Indiewood

All the World's a Stage: Wayne T. Carr on the Power of Artistic Skills Everywhere

• Cinematography for Actors • Season 10 • Episode 2

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In the continuation of our conversation with actor Wayne T. Carr, we explore what happens when artistic skills are applied beyond traditional creative spaces. Wayne shares how his theater training is helping professionals in the corporate world strengthen their communication, presence, and leadership.

He reflects on a pivotal experience in Europe that reshaped how he views the value of artists—and challenges the idea that creative careers aren’t “real jobs.” Through honest stories about self-validation, cultural perceptions, and the deep power of storytelling, this episode offers a fresh, grounded take on what it means to live a creative life.

If you’ve ever been told to “get a real job,” or questioned where your art fits in, this conversation is a reminder: your creativity matters—everywhere.

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In the world of social media, and fast-paced journalism, knowledge is abound. But with all the noise, finding the right information is near impossible. Especially if you’re a creative working in independent film.

Produced by Cinematography For Actors, the Indiewood podcast aims to fix that. This is a podcast about indie filmmakers and the many hats we wear in order to solve problems before, during, and after production.

Every month, award-winning Writer/Director Yaroslav Altunin is joined by a different guest co-host to swap hats, learn about the different aspects of the film industry, and how to implement all you learn into your work.

"We learn from indie filmmakers so we can become better filmmakers. Because we all want to be Hollywood, but first we have to be Indiewood."

Speaker 1:

Welcome back to the IndieWood Podcast, a podcast about independent film and the many hats filmmakers have to wear in order to get those films made. With me this month I have a very special guest who is a longtime friend, an incredible actor, an incredible creative Wayne T Carr and T is your middle name. It's T period Carr with two Rs. Sometimes it's like T Carr.

Speaker 2:

T Carr.

Speaker 3:

yeah, I'm like that's not People just like Wayne T Carr.

Speaker 1:

That would be a cool last name T Carr. T Carr yeah, last episode, episode one, we talked about your career, your trajectory and kind of how you've embraced opportunity and said yes to a lot of things, but also said no to a lot of things. Yes, and we talked specifically about acting and you know your shift from being a biology major and a football college football star.

Speaker 3:

I was a player, I wouldn't say star.

Speaker 1:

I mean a long time ago. Yeah, I was a star, everybody. I was a football star, a college football player, to an actor that's been on some of the biggest movies, that's been on some of the biggest stages and has done TV and even small projects like a web series which I keep bringing up. That's alright, my web series.

Speaker 2:

You were on my web series. That's right. Yeah, and that's how we met, put it out.

Speaker 1:

But when we were talking about prep for this pod, for having you come on, we were kind of talking about utilizing your craft, whether it be acting or directing or producing or writing or editing and kind of using it outside of the scope of its initial you know its intended use Like, oh, I'm an actor, I'm going to be on stage, oh, I'm a writer, I'm going to write movies.

Speaker 1:

And I think me and you both have embraced something interesting, and I think a lot of people have too. They're finding new uses for their craft. And that's what I wanted to talk to you about, because you kind of brought this idea to me and I was like that's amazing, I want to talk about that more. For me I'm a screenwriter, but I've also shifted a little bit of my creativity into journalism and I guess marketing, I think would be kind of like mark journalism masquerading as marketing, but I would interview directors of photography and other creatives and filmmakers and do a little expose about them, because they use a certain tool and you have taken acting and done something else with it too that doesn't belong on stage, that doesn't belong in front of a camera, and I want to hear more about that.

Speaker 3:

Shakespeare has this quote. It's the beginning of a speech, kind of he said all the world's a stage. Yeah, and it is. All the world is a stage. And I don't want to necessarily talk about the book that I'm working on, that I'm writing because it diffuses, I think, some of my creative energy. But there is an element of stagecraft, of the craft of entertainment, that I think is in everything. And so the thing we talked about, I think, was the company that I work for, Dramatic Resources, which is based out of London.

Speaker 3:

The company that I work for, Dramatic Resources, which is based out of London.

Speaker 3:

They work with big corporations. I'm not going to name them, but they work with big corporations and go into their spaces and talk to them about their delivery, talk to them about the energy and the culture that they're representing as a company, and they play games with them, like status games, and they coach people on how to have one-on-one conversations. They do all kinds of things which is very, very much theatrical, a bunch of theatrical elements that they create a curriculum out of to help people who are engineers and scientists, you know, etc. And so I started working with them because a friend of mine introduced me to them. I had an interview. It worked out. I've been working with them for about a year and it's been amazing to take the things that I do on a daily basis and help people who would say, yeah, I'm not an actor, I don't do theater, I don't do whatever, but the skills that I have as an artist, as an actor, I'm helping people who are talking about budgets at a company that are millions and millions. The TPS reports yes.

Speaker 1:

It's incredible. I wanted to broach this subject with you because this is something JJ and I talked when he was on the pod this idea that being an artist isn't real. You know, like, when are you going to get a real job? When are you? And I think, because we play for a living, like as a writer, I'm just making stuff up and I'm like these two people have an imaginary conversation about aliens and there's explosions, and then you know you're on stage. You know, like embodying a Grecian general who's like talking to a siren of the Like. This is all play. Yeah, we're just adults. Yeah. But I think what people forget is that a lot of these tools and a lot of these things that we're doing and exploring have parallels in what some would call like a real career. You know, like let's go work at the factory, you know, or like let's go do a 9-to-5 at. You know, morgenstein and I don't know what's. Go do a nine-to-five. Uh, you know, um morganstein and I don't know what's. What's like a corporate name.

Speaker 1:

Yeah yeah, I don't know like uh uh, god, no, I, I gotta do this bit. Whatever, whatever tech company or corporation Like Oracle, for example, what does Oracle do? Yes, I know what they do, but when you think of Oracle as a company, you're like, huh, they just do stuff. But those personal interactions not only with your coworkers, with your bosses, with the things that you do on a daily basis they can benefit so much from acting, and I'm seeing a lot more actors and writers and directors use those skills that they've accumulated in the creative space. They're using them in this non-creative space.

Speaker 1:

And so that idea of like, oh, you got an English degree, good luck working at Starbucks. And I'm like, no, no, I'm using my English degree now, outside of my creative field, to tell stories for marketing, yeah, for journalism, like I am a storyteller, yeah, and I think people with acting skills like yourself are also doing that in a corporate setting to help people communicate better, to help people deliver a presentation better. Yeah, and my wife also does something similar, but it's with lawyers. So she works for a company, um, uh, that helps lawyers with, that uses actors to help lawyers and witnesses during prep and trial. Yeah, which is incredible. Yes, it is, because what do lawyers do when they, you know, plead a case, tell the story, absolutely yeah. And so I think what I'd want to talk to you about is like getting people out of this mindset of you're an artist and you can do art and it has value, but those skills also have value outside of the artistic intention, I guess, yes, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Well, there are a lot of people who aren't interested in that right. So if you are, you, might not necessarily want to do anything journalism-wise marketing-wise that might not be what you want to do, like oh, I'm just a writer, that's all I do and that's just it.

Speaker 1:

That's totally cool too.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's absolutely okay and if you're cool with doing that, I think that that's why people have that, that energy, that attitude of like, oh well, good luck working in starbucks, you got this english degree. Yeah, if you isolate yourself and that's the only thing that you want to do, can do whatever. If you don't have that opportunity, then, yeah, you might have to take a job at starbucks or wherever right to make ends meet and that's cool. But if you're open to possibilities to do other things, anybody who specializes in anything can branch that out. You know, into a lot of other things we I don't think especially artists we don't necessarily get, in the grand scheme of things, the value placed upon us that we probably deserve.

Speaker 3:

But, as you were saying, you know I tell stories, I write stories and I would, I would piggyback and be an advocate and say that's life, all life is a story. Yeah, everything that it, from our politics to our, it's all a story. The your life is a story. The things you've been told is part of your story, which creates you, who you are right, and so if you can figure out a way this is kind of part of the book that I'm writing figure out ways to change your narrative, change your story. It's like a mantra. It's like you know people go. I think this is one of the best things about being raised in the church, like I was. We go to church and you hear whatever the sermon is, and it's not even about necessarily knowing this or knowing that or whatever, but if you're talked to about love and forgiveness and whatever, over and over and over again, you walk with that in your life.

Speaker 3:

I forget Mandy Patinkin sang this song. I remember studying it but it kept saying you, you've got to be taught. You did it with such great diction. Was this for in fear? And I was like, oh my gosh, that is such a great. I don't know what it was for was it for something in the?

Speaker 3:

park. I don't know, it might have been, I have no idea. So I just remember, right, I just remember studying in school and seeing a clip of him sing that and I was like that line in in that I that just keeps replaying in my head and I don't know any more of the song I still over these years.

Speaker 3:

Haven't looked it up, um, but I love him and I love that song. But the fact that it it said, you've got to be taught to hate and fear, that to me is storytelling. It's your life, it's how your life has been unfolded and you know you grow up to think and believe certain things. Change your narrative, yeah, change the story that you digest and you are a different person why just like solve all societal and cultural problems in 20 minutes on this podcast?

Speaker 1:

no, because you're right. I mean, I think that when you break everything down, it all is. You know, we're all just kind of sitting in a hut telling stories or sharing oral history, and I'm referencing kind of like the histories of humanity where we just sat around in tribes and we didn't have written language, we just told stories to each other and people carried that and that's literally at the. I would assume that's of my opinion that that baseline of humanity is just still that sharing of stories.

Speaker 2:

We just do it differently now.

Speaker 1:

We have admin and politics and whatnot. And you mentioned Mandy Patinkin, who I also. I have the same thing and I think this ties into what we're talking about, because he did Sunday in a Park with George, a Sondheim musical about George Surratt Surratt, thank you, hayley was like that's the right name, and he's the one who painted that pointillism painting with the folks at the park and he has this song in it which is called Finishing the Hat, and that song just kills me every time I hear it, because it's this story about him literally finishing a hat in the painting. But there's a line in it where he goes there never was a hat, like that's like the end of it, and I'm like the way I'm gonna tie it back into this is because we're talking about creating stories for ourselves, like some of these stories might not be true or might not be, but they have meaning to us because, like in this moment, he is drawing a hat in a painting that's telling a story about this moment in life for all these people.

Speaker 1:

But the hat didn't exist. The narrative's changed and I always think back to that song and every time I hear it I try to understand the things that I am perceiving in my own career, my own creativity in the world in general, and seeing how I'm affecting that narrative with positivity and negativity, like, oh, am I like? Oh, hollywood's dying. Is it Like we're here, we're making things like I'm writing, you're on stage, like the idea that, like the film industry is dead can be such a self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess.

Speaker 1:

But now we're getting a little too like metaphysical that's okay, we're digressing, I think beyond this idea, which which is the idea we can make this conversation what we want. That's true. That's true, even though the idea was like how can you be a creative outside of a creative? It's a deep question. Yeah, it is Now that I'm thinking about it. It's like, damn, dug a hole for that one. Let's see if we can fill it.

Speaker 3:

It's okay, let's see if we can fill it. Yeah, we can fill it. Of course we can fill it. Oh, my God, I feel like the question can spark so many things. It can take can spark so many things and take you down a rabbit hole and that is what it is. But how we're feeling today is how we're feeling right, and tomorrow it can change, it can be completely different, and I say we embrace that right.

Speaker 3:

I say we allow that to be what it is. We're going to create this today. We're going to say what we feel today.

Speaker 2:

Tomorrow we might be like, oh my gosh, that's out there in the world now deleted, delete, yeah, yeah, I don't believe that.

Speaker 3:

I don't think that anymore. That's um I. I I've expanded my mind great, awesome, keep going.

Speaker 1:

I think you're allowed to change your mind.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I I wanted to kind of touch on this a little bit as well, because I started this idea for this episode with this oh, you can, your craft is legitimate because it can exist outside of it can exist in the real world, and I think I fell into my own trap, yeah, and then you said something interesting that really kind of changed my mind a little bit about, oh, gave me perspective on it, which was if you wanted to do the thing, if you wanted to be an English major and just like write a book right, or study the Odyssey, and that's all you want to do with your life, you can do that and that is legitimate. And I think, with this episode, what I want to kind of convey to folks and I think you've kind of done that for me and for, I think, other people as well that your craft, in whatever capacity that you want to do, is legitimate. Yeah, and that's that. That that's it. I don't know I was gonna say that's okay, no, no, that's not. That's not, that's not.

Speaker 1:

No, okay, it's legitimate it is you can be an actor on tv, on film, on stage. You can be a director, you can make small movies, you can make YouTube shorts. That is legitimacy, and I think we have to stop treating creatives as like, oh, it's not a real thing, you're not serious about life. Because sometimes I see all these older actors that are character actors. I'm like you're an old man. We saw the parenting last night with brian cox and um lisa kudrow and uh, my god, the gentleman from breaking bad and brian cox. I was looking at him and I'm like that's a man in his her, in his later stage in life. He's naked and he's saying these weird things that someone wrote and that's his job. Yeah, yeah, how is that not legitimate? Just because you're not like successful and you're not on a big movie and a big show, that doesn't mean like that.

Speaker 3:

for some reason, that means you're not doing things seriously yeah, yeah, I mean like there are people who are doing some things that you would probably think are absolutely insane. There are people who make paper clips. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what do you say about? You know what I mean? I don't care what anybody says about me as an artist or how, what they think, whatever, and I think we get caught up in that so much Like, oh, what do you? Oh, what do you, I don't care what you think about what I do and how I do it. Yeah, now, I wasn't always like that. I cared so much about what people thought. I didn't tell people for the longest time that I was an actor when I lived in New York, because they would all be like, well, oh, you're working at a restaurant or you're whatever.

Speaker 1:

And I'm like why do you have to talk to people? Delegitimize? Yeah, you know why? Because I'm jealous. Is that what it is? Maybe, I don't know, it's probably. Someone probably feels jealous and said it that way. But how did you overcome that? How did you overcome that it took time yeah, but what was the support system? What was the word? What was the experience that you went through for you to come out the other end and be like I'm good just, I mean life traveling, meeting people.

Speaker 3:

There were people I remember, um, uh, I went, I one of my random things that happened and I was like, yeah, I'll do that. It didn't pay a lot of money, it was just a couple thousand dollars. It was a short film that this director from Slovenia, johannes Lepine, was like. I need an American actor to play this soldier from World War II who gets shot down in Yugoslavia and meets this kid who doesn't speak English, and it's like our version of Gone With the Wind, and I'm doing a tribute to the film.

Speaker 3:

And so I was like what the heck is I wanna do that? Why, well, they're gonna fly me over to Slovenia, which I didn't know was a country at the time, to be honest with you, I had no idea, you know and they were like it's former Yugoslavia. I was like, oh, okay, now I understand it. I get it. Anyway, long story short, I went there. While I was there, I took a detour and went to Munich. I took a detour and went to Paris. I met artists from different parts of Europe.

Speaker 3:

I remember going to Germany and hanging out with a bunch of the actors in the theater there, and they were part of a company that was supported by the government, and the conversations that we had as artists were completely different from the conversations that I would have here in the States with artists. And I was curious. I was like why is that? And part of it is they're legitimate. They're legitimate, they're being supported, they're looked at as valuable by society and they're not stars. Most of the people that I was talking to that I was hanging out with, matter of fact, I was hanging out with a German movie star and a bunch of theater people, and so she was on a different level here. But over here, these theater people who I was like, yeah, you're my people, yeah, I'm shooting this film in Slovenia, but I normally do the theater thing they were just as valuable as the German film star because they're legitimate. They're looked at as artists and artists are valued.

Speaker 3:

There and in Europe as a whole, it seemed like artists were valued in a different way. And again, that's part of the story that we're told here, the story that we're told if you're not an A-list celebrity doing the whatever, then you're struggling. You're whatever and a lot of us may be struggling, but we're not legitimate according to our society, with how we view things and how much money we should have, et cetera, et cetera. I tell my own story for myself. I create my own story for myself, so I don't I don't need anyone and that's come from experience. I don't need anyone to tell me that what I do is valuable because it is to you, I know and I think at the beginning other people as well.

Speaker 1:

I think initially it's important for it to be valuable to you, because when I write, I have to write for me, I have to write things that you're your first audience, exactly. And then, beyond that, as you kind of grow, then it's like okay, who's it valuable for after that? And I think you just have to find people that find value in you and in your art and in your presence and everything that you bring to the table, whether it be for a play on stage or for the conference room, and you can do both. You can do one and you can do the other, and you can do both. You can do one and you can do the other. I think people that are listening now. I think we should all kind of band together and work on legitimizing the idea that artists are valuable.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, start with yourself. Yeah, true, true, true. But if you look at all these things that are kind of important in our country, kind of important in our country communicating, selling things and branding and politics I'm sure there's a bunch of other things that I can't think of off the top of my head. It's all based around telling a story. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And all about conveying what's in here and I'm pointing at my chest. I keep forgetting it's a podcast, because I have three cameras pointing at me and I'm like people can see me and I forget that people are sitting at home like on.

Speaker 1:

Spotify or Apple have a podcast and be like what is he doing?

Speaker 3:

That always happens. That always happens. They're just silent.

Speaker 1:

I hear thumping. What is that? That always happens.

Speaker 3:

What is that? Yeah, is that? What is that? Yeah, all of the podcasts that I listen to, that happens.

Speaker 1:

It's like, oh, they don't understand, we're just listening right now, yeah, or I'm just listening. Yeah, um, but kind of circling back to I think we we cracked it. I don't know if there's a lot more of an impact oh, there's always more to unpack, but yeah, I think we answered yeah, it's, it's you gotta um be, I think it's.

Speaker 1:

I think, if we break it down to like something actionable, it's self-care you know like find ways to not be mean to yourself and be like oh, I'm not successful, I'm playing around, I'm not a you know real person, like I'm not a real boy because I went to theater school, like I went to you know it's on like when it comes to art, you know well, money is a big deal right.

Speaker 2:

Because we all have to pay rent.

Speaker 3:

We all have to you know, survive and eat and do all of those things. But I remember the thing that made me go into this art form was when I was able to tell myself if money didn't matter, what would you do? What would I do? And telling stories is what I would do. Yeah, I'd write, I would be an artist. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. This is what I would do for fun period, especially like with a group of people, an ensemble, getting people together to like tell a story or whatever. Yeah, I'm on board. I don't have to worry about money, absolutely. I'm not going to do open heart surgery for fun. I'm not going to write laws for fun. I'm not going to do a lot of things you know and so and I admire the people who do those things and find joy in that. That's great, that's what they should be doing.

Speaker 1:

Well, I guess this is a good follow-up to kind of wrap this episode up. I think that was a challenge for me where I looked at the things that I was doing, I was like I need to pay rent. How do I bridge this gap where I need to feel open and free and in love with myself and with my art to create things, but then also feel like somehow I can survive on a paycheck and pay the bills? And a lot of people do it in different ways. They, you know, work at restaurants. They, you know, work for real estate. Yeah, that for for writers specifically. They'll do copywriting and marketing and journalism, like they'll write blogs.

Speaker 1:

And I think that there's a shift that happens where you find a way to pay the rent, fill your fridge, not feel like you're struggling, like you're okay if you're good and then you have this time to go do these other things. But finding that, I think that moment where that switch happens, where you're good and then you have this time to go do these other things, but finding that I think that moment where that switch happens where you're like okay, I'm doing things that pay bells and I'm an artist and that's okay, we're here and we're just going to move forward. But from your experience, from your perspective, is there anything you can kind of convey to folks where it could be easier for them to find that switch?

Speaker 3:

I don't know if it's, if it's necessarily an easy switch to find as a general, in a general term you know, I would say generally figuring out what it is that you love and then just figuring out a way to like block out the noise Because if you love it in your own little space, then that's where you start and then developing the confidence to kind of like spread that out into the world sometimes takes time. I think my situation took time. The way I view things took time. It took me going, having saying yes to that trip to Slovenia and doing that, and then meeting a bunch of artists. It took moving here nine years ago. You realize, oh, this is the kind of artist that I am, this is kind of how people see me and that's okay. I'm okay with that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, I think, ending on, mandy Patinkin has a good period to this episode, where your quote with him was it was something that I heard him sing.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you've got to be taught to hate and fear. Yeah, you've got to be taught anything.

Speaker 1:

I think we can all teach ourselves to be nicer, yeah, and to be more accepting and to be taught anything. I think we can all teach ourselves to be nicer and to be more accepting and to be more open. I think we're just kind of piggybacking off episode one of like say yes, be open to things, but also say no, and I feel like that's confusing to some folks. It might be, it might be, that's okay.

Speaker 3:

That's okay. Yeah, you can figure it out when they're ready. Yeah, travel more, do the thing. That's okay.

Speaker 1:

yeah, you can figure it out when they're ready. Yeah, travel more, do the thing and I think, embrace this idea that being an artist is legitimate. It is, yeah. On that note, wayne, thank you again for coming in for episode two. We have two more left and a lot of cool things to talk about. Everyone listening. Thank you for listening and I will see you listening. Thank you for listening and then we'll see you next week. Thank you for listening to the Innywood Podcast. You can find the podcast in anywhere you find your podcasts or on the CFA YouTube channel.

Speaker 2:

From the CFA Network. Cinematography for Actors is bridging the gap through education and community building. Find out about us and listen to our other podcast at cinematographyforactorscom. Cinematography for Actors Institute is a 501c3 nonprofit. For more information on fiscal sponsorship donations because we're tax-exempt now, so it's a tax write-off and upcoming education you can email us at contactatcinematographyforactorscom. Thanks,