Brett Maline Explains How Hard Work Creates Lucky Breaks

A creative life rarely moves in a straight line, and Brett Maline’s story makes that clear real fast. We start in Minden, Nebraska, where he grows up with a rare spinal condition and something even rarer: a community that practices true inclusion and expects him to compete, contribute, and lead. That foundation becomes a quiet superpower later, when the film industry and TV industry test confidence daily through rejection, uncertainty, and constant reinvention. 

From small town theater, marching band, speech competitions, and yes, clogging, Brett jumps into a California-based performing group and tours internationally, learning what audiences respond to and how collaboration really works. That touring life eventually turns into a band, Rally for One, sparked by pure hustle, serving tables, singing, handing over a demo, and following through. We talk about the hard choice to leave the band, the humbling reset back in Nebraska, and why “setbacks” are often the moments that clarify what you actually want to build. 

Then the conversation shifts into comedy training at The Groundlings, pathways like CBS Diversity Showcase and UCB, and the politics of prestigious programs like Sunday Company. Brett also breaks down why disability representation on screen matters, how seeing an inauthentic festival film pushed him to write Hypocrite, and how making that short helped unlock bigger opportunities, including writing on Marvel’s Loki Season 2. We close with lessons from building a YouTube comedy channel, why the future of movies and live experiences may be brighter than it looks, and how creators can keep momentum by making work now. 

If you enjoy honest career stories about screenwriting, indie filmmaking, comedy, and the real work behind “overnight” success, subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What part of Brett’s path felt most familiar to you?

Transcript

Meet The Host And Guest

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey everyone, how's it going? My name is Nate Kaywood, a Los Angeles-based cinematographer, and this is Film Shit, a podcast where I sit down with a working professional in the TV and film industry. I ask them where they came from, what exactly it is that they do, and what the future of the industry looks like. Today I'm incredibly excited to have not only a collaborator and dear friend, um, but someone that I look up to greatly and someone that I'm continually inspired by. He is a writer, he is a director, he is a musician, he's an actor, he is Brett Moleen. Um, what an intro. Thanks, dude. Dude, you're very welcome. Thank you for joining us today, man. Of course. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 0:36

I'm great. I uh I've had a great day.

SPEAKER_04 0:39

Uh and then you got here.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Yeah, and then I got here and it's just gone rapidly downhill. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:44

That's okay.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

At least Sabs is here.

SPEAKER_04 0:46

Yeah, Sabs is here producing. Thank you, Sabs. Running, um, she's uh audio mixing for us too. Uh and I'm here. Uh okay, wait. So normally in the show, I like to kind of just like start from the beginning. And the beginning is you were born. And you were born in Nebraska. Yes. That's a place that you're from.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:03

What happened after your birth?

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Uh so I uh uh I was born in small town, Nebraska. Um uh two stoplights, everybody knew each other. What is it? Give it a shout-out. Minden, Nebraska. Minden?

SPEAKER_04 1:16

832, baby. That says 832, y'all.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

Yeah, yeah. Um, I loved where I grew up, still do. Uh very proud to be from there. It was an amazing place to grow up because so I I was born with uh a rare uh spinal bone disease called Clipophile Syndrome, uh, where I, you know, don't look and move like most peeps I meet. And my town, and I didn't really realize this till getting to moving out, is my town had the best inclusion and practiced the best inclusion any disabled person could ask for. They never once, you know, questioned whether I could do something. Uh they never, you know, uh babied me in any way or treated me, you know. Uh there were some things that I couldn't do, like I couldn't wrestle, so it's like, okay, cool. Like, I can't wrestle, I couldn't play tackle football. But like anything else, like they never questioned whether not only could I do it or whether I could be one of the best at it. And they had and they continue to have high expectations for me. Um, and that really helped shape kind of a lot of who I am, and then, you know, and like gave me a lot of self-confidence, even though I was coming from small town Nebraska to Los Angeles. I had this unfounded

Inclusion And Confidence In Minden

SPEAKER_02 2:40

confidence because it had been instilled in me my entire childhood, you know. And a lot of that had to do with my folks too, you know, they were the same way. So the the town just saw, you know, kind of how my folks raised me and they're like, all right, cool. Well, we'll do that too.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I think they'd probably the the town, the community at large would probably take the cue off your your parents, you know, and how they interacted with you. Yeah. So, okay, that's interesting. I like that's like a really cool perspective to be able to take take from your childhood, right? Like, that's like an incredible um tool set that you've been able to uh keep for yourself, which has probably helped you through the trials and tribulations of the industry, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Um, okay, but before we get too much to that, okay, let's let's talk about your childhood, right? So um, so it was it was different than the average person, one would say. But like, what was your um engagement and interaction with the arts as a kid?

SPEAKER_02 3:34

I was that was the other thing about my small town, about Minden, is for, I mean, again, 3,000 people, everybody knows everybody. We had an amazing local theater. And so, you know, and they opened when they do bigger productions, bigger musicals, they would open up. So, like kids, you know, in elementary school, clear up to through high school, got an opportunity to audition and be in these musicals, like with you know, adults who for small town Nebraska, we had like some great talent. Like, like even looking back, obviously I'm biased because I'm from there, but sincerely, like looking back, like the the the talent singing-wise, the talent, like there's this guy, his as his name's uh Don, and he uh they own the floral shop in town. And Don, anytime he walked on stage, people just started laughing. He just has this stage presence and comedic timing that just everybody, just Don Phillips could make anybody laugh. And I, you know, it was special to be around that kind of you know talent and get a get to perform with people like that, you know, at a young age, and to see kind of like, oh, this is you know, they they're working their jobs, but they also like are really talented on stage. And so with that, we also uh we had an amazing marching band. 300 people in the high school, over a hundred of us in the band. We were one of the best bands in the state. Wow, yeah. People, uh, I have a distinct memory of we were uh at a high school football game and we would march on, you know, from the away sides, uh sideline to the homestands, you know.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Yeah, yeah, to intimidate.

SPEAKER_02 5:23

And to intimidate, yes. Yeah, yeah. So we'd be, you know, we're behind the the away football team and like our football team's getting killed because we were never very good when I was in high school. And the assistant coach from the other football team's like, you know what? He's like, Minden's football team ain't ever been shit, but man, they've sure always had a damn good band. And that literally, that was Minden, you know? Oh, that's hilarious. We were known for for our band. So and then, you know, getting into high school, I did speech, I did uh one act play stuff and did musicals and plays, and and we had again, we had great teachers, great um coaches for those things. And um, you know, one of my I even though it's you know low stakes now, you know, now, but one of my proudest accomplish accomplishments is uh winning states and and at uh in humorous pros. In humorous pros?

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Okay, wait what did you do what did you perform? You have to tell me what you performed to win. Winning state?

SPEAKER_02 6:17

Yes. Uh it was um uh uh it was um uh shut and bar the door. Uh uh I think it's called Shut and Bar the Door. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

You got anything else from it? Give me the camera right here.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

You didn't have Shut and Bar the door. Like it was like, you know, kind of it did like three or four different characters. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 6:35

Oh, this sounds awesome.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

Um, but uh but yeah, my freshman year I went and I was the only kid on our team to go to state. So I was like this scared freshman. I was so nervous. Yeah, you know, and I remember my dad telling me after I, you know, went to state that year, he's like, son, that was great. He's like, who knows? You may never get me. I'm sorry. He's like, you may never get to go to state again. And I was like, of course that kind of lit a fire under me. Oh, he's like, I'm not gonna start. Maybe, yeah. But then I I went back the three years after I got second my junior my sophomore year, second my junior year.

SPEAKER_04 7:07

And they were like, oh man, Malene's coming for us.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

And the guy that I got second to my junior year, I beat my senior year. It was between him and I, and it was like deja vu. Because they counted, you know, they're like, eight finalists, please come up to the to the state podium. You're in front of the whole, you know, crowd, all of people from all over the state, and they're like, eighth place, seventh place, sixth place. So you didn't even know. You didn't know that's how they announced it. And then you get down, and it gets gets down to me and Jess Phelps. Jess Felts, if you happen to listen to this, he's a he's a good dude, talented dude. Um, from Ogallala. Um, and my junior our junior year got down to him and I, and he won. Our senior year, same thing, got down to him and I. And as soon as they said second place, from Ogallala, I like blacked out.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

I was like, Oh, it was wild.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

I remember some. Yeah, you had to like sign this thing after you won for I don't know what, but like a few breasts. Yeah. No, it was like a for some certificate or whatever. Yeah. And I'm like, my signature looked insane because I was just shaking. I could barely sign anything. That's awesome. Yeah, it was it was sweet. It was sweet. It was like a, you know, all through my high school, something that I really wanted and I was really happy to get my senior year.

SPEAKER_04 8:22

Nice. Okay, great. So you so you knew from for a long time that you wanted to like be in the arts or participating in the arts.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Like, yeah, I would say like my first really because you know, small town Nebraska and I'm this small town Midwest is like sports are everything. And so, and

Finding The Arts Through Competition

SPEAKER_02 8:40

my dad was a um Division II college quarterback. So I was raised on sports, and I love sports. You know, I played basketball up until my freshman year. Uh, I played golf like all through high school on the golf team and loved baseball, yada, yeah. But um in sixth grade, I was doing this thing called Odyssey of the mind.

SPEAKER_04 8:57

Oh, yeah, I remember this.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, where you're like, you're on a team and you have to solve these you know problems.

SPEAKER_04 9:01

Yes, I remember this existing.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

And part of our problem that we, you know, got was that we had to make a a skit or you know, a kind of a to go along with us putting weight on this bolsa wood structure. So we came up with this museum and I played this Australian curator of the museum, and when we went to state, there that's the first time that like strangers came out to me and were just very complimentary, and I'd gotten a reaction from people that I'd never gotten before. I was like, whoa, this is cool, you know, and from people that I didn't know. Yeah, you know, and they were very it was wild. And I really, you know, I I loved performing, and then just the reaction that I got is like, I want to do more of that.

SPEAKER_04 9:46

What did this Australian tour guy?

SPEAKER_02 9:47

This guy sound like, what did they uh I mean it was a horse, it was a sixth grade Australian accent.

SPEAKER_04 9:52

So I was like, Yeah, I mean, obviously you're an adult now.

SPEAKER_02 9:59

Put the thing right here. You know, it's like that.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

Oh, that's it. That is an impressive Australian.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Sorry to all the Aussies listening.

SPEAKER_04 10:08

Uh no, that's incredible. Okay, cool. Yeah, so you first started getting noticed in like middle school.

SPEAKER_02 10:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and then yeah, just going into high school, I, you know, the other thing too that I really liked about speech, because you know, again, I was raised through sports, and but speech and when at play were both NSAA events. So there was conference districts and state, just like in any sport.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

And so in those things, I could excel in those things. Where like in sports, I'm five foot three dude, you know, skinny dude. I was I was never meant to be like an amazing athlete. But at these things, that they were still competitive in the arts, and I could do well and I could win state. I could win a medal, you know. And I really love that.

SPEAKER_04 10:54

Like, wait, so did you get like a letter? Do you have like a letterman's jacket that has your state championship medal on it?

SPEAKER_02 11:00

Yeah, yeah. And for when I play too, dude, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Yeah, yeah, it was good. What's your guys' colors? Purple, white. Ooh, the whippets.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

The whippets? Ooh, that's why you guys are bad at football. The whippets, that's not intimidating at all.

SPEAKER_02 11:13

I mean tiny little dogs. And they everyone wanted us to be a basketball school. It's like, guys, everybody knows our band. That's just what it is. Yeah, just be a band school. Yeah, it's way cool. Way more.

SPEAKER_04 11:22

Did you guys actually have a good basketball team?

SPEAKER_02 11:24

We, my freshman year we did, but they choked in districts and we didn't go to state. They were number one all year, and then they choked and lost in districts.

SPEAKER_04 11:32

That feels like my senior year of high school when we played soccer. Like we were like rated to go pretty high, and then we just didn't that game. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:40

What did you play?

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Um, striker and attack in midfield for the most part.

SPEAKER_02 11:45

So this is why you're a big soccer fan.

SPEAKER_04 11:47

Huge soccer, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I didn't play football. Like, my folks didn't let me play football because my dad's no, apologies. My mom's cousin, she's from Sweet Springs, Missouri. When he was in high school, broke his back in football. I think lost the ability to use his legs. Yeah. So my folks were like, Yeah, you're not gonna play football. I mean, I played football all the way until it was just like now we've got helmets and pads and stuff like that, maybe eighth grade or whatever. Like, I like also a small town, my town has 9,000 people, rural Wisconsin. So we played every sport and played, did all of the theater and all the things just so that we could do the thing. So so that there could be a play. Yep. Or there could be a team. I mean, you gotta have somebody come off the bench, right?

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 12:31

Um, yeah, I would I would have played wide receiver, but I was very slow. I cannot run. So um, okay.

Choosing California Over A Straight Path

SPEAKER_04 12:39

I'm cu I'm curious about um how you got to California. Like, what was the decision that made California a reality? Cause because we've spoken just right now about competition and one act play and speech. We haven't spoken about music at all.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

When did you get into music? So, my senior year, um, in my class, there was this dope guitar player, Todd Garrison. He still plays, and his dad is also a dope musician, and his dad, and they like lived out in the country, and his dad, because he played in a band, had all this equipment, and his dad would let us come out to the house and he would set the equipment up for us, and we would just jam just for fun. And so that's kind of the very first start of like, ooh, music, and like kind of you know, and with the band too.

SPEAKER_04 13:28

Like, we were playing, I played trombone in the band, and so I always loved music and and played piano and whatever, and and took uh voice lessons in in high school because we just have to time out really quickly for like the audience of uh people who are not from where we're the places that we're from. Yeah, you just listed off 90 things like casually, just like, yeah, and then I was like taking uh piano lessons and like a trombone player, and also like jaming out in my buddy Todd's place, and like also like, yeah, dude. It's so funny because it's I feel like it when I speak to other people who aren't from places like where we're from, like they're more compartmentalized in their journey and their understanding of what it is that they do. It's like by virtue of being from such small places, like we are required as a body to be able to make events a pot or clubs, music ensemble. Like, we can't be like, Well, Brett plays trombone, so like he's gotta be in the band, right? You know, uh, which I think is interesting. So, anyway, sorry, I didn't want to interrupt, but but I had to.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

No, it's so true, it's so true. Um, and I love doing it all. I mean, I really it's it's very, you know, I loved it. Um, but so then when I was I was gonna go to school in to Chicago, I was looking at schools in and around Chicago. Uh I was looking at uh Loyola in Chicago, I was looking at um Northwestern.

SPEAKER_04 14:50

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

Uh did not get into Northwestern.

SPEAKER_04 14:53

It's a hard school to get into, dude.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

So mad.

SPEAKER_04 14:56

Really?

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Oh, so mad.

SPEAKER_04 14:58

It is like where the smartest kids from my high school would go. Yeah. Northwestern. And LA's like one or two of them. And then everybody else would go to Madison if you were smart. Yeah. And all those uh dummies went to state schools everywhere else.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah. I yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:12

So you were pretty bitter. Like, what were you okay?

SPEAKER_02 15:15

But it ended up working out.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Okay, of course it did, but let's talk about it. So you wanted to go to Northwestern. What did you want to major in when you were going to Northwest in your dream Northwestern track? What were you gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 15:25

Theater.

SPEAKER_04 15:25

Theater.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

I wanted to be, I went and and visited their theater school, and like their professors were incredible. Yeah. I really wanted to yeah, to go to Northwestern, major in theater, and then at graduate from there, hopefully get into Steppenwolf and go to um Yeah, and so do all stage work in Chicago.

SPEAKER_04 15:43

Yeah, yeah. Which is a great place to do stage work, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

And then obviously get in Second City and then SNL or I it would have been, you know, who knows, maybe yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:52

I'm just curious because it's like, oh, that's such a linear. We oftentimes create such linear paths and structures for ourselves to be able to use it as a benchmark or or something to mark success.

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

And uh this the whole intention of this podcast is to be able to reveal and illuminate people's stories to let the audience and hopefully future generations of creatives, and also to remind ourselves that paths are not linear like that, right? So that it's just like, well, we're here, but we're still finding ourselves wanting to be creative. We can't stop doing that thing, and that's okay. And then it might not look like Northwestern to stage to Steppenwolf to Second City, but you're here and you're doing a lot of really cool stuff. Um okay, of course.

The Workshop That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_04 16:40

But also California.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Um so then my so backtrack a little bit, my freshman year of high school, okay, this performing group comes through town because their bus breaks down. So they're like, okay, our bus is broken down, we gotta stay the night while our our bus gets fixed.

SPEAKER_00 17:01

They put on at Minden, in tiny town Minden, and they're from California.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

And so they put on this workshop at our local at our opera house in town where we're was performing and doing those musicals that I talked about earlier.

SPEAKER_04 17:16

Stop. You have an opera house in Minden?

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 17:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

That's what I'm saying. Like Minden's sp like the arts in Minden is really special. There's also a a a state known, and it's like grow blowing up now because it blew up on this um TikTok um uh post. Uh there's a Christmas pageant that we have that takes place on in the middle of town and on our courthouse lawn, and at the end of it, and there's like this voiceover, and there's people like acting in the you know, on three sides of the courthouse. It's simultaneous. Oh, wow, okay. And thousands of people bust in to come see it, and then at the end of it, the whole courthouse and downtown lights up with Christmas lights.

SPEAKER_04 17:59

Oh, okay, great. I was like, I was like, lights on fire. My god, that's so impressive. Okay, uh, that sounds gorgeous. Is Don Phillips part of the acting? Absolutely, yes, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

That was the other thing too. I don't think it's like this anymore, but back in the day, I'll I will rem I will forever remember Ben Mori, who he directed a lot of the plays and musicals at the at the opera house. Um he directed in the the Christmas pageant. And the phone rang, and my mom's like, Brett, the phone's free. I'm like, who is it? She's like Ben Maury. And I was like, because he was like close to Christmas. So I was like, so I get on the call and he's like, Brett, how are you? He's like, I wanted a call to ask if you might be interested in playing a stable boy in the I can't remember what year it was, in the 40th annual Minden. How old were you? I was like 10. Yeah. And it was a huge deal. I was so excited.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

But when you're in the Christmas pageant, so you're like in your bat, you're you go in the stable, and as a as a stable boy, you gotta light the flare. If you light this flare, and you're leading Mary and Joseph.

SPEAKER_04 19:13

I know without the stable boy, they can't get to where they need to be.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yeah, this is huge. Sometimes, you know, when I was 10 years old and you gotta right? Sometimes I couldn't get the flare lit. And that was like a thing between us stable boys. Like you we come back, did you get the flare lit? No, I didn't get it lit.

unknown 19:28

Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 19:28

You feel like you can't because you're walking around in the dark trying to without a flare, you know, whatever, you know, like how how many okay, so multiple stable boys, how many times are you doing the show? I mean, you had enough shows to be able to be like, I didn't get it this time.

SPEAKER_02 19:44

Yeah, oh yeah. I I think I think you do it like it's like two or three weekends. Oh, okay. Like because it's only I think it starts right after Thanksgiving and goes clear up until pretty much Christmas.

SPEAKER_04 19:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

But it's like you're going through flares left and right.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Yeah, it's a big well, and it's on the weekends.

SPEAKER_04 20:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I understand. Yeah, yeah. Friday, Saturday, Sundays.

SPEAKER_02 20:06

But it's I mean, they bring in bleachers down like and set them up downtown. Like it's and even though it's freaking freezing cold, of course, thousands of people will still come.

SPEAKER_04 20:15

I mean, they gotta see the stable boy. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Okay, that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 20:19

Yeah. Um, but uh, yeah, so anyway, this performing group, they come, they do this workshop, and it was it was dope, you know, and it was like, whoa, this is really cool, and like these people are really talented, and they're from California, and I'd never even thought about California, you know? Um, and like in terms of like going there and studying and whatnot. So then fast forward to my senior year, the performing group comes back, and but they do a three-day workshop.

SPEAKER_04 20:52

And at the end of the bus breakdown, or they were just like, hey, you know what, we liked it last time, we're gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Okay, that's cool. Yeah, and so they did a three-day workshop at our school, and at the end of the workshop, um the a couple of the performers were like, Hey, you should come audition for the for the group to be in the group. I was like, Me, why? And they're like, No, you just should, you should. I'm like, okay. Because like in my head, they were right, like clear up here talent-wise. Right. And I was like, like I could sort of sing, but I wasn't, you know, like these, these, these people were like, they're professionally trained dancers, professionally trained singers, like they could be on Broadway.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

Um, and so anyway, I go and audition, and fast forward to I get a letter in the mail a few months later, and I got into the performing group. Wow. And my sister, my twin sister, who is also a performer, uh, she also got in. I forgot to tell you one last thing.

SPEAKER_04 21:52

Okay, one last thing, and then the podcast is over. Sorry guys, it's gonna be a short one today. Brett's dictating it.

Clogging Duo And Joining The Group

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Are not gonna be happy I left this out.

SPEAKER_04 22:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 22:03

So clogging. It's a type of tap dance.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

I know clogging.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Okay. So my twin sister and I co-owned a clogging studio in high school. I'm being serious.

SPEAKER_04 22:17

I know you are. I am furious that you left this out of the story. Okay. Keep it covered. Okay. Clogging. Okay. A tradition hailed from, I would assume, just Central Europe, Germany, the Netherlands, where's clogging again?

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Yeah, it's not as though, it's not like the Irish high step. No, no, no. Like it's much more. Hey, honestly, the only difference from tap to clogging is that tap, you're you're mainly you're up on this part of your foot, like, you know, on the forefront of your of your feet. Your toes? The balls of your feet? Like your, what do you call that? The balls of your feet. Yeah. Like you're you're constantly up on the balls of your feet and tap, like kind of doing that. You're never on your heels for the most part and tap. Where clogging, it's a so the main step in clogging is like a shuffle step. Tap, it's a flap. Where again, you're it's this. So anyway. But it's just more of like a grounded form of tap.

SPEAKER_03 23:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 23:15

Um, anyway.

SPEAKER_04 23:17

Wow, careful. The tappers are gonna come in. After you, bro.

SPEAKER_02 23:20

Tappers tap in. Yeah. Um, my older sister, uh, we lived in Omaha for a little bit, and Omaha's the big city in Nebraska. She was a part of a um a clogging uh competition dance troupe that did competitions all over the country.

SPEAKER_04 23:39

Like the Jabbawalkies, but clogging.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

Yes, they're all Heartland Hoe donors, uh, and they were really good. Uh, and so then when we moved three hours west to small town Minden, she opened a studio. And then when she graduated, my twin sister took over the studio, but then Brooke got hurt playing basketball, needed me to come in and kind of take over teaching and choreography. And then after Brooke got better, she's like, Hey, do you want to keep doing this? Like, I'll keep running the business, you can teach and choreograph. And I was like, Let's do it. So with the performing group, Brooke and I, we clogged, and that's how that was like, I think one of the main reasons we got in because we were like this duo clogging duo, right? And we made our first tour um as as a clogging duo, like we were in the solo section as a clogging duo.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

It's incredibly difficult to take the word clogging seriously in any way, shape, or form. It's just like repeatedly talking about clogging, it's hilarious. I mean, also like like where from where I'm from in Wisconsin, like it is heavily Germanic and Norwegian immigrants, so like that came in like the mid 1800s. So it's like clogging and polka and like that sort of stuff is like I know that clogging isn't associated with polka. I'm just saying both of them um are around. Yeah, yeah. So like I understand the vibe, the clogging vibes. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so big clog hound over here. Big cloghound. Okay, and then so okay, so you get into the performing drop the name of the performing arts group, dude.

SPEAKER_02 25:02

Let's

Touring The World And Culture Shocks

SPEAKER_02 25:03

do some Well, I don't really like to, it's a weird situation.

SPEAKER_04 25:06

Oh, you guys are on um dicey terms now?

SPEAKER_02 25:10

I wouldn't say dicey terms. It was just like there's a lot going on in the performing group, and uh and uh, you know, we get the the best parts about the performing group were that we got to travel around the world and um it was nonprofit, and so we would stay with families. And so there's I like I have a family in Japan that I stayed with in 2007 who I still keep in touch with. I'm gonna see them when I go to Japan later this year. There's a family in Ireland who I've kept in touch with that I stayed with in 2006 when we were on tour of the UK. I'm gonna see them uh soon. And so that and you know, when you stay with families, you are automatically thrown into the culture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's amazing. That sounds awesome. Loved that part of the group. And um, the people that I met in the group were, you know, my roommate now. He is is he's you know, he was in the performing group, yeah, one of the most talented people I know. Um, and you know, uh so many of my very, very close friends and creative collaborators uh were from the performing group. That's incredible. Yeah, and how long were you in the group? So I was in the group for three years, yeah. Did you get paid? No, but we would go on tour. It was kind of a weird thing. We didn't get paid, we took classes and whatnot, like our first semester, and then we were given the opportunity to audition for tour. So when I was 19 years old, I auditioned to go on my first tour to Germany, made it, and then that's what kind of what started. Then it was kind of like just going, you'd get home, you'd be home for like a month or so, and then you'd go back out on tour. So I toured to like Germany, toured the East Coast, toured the UK, toured the Midwest. I went and performed up at a dinner theater in northern Michigan for a summer. Uh, toured to Japan, toured to China, and then Dang, this sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_03 26:56

Yeah, yeah. As well. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so after so you did that for a number of years. So uh what happened uh after that?

From Touring To Starting A Band

SPEAKER_02 27:05

So then in the performing group, met some best buds, and uh we started kind of just playing some music together, right? Uh at the same time, you were on trombone or what? I was on guitar actually.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

Okay, so when did you pick up guitar?

SPEAKER_02 27:17

Uh in the performing group.

SPEAKER_04 27:19

Okay, yeah, great. I was like, that's gonna be like a huge clogging type situation. We're gonna have to go all the way back.

SPEAKER_02 27:23

Well, yeah. And that was a cool thing too in the performing group, because I went, you know, I think what got us in predominantly right away was clogging. But then the longer I was in the group, you know, I was really kind of able to, you know, get to play some characters. Like I played Cat in the Hat in our when we when we reviewed Cat in the Hat, and you know, different what did he sound like? Cat and the Hat. I mean, it was pretty much like my voice, but oh okay.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

It wasn't affected at all.

SPEAKER_02 27:48

No, no, no.

SPEAKER_04 27:48

Oh, okay. Yeah. I'm just trying to get you to do impressions this whole time.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

Yeah, I was just like, after all these years, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:55

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Very different from the Australian tour guide. After all, whatever everything I did was like yeah, if it was uh I like how you affect that you kind of turned into like uh a JFK there for a second. After all these years.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

After all these years. Um, but uh so that was you know, and and then kind of the more I moved through the group, I got to, you know, start singing solos and um what was your favorite solo? Um, I got to sing all summer. I got to sing AC D C Shook Me All Night Long.

SPEAKER_04 28:25

Wow. Wait, so uh what's your range? You tenor?

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Uh I would say I'm a tenor baritone split. A baritone tenor split.

SPEAKER_04 28:33

That's nice. Yeah. I'm straight up baritone.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

That's great.

SPEAKER_04 28:37

I guess it seems like the least interesting vocal range. I think it's pretty much versatile. What do you got? Sinatra?

SPEAKER_03 28:44

What else do you got?

SPEAKER_04 28:46

Sinatra? Josh Grobin?

unknown 28:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:48

You know what I mean? Everything else is too high, it feels like. Any pop singer is like, oh, it's too high.

SPEAKER_02 28:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:53

Any cool musical song, oh, it's too high.

SPEAKER_02 28:56

We just gotta change the key you're singing in.

SPEAKER_04 28:59

Yeah, uh it's too much work, but I hear it. Anyway, let me get off my singing soapbox. Okay, so you're starting to jam with some bros on the tour.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

Yes. Uh, and yeah, we would play, you know, on tour, we would just play, you know, we'd have breaks and we'd just play, like my best buddy Blake, who I was talking to when I came in here, we would play, we'd just play songs, you know, on our guitar and that we were listening to, and we'd like write little songs here and there. And so that's why we kind of just kept playing with each other when we got out of the group. Uh at the same time, I started taking ground links classes. And it was great.

SPEAKER_04 29:36

Okay, but in Los Angeles, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:38

So we we moved out when we got out of the group though, it was based in Corona, which is wild.

SPEAKER_04 29:43

Yeah, Corona, California.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yeah, it was very I mean, we were literally in a warehouse district in Corona. Sure. Like it was all these like industrial building, uh like businesses and shit. And then here it was our rehearsal studios in this warehouse.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

So were you like leaving Nebraska and coming out to Corona and then doing rehearsals? Then you guys would fly to Germany and then you'd fly to Japan, like all that sort of stuff. Okay, wow, that sounds incredible.

SPEAKER_02 30:04

Yeah, okay. Um, and so um we moved to Long Beach and uh and then I started going driving up to LA to take ground this classes and was doing that.

SPEAKER_04 30:14

Um a commute.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Yes, yeah. Uh, but then sort of Cinderella story happened. Um, Blake and I, we were working at Macaroni Grill, and which is uh the only reason we got hired because we had we had no serving experience. Our roommate Jeff got us hired because he hyped us up to the general manager. He said, Hey, if you hire these guys, they can sing happy birthday in Italian. So that's the only reason we got hired. Okay, can you sing happy birthday in Italian?

SPEAKER_03 30:42

Of course. Give me the first line Tontiagore. Great, okay, great.

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Dang, macaroni grill coming through.

SPEAKER_02 30:54

Okay, so we're working at Macaroni Grill and like Jeff Blake, and that Jeff was a great singer too. He ended up going on to sing on cruise ships for years. And he uh anyway, so we would like do trios and like the GM just loved us. Very lucky. But Blake's serving this table one night, and he's like, dude, he's like, this guy's mom just blurted out that he's a music producer. He's like, You gotta come sing with me. Happy birthday, we gotta harmonize, like, we gotta impress this guy. So we sing happy birthday. And Blake's a talker, so he's like kind of yeah, yeah. And we sing happy birthday, and the guy's like, his name's David Guy, and he he's like, Well, now you have my attention. And so then he's like, Do you guys have a demo? And Blake had a demo CD that this is back in the day, like where you most you had to like have a buddy that or go into a studio to record. Like, the only person that was recording on their own was like uh who's the guy, Al City. You remember Al City from Iowa? That he was like a phenomenon. Like, yes, this guy records all of his stuff in his basement in Iowa City, it's amazing. Yes, you know. Um, so anyway, so we but we were lucky. Another buddy from the performing group helped us record this demo in his literally in his trailer home that he lived in. And we gave David Guy the demo. We woke up the next morning to a voicemail from him saying, I listened to your demo, I'd love to work with you guys.

SPEAKER_04 32:18

Wow. Yeah. And so hold on, time out really quickly. This is like one of those situations where I have to be like, hey, you just presented it as like a Cinderella story, but it's not a Cinderella story at all. Like you did a bunch of hard work to get there, and like you just like uh opportunity met like talent and hard work. Like that's it. You're like, oh, the Cinderella story. I was on tour singing and dancing for three years straight. I met these other incredibly talented musicians, and we got a job waiting tables because we could sing our asses off. And I happened to sing in front of a guy. You're like, and you put in the time to make the album.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:53

Okay, so Cinderella story happens. Do you start with this guy? How's that work?

SPEAKER_02 32:57

So uh that was a great thing because he he was a musician, and he's like, I'm not gonna, we're not gonna do any paperwork. He's like, it's a handshake deal. This is exactly what I would want it what I want to do. So he introduced us to another uh producer whose name was David Carey, and David Carey was the guy that kind of had the connections. He got us into Total Access, which was a studio in Redondo Beach, where um uh no doubt uh recorded their um I can't remember the album. Like their most recorded that album. Also, like all these other like Orange County kind of these punk rock bands recorded.

SPEAKER_04 33:36

Like it was it was yeah, it's probably Sublime probably didn't.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah, no effects, like it was nuts, it was wild. And so he got us in there, and uh then on top, then you know, we started recording like legitimately, excuse me, and then we started touring. And we started small and would just tour to Nebraska and Michigan because that's where our band was from. And then eventually we kind of kept branching out, branching out, branching out. Got to the east coast of New Jersey, where our buddy, our drummer is from, and um, yeah, we did five national tours and two full albums. Dang. And yeah, it was it was amazing. Yeah, that for three years. Uh the band's name, it our band's name was Rally for One. We were nobody famous, but we played with some pretty cool bands. We got to play with this band called Walk the Moon. Yeah, um, they're uh became some of our great buddies or still good buddies of them. And um, yeah, I mean it was a wild ride. And you know, when our band, after our band uh broke up, uh Blake went on to tour walk uh excuse me, to tour manage Walk the Moon for 10 years. And uh yeah, and then and I moved into TV and film, and our drummer is an editor actually in TV and film. You might have met him, Johnny. Yeah, yeah, and then Marty, our bass player, he's in northern Michigan and he still plays music. So nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:00

Okay, so so you guys end up sort of like uh you have this incredible, cool, like life experience. You do a couple albums, you do an obviously a number of national tours, which is super dope. And so uh, you know, as things go in the creative process and as we age and like sort of all that sort of stuff, like people's priorities shift, and you so you find yourself no longer in the band, or you guys like sort of just step away from creating music, or you find other opportunities, or what's the deal?

Why He Left Rally For One

SPEAKER_02 35:25

Well, so what happened, and it was a hard decision, but I was the one that left the band. Um, it was it was difficult because we had started having label meetings and labels. We we had several guys that wrote music in the band, and so our songs you know sounded different from one another. You couldn't really listen to our album be like, oh, from one song to the next, be like, oh, that's definitely the same band. And so interesting. Okay. And so, and this is kind of a running conversation that we'd have with different people that we were meeting with. Yeah, and um, you know, there was one label that you know wanted us to tour. They're like, you know, we'll pocket you basically. Yeah, we'll put you on tour with our artist. But, you know, we have a lot of solo artists, so we'd ask you guys to split up, which are like, we're not gonna do that. We're a band. That's weird. That is weird. Two of us would play on tour with one artist, two of us would go on tour with another artist.

SPEAKER_04 36:16

I agree. That sounds incredibly weird.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah, yeah. Um, and then this other label we met with um really liked um all the songs that our bass player wrote, um, which I was like, I was all for I'm like, yeah, let's do it. Um, but just not everyone was on the same page. Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 36:33

And the other people who wrote the songs, probably who were like, Well, what about my tunes?

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Yeah, yeah. And so um that kind of slowly created um a creative divide that kind of slowly crept through the band, and like a year after our first label meeting, it was like tough to get people to come to rehearse. And, you know, but in the back of my mind, I had always wanted to do comedy, you know. I just the band just kind of out of nowhere, you know. We met the producer and it was just kind of took off, and and I I loved playing music with my best buddies and traveling with my best buddies, and um, and I really found a love for writing music. Yeah, you know, which I didn't expect at all. I didn't you see that coming. And so, um, but yeah, I just I could kind of see the writing on the wall, and I I didn't want it to affect my my friendships with those guys because they're my three brothers, and so uh it was a really hard decision, but that's why I decided to leave. And um, yeah, one of the hardest decisions of my life, but it was definitely it was the right decision, and but it took a long, you know, it took took a couple years for things to kind of settle, right?

SPEAKER_04 37:42

You know. So after you stepped away from the band, then you continued classes at the Groundlands, or what was the vibe?

Groundlings Advice And Returning To Comedy

SPEAKER_02 37:49

Yeah, yeah. So then I also I want to shout out Drew Drogie. So I was taking classes from Drew. Drew Drogie is if you don't know who he is, one of the funniest comedians, improvisers, also writes incredible shows. He has a show on Off Broadway right now, Messy White Gaze. Go see it if you're in New York.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

He was in uh Luca Guadanino's film last year with Daniel Craig called Queer. Yes, which he was incredible in.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yes. And uh is about to be in, or he is in uh the upcoming um uh uh RuPaul's uh movie that's uh getting ready to come out. Um Drew, incredible um comedian and performer, uh he told me I had him as a teacher that's clear back at ground links. And I when I we had our meeting, you know, and I s I told him, I said, hey, I just want to apologize. I'm like, I've been playing with this band and like things are kind of taking off with it, and so I haven't put as much time as I wanted to into this class. And he's like, Brett, you know, he's like, I'm glad you said that. I could tell like your your stuff was would kind of be half baked a little bit when you bring it in. They were good ideas, but it didn't they didn't seem fully, you know, thought through or whatever. And and he's like, so he's like that makes total sense. And he's and I was like, I don't know what to do. And he said, You should go play in the band. Said Brett, groundlings will always be here, and that life experience is only going to help you uh build your voice as a creative and as a comedian.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

Yeah. That's great advice.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

That's incredible advice.

SPEAKER_04 39:29

Yep. And so then so obviously that happened.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:32

And then you came back to the groundlings. Yep, came back to the groundlings. Okay, what class level were you taking when he said that?

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Uh intermediate. Okay. Which is like where you kind of, you know, you you make you you you really get into character work. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 39:44

Yeah, yeah. Um, okay, great. So so you leave the band, you come back to the groundlings, then what happens?

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Well, I think it's important to talk about the eight months in between

The Nebraska Reset And Humbling Moments

SPEAKER_02 39:54

there. Because Okay, let's get into it. Yeah, yeah. So I left the band, it was a very hard decision. I got an opportunity for the performing group, they were going to China for the first time. They hit me up, and I was 25 at the time. And to tour with the performing group at 25 is like that's pretty old. Because like most people are like 22.

SPEAKER_04 40:13

Oh, okay. I mean, three years doesn't seem that much, but at the time though, I was like, oh man, I don't know if you're gonna be like, Well, you're old, yeah. I got it.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Um, and so uh, but I decided to do it because Kemo, one of my best buddies, was going, and I'm like, when else am I gonna get a chance to go to China? And so I went to China, uh, and then when I got back from China, I didn't have any money and I knew that California, Long Beach, was no place to be when I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do. So I moved back to Nebraska and I lived in my parents' basement and I worked two serving jobs. Like I would go work a serving job in the morning, come home, take a nap, go work a serving job at night so I could get out of debt and you know, figure out what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_04 41:00

Okay, that does sound like an important eight months to explore. I was curious, but now it does seem like it does make a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_02 41:07

Yeah, because that's real. Like you have to like sometimes like you have to have, even though they're not necessarily like fun, and I definitely like was depressed, you know, in in moments during that time, you know. I think if you told me coming out of high school, you're gonna turn 25 and you're gonna be living in your parents' basement, working two serving jobs in Kearney, Nebraska, I would have been like, fuck you. Of course, yeah, you know, like and um you know, I'd go and again, like going back to small town Nebraska. People when I left, you know, I was like, oh Brett's going, you know, he's gonna go, you know, and PSR or whatever. And then like I got the band, and like I I would our band came back to Nebraska, and like we play these sold-out shows in Nebraska, and it was like, oh, Brett's playing his band, it's like they're taking off, and da-da-da-da-da. And then I'm serving at this steakhouse, and like this family comes in and they're in my section and they're from Minden. And I walk home like, hey guys, how we doing? And they're like, Brett? What are you doing? Like, it was like that. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, I just started started working here and like what are you what are you doing here? Like they just could not like it, just like they couldn't compute it, yeah, you know? And it it was a humbling experience, and like I remember going home that night and just fucking ball. It's cause you know it was yeah, it was humbling.

SPEAKER_04 42:54

It was but that's interesting because it's like these are narratives we tell ourselves, right? Like these are the stories that we tell ourselves. Because it's like it's again, it's like the linear trajectory. Well, you didn't go to Northwestern, you didn't go to their theater program, right? This is a totally different version of the same story, yeah. Which is that the linear trajectory is something about the band, right? Oh, well, the band is supposed to take off, and it's like, okay, like, well, they b they uh they also understood that version of the story, but it's like our creative realities aren't linear like that, yep, or very rarely. I don't believe anybody's as linear, to be totally honest. I think you could look at the most linear trajectory of somebody's career, and if you actually put a microscope to it, they've got 10,000 different times that they felt humbled and they felt like they were taking a step backwards or whatever, you know. Um okay, so let's get out of the steakhouse because it's just like, oh boy. Trust me, I know that.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

Like, because I like you need because that's the thing is like I feel like in LA and when you're taking meetings, obviously you don't talk about that stuff. Right. But in a podcast and talking about stuff like this, and if you're like wherever you are in your creative journey, like You either have run into moments like that or you will. And it's okay. Like don't can don't stop moving towards your creative thing and don't stop believing in your uh in in what your creative can give, you know, to other people. That's all.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

I think that's great.

SPEAKER_02 44:21

It's really hard. It's easy to say now, but like in the moment, it was tough.

SPEAKER_01 44:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:26

Yeah. And a lot of my friends were worried that I was just gonna stay there. You know, like they kept texting me, and like I remember my one of my best buds, Nikki C, who I lived with in Long Beach for a long time. He, when I was leaving Long Beach to go back to Nebraska, and he's like, he's like, dude, he's like, I love Nebraska. You know I love Nebraska. He's like, You're not supposed to stay there. And I was like, I know. And he's like, look at me. He's like, you're not supposed to stay there. He's like, I'm gonna keep bugging you. And I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_03 44:57

So um That's a good friend.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

Yeah, that's a great friend. Another friend from the performing group. Yeah, yeah. Yep.

Back To LA And Finding Momentum

SPEAKER_02 45:05

So, um, but anyway, so then I was gonna go back to I was gonna go to Chicago.

SPEAKER_03 45:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

I was doing it. Alright, I'm gonna go do Second City, still try to get into Steppenwolf, you know. I'm 27 years old, gonna gonna go pursue that. But then Chemo, one of my best buds, he hits me up and he's like, dude, because I had lived with him in Long Beach. Like we had a big house in Long Beach with with seven dudes. And he's from small town Nebraska like me, and he'd moved back like me to kind of do a reset. And he said, Brett, I'm moving back out to LA. I want to get and he wanted to pursue dance. And he's like, I want to live with somebody who's ready to go get it. And he's like, I know that that's you, and he's like, I wanted to hit you up and let you know that's what I'm doing, and I'd love to have you come, like come live, like I'd love to live with you in LA. And I said, Okay. So I pivoted. I felt like that was a sign.

SPEAKER_03 46:02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

I already knew groundlings, like I knew that space, like, you know, I knew I could go back to groundlings, I'd be comfortable, wouldn't be getting used to a new environment. I knew some people out there a little bit because of groundlings stuff, and so that's when I moved back out to LA. Dang.

SPEAKER_04 46:18

Yeah, when I was that's must have been close to when we would have met for the first time, I bet.

SPEAKER_02 46:22

No, it was after.

SPEAKER_04 46:23

Well, I mean, obviously it has to be after because you had to move here and then you were doing it a little while.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

And I mean, the first almost the like the first six months I was in LA, I like didn't even do much stuff because I was like having trouble with my vocal cords. And so like I didn't do a whole lot. I was just like kind of working and you know, waiting to see if I was gonna have vocal cord surgery, which I didn't end up having, but um yeah, it wasn't until like 2013, 2014 when I started doing improv and sketch.

SPEAKER_04 46:52

Oh, okay, gotcha. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

So I was like 28, 29.

SPEAKER_04 46:54

Okay, great. Still okay. So you're back in LA, you're going through some vocal cord stuff. Yeah, yeah. But you're working and you're doing groundlings and you're doing stuff like that. Okay. So you're out in the world, you're doing improv and sketch.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

Yeah. Okay, so what like how did you is it? I don't want to. Is this okay?

SPEAKER_04 47:12

Yeah, of course it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:13

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

Uh, brought to you by Mountain Spring. Um, okay, I'll wait. I'll wait for you to do this.

SPEAKER_02 47:21

Well, I don't want to cut the audio up.

unknown 47:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 47:25

Okay, so I'm uh we usually try and keep this around an hour. So we're well beyond 40. So I was like, we gotta, we gotta, um, hopefully we can speed up a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 47:34

Yes, a life story. I know, I know. He didn't know what he was getting into.

SPEAKER_04 47:39

You're right. Um okay, so you're in LA, you're working, you're starting to do improv and sketch, and uh well now we can speed it up. Okay, great. Now we can speed it up.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Yeah,

CBS Showcase UCB Mod And Groundlings

SPEAKER_02 47:50

yeah. So you know, I do improv and sketch for nine years. I came up with the groundlings, uh, then I did CBS Diversity Showcase and Okay, talk to me about that though.

SPEAKER_04 47:58

What's that mean?

SPEAKER_02 47:59

CBS Diversity Showcase? Yeah, explain it. So CBS Diversity Showcase is different now than it was when I did it. Um they audition performers all over the country, and they choose a cast of 20 people, and then they have writers come in as well. And if you got chosen weekly, you would go to the CBS Radford lot in this basement, um, and you would we would pitch sketches to CBS execs. We'd do that for months, then they would choose sketches to go to the theater, and then in January, at the end of January, we would perform these sketches in a show that in peep industry peeps would all be like, showcases. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's a big showcase.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

Okay, so when uh like it was a big deal.

SPEAKER_02 48:47

Like there were there were people who like if you got it, like there was multiple people on our cast who moved permanently from where they lived to LA because they got the CBS showcase. Like it was, you know, it had the opportunity to be a career changer.

SPEAKER_04 49:04

Right. Yeah. Right. And where were you at your journey when this happened? Like how how long, how far through the groundlings process were you?

SPEAKER_02 49:11

I was uh there's four levels, or excuse me, there's five levels. Yeah, five now. And I had just finished the fourth level.

SPEAKER_04 49:22

Okay, so you were getting ready to go into advanced writing lab at some point? Yes. Okay, and so where were you at the Upright Citizens Brigade? Had you done the entire program?

SPEAKER_02 49:29

I haven't done any, really anything. I took one writing lab, or excuse me, I took one writing class at UCB, that's it.

SPEAKER_04 49:37

Okay, and that made you eligible to be able to audition for mod?

SPEAKER_02 49:41

No, that's where I was very lucky.

SPEAKER_04 49:43

Well, this guy is a rules breaker.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Okay, let's see how you broke the rules. Tell me about it. After doing CBS showcase, because there was a lot of UCB peeps that did it. Um, multiple people came up and they're like, hey, you should audition for mod. I told them I'm not eligible, and they're like, it's fine. Like they want performers, seasoned performers like you on mod. Yeah. And so I, you know, I got an email about it. I was like, love to audition. I auditioned and got put on an incredible team with incredible people. I was very lucky.

SPEAKER_04 50:13

Dang, that's really incredible. I didn't know that. Wow, that's interesting. Very lucky. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 50:19

Very, very lucky.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

Okay, that's awesome. So then, okay, so you're uh you did CBS Diversity Showcase, which is obviously like a huge stepping stone in the industry here in uh LA. Okay, you get onto a mod team, which is like a pretty sought-after position in the indie comedy uh world, right? Um what's the name of the team?

SPEAKER_02 50:38

Oh the team's name was the new deal, and that's how I first really got to know Nate. We'd done some random improv shows. Nate was a big deal at IO West. Kind of when you'd go through the crowd, kind of looked above me. Which I was used to, you know, but I so I kind of knew who Nate was because of his team Cherry at um iOS, but then we really became friends when we were on this house sketch team, the new deal at UCB. Right. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

Uh and yeah, we we were together for three years. Yeah, yeah. Okay, and then um, but at a certain point you had the opportunity to go do Sunday Company, right? Yeah. Uh Sunday Company is also like a really big deal. Um, and so uh you were on mod, you left, I think you left mod to go do Sunday Company, um, which is like everybody understands. It's like like you gotta take your you get to shoot your shot when it arises, right? So it's like, okay, so you do Sunday Company. How long were you on Sunday Company?

SPEAKER_02 51:34

Uh for six months. I Sunday Company was interesting. Sunday company is, you know, there's always politics in the theaters. And I didn't realize getting onto Sunday Company. To me, I thought at the time it's like, oh, you made Sunday Company. Now you get to try whatever you want. You know, you're you're on Sunday Company.

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Right.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

And that's not how it's set up. You know, it's Sunday Company is set up where you are pitching and writing and performing sketches to try to earn a spot on the main company. And so, and who's voting on the main company are the main company members. Right. And so you are, you know, trying to do things to impress the main company members to show them, like, oh, I fit into the groundlings because this is what I'm doing, and I'm showing you a bunch of different things that I can do.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

Right. Yeah. And you didn't take the opportunity that way. You took it as like a let's try stuff.

SPEAKER_02 52:34

Yeah, and and also, you know, again, naturally, as as it does, you know, there's you know, there's certain dynamics that get set up depending on who the director is and whatnot. And, you know, again, if I and I didn't realize that, you know, not wanting to be on the main company because I just didn't, you know, want to be performing sketch every weekend.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

You know, I wanted to be doing other things, and like, yes, of course, I'd love to do, you know, improv and sketch and have that be a part of it, but I didn't want to be doing it every week.

SPEAKER_04 53:06

Right. So becoming a ground main company groundling was like not your goal.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Yeah, no. Oh, okay, great.

SPEAKER_04 53:11

Well, success.

SPEAKER_02 53:13

Yes. Um, but it was kind of it wasn't because that wasn't my goal, I think it was by some people kind of received negatively.

SPEAKER_04 53:23

Um I can understand that. Yeah. I could see why that would be a perception of that. Yeah. Um, okay, great. So you did six months at Sunday Company, which is essentially like a kind of a training ground to proceed, like getting you the world prepped for SNL, essentially, right? Yeah, we you write and pitch sketches every single week. You put up an original show every weekend, and so it's like kind of the that's the thought process, I think, anyway. Yeah. Um, okay, so after Sunday Company, uh after you guys split ways, then what happened?

SPEAKER_02 53:55

Then um I then honestly the pandemic

Disability Representation And Writing Hypocrite

SPEAKER_02 53:59

hit. And actually, no, before that, while I was doing Sunday Company, while I was doing all this stuff with Nate Kwood here, we made a pilot that uh it was like a 10-minute kind of proof of concept pilot that went to excuse me, that went to NT NY TVF in New York, which is a great TV uh festival to get into. It was there that I saw this pilot that um starred a um a non-disabled dude playing a disabled character that was written by non-disabled dudes, where the disabled character is being mistreated the whole time by non-disabled people, not responding to it. And then when you get to the end of the film, we think we're gonna hear from him finally when he's in a therapist meeting, and the therapist stops him before he can even speak, and he's like, We get it, you have an abnormally large head, we're not gonna talk about it, and then the film ends.

SPEAKER_04 54:53

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

That film won the festival, and that was the impetus to me writing and making the short film Hypocrite right before the pandemic, that during the pandemic, would uh get set up at a studio, and that would kind of be a big step in my career.

SPEAKER_04 55:16

Okay, so talk to us about what hypocrite is.

SPEAKER_02 55:19

Hypocrite is you know window into the life of this dude who gives advice for a living, but he never takes his own advice because he's too busy taking advantage of people who underestimate him for having uh a disability.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

Okay, so you were at this festival, you saw this piece of art that you felt was totally misrepresentative of what it the the actual disabled experience. Right.

SPEAKER_02 55:39

And so mainly because these guys' hearts were in the right place, the people who made it. But because they're not disabled, you know, they they are making they were telling a story of a disabled person that they wanted to hear and they wanted to believe. When really that's just not, you know, that experience is not authentic to the real life disabled experience.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Right.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

And so that's what motivated me to to really just hunker down and and write this 10-minute, you know, proof of concept short film that, you know, it was received well and um, you know, again, like just got in front of the right people through and and even, you know, I even had to part ways with my manager just because he didn't quite see the vision of it, which is okay. Um, but I followed the project and and it eventually landed, you know, in the right hands. And and so when it got set up at the studio, that kind of gave me some cachet. Uh that led to me getting my first writer's room uh uh for television. You know, and that's kind of what's led me to doing what I am now.

SPEAKER_04 56:51

Right. Can you talk about your first writer's room?

SPEAKER_02 56:54

Yeah, yeah. So

Writing On Marvel’s Loki Season Two

SPEAKER_02 56:55

I got to write on the second season for Marvel's TV show Loki. I was the only comedy writer, which was hilarious. Um for the first two weeks I felt wildly um intimidated. Not because people were everyone in the room was so kind, so intelligent, so well read, had seen all, you know, all the movies, and um, you know, I just and then here's me, I'm a sketch improv guy, you know, I got a YouTube channel. You know, they're like quoting all these. Uh the uh the so there was a Marvel exec in the room that was like, that's just like how Marvel does it. And he's like, has anyone seen this film? Blah blah blah blah blah. And I'm like, and everyone's like nodding, and I like look it up, and it's the short film that won Tribeca in 2018. I'm like, no wonder I haven't seen this. And so and I'm like quoting like, you guys ever seen the movie Liar Liar?

SPEAKER_04 57:50

And all of them were Jim Carrey?

SPEAKER_02 57:54

Yeah, yeah, you know? Uh anyway.

SPEAKER_04 57:56

So there's this hilarious bit in Liar Liar that I think could be really applicable to this scene. Uh okay, so how was the experience? You worked for Disney, you worked for Marvel, you worked for the big for the big studio, yeah, yeah. On a big ass show?

SPEAKER_01 58:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

Shot by Artem, uh shot by Autumn Arkapah, the first female winner of Cinematography Academy Award this year for Sinners. Yeah. She shot your that show.

SPEAKER_02 58:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:19

It looks incredible, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 58:20

Yeah, she's a badass. Um, Castro, I have to shout out Castro Farahani, who was the um, he is the um the creative uh director, and I don't know a specific term, but he's basically in charge of building the sets. Um he was also in the room. Oh, interesting. He is one of the most creatively talented people I've ever met. Wow. He was unbelievable. He would bring in paintings that he found online, and he's like, This is oh yeah, so these are paintings from this painter, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And uh he, you know, this is in uh in Italy in the night in the 70s, and he was drawing from the da da da da da, and you know, and I'm like sitting here like and from those paintings, he pitches a whole story arc for an episode. So you can imagine why I'm intimidated.

SPEAKER_04 59:12

Because you're like, yeah, but what if the character farts unexpectedly? But what if they have flatellation?

SPEAKER_02 59:21

So uh, but no, it was I still keep in touch with with uh you know with people in the room. And um my friend Amber and I, uh, we have a movie project right now uh uh together. And um Eric Martin, the showrunner, we still keep in touch. We've been developing this other feature together, and um, and you know, I I met with Eric, had lunch with him like two weeks into the room, and he's like, How you feeling? And I was just on, I'm like, Can I be awesome? He's like, Yeah. And I just told him, you know, I was like, I feel really intimidated. You know, he's like, and he was like, Oh gosh, he's like, I don't want you to feel intimidated. I'm like, no, and like I explained everything, you know, and he's like, he's like, I understand why you feel that way. He's like, Brett, you're bringing everything that we want. He's like, you know, keep bringing your the like the comedy set pieces, keep pitching those ideas, keep pitching any jokes. He's like, obviously, we can't use a lot of it because it's an hour long, yeah. You know, it's like basically drama. Yeah, he's like, but we love what you're bringing. He's like, You're doing great. Okay, okay, okay, it made me feel better. But yeah, yeah, it was it was an amazing experience, and you know, uh working for Marvel's wild because they are locked down. Yeah, I'm sure. Even our badges that we wore, like they had fake um like our show is called Architect. Right, right, right. Yeah, like our first day in the room, the first 10 minutes, they're like, Oh yeah, we're gonna um go ahead and grab a coffee, guys, and you're just gonna come sit down and um Gary, I can't remember his name, Gary's gonna come and talk with us. And the dude comes and talks to us for like 15 minutes at the end of it. He's like, basically, if we find a leak, we will find out where it came from, you'll be terminated, and you will most likely be taken to court. So we're just like you're like, great.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:08

You're like, I can't wait to talk about this on a podcast. Talk this on a podcast publicly a little bit after this room wraps. Um that's incredible. Uh I'm dude, of course. Yeah, I mean it's all big corporate-y corporateness, you know what I mean? Okay, so Loki was an incredible experience. Yeah. Um, you now have a bunch of projects in development, features, TV shows, and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. What's the future look like for Brett Maline?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

This year, I am about making stuff. We just made a short film that Nate uh uh was a cinematographer for. Sabs helped us produce uh for the disability film challenge that I'm stoked about. And um we are making more, we're continuing to um to uh uh you know kind of uh keep our YouTube channel alive.

Genuine Jerks And The Haim Parody

SPEAKER_02 1:01:58

Uh do you want to take a second to talk about it? Yeah, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:01

Let's talk about it because I I can invite you to collaborate.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

Oh yes, yes. Uh so uh check out my YouTube channel, Genuine Jerks. Uh uh Lucas Hill is my collaborator, and we uh have been doing the channel for over 10 years now.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

Uh we've honestly just started in the past few years, you know, consistently putting stuff up on the channel. In the past, it'd kind of been a thing like, oh yeah, that's a funny idea we could shoot as opposed to perform on stage. And it was just kind of a thing that we put up, you know, videos for. We've we had a few videos go viral. We got featured on some cool stuff. Um, but we've really kind of started to really commit to you know building the channel out. Uh, because YouTube's not going away. It's only getting better. Wait, what? As you know, we'll see about that. But um, yeah, I really enjoy shooting stuff for that. And Lucas and I, you know, we love working together and making, you know, short sketches. And uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:57

Which by the way, I have to say, I do think that maybe I've shot 100 of them. How many sketches do you have?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:04

Uh over a hundred.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:06

Okay, so I haven't shot a hundred. That's hyper.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:08

You probably shot over ten, though.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:09

Oh, yeah, for sure. I would think so. Yeah, yeah. One second, my producer is raising her hand and screaming wildly in the background. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:15

I just really want you to tell the Haim story.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

So I uh I like the band Haim. If you don't know who they are, they're three sisters who are a rock band, they're really great.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:28

Um they're from the San Fernando Valley, which is in the city of Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:32

Yes. And so there was this video that came out, and it's like this dope video where they're walking in the middle of the street and they have this like choreographed dance. And I realized as I'm watching it, I'm like, because at the time doing our a lot of our uh videos on our channel, it was me, Lucas, and our other best bud, Michael. And I was looking at it, I'm like, we're kind of the guy version of these three rock singers. And so I pitched it to Lucas, and Michael, I'm like, dude, this this music video is gonna blow up. I'm like, it just came out. I'm like, we need to film a parody. We need to just do this music video, lip sync it, and film it. I'm like, I I think it would it would be dope. Like, I think people would love it. And we kind of, I'm like, and Lucas, you play the tall blonde person. Michael, you play like the main, you know, the singer one, and I'll play Alana because she's the shorter, um, the shorter sister. So we do it, we like learn the I like learn the choreography and I teach it to them. And Lucas and Michael are horrible dancers, and so that part is very funny. Lucas was so pissed. Nate and Angels, we come out super early in the morning, so we can get good light, and we can the traffic's not as much. And Nate is using this gimbal that we have a Ronin, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:48

A Ronin that with a red scarlet on top of it. So it's like a 10, 25 pounds.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:54

Yeah, and Nate's just like sweating his ass off. Like, and we're doing it. It's it was a video that took place all in one shot. Yeah. So then the song's like two and a half, three minutes. And so we are filming it, we're sweating our asses off. Lucas is cussing, it's like, oh fucking wild, why we're doing this. Fast forward two. The video does well online. And then at the time, I was working at this Italian spot on the east side called Little Dom's. I'm working the lunch shift. The server comes in late. She's like, Oh, this table just sat down in my section. Can you take it? And I'm like, annoyed. I roll my eyes. I go up, I'm like, hey, how you doing? I'm like, what can I get you to drink? And they're like, can we ask you a weird question? And I like look up, I'm like, sure. And she's like, so I she's like, you have a YouTube channel, right? And I was like, yeah. She's like, I think my band, or I think you did a parody video of my band's music video and you played me. It was a Lanaheim. And I look up, I'm like Yes, I did. And I was like, we tried to do it justice. She's like, no, we loved it. It was so good. I'm like, I learned the choreography. And she's like, we could tell.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:13

We could tell you the one that learned the choreography.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:18

Yeah. It's incredible. It was dope. It was freaking dope. It's so incredible.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:22

I mean, that's the thing. It's like, it's interesting. It's like there have been a couple times through the podcast when you were where you've sort of phrased things in a way where you're like, oh, I, and then luckily this thing happened, right? Oh, and then luckily this thing happened, right? And or like, oh, I was this happened, uh, thank goodness, or whatever. But it's like the truth is like you just described the process. Like you were like, we got up super early, like we went there. It was like an incredibly heavy camera situation. It was like annoying, and Lucas couldn't get the fucking choreography right. And he was so pissed off. It was like literally could not be easier choreography. And he was completely unable to do it. But like the thing is, is like, but repeatedly you're talking about how lucky you are, but you've also spelled out every single really difficult thing that you took to like all the hard work that it took to do it. Yeah. Right? That's like, okay, well, we made a thing, right? Work buds, and we went to the New York TV Film Festival, and then you saw a project, and then you made another thing in response to seeing the thing that gave you an opportunity to get low-key, that gave you an opportunity to develop. Then it's like it's just constantly like the opportunities are coming because you're putting in an insane amount of work making stuff that you're really passionate and driven about.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:38

Right? That's why the doors are opening. It's not like you're you're not lucky, you're just doing hard work, but you're grateful for it. So it's like that's Midwestern, baby. Yes, yes, yes. Um, I just like to sometimes sew that up because it's just like it is important to realize like you're doing a lot of really hard work. Yeah. And um people are start they're starting to catch up to that idea and understand that, right? Because you because you're like, oh yeah, we have like a uh YouTube channel. It's like you have like 65,000, 70,000 subscribers and a hundred plus sketches. You're like, oh yeah, it's like a little sketch. This like that's a huge time commitment. Yeah, that's a huge level amount of uh amount of work that you put into it. It's like, um, so you know, get like give yourself some flowers. Like thank you, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:22

Yeah, okay. Well, the okay, I think we're getting to the portion where like this is what I'm sort of curious about. We'll kind of try to wrap it up uh pretty quickly after this, right? Um what what do you think?

Where TV Film And Theaters Go Next

SPEAKER_04 1:08:34

How do you feel about the future of the industry?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:40

I feel like TV is a question mark right now. I feel like TV comedy could be going away potentially because what you have right now is people aren't watching comedy on television because they're watching comedy on the internet on their phones. Compaired with because there's less comedies on television, more comedians are making online stuff, and so that's adding to the um the amount of of I hate to use the term content that someone can watch.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:19

Yeah, it's a snake eating its own tail, which is that there's less opportunities on TV, so the talented, hardworking people make more stuff for the internet, and then the internet becomes more specific and diverse and has stronger content to reel more people into watching it versus TV.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:33

Yes, yes. Um, so but with that, somebody was saying, and I was like, oh, that's interesting, that could be a thing, where they feel like it is going TV is going to swing back. Um it's just it's a social kind of cycle. And I could believe that. Because you know, it used to be that, you know, when I was growing up, we'd sit down and watch TV as a family. T G I F Right. You know, it used to be those things. And now, and socially, we just slowly have gotten away from that to like now it's like people don't have time to sit down. Well, what's the second screen? What's the, you know? However, I am seeing, uh, which is great, um, the pandemic, you know, hangover of like, I think it was like a funny thing, social thing that, oh, I'm not, I don't ever leave my house, and like a funny thing to say. And people took pride in that. But now I feel like people are wanting to get out of their house. People are wanting to get out of their house and meet people if they're single and they're dating. They don't want to do it on the apps anymore. More and more people are like, I don't even, I'm off the apps, I'm meeting people in their life again. I'm tired, I'm done with the apps. More and more people are going to the movie theater. I there is I went to this panel at a at a festival like a month or so, month or so ago, and this guy said, he's like, I just want to say, he's like uh the the people, the generation that's going to the movies the most is Gen Alpha.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:03

Gen Alpha?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:04

Yes. Interesting. He's like, we need to remember that. He's like, it's a lot of doom and gloom, and I understand why. He's like, but he's like, the movie theaters, people are going to movie theaters again. People want to go out. It's a thing. Like they're getting together to go to movies as friends again. It used to be a thing in high school. Oh, yeah. Uh all my friends, like, we would go like to go see Anchorman. Yeah. We all went and bought uh goodwill suits, you know, 70 looking suits. We dressed up and we went to go see Anchorman in the movie theater. Yeah. That sort of stuff is coming back because people want the interaction again. They want to get out of their house. They're going to see live theater. Touring musically, touring comedically is blowing up.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:44

Uh, because people want that interaction, they want that experience, which I think is great. And we haven't seen, I think that, you know, touring like it is now, it hasn't been, it's great that it's blowing up how it is. Because it had kind of been on a decline because of ticket pricing, because of, you know, certain things, and and touring had become for artists not that much money because of the label and promoters taking a lot of the money. If you didn't sell merch as a band, yeah, you're toast. Yeah. And so anyway, so with that, I do I I do see movies, like I I do believe that movies are coming back because of the movie theaters that are coming back. I also see you have taken a few meetings where you know where because it was such a specific thing that multiple companies I met with said it was like clearly a mandate, and clearly there is a um a business format where they're like, okay, this is the thing that can make us money. They're looking for movies in the five to fifteen million dollar budget range.

Touring Indie Films And Final Charge

SPEAKER_04 1:12:52

That's happening again? Yes. Okay, well, that's fantastic news. They should be doing that. My hope is that what you're describing uh folds in on one another, which is that people go back to movie theaters and we as filmmakers start to tour our films. That's my dream.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:08

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_04 1:13:09

So, what I mean is like, let's say, um, I don't can we talk about wrong guy?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:13

Okay, let's say that hypothetically a wrong guy is a short film that I shot for Brett um a number of years ago and it's Well, this is uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:20

This actually happened.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:21

Right, right. This did happen. And then it's currently being developed, and the idea is to make it a screenplay or it is a screenplay and to and to shoot it as a feature-length film. I think that there is a world, or my hope is that there's a world where um there are artists of our level who are able to get the financing for feature-length films. And part of the idea of distribution is that they're not gonna sink a ton of money into the marketing. It's that they're gonna start making you into a rock star, and you're gonna do a tour of 15 dates across the western seaboard, and then you go to a theater that you've worked with a promoter to book the theater, and you go and do a QA, and you do someplace in Seattle, you do Portland, you do Sacramento, you do San Fran, you do San Jose, you do LA, you do San Diego, you do Santa Fe, you do Phoenix.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:13

And festivals are already doing that. That's what so our our one of my best buds, Michael Strasner, was in uh J Du Place's movie Baltimore Ons. Yeah. That's pretty much what they did, but like with festivals. Right. They were very strategic about oh, cool. Like they they went all like even in little markets in the US, like they chose some like smaller festivals to go to, and like that, they Michael flew out because he stars in the in the movie. And like they went and did a QA. And like, same thing with overseas, like they chose very specific places overseas to markets that they you know thought that they would do well in and sell in, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:56

Yeah, I'm curious to see if there's a near future where there is a paradigm that allows like indie-minded people to be able to navigate that booking system themselves. You know what I mean? Which is like it the the festivals is a great structure, but without having J. DuPlass be able to help you navigate that, you don't know which ones that you need to apply to. It's like us is just some plebs. We're like, oh great. I go where should we go? Yeah. Um, Strassy was our second guest on the podcast, by the way. Very grateful to have him. Um, okay, great. I think we we have gone a little bit over what we normally do, Brad. But it's because we got into some detail and I was very grateful to do it and excited. Sweet. Um, man, thank you so much for coming out and chatting with us. I uh we'll definitely do it again. Okay. Um when we make Rong Guy as a feature film. Well uh once that's wrapped, yeah. We'll come back and we'll sit down and talk about the process and how it went. Yep. We'd look forward to that. Me too, man. Me too. Um, once again, very grateful to have you. Thank you for having me. Um, guys, this has been film shit. Uh, not only is it the umbrella of what we talk about here on the podcast, I also want it to feel like um an opportunity or a mandate, a call to action. Please go out and film shit. If you want to sit where Brett is, we can't do any of this without people making stuff. So if you go out and film shit, someday I'll be able to have the privilege of talking to you. So uh please come on the show, but you got to shoot something first. All right. We'll uh speak soon. Thanks so much. Cheers. Bye.