Entertain This!
https://www.patreon.com/entertainthis_
Entertainthispodcast.com
Instagram: @entertainthis_
Twitter/X: @EntertainThis_
Join Hayden, Mitch, and Tom with upcoming movie, tv show, and game news. Listen to reviews and off the wall facts, while providing a comedic spin with our opinions on the matter. Join us for amazing behind the scene interviews. The one true original "Entertain This" podcast.
Entertain This!
Jeff Gladstone: Navigating Fame From Calgary to Kryptic
Actor Jeff Gladstone shares his journey from Calgary's improv scene to Vancouver's film industry and his upcoming psychological thriller "Kryptic." His theatrical background with Keith Johnstone's innovative improv techniques created a foundation for screen success, culminating in roles on shows like Twilight Zone, Resident Alien, and Fire Country.
• Started at Calgary's Loose Moose Theatre under improv pioneer Keith Johnstone
• Describes improv as "theater meets professional wrestling" in terms of audience engagement
• Transitioned to film acting after a decade in theater, gaining his breakthrough with director Bruce Sweeney
• Appeared in notable productions including Supernatural, Goosebumps, and Fire Country
• Discusses the shift from in-person auditions to self-tape submissions and how his improv background helps in both formats
• Stars in the upcoming psychological thriller "Kryptic" directed by photographer Kourtney Roy
• Plays a husband whose character gradually unravels in this monster-hunting mystery film
Check out Kryptic in theaters May 9th or streaming May 29th.
a nostalgic video game podcast
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
The Gaming BlenderWe mash genres. We pitch games. You question our sanity.
Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify
Hello and welcome to Entertain this. It's a podcast about movies, TV shows and video games. My name is Tom. With me I have Mitch and we don't have Hayden, but we got something better than Hayden we got Jeff Gladstone Woo. How?
Speaker 2:you doing, jeff, I'm doing great. Thanks, I'm doing great.
Speaker 1:Well, jeff here, I see you're an actor, a producer, a composer, canadian, and you were on Goosebumps yes, yes, all of those things are true and I understand you got a movie coming up here Cryptic, that's right. Yeah, cryptic, it's a weird one Should be coming out May 9th of this year. Right, that's right. So before we talk about the new movie, let's get to know you a little bit. Sounds great. I see you hail from Canada. Whereabouts in Canada.
Speaker 2:That's right. So I grew up in a place called Calgary, alberta, which is kind of near the Rocky Mountains there, but I've lived in Vancouver for the past 20, 25 years. Vancouver, bc, on the beautiful west coast, the nice.
Speaker 1:Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 1:So do you still root for the Flames or do you root for the Canucks?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. You know, I grew up playing hockey but I kind of faded as a hardcore fan, for sure, but I do. My brothers and my family are all big Flames fans. So, uh, you know, I still I, but I'm not really particular personally, but I enjoy it.
Speaker 1:I watched some of the game last night and, uh, you know, it's a good time this is the first chance I get to talk to somebody who actually watches hockey, because no one else I know around here does down here in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm an Islanders fan myself, being from Long Island originally. Oh nice, nice. I only got to see the Islanders once at the old Nassau Coliseum, and I was a little kid and I still can't remember who they played.
Speaker 2:Well, do you? Know, the Calgary Flames, which was our team growing up, was that started as the Atlanta Flames? Did you know that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, they entered the NHL the same year, in 1972, as the New York Islanders.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 3:I'm from down here in Atlanta and it gets maybe cold enough for ice maybe three to four times a year.
Speaker 1:So I never got in a hot and it's only on the road, it's not on a pond. It's not on a pond, it's not on a lake, just the road. You could ice skate on I-85, but that's really about it. That sounds fun. So how does a young Calgary bread fella who ends up in Vancouver get into the improv acting business?
Speaker 2:Well, you know what, in Calgary, uh, we had it lucky there was a fellow named Keith Johnstone who taught at the university and, uh, he had started an improv company in Calgary that's called the loose moose theater and, and that's basically where I grew up. We used to go watch shows there in high school and then I joined the company in university, keith was. He taught the first year acting at the University of Calgary but he invented a lot of the improv techniques that are still. He was basically starting at the same time as Del Close and the groups in Chicago there, but Keith had started working in London. He actually worked at the Royal Court Theatre and taught playwrights. He worked with Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter and some of these, lawrence Olivier and some of these.
Speaker 2:He worked in the theatre scene, but he was a real like subversive, kind of anti-establishment kind of character back in the day, always like pushing the envelope and kind of testing things. So he ended up in Calgary through a weird series of coincidences and he was really he was an incredible teacher, like you know. Yes, and and and, like word at a time, stories, a lot of the theater, sports, these were all kind of his inventions and so we just really lucked out and the Loose Moose Theater Company. We were all young Like the age range was like 16 to 22. And we played theater, sports and some of these improv formats and it was an incredible place to grow up and learn about theater and kind of get a start.
Speaker 1:I don't think I could ever do improv. I mean, I occasionally have that gift of gab to just start talking out of my butt at the drop of a hat, but I don't know if I could do it on stage, with people in front of me. It's like panic, it's like do something with your hands.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dude, that is exactly it. Now I do some teaching, some improv, and that is exactly how everybody feels. It's so funny, you know.
Speaker 1:And what around what year? Is this that we're starting out in the improv game?
Speaker 2:So for myself, this would have been 1998.
Speaker 1:We brought it full circle.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that was on the interview at the beginning, but that was just a joke we had about that year. But yeah, 96, 97, 98 was when I was at the Loose Moose, kind of starting out there, and I was a terrible improviser when I started. I tell people it takes 10 years to learn how to improvise. It took me longer than that.
Speaker 3:What made you want to get into improvisation and acting in general?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I was one of those like as a kid I was a big Star Wars kid and writing movies and my dad had a little Super 8 camera and we used to use it and make movies and stuff. I just I love movies, I love acting and storytelling as a kid and so you know, I was like one of those kids.
Speaker 2:And then, you know, high school we used to go. I mean, I also had a great high school drama teacher. You know big shout out to the teachers out there. You know they really without teachers, you know, without great drama teachers and stuff like that, it doesn't get passed on, you know. So, yeah, we had a great high school drama teacher. And then, of course, going to see the theater sports, that loose moose was just like incredible. Like they kind of like at that theater, you know, the groups like ahead of me, like I don't know if uh, anyway, some some uh notable comedy kids in the hall and stuff some of them were from there and uh, some other great folks, um, anyway, it was just uh, it was a really exciting thing to go see, cause it was like it was theater but it's like you're allowed to yell at the actors, you know and they had, yeah, you know, and like you could get brought up on stage and and they were doing stuff with like masks and you know, improvising with the sound, and it was just so fun.
Speaker 2:It was such a fun place to be and really caught the bug. So we pretty much, you know, my brother and I actually it was actually honestly my brother who kind of dragged me out there in the first place, but then we spent every weekend there through the 90s until I moved to Vancouver. So, yeah, just like surrounded by a lot of talent and a lot of great energy and some cool opportunities.
Speaker 1:Was there ever a play there called Moose on the Loose at the Loose Moose?
Speaker 2:No, but there should be Dang.
Speaker 3:Well, you said, your brother drug you there. Does he still do acting, or anything like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, brother, drug you there, does he? Uh, does he still do acting or anything like that? Yeah, yeah he. Uh he started, uh, his own theater company uh, that's called their theater and and, uh, we worked together in that company for a number of years and we were starting out doing lots of tours and whatnot and he's still doing it. He does like the fringe tours and stuff. He just actually was in New York with a show he wrote with another artist about Juliet. That's really fun comedy. We're actually writing a play together right now Lose on the loose. No, I don't know if you know this story, but it's about the After Place Riot.
Speaker 3:I, I heard of that one, the aster place riot.
Speaker 2:New York in like the 1840s and there was two Shakespearean actors performing Macbeth across the street from each other and, uh, the, the fans of each side were so like worked up about who was the better Shakespeare actor. It broke out into a riot, like a massive riot. Wow, like 10,000 people and like the National Guard was called in and all this stuff. And we just love the story because it's like wow, people used to get that excited about theater.
Speaker 3:I was like, so they were passionate about their choices.
Speaker 1:This is before pro sports Actors used to have jersey numbers on the back, exactly, exactly right, that'd be like a funny modern twist on it. Yeah, I mean there was a riot in Quebec when, uh, or in Montreal, the NHL uh suspended uh, maurice Richard, and a huge riot broke out because he was like the ultimate player.
Speaker 2:Yeah, honestly yeah. In Canada, it's the hockey that's the lifeblood of the country.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so it seems to I guess from my understanding a lot of people we've talked to who do like more classical theater, it's very like studious, it's almost like you know a lot like the people like the turtleneck holding the skull kind of look, and then improv almost sounds like the wwe, like you're getting pulled out of the audience and they're throwing chairs up on stage and it's just like just go for it. You're like I don't even know what you know you've called out exactly.
Speaker 2:In fact he's johnstone, my improv teacher. When he was starting this stuff out and in london in the 50s, him and some of the other directors went and watched a wrestling match and they literally were like god, isn't it amazing to be in like a theatrical kind of setting but the audience they're like this old lady is like swinging their purse over their head, like they're like how could we get people to act like this in the theater, right?
Speaker 1:like how do we get that chaotic energy into stage?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so improv, at least in the Pete Johnstone kind of school, is like considered like like yeah, theater meets professional wrestling.
Speaker 1:I mean someone who's done classical theater and you have this huge background at improv. Do you find it harder to do one versus the other? Because it's like it kind of bleeds over.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a great question. I mean, I love it all. I love Shakespeare, you know, and, like you kind of say, like the preparation and the rigor of like getting into the language, I love it. I love the play. I love Shakespeare. I love the stories and the plays and stuff and the funny like, the longer, like when I started I definitely feel like all these different interests, you know, and improv and acting and then and then theater to film and improv and all that stuff.
Speaker 2:But the more I do this stuff, the more I find like it's all really connected and and there's there's a there's a heart of improv and spontaneity in in any kind of performance practice, because at the end of the day, you got to be so in the moment that if something happens, you know that, that you didn't expect, you you got to run with it, right, and and and I say that's the case with shakespeare, you know, and that's definitely the case with working on film you know your partner does something different, or a fly comes into the room. It's like if you pretend like it's not there on stage or on film, it's like it reads very false. But if you can just be very open and just go with the impulses and flow, with what's happening, then it's so, it's yeah. So I feel very grateful to have this background in improv, because I definitely use it in everything I do. I feel.
Speaker 1:There's got to be a great skill to have in a wheelhouse. It's like you're at a meeting or something and something starts going and you're just like man. This would be great material.
Speaker 3:And then you're just like let me just try it now.
Speaker 1:It's like sorry, sir, this is a pta meeting you need to calm down, yeah well, getting you know doing the improv and stuff.
Speaker 3:Does that? Has that helped as far as like getting roles and when you have like the longer speaking parts, just to being able to kind of like kind of play with the lines a little bit, as far as like you know what what's needed for the uh, the on-screen dialogue and stuff yeah for sure.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, um, it definitely has given me a practice to kind of be ready for, you know, ready for anything and and it's given me a lot of tools just in my preparation too, and and again, just you know, to shout out keith Johnstone, again, like you know, he had just some really cool ways of looking at things. He's like, okay, often like every actor is going to do a scene in this kind of your first, kind of like expected way. Or you're a robber breaking into a house, right, and it's okay, everyone's going to play the robber. Like, oh, you know whatever, and it's okay, everyone's gonna play the robber. Like, oh, you know whatever.
Speaker 2:And he's like, but what if you try the scene? You know, like he's very like, he's very like guilt-ridden and he's like feels guilty about everything. Or what if you try being a robber who's like really low status? You know, like what if you try doing the scene like like it's it's a love scene and he, you know, and he sees the painting and it's like he, he plays with gloves, so that you can, you can just try things wrong, right, you can go. Okay, that sounds like the wrong way to do this, but sometimes you try it and and there's something you discover, something you know, and it's so. So, in that regard, it's definitely given me lots of tools, yeah.
Speaker 1:See if I, if they were like oh, we want you to play like a burglar or a robber.
Speaker 1:And you always picture, like you know the black turtleneck, the ski hat, you know the mask, maybe a small flashlight, and they break it it's like you know he sees a painting and he looks at it and he pulls out a pen out of his like pocket and autographs it like he did. It looks at a remote, takes the batteries out and throws them across the room and just puts them back and like just, and then goes on about like it didn't even happen. Yeah, that would be the kind of improv I would want to bring to it Just chaotic like cat energy.
Speaker 3:And on the way out.
Speaker 1:He looks at something on a mantelpiece and just knocks it off. It's like man we don't need that.
Speaker 2:I mean right, play a burglar scene like you're a cat, you're like the spirit of a cat. I mean I, I would love to see that, I want you to do that role in a calgary flames jersey.
Speaker 1:And then there'll be another guy breaking into a house across the street. He'll have a canucks jersey on. You guys will pop out at the same time and see each other rival robbers, I like it.
Speaker 2:It's writing itself.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, it's right there so this is all in the 90s, in the early 2000s, you're in the improv, you're in theater. How'd you transition into wanting to do television and film? Was it like a let me call an agent? Did they reach out to you like, hey, here's a part?
Speaker 2:um, no, hell, no, I had to go find it wasn't that simple, huh I wish I was walking down the street and someone said you're gonna be a star you're gonna be a star kid, you're gonna be huge um, no, god, it's honestly I it.
Speaker 2:I feel like I'm uh, you, you know a slow learner, but like I moved to Vancouver and when I I kind of moved to Vancouver at a time this is now early 2000s Vancouver was coming out of a real film boom, like it had been really busy and there was lots of work and everyone was working and it felt like, right when I arrived it things kind of like dried up some it's like the X-Files was shooting there at that time and it got a lot quieter. And because my background was in theater and improv, I hadn't had a lot of film training and, uh, you know, I felt good about my acting. I had some good auditions, I had couple little things, but nothing really clicked for me in the film world when I first moved in. So I worked in theater and I had a great time. I did lots of touring, I got to work on lots of cool projects, you know, like new plays, and that was great. So it was honestly just like about 10 years ago, like where I took kind of a break and then I would come back and I always was curious and wanted to do film.
Speaker 2:But I definitely worked pretty exclusively in theater and then about 10 years ago, you know, I started taking some classes, going back to school and again like working with some great teachers out in Vancouver and started building my skills.
Speaker 2:And then, yeah, about 10, 12 years ago, I kind of started booking small things, you know, commercial here and there and stuff, and then started building up my resume. And then in the 20, well, yeah, I guess around 10 years ago, I made a connection with a director in Vancouver named Bruce Sweeney and he's a writer, director who writes these really fun quirky comedy drama, uh kind of sometimes romantic. He has a lot of different styles he works in but they're all very comedic and and an actor, a theater actor I'd work with, who'd done some films with him. She's like you know what You'd love this guy, you guys would really connect because he has this way of developing his scripts where he really works with the actors and there's a very kind of improvisational and like creative energy in terms of building the character, building the story, and I was like, well, that sounds great to me, right, because why am I not talking to him right now?
Speaker 2:yeah, you know what I mean like, because most stuff I go for I mean in Canada, most of the film and TV auditions that you're going out for a waiter for a thing and I always felt a little bit kind of that atmosphere in Vancouver, at least at that time was like, oh, don't do anything outside the box, right, like we, these are these big American productions, and like everything needs to kind of fit what we think they want, you, you know, and I always felt and I think that was in my head too like, oh, I, I want to do this, right, like you know, and anyway. So meeting Bruce was awesome, so I ended up actually taking a class with him and working on some stuff and then we, you know, grabbed a beer and we started, you know, hanging and he kind of started talking me through this one film he was working on about this guy who was kind of like this character, who kind of had was uh, how would I put it? It's a little bit maybe on the autistic spectrum and kind of like a quirky.
Speaker 1:A touch of ism.
Speaker 2:I was like yeah, this all sounds like me. Honestly, are you just describing me to myself? Yeah, and you know, we're chatting through the story and building this character and at some point I was like hey, you know, if you ever make this film, I'd love to be considered for this part. You know, I really had to work myself up and he's like oh no, dude, like I'm writing this for you. You know, I really had to work myself up and he's like oh, no, dude, like I I'm, I'm writing this for you, like I'm imagining that you will play this part, and I was like sweet, right, so it's like wow yeah, right.
Speaker 2:So I was like I was so stoked because so so this was where I got to make a nice jump from you know little day parts or whatever filming TV and commercials and whatnot, to like something like a lead role in a feature film with a great ensemble cast where I was a part of the creation of it. And yeah, that film's called King's Way and that was really one of my first leads in a feature and that experience really like I was hooked and just having the experience, I've now made two films with Bruce Sweeney and we're working on another one right now, and once I did that I was just very hooked and then and then things really start clicking for me and I pretty much the last five, seven, eight years I've kind of taken a step back from the theater and been working pretty exclusively just in film. Well, I've kind of taken a step back from the theater and been working pretty exclusively just in film.
Speaker 3:Well, I've noticed that, looking Jimmy, like we have IMDb to reference, but looking through IMDb. You've got a lot of stuff just within the last couple of years on a lot of big projects.
Speaker 1:You've been a busy man, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I'm very, very lucky because you know the work has been pretty slow. Honestly, it's uh, you know the work has been pretty slow honestly. It's like up and down we had a busy couple years but I've been very fortunate to you know, I tell this to people too. I'm like as an actor, you, you want to go for everything, right, put yourself out there for everything. But I'm like I always tend to book the stuff that I feel like oh yeah, this really is me, like it feels like this is, this is a show. It feels like this is a show I really like, this is a stuff I love working in. Like you know, this stuff kind of finds you when you really you know, when you know what you like, when you get out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been very fortunate.
Speaker 2:You know what aisles to shop in Twilight Zone. Amazing Resident Alien, super fun show, great team.
Speaker 3:Looking at your website, it says it's Fire Country.
Speaker 2:If you guys have seen Fire Country, it's a great show and the cast and team on that was just like awesome. Great, I had not seen it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been very fortunate to work on some great projects. So we were talking about your acclaimed role in Goosebumps in the mummy episode. Yeah, it's so weird because as soon as I saw that it was like this one was Slappy the dummy, right the dummy one. Yeah, I remember that used to scare the crap out of me when I was a little kid so it was kind of it was funny seeing it's just like wow, using goosebumps as obviously the newer versions, but it's still cool.
Speaker 2:It's still happening yeah, it's awesome. It was like it was a very small, small thing I did on that one, but it was a lot of fun. I was actually shooting one of the Bruce Sweeney films during that and I really wanted a mustache in the Bruce Sweeney film. But I shot this one day on Goosebumps in the middle of our shoot and they wouldn't let me have a mustache.
Speaker 1:What does Goosebumps have against mustaches?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:They said it wasn't in the period.
Speaker 1:Mustaches are timeless. Well, that's what I thought. There's a mustache style for every decade, of every century. Exactly Did they let you have a mustache in Supernatural.
Speaker 2:No, no mustache there. Exactly, you have a mustache in Supernatural. Um, no, no, no mustache there. I saw that was one of your TV credits.
Speaker 1:What was your role on Supernatural? We had to watch all 15 seasons a couple years ago.
Speaker 3:It's one of my favorite shows, so I made Hayden and Tom watch it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great show. That was another small one that was kind of just when I was so I made Hayden and Tom watch it. Yeah, it's a great show. That was another small one that was kind of just when I was getting more into film, but that, as you know, ran 15 seasons in Vancouver and my episode is like the third last episode.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Who do you wait? What's your part? Are you a demon, an angel, a?
Speaker 2:innocent. I was, I was a demon but I weren't. I'm trying to remember her name, who was amazing, who? She was a regular on the series. She, she's an incredible person who was amazing to me, but let me see if I can remember her her name. She was blonde and she was on the show for years and then she left the show and she had some health. Now I'm embarrassed because I don't know enough, I can't remember enough of the details, but she had some, some health things that affected her mobility.
Speaker 3:Maybe Samantha Smith maybe trying to remember.
Speaker 1:I think I made it to the last season, I think I like I think I got like to the first episode.
Speaker 2:She was on it earlier episode, she was on it Earlier, she was on it earlier seasons and when she had these health issues she left the show and she was gone for years. But then they wrote this part for her when that kind of Incorporated her mobility. You know things, and Was it like the hunter girl where that kind of incorporated her mobility you? Know, things, and so Rachel Minor. She played a character named Meg Masters.
Speaker 3:Oh, yes, yes, she started off as like a demon in the first season I think yeah and then she came back later on as like a ghost, and then she came back towards the end of the series.
Speaker 2:I can't remember if she was a ghost again or not, but well, she, I know you're talking, she, yeah, and I can't remember, but she's like a leader, she's like she's kind of like the main villain, antagonist, and then and this was a part where my improv training really came into play, because she had these mobility issues but she was, it was great with the lines and everything. They wrote her character so that her power was that she could just snap and like kill you right, Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:So my scene is like I'm pleading for my life. I'm like please, please, I didn't mean to do this, you know and she just snaps her finger kind of waves her hand and like my neck snaps right, did you just? She just snapped her finger, kind of waves her hand and like my neck snapped right.
Speaker 1:Did you just like? Jerk your head to the side, Like?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh yeah, and I I practiced for hours. I have all these videos still on my phone Trying to crack my neck in different ways and see how it looks. That's funny, yeah, so that was fun. And then she's like amazing she works at does a lot of charity work now and stuff, and she was very inspiring person to see someone who you know to have something like that like a mobility disability and to have that challenge and and how she shifted into kind of like a lot of charity work and then, and that the team wrote this part that was able to incorporate. That like it was such such a cool example of just making the work accessible and she's a great actor and she just like nailed it. So, yeah, that was a cool, cool thing to be a part of.
Speaker 1:I think that's just a telltale sign of a really good production, where you bring people back in. It's just like, hey, we changed gears just because you were part of this at the beginning, and now you're going to be back in it again and we will work with you the entire time and help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1:Right, you don't hear a lot about that anymore in today's crazy society.
Speaker 2:No, it's true, it's true, it can be very competitive and people can get very self-centered about their own success. But honestly and it's true in acting and in the arts generally, those people don't don't stick around too too long.
Speaker 2:So, at the end of the day, like people want to work with people who are fun and nice to work with and good people and don't want to work with a bunch of like cutthroats and pirates, who were pretty much yeah, like if you're the most talented person in the world, that you're an asshole, like you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're out there there's a few out there, and they still get a lot of work and a lot of money, and I wish they'd just pay me not to be in film, but alas, alas well, you had mentioned being on Fire Country.
Speaker 3:How did you manage to get into that role?
Speaker 2:well, it was, you know, audition, like I do. And the little part he's like a criminal who's brewing Bruno, which is prison wine, which I read the plot and it's vile. It's like, oh my God, it's like fruit cocktail and sugar and moldy bread in a bag and heat and time, and it smells terrible, Colloquially known as hooch or buck.
Speaker 1:Yes, we know a thing or two.
Speaker 2:You have heard this they strain it through a sock. Hopefully a clean one disgusting and the guy I played. He's brewing it in the latrine because they're all inmates, right and so to hide it, he's brewing it inside of the toilet the old toilet Merlot toilet, merlot, you know people will probably not understand the connotations when they saw it. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Like hey, this is classy, this is French. Yeah, better that they don't know, unless you know, Ignorance is bliss, they say Exactly, but yeah so really sorry yeah. What was the audition like? I mean, what, uh, for people who aren't in the know or who have auditioned for a television role or a film role? What's the audition process like? Do they bring you?
Speaker 2:in. It has changed completely in the last five years. So, back you know, in the olden days, before 2020, uh, you would, you would print off your resume and your headshot and you'd you'd drive yourself to the casting studio and you'd wait for an hour sometimes, or sometimes more, and you'd come in and you do your three lines for the casting director and then you drive home and then, if you're lucky, you get a call back and then they bring you back and the director would be there. You come in and you do it for the director a couple of times. If you're lucky, they give you some notes back and forth, Like when I did Supernatural.
Speaker 2:That was the process for that one. But after 2020, everything went to self-tape. So now you get the audition from your agent, you ask your roommate or your girlfriend or your dad, as I did once, to read the line for you and you film it on your phone and you edit it in your phone and you send it in and, um, so I you know I was, I was with a partner and was auditioning a lot and eventually she was just like fuck this, I'm too, busy, um.
Speaker 2:So anyway, I found a great person who I just adore, named Brittany, who, uh, she has a little studio set up near my place. So whenever I get an audition now I call her up. We'll put some time. I pay her for her time, but you know, it's important and it definitely makes work better. So I go work with her and she is a great coach and she films it and she edits it, which is awesome. Does she put any special effects? Not really, but occasionally she's been like, oh, let's throw some music under this or she'll, we'll definitely have fun with lighting, like, if it's kind of like a, you know, a spookier kind of role, like we'll have fun doing some moody lighting and very, very collaborative and very fun.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I taped with her, send it in and then, and then just off that tape. I got it. You know, my agent reached us. Okay, you're on hold for this. That means you're one of a few choices. And and, uh, you know it might recur this part, oh, that would be great. And and so then I got the call. Like you're in it. So it's so wild now, like you do these tapes when you show up on set like you've never met the director. You've never seen the other actor.
Speaker 1:They've never seen you so it's like they're meeting each other for the first time you're kind of meeting for the first time, like on set.
Speaker 2:So it's, you know, I'm glad now I have the experience because I think if you're if your first gig you ever booked off the tape, it would be pretty nerve-wracking to show up on a set for your first time and not have at least have had that experience in the audition room where you have to meet the director and stuff.
Speaker 2:So but I love it. Like there's a lot of people, I'll say, out there who really are frustrated with the self-tape, uh, model of of auditions. They really miss getting that direct feedback from the director and being in a room with someone and I feel for that, you know, like it is very different and there is nothing like being in a room and working with a director in person. But personally I really like the self-tape thing and it's given me an opportunity to really, I feel like, advance my practice because I get to try it, I get to watch and see what it looks like and you go, oh, I thought I was doing this, but but it reads like that, you know, and so for me it's been great and I really enjoy doing the tape. Um, so yeah, just off the tape and then showed up and and that was that.
Speaker 1:So I guess in the glory years or the golden age it would be you go, you're sitting there in a big room and you're eyeballing everybody else who's there or going for the same part and you're like he's not going to get it and like that guy's going to be my competition. Then some guy walks up and shakes your hand and you're like get away from me, like I'm auditioning, I don't. I it one more time and then kind of tweak it and put together a really good product and launch it yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:But you probably had a leg up with the improv. Pardon me, I said you probably had a leg up in the in-person with the improv, to just kind of like gauge, I guess, the reaction and audible on the spot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, actioned and audible on the spot. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, and also even like a thing that is the improv that helps is that, like you talk about the experience in the room, which you're right, right, like everyone's going for the same thing and I used to say I'd show up to an audition. It's like 30 guys that look exactly like me. What? The fuck, it's like the spider-man meme what the fuck?
Speaker 2:it's like the spider-man meme, yeah, exactly right. But but I found I definitely started like, okay, then you realize, oh, like you get to know people and you work together on this or that, and so it it's also on the positive side, could be a nice, it's a nice check-in and and you, hey, I hope you book this one, you know, because really there's, I do believe there's parts for everyone and there's there's work for everyone and and uh, we all are better off when we support and are positive, uh, you know, community members in that way, you know. So it makes the. But yeah, now people are like, fuck, I never see anyone, right, and I never see other actors because I film everything at home.
Speaker 3:Man. But I guess for the people that are trying to find who they want to cast, it works for them because it's accessible to a lot more people. But yeah, I imagine it would be a lot harder because there is a lot more people and you know it's accessible, so much so.
Speaker 2:Well, exactly, they say that now. Oh, they used to see you know like 20 people for a role. Now they're seeing 50, right, so we'll have to that. But I'm like, but isn't that a good thing? Like they, it means they're gonna find better actors, you know, or like, have more, you know, find that special thing a bit easier yeah, but in the in the olden days, the olden days before COVID you could actually drive and you'd see the people that are committed and wanted to be there.
Speaker 1:Put the effort to get there on time.
Speaker 2:Walk across town in the snowstorm.
Speaker 1:Uphill both ways and it was 108 degrees outside. I don't get it either.
Speaker 2:My lines blew away in the snow. I left them on the bus. I left them on the bus, left them on the bus. I mean these, these are all true stories.
Speaker 1:I wonder if anyone's put ad uh ads in their like tapes that they send off, because everything's got ads now. Like youtube, ads are going out of control. Everything's like netflix, all these ads and like that pop-up or commercials. It's like you're in the middle watching some guy's screen take and then it's like here at the Dollar Shave Club.
Speaker 2:That's the way I mean. That could be a way to pay. That's maybe a business idea in there.
Speaker 1:I have about seven good ideas a year on average, and that was probably number five and he doesn't go, he doesn't follow through with it. No, I fall through with none of them. I pitched them entirely to other people to let them run with it, Cause I can't as an actor you could buy advertising spots on other people's self tape, like as they're watching someone else's audition.
Speaker 2:Be like hi, I'm Jeff, just 10 seconds. Buzz someone else's audition. Be like hi, I'm Jeff, just 10 seconds bud. Just say hi, I'm also an actor.
Speaker 1:I understand you're considering my pal John here, but why not Jeff?
Speaker 2:Have you thought of a Jeff for that?
Speaker 1:Check out the link from my.
Speaker 3:Just send them straight back to yours.
Speaker 2:Now back to the audition.
Speaker 1:This sounds like a parody of real life, and we're just slowly writing it into existence. Jeff, I really hope you take some improv to these ideas we're coming up with and make something out of it and send it to us.
Speaker 2:I will, yeah, and I'll credit you properly. You don't have to.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about your upcoming film that's going to hit theaters May 9th Cryptic.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Tell us a little bit about this movie without spoiling anything. Yeah, without spoiling anything. Or spoil the crap out of it. We don't care.
Speaker 3:I'm sure people he's worked with would care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, what can I say? Like it's man, it's wild. Like it's the writer, the director, courtney Roy. She's K-O-U-R-T-N-U-Y. She's a photographer by trade, is most of what she does, and she's she's from canada, from ontario, but she lives in paris and works as a photographer. She does these incredible self-portraits and um, and just has a really, really cool imagination and a really cool aesthetic. And so she teamed up with Paul Bromley, who's a screenwriter, written a few kind of a lot of horror films in that kind of genre, and they teamed up and wrote this just wild story.
Speaker 2:So I like, right from the beginning, when I was, when I like read the scene for this, I was like okay. And this is again where, like my theater background and my improv background, this I was like okay. And this is again where, like my theater background and my improv background, I'm like you know, and in Canada, as I said, a lot of the stuff you see is maybe it's Hallmark movies or these kind of TV shows, but this was something that was so outside the box and very much something that that, like I felt like the kind of movie I would really love. You know, I'm, I'm, I love my David Lynch and Cronenberg and, uh, these real kind of spooky out there, psychological, you know, horror type, uh things. So I was just, uh, yeah, I loved the scene and then read the script and was like, oh man, this is, this is wild.
Speaker 1:I gotta be in this movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. So I, yeah, I just worked my, worked my butt off and uh. So, yeah, like the story, I mean, here's something I'll say, like when we did the premier at South by Southwest in Austin, uh, you know a lot of people so what, what's it about? Right? Or like, what did it mean when, when she does this and that, and you know, and it's one of those like I'm like, hey, listen, the film's called cryptic it's supposed to be a little bit of a mystery yeah, it's not one of those films where, like, there's a real clear-cut explanation for everything that happens Sorry to say you know, but it is very cryptic, but it definitely takes you on a ride and basically, you know.
Speaker 2:In short, there's a woman, you know, at the beginning and this part of the screenplay where they started was based on a true story where there's a group of women hiking in the mountains and a woman, one of them, goes missing, okay, and so so they've kind of taken this at the beginning of the film. So this woman is on this hike and she kind of wanders into the woods where she kind of sees this kind of monster in the wood. And when she comes out of meeting this monster, she's completely lost her memory of who she is. And she comes back to the group and they're like well, where's this person? And they're like are you Kay Hall? Is that you? She's like, I guess so she. She's like um, I guess so. She's just like fuck, I don't know. She's like looks in her pocket Okay, here's some car keys. Okay, there's my car. You know like, oh, here's some ID. Okay, my name is Kay Hall, okay, and here's my address, right. So she goes.
Speaker 2:So it's like that's how it starts. You're just like it's like this woman who doesn't know who she is and she gets kind of thrust on an adventure where she ends up on the trail of this other woman who's like a monster hunter who disappeared, and then she ends up kind of of the identity of this other woman and ends up going back to her home and with the husband who's been kind of looking for her. So I'm like the husband at the end who she returns to, and it's a really fun role, because when you first see him he's, oh my God, he's so happy to see her and she's home. And then, like, piece by piece, as you meet him, his character starts to unravel and you realize, oh, there's something kind of fucked up about this guy.
Speaker 1:This is not good. This is not what it seems he's being very cryptic, yeah, and I'll leave it there.
Speaker 2:Okay, cryptic, and, and I'll I'll, I'll leave it there well, I definitely look forward to seeing this one.
Speaker 1:The trailers look very, very good, very interesting. Well, shot too does. Yeah, like you said, she was a photographer, so she knows how to paint the. You know, do the shots and paint the pictures for you.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly, and uh, and I'd, I'd encourage like looking up her Instagram and her work and stuff. It's just incredible and she and the DOP, uh, the director of photography on the film was a guy named David bird who's from London. It was it was a Canada and UK co-production, so some of the team is from London and he's an incredible DP and the two of them, courtney and the DP, works really well together. You know, like she has the imagery and the visuals and he just had just a beautiful way of kind of setting stuff up and you know, together they created a visual world. That's just very cool, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:Cryptic May 9th in theaters. Check it out. Be on streaming May 29th according to the internet, which doesn't lie to you. According to the internet.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's good to know.
Speaker 1:So, before we leave, is there anything you'd like to plug for yourself, for others? Now's your chance for your own ad about yourself.
Speaker 2:You know what? Uh well, I'll say this I uh started an improv company with some friends uh out in Vancouver, called tight rope theater, and uh. So if you're ever in Vancouver and want to come see an improv show, uh, come down to tight rope come on down and walk the tight rope and um, yeah, and yeah, a couple other projects like uh in the works but no release date set.
Speaker 2:Uh, I'm in a film called the bearded girl which is, uh, made by the same production company that did cryptic. Okay, um, so that'll be hoping. Like next year hits them Festival circuit uh, should be fun. So that'll be hoping like next year hits them festival circuit Uh, should be fun. Um, but yeah, I hope people check out cryptic and it would be great to hear what you think.
Speaker 1:I'm sure people will have lots of questions. It might be we need to get Jeff back on the show, All right? So you said when we talked to you, this is what was going on. None of that happened. I watched this whole movie. This is what was going on. None of that happened. I watched this whole movie. I got notes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what the fuck was going on.
Speaker 1:Well, Jeff, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to sit here on our little show and we hope you enjoyed being here.
Speaker 2:My pleasure A lot of laughs, a lot of fun. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 1:And thank you to the listener for listening to this episode of Entertain. This I was Tom.
Speaker 3:I'm Mitch.
Speaker 1:And Mr Jeff Gladstone. No-transcript.
