075 Doing What Scares You

It's a solo episode fellow daydreamers. This week Charlie talks about his appreciation for artists that dive into work that scares the hell out of them. He discusses Jonah Hill's documentary Stutz, the current Broadway production of Topdog/Underdog, Howard Stern's Springsteen interview, the actress Emma Corrin, and the playwright Adrienne Kennedy who at 91 is finally receiving her first Broadway production. You can follow CBP on Instagram @creatingbehavior, and Charlie's NYC acting conservatory, the Maggie Flanigan Studio @maggieflaniganstudio. Theme music by  https://www.thelawrencetrailer.com. For written transcripts, to leave a voicemail on SpeakPipe, or contact Charlie for private coaching, check out https://www.creatingbehaviorpodcast.com

Transcript

Speaker 1:

I don't know about you, but I am always drawn to the work of actors, artists, directors, you name it, who are really operating outside their comfort zone. So if I read an article or I listen to an interview, and it's clear that this particular artist is doing something currently that really scares the hell out of them, I'm drawn to it, especially if they are really, really talented. And so today that's what we're going to talk about, some shit that I've been watching over the last month that has to do with artists that are doing just that. I'm going to talk about the Howard Stern interview with Bruce Springsteen, which is incredible; a Jonah Hill documentary called Stutz; the work of Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen. We're going to talk about Emma Corrin and her latest film, Lady Chatterley's Lover. And then we're going to wrap it up talking about Adrienne Kennedy, the incredible playwright who, at 91, is finally getting a Broadway premiere. It's a solo episode today, my friend. So put the phone back in your pocket. Creating Behavior starts now. (singing)

Well, hello, my fellow daydreamers. Happy holidays. If you're listening to these shows on a regular basis, you're coming in hot at Christmastime. Yeah, I'm actually sitting here in the living room, looking at our Christmas tree. I love Christmas trees, love them. And of course, we finally put ours up the day we were out of town for Thanksgiving. We hung out with my mom and my sister about an hour and a half south of DC, on the Potomac River. It was really pretty. But we were out of town.

Now, usually Friday, day after Thanksgiving, I'm getting a tree. But we didn't get home till Sunday. So, we get home on Sunday night. We were in the car for six or seven hours. And I said, "We got to get a tree." Now, of course, it's pouring down rain and Trish is like, "Are you serious? We're going to do this now?" I said, "Trust me. We got to get this tree now. Get it out of the way so that tomorrow, tomorrow night, we can decorate it." Well, she didn't want to do it, but I insisted. So we go. It's pouring down rain. Get a really great tree, bring it back, let it dry out.

And I am a huge, huge lover of these ornaments that are made by Christopher Radko. Any of you guys are ornament collectors, and you don't know who Christopher Radko is, you're not serious. Okay? Beautiful. He's been around a long time. And they're not cheap, but they're so eclectic. So I have a ton of Christopher Radko ornaments. I've had them for years, way before I met Trish. And so, of course, we break out the ornaments. And at some point she goes, "Next year I'd like to have a tree that I can have a part in designing. It's always about you and your ornaments." I'll tell you, that really me fucking pissed me off. And so we got into a nice, big fight about the fucking Christmas tree that lasted about two days. And finally I just had to let her have her complaint. See, it was up to her, she would just have a tree of white glass balls or white silver balls, and that would be it. She just like one thing. I like an eclectic mix. I mean, our tree has a bunch of different ornaments on it, and I like that.

But anyway, the tree's up. I'll tell you what we're never going to do again, and we did it like two years in a row, is go to a tree farm and cut down a Christmas tree. And the last time we did that, which was, I think, two years ago, it was really warm outside. So we'd go to this tree farm, and it was warm. There were a lot of ticks and bugs. It wasn't really pleasant. So we bring the tree back and get it up. And the next morning we come out, and I'm not kidding you, there were probably a hundred to 200 little baby spiders all over the ceiling, all over the wall. There were bugs everywhere. It took us like a day to rid the apartment of all these bugs. So never again. No. I like to go right around the corner, pay my $200 and get a tree, walk it back 50 yards and have it home. It's worth every penny.

We're going to Guatemala for Christmas. We leave in about a week. I haven't been down there in almost two years. So I'm looking forward to getting down there and hitting the garden and going to the farm and riding some horses and acting like a faux cowboy again, spend time with her family. That'll be nice. And wrapping up this semester at the studio. Our first holiday party is this week. Haven't had a holiday party in a couple years. So I'm excited to do that. And there's a lot to be grateful for as we close out this year. Other than that, everything's great. I'm sitting here with Wally. He's curled up right behind me. When Trisha is not home, he gets very depressed. So thankfully, I'm recording here when he's just curled up and moping around, which is fantastic.

So, let's talk about a couple of things, shall we? I saw Topdog/Underdog the other night, with Corey Hawkins and Yahya Abdul-Mateen. And for my money, I think Topdog/Underdog is probably, if not the most, up there with Angels in America, probably the two most important plays written in the last 30 years. And The New York Times did an article on this, and I think they actually put Topdog/Underdog as the number one play of the last quarter century. Suzan-Lori Parks won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. She was the first African American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for drama. So that was significant. And I remember seeing it in 2002. Knocked my socks off. It had an incredible cast, with Mos Def. I think he goes by a different name now, but at the time, Mos Def, and Jeffrey Wright. And it wrecked me. It was incredible. It is a seminal piece of playwriting, and it's back on Broadway for the first time in 20 years.

Now, I have to tell you, I see a lot of crap, usually, when I go to the theater. And very rarely do I stay to the end. And every once in a while, you're treated to a real gem. And that's what this production of Topdog/Underdog is. It's incredible. Kenny Leon directs it. And Corey Hawkins, in particular... If you guys are in are in New York, and you are not going to see this, you are crazy. You're not serious about consuming really good theater. It's very rare to have a performance like this. Corey Hawkins is, I'm telling you, virtually unrecognizable. It is a complete transformational performance. And what makes it so special is the attention to detail.

It's about two brothers, Booth and Lincoln, two African American men, and it's about their relationship. They're both hustlers in different ways. Corey Hawkins' character, Lincoln, is really, really, really good three-card monte player. And his brother, Booth, wants to get back on the streets and start to hustle again. Corey's character, Lincoln, gave it up couple of years ago. It's like a drug to him. It's like he's an addict who's cleaned himself up, and he just doesn't want to go near it. But there's a particular line that Booth says in the script, about when their mother abandoned them and left. And he said, "Mom said to me that I need to take care of you. And I never understood that because I'm the younger brother, and you're the one that's supposed to take care of me."

And then, as you watch the play unfold, and you see Corey Hawkins' character, the subtle physical ailments, the slight hitch in his cognitive abilities, this worn-down man who's really young, you're talking 30s, but just you could tell it is beaten down by life. There's just something off with him. That is a acting choice. And it stems from that line. When you see his performance, you understand why their mother said to the younger brother, "You need to look out for Linc." It's those little gems. It's those little jewels that a writer can give you, that can launch you into an acting idea that supports an entire character idea. It was incredible.

Listen, I've read this play probably 10 times in the last 20 years. I've worked on some of these scenes in advanced scene study class. So you know how it ends. And even knowing how it ends, knowing what's happened, I still sat there just bereft at the end. And it's been a long time since I sat at the end of a show fully alive, broken emotionally. It is incredible. So if you're in New York in the next month or two, I think it's running for a couple more month. You got to see it. It was incredible. It left a mark on me, and it'll probably go in the top 10 to 15 things that I've ever seen on stage. That's how good I thought the acting was.

It's a vulnerable piece of work. And Yahya, also, really good. It's not character work in the same style that Corey approached Linc, but they were in the moment. They were working off each other. They were alive. They had behavior. Are you kidding me? They had behavior in every moment. They were responding to each other, whether they had lines to say or not. There was continual responding, continual behavior. It was an exceptional work of art.

I said in the open about being drawn to work that I know is risky from the artists. I love knowing that someone's doing something that scares the hell out of them. There's this documentary on Netflix called Stutz, S-T-U-T-Z. Some of you might have seen it already. If not, I highly recommend this. It's a documentary. Jonah Hill, the actor, it's his idea. And he's put together this documentary on his psychiatrist, his therapist, this guy named Phil Stutz. He's out in LA. He's been working with patients for, I don't know, 40 years, 45 years, 50 years. He's 75 now. And he's been working with Jonah Hill for quite some time. And so Jonah Hill decides to make a documentary about his therapy, which just in and of itself, when you think about that, is a rather scary and risky thing to do.

And the way they set up the whole entire premise, they make it seem like it's one session, that that's what they're recording, one session. And then through, over the course of the documentary, they reveal to you that, "No, that's not really the truth. We've been shooting this for two years." And they kind of break the fourth wall, and they open up the entire conceit of the documentary. And the conversation gets, it gets real. And Jonah Hill, in particular, is very forthright about a lot of things, about his weight, his issues with losing weight, gaining weight, the insecurity that comes from that, his anxiety, his depression and just how it relates to his creative life. And I think for any actor or for any artist, and for anybody who either is in therapy or is thinking about therapy or who suffers in various degrees, as we all do, it's a great documentary.

There's one quote in particular that Stutz, Phil Stutz, says, that stuck with me. I'd love to share it with you. He said, "Pain, uncertainty, and constant work. No matter how successful you become, no one ever is free from them. No one." He also said, "Happiness is not an accomplishment. It's a process," which I thought was very interesting thing to say. It's an original idea, and I love it. And I found it very helpful. Talks a lot about the inner critic, that voice that really sabotages you. How do you embrace it? How do you work with it? How do you deal with that inner critic? So I recommend it. It's called Stutz, on Netflix.

I read a really great article in The New York Times by Melena Ryzik on the actress Emma Corrin. Now, I at first had no intention of watching Lady Chatterley's Lover. I had seen various versions of it. I had read the D. H. Lawrence book, my God, 30 years ago. And that's what it's based off of, DH Lawrence's book of the same name that came out, late '20s. I want to say '27, '28. It was very, very racy at the time. It was banned for decades, many places around the world. It's about a woman in that post-World War I era. Okay, so we're talking about the late 1910s, 1918, 1919, around there. She's married to an aristocrat. He becomes paralyzed in World War I. When he comes home, he's just kind of sexually dead. He can't perform sexually, he's unable to give her what she wants. And he recommends to her, "Listen, why don't you find somebody to have a baby so that we can have an heir?" And what happens is she gets into a relationship with one of the groundskeepers. And it's very racy. It's very passionate. It's very sexual.

And the article, the New York Times article, was about shooting this film. And she talks about how terrifying it was. So, because of this article, I decided to watch the movie. There's one scene in particular that she talks about. And there's one scene in particular that I thought was a really good, fine piece of acting. Now, first off, this woman's 26 years old. She's skyrocketed. I mean, her portrayal of Lady Diana in The Crown was just a first-rate piece of character acting, really catching the essence of an iconic human being. But this film, when you watch it, and you just think about the vulnerability that had to go into shooting this film...

Now, Emma Corrin stars opposite Jack O'Connell in this film. He plays her lover. And when you watch it, the vulnerability that these two had to access in themselves... I mean, the sex scenes alone are intense. They're passionate. She talked about how scared shitless they both were. They worked, in a very detailed way, with a intimacy coordinator to map out everything, to make sure the boundaries were clear, to make sure that they felt safe, so that then they could just really commit fully to it. There's scenes where she's masturbating, and the camera is just tight up on her face as she does it. And this is vulnerable shit, right? I mean, that's really scary.

There's this beautiful scene toward the end of the film, where the two of them get naked and just dance through the fields in a rainstorm. And the freedom, the joy, the playfulness, the reckless abandon of seeing these two people, who are so deeply in love, just fully present and engaged in this childish, playful moment was really beautiful. And it was a courageous piece of acting, if you think about just trying to shoot something like that. And it was very touching. You can't help but watch that scene and just have a smile break out on your face because it's just so universal. It's something that we all can understand and appreciate because maybe we've had a moment like this. I mean, maybe not naked, running through the fields with your lover, but that kind of playfulness, childlike just sense of wonder about the rain and the grass and the blue sky. It was just really wonderful.

And there's another particular moment that I really liked that, when you watch it, just notice it because it's really a first rate moment. It's a scene with her husband. He takes her on this walk to overlook kind of their property. And this is where he's talking about wanting an heir and needing an heir. And he makes a suggestion to her that she find a lover to have a child with that they could raise as their own, so that they could have an heir. She does not see this coming. It comes out of nowhere. And the surprise on her face... As the seconds go by and you see her kind of process what he's saying to her and what he's just asked her, you could see the... It's uncomfortable. It's upsetting. She's surprised. She's intrigued. It's a very complicated moment. And she kind of catches so many different colors just in a span of maybe 10 seconds, 15 seconds. It's a really good piece of acting. And at 26 years old, this actress is working at a very high level.

So it's a film worth watching, and it's a performance to appreciate because that's not an easy thing to do. So watch Lady Chatterley's Lover on Netflix. Okay? All right.

As you know, I'm a big fan of Jessica Chastain. I think she's one of the best actors working today. So anything she does, I'm going to watch it. There's a really good movie, and I believe it's on Netflix. It's called The Good Nurse. It's based on a true story about this nurse. His name's Charlie. I forget his last name. But he was a serial killer. And this was, I don't know, maybe 20, 25 years ago. He was poisoning saline bags, and they were getting hooked up to patients, and people were dying all over the country because this guy was killing them and getting away with it. And the movie is about the nurse, his coworker, who slowly realizes what's going on and is the one that turns him in, after they've already become very, very good friends.

It's a really good film. It starts Eddie Redmayne and Jessica Chastain. I like it because the way they dramatize the film, it really, the heart of it, the spine of it is in the friendship that is formed between Eddie Redmayne's character and Jessica Chastain's. He shows up at this hospital. He left the other hospital, gets to this hospital, where she works. She's an overnight nurse. And they become very good friends. Comes over to the house a lot. He's bonding with her kids. And in the process, he's killing patients because he's a serial killer. But you would never know. The way they dramatize this, the way they it's written, is you really see the human side of this guy, the good qualities in him. And they leave all of that other nasty shit, really, to the very end of the film. And when you're working with a really first-rate actress, whose sense of truth is so rock-solid... I mean, both of them are.

But Jessica Chastain was talking about this relationship, and the fact that she's letting the character, she's letting this guy, really bond with her kids and be alone with her kids, watch her kids, babysit her kids. And one thing she was concerned about, and she speaks about this in a lot of her interviews, is that she didn't want her character, Amy, to appear as foolish for trusting this guy. And this is a quote here from a Vulture article. And this is in conversation with Eddie Redmayne and the director. "We all three talked about this. I said, 'You guys have got to help me out here because Amy's not an idiot. If I see something that's weird about Charlie, I'm not letting that guy around my kids.'" That's an actress who's got a rock-solid sense of truth. And as they shoot these scenes, if Eddie Redmayne starts doing some weird shit that comes across is kind of sketchy, Jessica Chastain's sense of truth is just not going to be able to go with it.

And so, I mean, those are the kind of conversations that I think are really good to have when you're working with really talented people that know how to work. Those are the kind of conversations, as an actor, you need to be able to have, especially when something's happening in rehearsal where you might be getting something from another actor, which just is going up against your sense of truth. It's an absolute okay thing to do to say to the director, "Hey, listen, I need help with this because right now, this is affecting my ability to be able to do this or do that because of what I'm getting." Now, what you don't want to do is give a note to the other actor. Okay, I think we have to bring notice to this, right? Incredibly taboo. Don't give fucking notes to another actor. Don't ever do it. It's the quickest way to ostracize yourself from a cast, to make yourself look like an asshole, is to give another actor a note.

And the payoff of this film is at the end, when Charlie, the nurse, is finally arrested, and he's in this holding room, and he's being interrogated by the detectives who put this case together. And then, finally, Anne, Jessica Chastain's character, comes to talk to him to really, finally, get him to confess. It's a great piece of just subtle, intimate, one-on-one acting, fully alive, two really good actors working at the top of their game, worth seeing. The Good Nurse.

Another must is the Howard Stern interview of Bruce Springsteen. You can get it on HBO, HBO Max. Incredible conversation. You can say what you want about Howard Stern and his radio career. I mean, he's a legend. That guy knows how to interview. The conversations he has with people, what he can get a guest to say, how he gets them to open up and talk about things, is exceptional. And this is, I don't know, a good two and a half hour interview. It's mixed with conversation. It's mixed with unplugged acoustic guitar-playing from Bruce, piano. He's singing songs. Just the insights into his career. And he's 73 years old, 72, 73 years old. He still looks incredible. And what he has to say about his career, about music, about his creative process, it's amazing. This is a guy who was obsessed from a very young age. You should read his autobiography, Bruce Springsteen. It's one of the better books you'll read about obsession, about commitment, about hard work, mixing that up with incredible talent. And that's where, my goodness, the sky's the limit.

Couple things he said that stuck out to me. And here's one. He is quoting Martin Scorsese, he thinks. But this is the quote. He says, The job of the artist... I think it was Martin Scorsese who said this... is to make the audience care about your obsessions." Love it. Here's something he said about his own creative process. He said, "There's always something going on you don't understand. Any good piece of music has the X factor, where you don't understand how you wrote it. That's why I don't know if I'm going to write again. Who knows? I don't know. It's magic."

It had me thinking about inspiration and where it comes from. When I'm in the classroom, when I'm... my students in the first year of the Meisner work, where they're challenged. And those of you that did the work with me or someone else, you know that the independent activity in first year, it demands on you a weekly, relentless requirement to come up with something, to come up with an idea, to come up with something to do, to come up with a previous circumstance. It's just week after week after week of creation, of imagination, of daydreaming. And my students talk about this a lot as they're in the midst of that struggle right now, of just kind of laying in bed, looking up at the ceiling and not having anything going on in them creatively. No ideas, have no idea what they're going to do next. "I got class tomorrow. I've got a deadline. I've got rehearsal. I've got to be there at 10:00 AM tomorrow with an activity. Fuck. What am I going to do?"

You just don't know where it comes from. But... And I've said this before. I think this is true... you have to continually take in. You have to continually read the news. You have to listen to music. You have to take in nature. You have to read, because something is going to spark an idea for you. Something. And if you don't stay open to the world, if you don't allow your imagination to wander, if you get fixed on, "Fuck. What am I going to do now? What am I going to do now? I need to write," and you sit down, if you're a songwriter, and you're sitting down with that pen and paper, and you're like, "Fucking create something," it's just never going to happen that way.

It's the same thing with approaching a script, trying to create a character. You've got to give yourself an opportunity to ruminate, to daydream and to imagine. And I think that that's what Springsteen is saying there about his own writing. And then that also has to be very scary to think, "Am I ever going to write another song? Am I ever going to do anything that good again?" That's, I think, part of the creative process that can really rock people, especially when you get really successful, and there becomes a demand for your worker or an expectation that everything you're going to do is going to be a home run or is going to be epic. That's a hell of a lot of pressure.

And he had a really good thing to say about his own work ethic. You think sometimes, when people get to that kind of level, that kind of iconic status, that they just do their work, call it a day, and go about their life, when really, they're still as obsessed as they were when they were just starting out and trying to make it. This is something he said in the conversation with Howard. He said, "Part of it is just a work ethic of the way you came up. We used to do five sets a night. We used to play five hours a night. Now if I play two hours, people are going to be disappointed. I got to play at least three." He said, "My problem would be, I'd play three hours, and then something wouldn't go right on one of the songs toward the end of the show, and I'd kill myself for the rest of the night, just beat the hell out of myself. I'd get in the bus on the way to the next town, and that's all I could think about."

That is someone who is dedicated to what they do, who is always striving for perfection, even though it's not possible. But the attention to detail and the slightest thing that's off, something that's not right, is the obsession to try to fix it. I have such a respect for that, such a deep appreciation for that. Even if you're not necessarily a Springsteen fan or that's not your kind of music, it is worth listening to. It's an incredible interview. Watch it. Okay?

And the last thing I want to talk about today is the playwright Adrienne Kennedy. There's a really great article in The New York Times by Scott Brown. It's a very lengthy piece that goes into her entire career. Adrienne Kennedy is one of the more important playwrights in American theater, certainly in the last 60 years, especially as a woman of color, as a black voice. She's 91 years old, you guys, 91, and she's finally getting her Broadway debut. It's a play called The Ohio State Murders. It's starring Audra McDonald. If you're in New York City, if you're coming to New York City in the next couple of months, in the new year, you got to see it. Another play directed by Kenny Leon. This guy is all over the place.

Adrienne Kennedy's been writing since the 1960s. A lot of plays done off-off Broadway, downtown theater. Her work is incredibly provocative. It's visceral. It's absurdist. Her work has never been for the masses. It has been a voice that has been rich in tackling racism, misogyny, sexism. And it's very absurdist, her work. It's not something that is written for mass consumption. People just really never really took to it on a mass scale. She had this play in the mid-60s. It was done at La MaMa, which is a really famous off-off-off Broadway experimental theater, formed by Ellen Stewart way back in the '60s. It was a play called A Rat's Mass. It was about two half rodent siblings who long for a white baby. Now, how absurd is that?

She had a play called Cities in Bezique, which is about sexual assault and rape. Another play, decades ago, called A Movie Star Has to Star in Black and White. It's about these white Hollywood actors, icons, who try to channel a black woman's family trauma. And Suzan-Lori Parks kind of sums it up good in this article, this New York Times article about Adrienne Kennedy. She said, "The world wants certain kind of folks spoken about in certain ways. The marketplace doesn't want us getting too deep." When it comes to black voices, the black experience, that's very true. Even on the last episode, with Guy Lockard, him talking about, just as a black man, being able to show real anger on camera and how that's subtly and sometimes overtly just squashed. Oh, you can be frustrated. You can be a little irritated. But you can't be angry, because the folk, the mass folk, aren't going to want to see that. The white folk aren't going to want to be unsettled by a black man's anger. It's no different here.

Now, her most famous play certainly was written in the mid-'60s. It's called A Funnyhouse of a Negro. It's a one-act play. And it actually won an Obie Award for a distinguished play back in the 1960s, I believe in that year, in 1964. It was the same year, I think, that Amiri Baraka's Dutchman came out under the pen named LeRoi Jones. Very, very radical, just vibrant, disturbing, imaginative piece of art. Certainly falls under the Theatre of the Absurd. And it's a story about a young woman... Her name is Sarah. Lives in New York City... and her struggle with racial identity, really, about her mixed ancestry. She has a white mother, black father. But the stage, it's kind of a reflection of her mind. And Adrienne Kennedy brings in a lot of historical figures that represent Sarah, the character, in both her white and her black ancestry. Queen Victoria's in it. The Duchess of Hapsburg is in it. Jesus Christ himself is in it and is dramatized.

But the play came out in what is, if you look back in theater history, the Black Arts Movement. And that's when, really, this play came out, during this time period. And this was in the '60s and '70s. And it was the black voice through activism, through art. Actually, it was one of the first real attempts to rehabilitate and to nourish black pride, with some really important people in that time. Like I said, in Amiri Baraka. Gwendolyn Brooks. Maya Angelou, the great poet. Really had to do with black power.

And the founder of BAM, really, is credited to a Amiri Baraka, who was a very vocal, unapologetic disruptor. That's what Amiri Baraka was, a disruptor. And I'm getting off topic here about Adrienne Kennedy, but this is all important stuff. You should read a Amiri Baraka, his work, his poetry. There's a great collection of his work called S O S. And his play The Dutchman, seminal piece of work under the pen name LeRoi Jones. It's Biblical, and it's metaphor of Eve and the Devil and the eating of the apple. And it takes place on this New York City subway station. And it's a disturbing... It's a really great piece of work.

But anyway, Funnyhouse of a Negro is another play that you should read and just get under your belt. And if you're in New York in the new year, January, February, March, April, go see The Ohio State Murders. It's her first Broadway production. It's an incredible accomplishment. I know at 91, it shouldn't take someone of her talent and her influence to finally get the recognition that she deserves. But it happened. And that's the thing about a career. You just never know how it's going to play out.

And I've really got nothing else to offer you today. These are some of the things that I think you should listen to and read and watch. And I'm just going to end it here on a quote from Kenny Leon, who's directing The Ohio State Murders, about Adrienne Kennedy. And this is what he has to say about her work. And if only we could have someone say this about us at some point in our life. "She'll find a beautiful, humorous moment and then a devastatingly (singing) evil, horrible moment. But they're right next to each other. She's like a drum major. We're always chasing her."

Well, my fellow daydreamers, thank you for sticking around on this one, keeping that phone in your pocket. Please subscribe. Follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. Tell your friends. Go to iTunes and write a review, please. Post some written reviews on this show, would be fantastic. You can go to https://www.creatingbehaviorpodcast.com Go to the contact page. Hit that red button. I use SpeakPipe. Come on, leave me a message. Share with me some of your thoughts. Ask me a question. You can go to https://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com if you're interested in studying with me in my New York City classroom. My next first-year Meisner class begins January 5th, 2023 in-person. Follow me on Instagram @maggieflaniganstudio, @creatingbehavior. Lawrence Trailer, thank you for this song, my man. You know I fucking love it. You guys, do the shit that scares you. Play full-out with yourself. Operate outside your comfort zone, and don't ever settle for your second best. My name is Charlie Sandlan. Peace. (singing)