Hollywood Confessional

On Being Naked A Lot

• Ninth Way Media • Season 3 • Episode 4

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To be or not to be... naked?

That is the question faced by our confessor this week: an up-and-coming actor who had to make a difficult decision about his career. 

Join us in this week's episode of the Hollywood Confessional as we hear from this fearless creative who was up for anything... until "anything" became a bit too much.

We discuss:

  • the trouble with setting boundaries in the entertainment industry, 
  • how to make the right decisions for your career, 
  • how to weigh the consequences when it seems like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Special shout out to our voice actor Cody Vaughn for chatting with us after the episode, and to all our Hollywood Faithful who are currently facing tough choices. 

Let us know about them in the comments or send us a DM @fessuphollywood! We'd love to hear your thoughts on the show and how you feel about the hard decisions you've made in Hollywood.

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Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production, produced by Meagan Daine and J.R. Zamora-Thal.

Sound Effects and Music provided by Zapsplat and Pixabay.

Keywords: filmmaking podcast, film podcast, screenwriting podcast, entertainment podcast, Hollywood, filmmaking, writerslife, actorslife, setlife

Speaker 1:

In nomine Cinema e TV Espiritu Streaming. Amen. Hello Hollywood. Faithful Welcome back to another episode of Hollywood Confessional. I'm your podcast priest, jr Zamorathal.

Speaker 2:

And I'm Megan Dane. Welcome back, so happy you guys are joining us this week. Man, it's been an interesting time for us these past couple of weeks. It's kind of like you know it's the end of band camp, man.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I wanted yearbooks. I wanted to write hags in everybody's yearbook.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1:

Like the project that JR and.

Speaker 2:

I've been working on for quite some time, quite some time. Yeah, it's uh, the writer's room is kind of coming to an end and, um, I don't know how to feel about this the day the room actually wrapped, I told somebody that I felt like I had just finished midterms.

Speaker 1:

I was so exhausted and like I wanted to just go back to my old habits, get a big old chipotle, curl up on the couch and watch three hours of television.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that sounds amazing.

Speaker 1:

That's how I got through engineering school, but you know our work isn't quite done yet, so it wasn't finals, but it was over, that big, massive push towards the end, towards our midterms, I guess.

Speaker 2:

That's right. And you come away from it and you feel exhausted and kind of like what Wait, who am I, where am I? And then, what year is it? Yeah, and then figure out, like okay, starting starting again.

Speaker 1:

What am I doing here in?

Speaker 2:

this town, right. One of the really interesting things to me about like trying to make a career in entertainment is that, I mean, it is a creative industry, but you're still performing tasks and you're doing like dig back into your memory to be like okay, why am I doing this? What is it that you know? What do I want to write now? What do I want to create now? What is the story that I want to tell now that I have like free time?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's kind of the fun of it, and for me, every time a room ends, I realized that I've learned one really big lesson that I can bring to my writing, and so every new project that I take on after a room is colored with everything that I learned in the room, which I just think is so fascinating If I can go back and read scripts. I wrote before, you know, two rooms ago, and then I read a script that I'm working on now and I'm like, oh, look at all these things. I know how to do now.

Speaker 2:

That's awesome. Can you talk about what the thing is that you learned this time?

Speaker 1:

This time around probably being succinct. I think that I've got a tendency because I love short stories, that's really like something that I'm passionate about writing wise, outside of the industry, and that's all prose, that's the most beautiful thing you can put down on the page. But when you're screenwriting, that's obviously not what we're trying to do, and so my tendency is always to write a little too much prose, and so this season I really learned, I think, how to cut down on that, how to say only what's necessary to get across my ideas, and that way I can have a lot more room to let the dialogue, you know, do its thing.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love that and yeah, similarly, I'd like to. I just love to have the opportunity to be immersed in the creative process and other people's processes, because then you pick up on things like you know, you start to go oh, I could express this idea in a completely different way than I ever thought of doing it before and, of course, steal heavily from everyone.

Speaker 1:

That's the best part the stealing yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, this is a. It's an exciting time for us and a scary time, but here we are and we're still doing the confessional booth, and this week we have a very interesting story Speaking of sort of finding who you are as an artist. This is about an actor who had to decide whether to say yes or no to something and Just to give you a little bit of a teaser, the title is On being Naked A Lot.

Speaker 1:

Should we get into the confessional booth? I think we should. Let's do it.

Speaker 3:

Forgive me, Father, for I'm an actor who got tired of being naked.

Speaker 1:

You got tired of it. I love tired of it. I love being naked.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it's all about context, right like, please share your context well, I'd been in LA for about seven to eight years.

Speaker 3:

I've been doing a lot of really small indie stuff, booking a commercial every now and again, but I hadn't really been able to break through on a huge movie or network show yet. I booked an indie show that was very sex positive. It was small and I liked what the show was saying. It was like pushing the boundary with sex scenes, but that was the whole point being very sex positive. But when it rains it pours and I got all these bookings back to back. I booked a commercial where I'm in the bathroom getting out of the shower and I'm topless.

Speaker 1:

I saw that one.

Speaker 3:

You did. It was just all these individual jobs, but after I shot some of them I realized it's just gonna be me naked in all these things.

Speaker 2:

That is the weirdest niche. I mean, it's not like you're a porn actor, Like this just happened to you.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. And then I booked my first network show the show we're talking about and again I'm coming out of the shower at the top of the scene. So, knowing that basically all of my work from that year was just me, without a top on and with less in some instances, I was like oh God, this is just getting to be a bit much. But it was fine. It wasn't really a sexual thing and the show was huge for me. I was very excited, my first network role. And then I get a call from the intimacy coordinator and she says, hey, the director is doing a shot list and he envisions you coming out of the shower and us doing a butt shot. Is that the technical?

Speaker 1:

term for it.

Speaker 3:

Yes, I'm pretty sure it is. So basically, as he's panning, you're going to walk in after the shower as you're toweling off and we'll see your butt. How do you feel about that? And having this commercial that had just come out, having this other show that's about to come out? I was like, just come out, having this other show that's about to come out. I was like, oh well, let me talk with my agents. I felt a little hesitant about it and I didn't know how it would work. I was like am I gonna get paid more? And she was like no, that's illegal, damn.

Speaker 2:

I was like, oh yeah, that makes sense, I guess it mean, if you're going to look at it that way, so I was like, okay, let me get back to you.

Speaker 3:

So I called my manager tell him what's going on, and he was like I understand where you're coming from. Do whatever you're comfortable with. They will not fire you. Because I was worried about that, you know, being my first network job, I didn't want to lose it. I felt pressure, not from the intimacy coordinator. She was very like you can make whatever decision, it's fine, it's up to you. But I just want you to know that this is what the director wants.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's like, honey, you don't have to buy me anything for Valentine's Day. I mean, that's what I think.

Speaker 3:

Exactly. So I said, well, well, if it's important to the show, then sure. If it's important that we see these two characters intimate together, if it's not gratuitous, and if the other actor, who was a series regular, does it with some skin, then sure I'm totally down. Basically, I just didn't want to be like one of the cheap girls on the side, but just the male version. That doesn't excite me. I just didn't feel comfortable doing that or being that. So if this is going to be like this actual, real sex scene, fine, but if not, then no, I don't want to do that. So I tell the intimacy coordinator that, I tell my manager that Everyone's like yep, yep, got it. Great, no worries, it's all up to you. Fine. The intimacy coordinator was like okay, I'll get back to you. Then she did call back and she said we're just going to scrap it. He's redoing the shot list, it's fine.

Speaker 2:

No, big deal.

Speaker 3:

So I'm like okay, cool.

Speaker 2:

Okay, you don't want anything for Valentine's Day? Cool.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So the day of the shoot, I get on set and the intimacy coordinator, weirdly, is one of the first people who greets me and she's like very excited, oh, this is gonna be great. How are you feeling? Very in her feelings, making sure she's all in my feelings. I'm like, yeah, this is great. I'm excited. Blah, blah, blah, they bring me my wardrobe, which is basically a towel, because again, I'm coming out of the shower and she's double checking Is this all right? Do you think you'll need a shirt? I'm like, no, I'm coming out of the shower, I don't need a shirt. This is crazy. And she's like, okay, great. So I wait a couple hours before they call me to set. Then I'm coming out of the trailer and she greets me and the second ad greets me and they're taking me and my co-star in a shuttle van to set.

Speaker 3:

And then I noticed this huge dude following the four of us and I turn back like oh, is he coming with us? And like, yeah, that's your bodyguard. What, yeah? I was like, oh, laughing it off. She was like, no, that's so you feel safe on set. Oh my God, yeah, right, that's your bodyguard. I turned to my co-star like, do you get a bodyguard and he was like no, I've never seen this guy. I turned to my co-star like, do you get a bodyguard? And he was like no, I've never seen this guy. I don't know who this guy is.

Speaker 2:

This is so strange, it's incredible.

Speaker 3:

So we get to set and he's like right behind me the entire time and no one's saying anything. You would think that if this was abnormal, that people I don't know would be looking at me a certain way, but no one talked to me Like he was creating this barrier Not that he was pushing people away, but he was intimidating people. And so I'm like new on set and when you're just a day player coming onto a show that's been on for a long time, everyone's a family and I did feel very welcomed by everyone. I was very impressed and felt well taken care of, but maybe a little too taken care of, because I was basically flanked by a 6'3" 250-pound dude and this tiny petite intimacy coordinator the entire time we do some rehearsals. It's a closed set because we're both in our underwear, but the security guard is on set. It's not closed for him. He's there like just off camera, like watching me in the other room.

Speaker 2:

Ew.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it was really weird, and so was the intimacy coordinator, and after every rehearsal break she would come in and check with me like, how are you feeling, are you okay? Is that okay? And this wasn't a sex scene. We're having a little argument, basically. So there's no physical contact. And the thing is, if my co-star had also been getting that treatment, then okay, but it was all on me and for me, for the new guy coming in onto set.

Speaker 3:

You just kind of want to blend in. Well, I do, anyway, you know, I just want to get in in. Well, I do, anyway, you know, I just want to get in, do my job, not be thought of as a diva, just do my job and go. But this was making it harder for me to do my job, because every take she comes in and I kept telling her thank you, nope, it's all good, I'm comfortable. I will let you know if I feel uncomfortable. Basically, post me too. This isn't a negative thing, but the pendulum has really swung the other way. I refused to show my bare ass and that caused everyone to be like, oh no, he's uncomfortable. Let's make sure that everything's safe and we cover our asses.

Speaker 1:

Did you feel like they genuinely cared how you felt, or was this purely to avoid a lawsuit?

Speaker 3:

Well, I did feel very taken care of by the people on set. Everyone was very nice. But I think there was an element of if I went back and complained they could be like. Well, we gave him a bodyguard. The intimacy coordinator asked him between every single take if he felt comfortable.

Speaker 2:

This is suddenly reminding me of a waitressing job I had once, where I reported a guy for harassment and then suddenly I started getting all the best shifts.

Speaker 3:

Exactly, and it's funny because there was one take that was really good and my co-star ends up slapping me on my ass as I'm exiting the room. Oh no, and I mean it was great, but she basically burst down that door. Where's?

Speaker 1:

the bodyguard.

Speaker 3:

She was like are you sure that was okay? I can tell him not to use that take. And I was like no, that was the best take. Please stop. And you know some people might want that. For certain people that might make them feel more comfortable and open up and be relaxed. But for my first network show, of course I was thinking they're going to think he's a diva, we're never going to hire him again. So that was constantly in my head the whole time and in the end that's basically what happened.

Speaker 2:

Oh no.

Speaker 3:

I can't get into specifics without giving away the show, but basically there was a part in the script where so in every take, I and no one told me otherwise that I wasn't supposed to be doing that. But after we wrapped somebody asked me if I had done a certain thing in the final take, the good take and they said that moment was planting the seed because your character in the show and that's what's going to happen later in the season. And I was like no, no one told me that. I felt stupid. I would have played that differently. I wish someone had told me and as I was leaving again I won't say exactly who, but someone who knows what's going on I was like hope to work with you again soon. And he was like oh yeah, you're definitely coming back. So I was like oh great, this is a recurring role Awesome, you know, as an actor who's been trying so long and so hard to get even just the smallest part on a show and this was the big show for this network, it was their anchor show and then to have a chance to expand that and become recurring, I was very hopeful.

Speaker 3:

I allowed myself to ride that optimistic train for a minute, to believe that it would be something more, aside from the weirdness. Everyone was super lovely, so I felt like I was on a high, walking off of the set, like, yes, this is what I want to do, this is what I'm meant to do. This is great. More doors are going to open for me. I told my manager, and then we didn't hear anything for what felt like a very long time, and then eventually, we heard back from someone in casting saying, um, no, that's not gonna happen oh shit do you think the reason it didn't happen is the nudity issue?

Speaker 3:

I mean, who knows, was it me saying no? Was it me not being good on set? Like? Was I not good in the scene? Was it just circumstance? Were they like we don't have enough time to finish the storyline of this guy who really doesn't matter? Maybe my co-star didn't like working with me. I mean who knows? Luckily, I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing. If you're any type of creative in this industry, if you let all these negative things affect you, then you just stop.

Speaker 3:

So true, because why would you do that to yourself? Why would you put yourself through that? So I think, like for people that have kept going in this industry, you kind of find ways of just like processing it quickly or not processing it, maybe putting it somewhere tucked away somewhere in order to just keep trying. But it also made me second guess what roles I take now. I've recently become a dad and so now I'm like, oh man, all of these sex scenes are now out there forever. My son doesn't want to see that. Not that he's going to anytime soon, but still, it's just like it's always out there now. So in the end I feel confident that I made the right decision, but I was also kicking myself like, oh, maybe if I'd just done it I'm already doing it on this other show Maybe things would be different.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's the maybes that kill you.

Speaker 1:

But kudos to you for finding a way to compartmentalize and keep going. I mean, that's what it takes sometimes.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing your story with us and go create in peace with clothes on.

Speaker 1:

All right, we're going to try something new on the podcast. Oh yeah, Megan has pitched an incredible idea and I think we should run with it.

Speaker 2:

Let's do it so, as you guys know, here on the Hollywood Confessional, what we do is we interview people who are working in the entertainment industry and then we take a transcript from that interview, turn it into a script and we have a voice actor perform it, with all identifying details removed so that the original confessor can be anonymous. And as we're sitting here recording this anonymous story today, I'm looking at the face of our actor, the amazing Cody Vaughn. Everybody, take down that name, he's the greatest and and I'm like, oh he, he's here in something in this story, like he's connecting with something here. I almost felt like I was talking to you personally, Cody. So, like, tell us a little bit about yourself and like, and what this story like, what the hell were you thinking when you read this story?

Speaker 3:

What was I thinking? Well, thank you for the kind words. By the way, you know I actually just read this today. You know it was immediately resonating with me on a number of levels.

Speaker 2:

I feel like as an actor.

Speaker 3:

There are things, including like sexual situations or in certain roles, that I myself personally didn't feel super comfortable with, and in certain cases there've been auditions that I've passed over and even, in some cases, roles that I've more or less turned down, that I knew it wasn't the right fit for me. So I can really appreciate what this guy was going through as far as feeling that pressure of having the producer or director or anybody coming up to you and saying like, oh, we want to try this, or putting a little extra pressure.

Speaker 2:

Do you feel comfortable talking about like a specific instance, when either something happened on set or in an audition, like you said?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, no, I'd say that an audition that comes to mind.

Speaker 2:

I won't like get into the specific project or anything, oh yeah, no, no, no, just kidding, be as vague as possible. Project or anything, oh yeah.

Speaker 3:

No, but it was, it was. It was just. It was something that was like it was very clearly you're here for the shock value of it. It was like a a kind of a horror thing. But it was like you're a guy like having sex with a woman and then like butt shot and it's just like the killer is like coming up and just killing you, like. So it's like one of those where you're like you're, you're, you're the victim, which I get it like it's you know well, it's got to be frustrating.

Speaker 1:

I mean, it sounds like you were basically a prop at that point.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, nudity had very little to do with right, like like I'm not totally against nudity or anything. Uh, like I think what I look for is like is there a place for it in the story? Like does it make sense or is it just like a shock value, like just trying to oh, let's just stick an ass in there, you know like or whatever it is yeah, and I get it, it's hollywood, like there's definitely the you know it, sex sells type of thing.

Speaker 3:

But sure, like I, also for me, like I want it to have some meaning in the, in the story, um, and actually be presented in a real way.

Speaker 2:

Also, uh, this idea of saying no to something and then there's a price that you have to pay, right? I've been thinking about that a lot lately because, like this confessor, I also very recently had to say no to something. That on one hand it was something that I very, very much want, but on the other, it was like I don't think this is quite the right situation, and I mean, I don't even know, it's an impossible decision because you never know what's going to be on the other side of that door. Right, you just have a sense of it and you think, should I, should I walk through this door? And sometimes you are forced to make a choice in this industry, right?

Speaker 1:

Right, and oftentimes you can only learn from the times you've been burned Like. This is something that you only learn by doing, walking through these doors, making these choices, and every time it's a little bit different. You just have to trust that. I have gotten burned on many times before.

Speaker 2:

That's the worst. Yeah, it's really hard and I came to like a fork in the road and it was like I either have to go this way or I have to go the other way, and my instinct from all the times that I have been burned tells me I should go this direction but that means I have to say no to this other thing that maybe.

Speaker 2:

what if that was the right direction? What if I totally fucked this direction? But that means I have to say no to this other thing that maybe what if that was the right direction? What if I totally fucked this up? What? If my instincts are wrong. I mean, the industry is constantly changing. You never know what's going to happen. Sometimes you're like, oh, this will never come through, and then it does come through.

Speaker 1:

And part of having a career in Hollywood is putting as many irons in the fire as possible. We're not supposed to take irons out of the fire. That's the worst decision, but sometimes you have to.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, dude, yeah, you just told me I made the worst decision, because that's exactly what I was doing. I had to take an iron out of the fire, and I still don't know how I feel about it. It's like I think it was the right decision. I tell myself it was the right decision, but, like this confessor, I'm still conflicted over it.

Speaker 1:

I had a similar situation but I was lucky at this time in my career that I didn't have a whole lot of irons in the fire.

Speaker 1:

That sort of helped me make my decision. But I got put up for a show one time that the subject matter wasn't it was something that I thought I might be ethically against, which sounds like a big deal, and it was a big deal to me but I knew the showrunner and I knew the team that he was building and I knew that he was going to treat the subject matter with the appropriate nuance and grace and I had a lot of faith in him, which allowed me to make the decision to go on the show. And I think from that experience I really learned how to channel my own point of view and my own ethics and the way that I see the world into specific characters to be able to make a really strong comment on something that I believed in, which was a really, really valuable lesson that came from a really hard decision about. You know, how am I going to build my career?

Speaker 2:

That's a really good way to look at it, either way. I mean, you know, regardless of how a certain situation might turn out, if you can think of it in those terms of like coming to some kind of moral decision, or like a decision where you're like who am I? That's what it gets down to Like. If I have to choose between being this version of myself and that version of myself, which one do I choose, and why, and how that helps you to be a better human and also make better choices for yourself, professionally and creatively in the future, then that's a win, I guess make better choices for yourself professionally and creatively in the future, then that's a win, I guess.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's a funny thing about this business about how, like even our lives as artists come into the business decisions. I don't think a lot of people who are, you know, building a house have to worry about who they are building this house, but this is the path that we've chosen, and there's something about that that I really love.

Speaker 2:

Amen to that and thank you all guys for joining us in this journey and tell us about hard decisions that you've had to make. We're available online at Fess Up Hollywood. We're on our website, fessuphollywoodcom. And let us know some choices that you've had to make, how you feel about them good or bad and we'd love to hear from you.

Speaker 1:

Coming up next time on Hollywood Confessional, a story about a teacher who is taking advantage of her students.

Speaker 2:

That's right. And speaking of moral decisions, the student has to decide whether or not they're going to allow themselves to be taken advantage of and what that might do for their career.

Speaker 1:

Join us in two weeks and until then, go create in peace. The Hollywood Confessional is produced by Megan Dane and Jair Zamora-Thal. Joelle Garfinkel is our co-producer and AJ Thal is our post-production coordinator and editor. Our cast today Cody Vaughn. Special effects provided by Zaps Flat and Pixabay. Hollywood Confessional is a Ninth Way Media production. Follow us on socials at FessUpHollywood.