:20:29] it had topless women and a lot of dirty jokes and stuff like that.

[00:20:34] Just, you know, some subintelligent stuff.

[00:20:41] But I enjoyed doing it anyway.

[00:20:47] Did you do the pizza delivery on the Playboy movie?

[00:20:50] You know, almost.

[00:20:52] Oh my God.

[00:20:52] It wasn't pizza.

[00:20:53] It had to come to the door.

[00:20:55] Hello, ding dong.

[00:20:57] You know, the same kind of thing, except we were, what were we?

[00:21:01] We were police detectives.

[00:21:04] That's what the.

[00:21:04] Yeah, I have to invest to get your clothes off.

[00:21:07] Yes.

[00:21:10] Yeah.

[00:21:10] So that taught me a lot because it was right on the edge of the industry.

[00:21:17] You know, the fridge, if you will.

[00:21:22] I guess the lesson I learned from that was where not to go.

[00:21:27] So that fits in with the title of my book, How Not To Make It.

[00:21:31] Porn is probably not the direction to go if you really want to make it big.

[00:21:37] Yeah, it's not a good political stepping stone, if you will.

[00:21:43] Look, Thomas, thanks so much for having me.

[00:21:47] I've really, really enjoyed talking to you.

[00:21:49] This has been loads of fun.

[00:21:51] And, you know, it's funny when you pointed out about your entrepreneurial activities,

[00:21:59] I kind of realized you're right.

[00:22:00] When you're an actor, you're kind of an individual entrepreneur.

[00:22:04] You're running your own show.

[00:22:08] So it's true.

[00:22:09] A lot of that is a play.

[00:22:11] Well, you are your business.

[00:22:12] You are your brand.

[00:22:13] You are your marketing.

[00:22:14] You are your sales.

[00:22:15] You are your operations.

[00:22:16] You are doing all of that.

[00:22:17] It's just it's under the guise of the term actor.

[00:22:20] But the reality is it doesn't change.

[00:22:22] You have a product and you need to start.

[00:22:25] That's right.

[00:22:26] Well, thank you again so much for being part of the program here.

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