EP64: A Hollywood Hero's Lessons On Being a Lead Dad

Interview With Brett Edwards / Hollywood Actor, Dallas Lead Dad

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

Brett Edwards plays tough guys on screen. He was in American Sniper, the film based on a Navy Seal's life. He's been in CSI, Narcos and Westworld. But the hypermasculine roles he plays on screen are just that, roles. At home, he is a Lead Dad to his two daughters and his wife, who runs her own consulting firm. Listen to why separating the two personas is so important to him.

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Transcript

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00;00;05;02 - 00;00;24;24
Paul Sullivan
Welcome to the Company of Dads podcast, where we explore the sweet, silly, strange and sublime aspects of being a dad in a world where men where the go to parent aren't always accepted at work, among their friends, or in the community for what they're doing. I'm your host, Paul Solomon. Our podcast is just one of the many things we produce each week at the company events.

00;00;24;24 - 00;00;48;08
Paul Sullivan
We have various features, including the lead dad of the week. We have our community both online and in person. And of course we have podcasts like this. The one stop shop for all of this is our newsletter, The Dad. Sign up at the company of dads.com backslash the death. That's the company that.com backslash the dad today. My guest is Brett Edwards, actor author lead dad in Dallas.

00;00;48;11 - 00;01;09;25
Paul Sullivan
Brett has had a great career in film, appearing in such movies as American Sniper and The Longest Ride, based on a Nicholas Sparks novel. He's been in TV series like Gray's Anatomy, Narcos, CSI, Westworld. He's written two novels, one a Western, another about Hollywood, and he's a father of two daughters, and his wife works in finance. Brett. Welcome to the company Dads podcast.

00;01;09;27 - 00;01;12;11
Brett Edwards
Thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here.

00;01;12;13 - 00;01;20;14
Paul Sullivan
Give us the pre and post kid version of life as an actor in Hollywood. I'm.

00;01;20;16 - 00;01;40;09
Brett Edwards
That's a great question because one of the things that is imperative when you're doing anything acting is you have to be ready spur of the moment. A lot of times are behind schedule, whether it's with scripts, shows, auditions, what have you, and you get a call the last minute. A lot of times that you have to be across town in LA for an audition.

00;01;40;09 - 00;01;59;16
Brett Edwards
Usually it's, you know, around 430, 5:00, right around rush hour. You have to get to 20 miles to Santa Monica. When you live in the valley and before kids, it was no problem. Pick up go. A lot of times you work nights too, because most of the auditions are during the day. And that's just the audition process.

00;01;59;16 - 00;02;27;29
Brett Edwards
When you get the part, you know, the schedules can be sporadic as well. You're not exactly sure how many days you're going to shoot, how many, where exactly it's going to be. So pre kids, it was no problem. And then post kids, it was quite the juggling act because there were times when, even you mentioned Gray's Anatomy when I auditioned for that show, it was, on one of those on one of the lots there in and it was I can't remember the part of town it was in.

00;02;28;03 - 00;02;54;11
Brett Edwards
And, my wife, I had, I can't remember if I had one kid or two kids at that point, but I remember my wife was working downtown L.A., and she had to leave a meeting to drive to meet me at the studio lot. I put the kids in her car, basically in the front seat, because she just parked on the side of the street and just hung out with them for about the 15 or 20 minutes that I went in, read my part, walked out, got the kids, put them back in the car, went home.

00;02;54;14 - 00;03;10;02
Brett Edwards
And, you know, I think they called me, you know, before I got home that I got the part. But it was just I got the audition that day. So it was just it becomes a juggling act. And, you know, one of the great things that Alison and I do really well is, is we support each other a lot.

00;03;10;03 - 00;03;19;16
Brett Edwards
And, and that goes both ways. And we're always there for each other and it and it really makes it's the only way to make it work.

00;03;19;18 - 00;03;33;20
Paul Sullivan
Well, I mean the good thing is when you were living in LA, I mean at least there's not traffic. So you could just quickly get where we needed to be. So there's no problem. You have to do a plan. And and if you're casting agents for totally understanding when you said you're not going to pick some kids up at daycare at 3:00, we just push this back.

00;03;33;23 - 00;04;03;17
Brett Edwards
Yeah. No, I, I've even had I've had pushback when I said, you know, is it okay if I bring my daughter or daughters to the audition? They're really well-behaved. They will just sit in the waiting room and they'll wait. And a lot of them are like, oh, I'm not so sure because they've seen the screaming kid before. And I get it, I understand, but I've had to take my girls on a couple of auditions and I don't I don't want to say that it's helped me any, but, they every time they've been perfectly behaved and it's been an easy process.

00;04;03;19 - 00;04;08;17
Paul Sullivan
But you resisted becoming a stage dad, right? You resisted putting them on on film somehow.

00;04;08;23 - 00;04;34;01
Brett Edwards
Yes, I it's it's hard enough being a young guy in that industry. I can't imagine what it's like to be a girl, a child, even in that industry. And, you know, ironically enough, I got called into a boot barn audition once, and I had to take my whole family because it was we were traveling and we were on our way back from a trip, and and they liked me for the audition.

00;04;34;01 - 00;04;48;08
Brett Edwards
But then they said, is that your family out there? And I said, yes. And they said, can we meet them? And I said, sure. And the girls came in and girls were their charming selves. I don't even think Pee-Wee was old enough to talk yet. And they were like, well, what do you think about casting the whole family for this?

00;04;48;08 - 00;05;08;24
Brett Edwards
And I said, no, not going to happen. You know, it's just I, I didn't want it when the girls are old enough to be conscious enough to make that decision, that's on them. I will try to guide them away from the industry as much as I can. Although one seems to have a knack for it. But I want them to make the decision.

00;05;08;24 - 00;05;18;20
Brett Edwards
I don't want to be the guy that says, yeah, it seems like fun, let's do it. And then they really like it before you know it, it's you're kind of too far down the rabbit hole to turn back, right.

00;05;18;20 - 00;05;27;05
Paul Sullivan
All right. What what could be sort of, you know, fun, interesting family story as a one off. Could also turn the other way and become this slippery slope. And next thing you know. Yeah.

00;05;27;08 - 00;05;28;05
Brett Edwards
Exactly.

00;05;28;07 - 00;05;49;01
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. That is one of the things, you know, when I look at some of the, you know, roles you've been cast in, you know, are really, you know, traditionally masked in roles. But I know from talking to you that you're, you're the youngest of five and you have four older sisters, obviously, of, you know, two daughters. How do you view masculinity as sort of modern masculinity?

00;05;49;01 - 00;05;56;05
Paul Sullivan
How do you view that in, in real life versus perhaps, you know, some of the roles that you're you're known for, the people seen you?

00;05;56;07 - 00;06;28;14
Brett Edwards
Yeah. I think that one of the things that's really important about masculinity that often gets overlooked is regardless of work status, whatever the man, his job is for stability, emotional, financial, whatever it is, whatever you're lacking in the man's job, at least in masculinity wise, is you have to be stable. You have to provide that balance and I do play.

00;06;28;14 - 00;06;48;10
Brett Edwards
I mean, it's hard because my dad growing up, he was a man's man. He was born in 1935. He got drafted. He grew up in San Francisco, in the Italian neighborhood. And, you know, back when they had all the segregated neighborhoods in the late 30s, early 40s in San Francisco. And, he was just school hard knocks.

00;06;48;10 - 00;07;07;11
Brett Edwards
He lived hard. He played hard. He worked hard. He didn't show really any emotion at all. And so I think that, you know, I was I have four older sisters. I was always around women. And when my dad came around, I just wanted to do the things that he was doing. But he was in the booze business.

00;07;07;13 - 00;07;12;03
Brett Edwards
It wasn't appropriate for me to follow him around to the office, per se.

00;07;12;05 - 00;07;16;23
Paul Sullivan
Because the office was a bar. The office was like, at midnight. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

00;07;16;25 - 00;07;41;14
Brett Edwards
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm sure I would have loved to be there, but, good on him for not allowing me to do it. And, you know, I just, I this old saying of you learn how to be a man by watching your father and listening to your mother. And I think that happened a lot, is I would kind of just observe my dad as much as I could and listen to my mom talk about him.

00;07;41;16 - 00;08;02;14
Brett Edwards
And I remember when I was a kid that they my dad was really old school, and my mom asked me to unload the dishwasher. I was a young boy. And, you know, I've got sisters who were doing all kinds of stuff in the kitchen. And my dad said, no son of mine's going to unload the dishwasher. And she said, no, son of mine's going to sit there and watch.

00;08;02;14 - 00;08;07;01
Brett Edwards
And they got this major argument. And, they, you know, they saw.

00;08;07;03 - 00;08;12;03
Paul Sullivan
Whatever you just like standing there holding the Tupperware. Like what? What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I could I.

00;08;12;03 - 00;08;29;10
Brett Edwards
Put it back in my seat because I was glued to my seat because I didn't really want to do it, and, you know, just a a punk kid. And, and my mom ended up winning that battle because, you know, living with 4 or 5 women in the house, my dad learned to pick certain fights and just move on with the others.

00;08;29;10 - 00;08;49;07
Brett Edwards
And and so I remember that that was quite, that there was sort of a rift between the two on what kind of roles and what one should do. And I saw that my mother worked just as hard as my father did, and still she came home and she made dinner for everyone, sometimes not the same dinner, even.

00;08;49;09 - 00;09;17;25
Brett Edwards
She catered to everyone's, once and cleaned up at the end. And my dad sat there and, ate and smoked and drank and went to bed. And so I thought, I think subconsciously I thought as I was growing up, you know, at first I never thought I'd have kids. And when I had kids, I didn't think much of being a dad, you know, I just but but when they came into the world, I thought, you know, I don't want it to be like it was when I was growing up.

00;09;17;27 - 00;09;43;11
Brett Edwards
You know, I'm going to do the things that my dad wouldn't do because I don't see why not, you know, if I'm able. Yeah. It it seems to work out. You know, we just, And in terms of masculinity, I don't know, there's a role that needs to be filled. There's I think there's a I think as a society, we don't give a, we don't give a damn enough about.

00;09;43;11 - 00;09;44;06
Paul Sullivan
Youth.

00;09;44;08 - 00;10;07;18
Brett Edwards
As we should in terms of raising them with appropriate values and appropriate care and whatever the values may be, but be there to teach them and help them grow and guide them and allow them to make the mistakes. But allow them to correct it as well. And so it's, that's a, that's a that's become as I've had kids, it's become a major issue for me.

00;10;07;20 - 00;10;13;01
Brett Edwards
The, the lack of parenting that I've seen, I think it's kind of just made me pour myself into it even more.

00;10;13;08 - 00;10;35;16
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, yeah, I want to kind of go back to the the dishwasher. Sorry. Because it's so. No, no it's not. It's like it's so telling that there are certain things, you know, there's so much of our childhood that, you know, we don't remember. And, you know, I remember I didn't grow up with, with very much. And my parents got divorced and then my dad kind of intermittent jobs and my mom worked in the hospital as a nurse.

00;10;35;19 - 00;10;54;29
Paul Sullivan
And I remember once I was with my dad at work, he was selling used cars, and we're at the auction, and he bought me, like a big cookie, like a big, you know, like, not like a big chocolate chip cookie. And I'd never had that before. And I remember that I, I got excited and I moved too quickly, and I broke it and I dropped it, and there it was on the ground.

00;10;54;29 - 00;11;10;13
Paul Sullivan
And he was really good about it. He didn't get it mad, but I always remember feeling like, Holy cow, $3 for whatever it was was not we were not a family that had stuff like this in regular basis that always stuck with me. And and it's informed all kinds of things of my own parenting, that one little cookie story.

00;11;10;13 - 00;11;28;12
Paul Sullivan
But for you, that that story about, you know, the dishwasher, such a thing that today it's a very gender neutral thing, like somebody's kids, kids are put to work, you know, all the time doing stuff they need to be, you know, if anything, it's the opposite. Some kids grow up in in families that have some level of affluence is sort of mine.

00;11;28;12 - 00;11;51;29
Paul Sullivan
And yours do that. They don't have to do these things like, well, wait a second, that's not a good thing. But when you think about that, like how that, you know, formed you, I don't want to put all the emphasis on the dishwasher, but how often do you, in the roles that you were going to do in real life versus, you know, there you are in, you know, American Sniper playing, you know, a super masculine role.

00;11;51;29 - 00;12;05;28
Paul Sullivan
How do how does that inform sort of the lessons that you want to, to teach your daughters? They're young, but they're watching everything you do. That lesson, do you want to teach your daughters and the type of, you know, father and husband you want to be today?

00;12;06;01 - 00;12;27;27
Brett Edwards
Yeah. That's a that's a great question. I think it comes down to I mean, there's obviously the stereotypical masculinity and then there's, honest masculinity. I guess in a sense it's walk softly and carry a big stick and I think that.

00;12;28;00 - 00;12;46;05
Brett Edwards
Man, I don't know. That's a good question because it it kind of makes me think about it. I like I said, I like I watch my father and I listen to my mother and, you know, my parents were always arguing growing up. I remember that very distinctly. And I remember it was only it was mostly about petty stuff.

00;12;46;07 - 00;13;02;20
Brett Edwards
And so when I got married and we had kids, didn't want to fight in front of the kids. And, because I couldn't stand that when I was a kid, you know, I couldn't sleep and I would listen to them. And my daughter was always cracked and and I remember, like, this stuff is easily you can rectify this so easy.

00;13;02;21 - 00;13;21;07
Brett Edwards
You just you guys just come to some sort of agreement that you get up and you work together and you do the things together and like, everybody's tired. And then, you know, I remember the few times that like, you know, I don't know, my dad was just a, he was a, he was a tough son of a bitch.

00;13;21;07 - 00;13;42;20
Brett Edwards
And nobody messed with him and everybody respected him. And so I think that not all of that bled off on to me. But in terms of, like, the masculine roles, I think because I gravitate towards those types of guys that I tend to be able to imitate them a little bit better, and it's completely separate for me from everyday life.

00;13;42;22 - 00;14;03;10
Brett Edwards
So for instance, like American Sniper, I had worked on another movie before that, which allowed me to do about 3 to 6 months of prep work to become this marine. And so by the time I got the audition for American Sniper, I was sort of fully into the character for this other film, and it was just like kind of a perfect storm.

00;14;03;13 - 00;14;19;08
Brett Edwards
And I read for American Sniper, and I ended up getting the role, and I remember being on set, and most of the time I was hanging out with instead of with the actors who kind of all congregate together. I was hanging out with the stunt guys and all the military coordinators. I just seemed to get along with them better.

00;14;19;08 - 00;14;37;07
Brett Edwards
And, I remember the one guy who played the Navy Seal, who played himself. He was a Navy Seal that served on the teams with Chris Kyle. He said he came up in between takes. He's like, it's like, man, how long were you in the Marines? And, I said I was never in the Marines. And he said, you're you're shitting me.

00;14;37;07 - 00;14;46;07
Brett Edwards
And I said, no. And he goes, you look like more of a marine than than the Marines. We got on set. And, I was like, one of the best compliments I had, as I'd like to.

00;14;46;07 - 00;14;48;23
Paul Sullivan
Really made the Marines on set happy because, you know. Yeah, yeah.

00;14;48;25 - 00;15;19;04
Brett Edwards
He didn't shout it. But, you know, they always there was a lot of arguments between Navy Seals and Marines on the set, which was all in good fun. But, it I understand that type of masculinity more so than I do the lead dad part every day I feel like. But the thing about the lead dad and and doing the domestic stuff is I feel like every day, if I don't quite get there, I feel like I could have done better.

00;15;19;04 - 00;15;25;20
Brett Edwards
And I think I, I go to bed the next night and it's like, well, what can I do tomorrow as a dad that can be better?

00;15;25;22 - 00;15;42;12
Paul Sullivan
Do you think that's because, like, as an actor, you know, the role is is finite. You know, you may have you may get it on the first take, you may get in the third take or you may get it on the 20th take, but it's eventually done. And then the director has to be happy with it. And that's it.

00;15;42;12 - 00;15;56;15
Paul Sullivan
You've it's in the film, versus, you know, being a dad, being a father. It's almost like the Bill Murray film, you know, Groundhog Day. Like every day you wake up, you're like, okay, same day. Let's try this again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00;15;56;15 - 00;16;16;17
Brett Edwards
But it's more of, I mean, it's more of like a, a marathon of the of a play of a on Broadway. Because you get one take. I feel like you get one chance to do it. And there are little chapters within that where you try to start the day. Well, and you try to end the day well, no matter what happens in between.

00;16;16;20 - 00;16;35;26
Brett Edwards
But I think that's one of the things that weighs on me is sometimes when I'm tough on the kids in a way that I firmly believe I should be tough, you know, or or a value or something that I believe should be instilled. You know, I think that's one of the things that weighs on me is like, was I too did I push too hard?

00;16;35;26 - 00;16;53;20
Brett Edwards
Did I not push enough? You know, what can I do better about it tomorrow? And so it's almost like you go out, you do the scene, you go back behind the curtain and you think, okay, you know, maybe I don't have all my great stuff tonight. When I go back in the next scene, I'm going to try to do it a little bit better.

00;16;53;20 - 00;17;15;22
Brett Edwards
And so that's the kind of the way that I look at it. But yeah, a film. The funny thing about films and I learned this really quick and TV shows is that when you go on them, you're, you're surrounded by these people for 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week. And really quickly you become really great friends because there's a lot of downtime, you know, film, TV, it's hurry up and wait.

00;17;15;25 - 00;17;31;17
Brett Edwards
So you're sitting there and you got a lot of time to talk, and by the end of the shoot, you feel like you you're found a new best friend and you, because you have something and you have a common goal, and you completed the common goal and you spent a lot of time together talking about other stuff.

00;17;31;19 - 00;17;38;05
Brett Edwards
But then I found that those friendships really quickly just fade away because everybody goes on to their next project.

00;17;38;05 - 00;17;39;03
Paul Sullivan
Next? Yeah, the next film.

00;17;39;07 - 00;17;50;19
Brett Edwards
Yeah, yeah. And it's not a company that you go into every day and, and everybody's trying to hustle to get their own. And so, you know, it's, it's very easy to separate the two for me because of that.

00;17;50;21 - 00;17;59;11
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I mean, are there now that you're a year a dad, you've got two girls. Are there certain roles that you don't want to take anymore? Are there certain roles that you seek out above.

00;17;59;12 - 00;18;25;20
Brett Edwards
Yeah, that's that's another thing I, I've turned down a few roles, because of the explicit nature of the roles. You know, as the girls get older and they get more conscious about it, they start asking me questions, because they've seen a few of the things just from, like, past me at the computer. You know, when I'm working on, say, a demo reel or something like that, and I'm like, that's you on TV and and I say, yeah.

00;18;25;20 - 00;18;35;04
Brett Edwards
And they said, what are you doing? And, you know, it's kind of hard. It's like, oh, nothing. You know, you can't just turn, you can't just turn it off because they're really inquisitive. And,

00;18;35;07 - 00;18;42;02
Paul Sullivan
This this isn't a horror movie that, I mean, that would scare the hell out of you. And you won't sleep in your bed for a month and a half. This is not what you just saw. Yeah.

00;18;42;02 - 00;19;09;05
Brett Edwards
Yeah, exactly. So I just, I do. I find myself being, much more conscious about it, and, I'm I'm trying to get to a place where the roles that I take that they can watch and and that's even some of the content in terms of a writer. That's one of the major issues I had. You know, a lot of the stuff that I was writing, it was dark, it was gritty, you know, like the Western that you you mentioned.

00;19;09;07 - 00;19;32;12
Brett Edwards
Yeah. And it's it's good. It's kind of stuff that I love to watch, kind of like Yellowstone, but it, I there's something I wish, you know, my kids and I, we watch a lot of film. We watch a lot of films and TV shows together, but 95% of it's animated. And I wish that there were more live action things that the kids could watch.

00;19;32;14 - 00;19;37;05
Brett Edwards
You know, Louis L'Amour wrote how many novels he never mentioned a bad word in any of them.

00;19;37;07 - 00;19;52;20
Paul Sullivan
Right. So that's interesting. Talk to me about the move from, Los Angeles to to Dallas. I think it was was it pre pandemic or just as a pandemic story. How did that move comes come about.

00;19;52;20 - 00;19;54;27
Brett Edwards
Yeah it was the end of 2020.

00;19;54;29 - 00;20;07;17
Paul Sullivan
And lockdown in LA. It's sunny every single day. How could that be bad. Like I'm like Randy Newman when I go to L.A. like, I don't know, I could be locked down anywhere. I would pick Los Angeles or maybe San Diego.

00;20;07;17 - 00;20;25;26
Brett Edwards
That's probably I know, but that's one of those things. It's when it's it's the same thing every day. I remember when we'd go visit Washington and it started it's raining and we're like, oh gosh, I missed the rain. Or you go to Colorado and you miss the snow. And then now that I'm here in the winter in Dallas, I'm like, I miss the 300 days a year in L.A.

00;20;25;26 - 00;20;26;15
Brett Edwards
Where it's perfect.

00;20;26;15 - 00;20;31;18
Paul Sullivan
Sunshine. Exactly. A dreary, miserable like. I mean, I could go outside and it. No, it's gray and awful.

00;20;31;25 - 00;20;54;29
Brett Edwards
Yeah, yeah, but, we my wife grew up in South Dakota, in Texas, and I grew up in Kentucky, and we, you know, I used to ride my bike to school. I had this little motorized scooter that I had a dog that followed me everywhere on. You know, we'd drive it to the local Dairy Mart. I'd get her a can of, beef jerky that was shredded, you know, that looked like a can of, dip.

00;20;54;29 - 00;21;04;21
Brett Edwards
And I'd get a slushie and we'd sit at the Dairy Mart, and then I'd ride my go pet home. My scooter home. And she followed me and, you know, when we started having kids.

00;21;04;21 - 00;21;08;17
Paul Sullivan
You know, that sounds like a scene from from a movie, you know? Yeah. You know.

00;21;08;18 - 00;21;10;21
Brett Edwards
Just. Yeah, that's the way I see it. You know.

00;21;10;22 - 00;21;21;00
Paul Sullivan
That sounds exactly like the scene it opens right there. And then depending on what type of movie it is, if it was like, the horror film that you're in, then everybody, like, zombies come out and like, the kid's done boards a nice film and he goes home and everything's fine.

00;21;21;07 - 00;21;42;25
Brett Edwards
That's right. He sees it. He sees a girl on the way home, and the dog starts to take second fiddle. But I, you know. So we didn't want our kids to grow up in LA because we wanted them to kind of have the same things that we had. LA it's a tough city, and, it's. I can't imagine raising kids.

00;21;43;02 - 00;21;44;18
Brett Edwards
Are you in New York?

00;21;44;20 - 00;21;59;19
Paul Sullivan
I'm just outside in Connecticut. Yeah, but I it mine is more like, you know, a Norman Rockwell type type town, like, you know, classic New England downtown. Kids can, you know, ten minutes, they can walk through a backyard and be in town and, you know, get ice cream or whatever. So.

00;21;59;22 - 00;22;23;08
Brett Edwards
Yeah. Amazing. And so we were, we were actually considering moving to New York before we fit. My wife found out she was pregnant and so anyway, we started looking at schools for the kids because they were getting old enough. And then the pandemic hit and we were locked down for a few months. And this was in July where we said, well, let's go see what Texas is like.

00;22;23;08 - 00;22;48;04
Brett Edwards
We are dope in there. And so we traveled to Texas and we loved it. We just love the it's a different feel. The people, the culture. It's all different than LA. And, you know, my wife and I were both really busy with work, and she was doing almost a two hour commute every day to Laguna Beach or Newport Beach, from the valley.

00;22;48;07 - 00;23;00;03
Brett Edwards
And that was two hours there sometimes, and two hours back. And so she just started getting burnt out. And it was it was kind of risky. And but it was for the kids, I mean, you know. And did you.

00;23;00;03 - 00;23;01;12
Paul Sullivan
Have any family or did you have any.

00;23;01;14 - 00;23;19;10
Brett Edwards
We had no family. We had no jobs. And the jobs that I book, obviously it's not like, hey, I've got another one in the pipeline. It's like, I could have an audition this week, but I don't have anything that's secure. And she was going to leave her. She left her job and, has since founded her own company.

00;23;19;13 - 00;23;24;09
Brett Edwards
But at the time, we had nothing, and and we just had a little bit of money in the bank. And.

00;23;24;11 - 00;23;29;08
Paul Sullivan
You love the Dallas Cowboys or something like that. It's a story here. How do you pick Dallas? Of all you know.

00;23;29;10 - 00;23;51;25
Brett Edwards
Dallas was in case I had to go to LA for an audition or to New York. It's it's an easy flight. You could always get on one and same thing for her. If she had to go out for a meeting. Then there were plenty of flights, so it seemed reasonable. I mean, I think more reasonable maybe would have been just to move a little bit further outside of LA so where you could drive and to work.

00;23;51;25 - 00;24;15;18
Brett Edwards
But, we we love it. It's, it's been great. Texas is. The weather's a little tough. You know, I don't mind the heat, but, we get a lot of thunderstorms, some tornado watches, flooding. It's. We we got here in December, November of 2020, and then, February of 2021 was the freeze where we lost power for four days.

00;24;15;21 - 00;24;26;05
Brett Edwards
And so the girls got acquainted with Texas really quick. And how tough you have to be to make it here. And, we made it through, all right. And, we've been happy ever since that.

00;24;26;12 - 00;24;46;23
Paul Sullivan
But, you know, again, I've had I've spent more time, I've, I've good friends, both in Los Angeles and in, you know, outside of Dallas Fort Worth. So I've been to both places often. But, you know, when I think of, you know, Los Angeles, given just the sheer number of people who, you know, work in the entertainment industry, I mean, even the busiest actors, you know, the busiest writers, they're not working.

00;24;46;23 - 00;25;16;08
Paul Sullivan
You know, traditional full time job, like, you know, the busiest people are working a couple of months a year, and then you have a lot of time to, to, to, to be you're wonderful restaurants, wonderful cafes. You can people your kids take them there. But you know, Dallas is, you know, much more a town, at least from my experience, where where people have, you know, jobs, they, they go to work and you come home and and the weekend you do you think what has it been like for you as, as a dad, as a father, as a husband, you know, to to be in Dallas, to be with the girls, you know, when you're

00;25;16;08 - 00;25;32;16
Paul Sullivan
not, you know, working on a show or something like that. What's it been like, you know, as you've tried to sort of, you know, make your way, you know, socially, as a, as a man in Dallas, you know, finding friends. Well, while still being, you know, a father and and a successful actor.

00;25;32;19 - 00;25;42;27
Brett Edwards
Yeah. I it's it's been much easier. I've, I mean, I've made more friends here quicker, than I ever had in totality when I lived in Los Angeles.

00;25;42;27 - 00;25;47;19
Paul Sullivan
Because you're so good at the accents and you just kind of created this, this Texas accent that never existed before, is that.

00;25;47;19 - 00;26;16;02
Brett Edwards
Yeah, exactly. It just started coming out as soon as I crossed the border and, it's it's been good, you know, I've found, we have a we live in a smallest county in Texas. And this square, footage wise, it's really tiny. I think it's 12mi². And so the town is really small. You start to meet a lot of the same people, and a lot of them have kids that are my kids age.

00;26;16;02 - 00;26;51;09
Brett Edwards
And so that makes it easy to meet people and to get along with people. And because we never had that, all of our friends in Los Angeles, they never had kids. Or if they did have kids, they were much older. And it just, you know, in LA, it's so hard to get from A to B that if you really want to meet up for the kids to get together or just to hang out, it's it's got to be a thing, you know, unless you live in the same borough and, I, I think, you know, like, I've been getting the girls into a lot of stuff outdoors since we've been here.

00;26;51;11 - 00;27;12;09
Brett Edwards
They ride horses now, and they're really good at it. And, they actually learned in California, though, they play golf, you know, and they're only four and six, but they they love to just be outdoors. And so anything that's there's a lot of museums here that are easy to do and two hours, you know, you can go and come back in two hours.

00;27;12;09 - 00;27;30;00
Brett Edwards
And so there's a lot of field learning that can be done. But it's just it's been easy. It's been easy to find friends. It's been easy for the kids. They're now in their schools and they are starting to have a base that they feel good about and that they don't want to leave. And I think that's great.

00;27;30;03 - 00;27;54;00
Paul Sullivan
That's been, great. But I really enjoyed having, you know, the Company does podcast today wasn't one last question for you because, you know, our community that we created a lovely that it's, you know, leaders of all different types of of of backgrounds. And when you think of the way, you know, the choices that you made to sort of, you know, balance your career with, you know, being a great husband and a great father.

00;27;54;02 - 00;28;18;05
Paul Sullivan
What are some of the, you know, one, 2 or 3 lessons that that you learned along the way that you could share with with some of the listeners who are perhaps, you know, maybe they're struggling with, with, with being a dad or maybe they're struggling with talking about, you know, being a the dad. Are there anything, anything that stands out that you would think is, you know, a good a good lesson, a good takeaway for, for the listeners from, from your experience.

00;28;18;07 - 00;28;45;10
Brett Edwards
I think if you take an active mind into molding your kids to be, you know, one of the rules that is really important is, you know, don't allow your children to become someone you dislike because the dislike turns to hate, and then you loathe your children, and that's not something that you want. And so when you start to see little things that you dislike about your children in terms of and it's a learning process, it's not like they're malicious.

00;28;45;10 - 00;29;13;01
Brett Edwards
It's not like they mean to do it. You have to raise them up in the way that they should go. And so don't allow them to become someone you dislike. And when you start to, if you're struggling with what people think of you as a lead dad or what people think of you for taking the reins, I think one of the important things is to, you know, let your kids let let your kids show how successful that could be.

00;29;13;01 - 00;29;35;04
Brett Edwards
And so what that means is that if you if your kid is really well behaved and has really good manners and is doing well in school, that reflects directly on you. And so I know a lot of people who and it didn't even occur to me because I wasn't doing it for myself. I was doing it because I want my kids to have a better foot on the ground than I had.

00;29;35;07 - 00;29;54;11
Brett Edwards
You know, I was really idealistic, kind of anything. I could do anything that I wanted, and I think that's great, but it has to be. There has to be some sort of concrete evidence that allows you to believe that. And so, you know, and also some sort of understanding of how to act around adults. And so that was really important with our kids.

00;29;54;11 - 00;30;10;28
Brett Edwards
And so my wife and I both instilled that in us in the kids. And, it showed. And, you know, one of the things people would say is you all are doing such a great job. Your kids are so well behaved. They're so smart. And, you know, it sounds like bragging, but that that's what they were saying to us.

00;30;10;28 - 00;30;34;14
Brett Edwards
And so then it kind of resonated with me where, you know, I took a backseat to work because especially when I'm talking about turning down roles that I don't feel are a good fit for having girls. You know, I'm like, well, what's really important here? I had a major injury about, 14 months ago in which I basically had a paralyzed left arm and, severe nerves, nerve damage.

00;30;34;16 - 00;30;54;27
Brett Edwards
And it allowed me to take a step back and go, like, what's really important is it the movies that are important? Is it the money or you know, if I were if I were to die falling off that ladder, who would I want to see most? And it was my children, and I wouldn't want to see him jumping around the hospital room, throw an ice cream everywhere and acting a fool.

00;30;54;29 - 00;31;23;13
Brett Edwards
I don't want him to be well behaved and conduct themselves in appropriate manner and come and see me, and I'd want to be next to them. And so that was that was the that was kind of the catalyst for me where I'm like, you know, even though some days I begrudgingly do it, it's really a value. And so don't denigrate the value of having a strong, stable man in the household because like my wife says, when I'm in a good mood, the whole family is in a good mood.

00;31;23;16 - 00;31;29;11
Brett Edwards
So you're the leader of how everybody else feels and goes out and attacks the world.

00;31;29;14 - 00;31;31;23
Paul Sullivan
That's a great way to end. Thank you again, Brett.

00;31;31;23 - 00;31;38;03
Brett Edwards
And thank you so much. Yeah, thanks for having me.

00;31;38;05 - 00;32;05;00
Paul Sullivan
Hey, thanks for listening to company of D&D podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. But I'm here to tell you it is just one of the many offerings we have at the company D&D. We've got another podcast, we have a weekly newsletter, we have various features. We have events that we put on both online and in person. If you want to know about all of those, the best place to learn about them is to go to the company of dads.com backslash the dad.

00;32;05;00 - 00;32;18;18
Paul Sullivan
There's a company of dads.com backslash the dad. What do you get if you do that? That's how you sign up for our weekly newsletter, The Dad, which is a one stop shop for all things the dad. Thank you again for listening.