See some incredible pilots, some incredible industry panels.

Is the premier place to be.

It's really important in every industry to have community.

This is where it begins, here at Series Fest.

I think Hollywood is changing, but not fast enough.

We need the gatekeepers to open the door and series fest.

They're blasting the doors open and all eyes focused on the Mile High City this weekend.

An ambitious and exciting new festival called Series Fest, an international television pilot festival uniting artists, television executives and producers to find the next big hits (music) Finally, there's an independent avenue for people who want to just go into the TV business.

I'm Gemma Chan.

It's such a great idea to have a festival dedicated to TV like this.

(music) First, we're going to kick it off with our third annual pitch a thon.

I love that you have pitch sessions here, because that is the one thing they don't teach you in film school.

They don't teach you in college.

And it turns out to be probably the most important function of creating a show and getting it on the air.

One of the reasons why we're here is to remind the filmmakers that are here, and they have an impact, and they make a difference.

I'm going to learn probably more than anybody else.

It's great to be here.

Series Fest.

Series fest.

What up?

Thank you so much.

It says Steve Carell on it, but if we can build a marketplace here, a place like series fests, the way that Sundance did in the early 90s with independent film, I'm excited to be here as an artist performing tonight, and they kick off the series fest.

But this is the best audience to come out to in the entire world.

Hello, everyone.

Hi.

Oh my goodness.

Day three 4:15 p.m.

who has been here since 930 this morning?

See, that's a lot of people.

It's awesome.

It has been an amazing, amazing day.

I'm Kaylee Smith, I'm one of the co-founders of Series Fest, and I'm.

Thank you.

I am so thrilled to, introduce this panel, The Evolving Role of Actors in Television.

Before we get started, we want to do a few thank you.

First to Denver film and, Kevin Smith, their leader and CEO, and their entire staff, everyone from in the booth and running the the the whole, sea Film Center.

This is their home and they welcome us in it, and they let it be our home for five days.

And we are so grateful for all of their hard work and their partnership for 11 years.

So big round of applause for Denver Film.

And then a huge thank you to our Series Fest staff.

We are year round program and, operation.

And our team works year round not only for this festival, but for everything we do.

And I'm so grateful to them and to all of our volunteers who are here for six days, giving their time so we can all enjoy these panels and these screenings.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

And a huge thank you to our sponsor for this panel, Sag-Aftra.

Before we get started, I'm just going to plug a few things for later because you've been here since 930, so you want to stay till 930 tonight.

You do you want to do a 12 hour day until everyone you did 12 hours a series fest and have the best time of your life.

So we're about to see an actor's panel.

Randy and I met at theater camp.

I swear to God, we met at theater camp when she was like seven, and I was like 11.

So we love actors.

And so one of our programs, our Storytellers Initiative, is a scriptwriting competition.

And year one, I was like, we're doing a script writing competition, and at the end of it, the winner.

We're going to do a library like theater.

And that's what we've been doing for 11 years.

So tonight at 730, we have our winning script.

We partnered this year with Ed Helms, Pacific Electric Company.

So come see live actors.

Read a script at 730 here.

And there's also other screenings happening too.

So stick around.

I'm going to hand this over right now to our amazing moderator, Kristen Baldwin, TV critic of Entertainment Weekly.

Have fun guys.

To.

Hello, everyone.

Thank you for being here.

So let's meet our panelists.

You know her from heroes unforgettable.

And now the Emmy nominated Showtime drama Yellowjackets.

Please welcome Miss Tawny Cypress.

She's one of the creators of NBC's Lopez Versus Lopez, a comedy she also stars in with her dad, George Lopez.

Please welcome Maya Lopez.

He starred on the hit medical drama New Amsterdam, Hulu, Hulu's How to Die Alone and now NBC's Grosse Pointe Garden Society.

Mr.

Jocko Sims.

And finally, in addition to starring in ABC's Emmy winning comment comedy Abbott Elementary, she's also a producer, stand up comedian and winner of Celebrity Jeopardy!

Please welcome Lisa and Walter.

Okay.

Yeah.

She's almost here.

Thank you.

You shouldn't have.

So.

Yeah.

Let's just start by taking a look at, where we are after the last very tumultuous five years.

You know, in 2020, we mean shut down in 2022.

It was the peak of peak TV with 600 scripted shows, dramas produced in that year.

Then we had the double strikes in 2023.

And now this year, all of that is leading to sort of a decrease in film and TV production and just a really, different and challenging time in the industry.

So my first question is, if you could go back to your 2019 selves and say, and give yourself one piece of advice for getting through this next five years, what what it would take, you know, what would that piece of advice be?

Lisa, I'm going to start with you.

Oh, wow.

I was just formulating the answer.

I have to start with this.

As a very active Sag-Aftra member, as a national board member, co-chair of the National Women's Committee, my co-chair is sitting right here on the Government Affairs Committee and communications and and and and the negotiating team.

In 2019, I knew what a lot of us knew who were involved and saw which way the wind was blowing, which was that I was coming for us all.

And no matter what we did with our ever diminishing numbers and, in, cable when.

I'm sorry.

Let me take this back when we were getting fees for VHS.

And I know because I got them for The Parent Trap.

They were great big checks that could carry you over.

As a mother of four children living in LA, which is extremely expensive.

I could live off of that money when it went down to DVD.

They changed the formula because they don't know if this thing's going to work.

Yes they do.

When I went to cable, they knew, but the money went down and then it went to streaming and it went to this.

And everybody said, well, we don't know if people are going to do stream.

Of course they know because that's where everything is going.

So in 2019, I knew that there was going to be a time that was going to be tough for us if we were going to continue to be able to make our livings as actors, and that we had to fight for it, and we're not all the way there yet, because AI is still looming threat.

But it's better because of the hard work that the union has done for.

Thank you.

That's all.

And to all of you too, who are involved in any unions.

It's not just our unions.

We, you know, support our writers.

We support our Teamsters.

We support each other.

But I think what I would have told myself is to keep doing what you're doing.

Lisa, you're on the right track.

Because when I started in the business, it was with an offer and the television side of it.

I was a stage actor, and I was a stand up.

When I started in this side of the business, it was with the offer to star on my own TV shows.

So I was already writing, I was co-creating.

I understood very well that women in this industry have a shelf life that is much shorter than our male counterparts, and that we have to keep our options open and be diverse in our disciplines and make sure that we are doing all the things.

And so I wasn't just waiting for a phone to ring as an actor.

I told people who were looking for their brass ring, you have the ability to make content right here.

Yeah.

We didn't have that in my generation.

You all have the ability to make TV and movies pay for sound, but you have to pay for sound.

Right.

But you get removed but you do it.

And then I did the all the other things that you have to do.

I wrote a book that was a number 13 on the New York Times bestseller list.

I was a talk show radio host for for three years.

I mean, you just do what you have to do to survive, but in between, you work in between you do the thing that you love.

And whether that's getting on stage in a local production or being in your friends short, you act, you go to class.

And then I reminded myself to go back to class because I shouldn't be afraid to look like I was not big, I was I shouldn't be afraid to be embarrassed.

Like, oh, I need class.

I went to a class to remind me how to how to audition.

And then I landed Abbott Elementary.

Like, literally immediately.

So I'm sorry that was such a long answer.

I'm going to shut up for the whole rest of the panel.

You know what, I promise?

Good night.

Sorry, but let's not ruin Elsa's answers.

Doc, how about you, save your money?

Now, what I would have told myself of.

Of course.

First of all, thank you so much for all of your hard work.

With, SAG and fighting for us on the front lines.

Really?

I really mean that.

I have a question.

So do we now get residuals for, streaming as actors?

We always did.

They were just much less.

Much less.

Like, I got a check from Abbott, and I went, I don't get what.

What year was this?

This is literally this past year.

And I went to get a quick story.

What is this?

And they went, that's your residuals.

And I went, oh, are you kidding?

Yeah, I got it.

There's a bar in L.A.

that if you have a check from SAG, it's called residuals.

Residuals.

It's called residuals.

And if you have a if you have a check that's for like a penny, you get a, you get a drink for free.

That's that's the giving back.

So I was on, New Amsterdam and when we went off the air or right before we went off the air, I guess in 2023, we went on Netflix.

And I was shocked that even though that deal was happening because we have Peacock on NBC.

Right?

So we ended up on Netflix.

It, at the time, The Last of Us was like the biggest thing in the world.

Pedro Pascal was hosting SNL and all that.

We knocked him out of the top spot.

New Amsterdam was the most watched show streamed show in America.

January and February.

We had 4.5 billion minutes watched, and it just blew up and we got not a penny for all of that, and that hurt.

And then right after that, we went on strike and negotiations happened, and I'm like, okay, but I would have told myself to save money, man, how about you?

Yeah.

And in 2019, I had just graduated, the conservatory at Second City and, I was wanting to create content.

And it was in 2020 when we were all in lockdown.

Is that I used my phone.

I created the first Lopez versus Lopez is the first show to ever come from a TikTok or be inspired from a TikTok video, and I just used what was around me and I think I. So the world's biggest comedians.

Yeah.

With the yes.

George.

Yes, him.

Oh, he was the thing that was around.

Yeah.

That's what was around me.

Smart though.

But really it was family dynamics and it was storytelling and it was truth and authenticity and it was my life.

And what I was just finding that the story was there.

And then as Lopez versus Lopez went into the creation, it was just finding what was there, but making it deeper and finding it and lengthening it and finding the truth.

Because even if it's fiction, people still want authenticity and they still want the truth in something that is universal.

I would tell myself, find what you think is funny.

What do you want to see?

Make yourself laugh.

Almost go back to like when you were a kid and find that inner child again.

And I just pointed the camera and I mean, yes.

Does it help that I have a world class comedian sitting in my living room?

Yes.

But also it was my mother and the history that they had of being divorced, not speaking for ten years.

And people saw that when I was making content and it became on and the other things that I had made just telling stories.

And our showrunner, Debbie Wolff, like, came on her for you page at 2 a.m.. And it was her seeing that something could be there and all of us getting in a meeting, and I wasn't even speaking to my dad at the time.

And then we go from that was in 2020, and then we start developing the show for a year and a half, like two years.

And then the, the, the strike happened.

We had our second season, we had 13 episodes in our first with a back nine, guaranteed.

And being we are the only Latino majority Latino show on television and network and that thank you.

It's still and to survive the curse of our shows getting cut after two seasons and having a strike, we were following each other ourselves.

On Tuesdays.

It was double episodes of the of us.

So you have to beat yourself.

And that was something that, you know, it's it's insane.

But as we've gone through three seasons, the authenticity, the storytelling, it's true.

And it's not just my experience, it's the experience of the writers.

It's the experience of everyone that works around me.

And who cares who gets the credit?

It's always the best idea.

And Tony, is there anything you give me to try and be quick.

In 2019 I had spent 20 years, doing garbage.

You know, I mean I was, I don't, I don't like to shit on my career because honestly, it paid my bills and I was a single mom, and, so I got through and it was great.

I never had to have a real job since I was 18, and I was a bartender at the limelight, which is not a real job.

But, in 2019, I remember distinctly thinking, this is the rest of my life, I'm going to play cops that run down the street in heels after a bad guy shooting a gun, and I'm going to be happy with that.

It's going to be fine.

But I thought, I'm an I'm fucking actor.

Like, I know what I am capable of.

I know what I can do.

And so I made a decision to, to take projects that meant more to me and they didn't pay anything.

The first thing that I took was an independent film, paid me $100 a week.

And I said, but, but she was this woman who was bipolar and she was falling apart.

And it was such a beautiful I mean, all I wanted to do was bring her to life.

And that started a whole new arc for me where I'm just like, you know, I need to bring people to life.

I can do this.

So I would tell my younger self, believe, believe in yourself.

You can do it.

You're an actor.

Yeah.

Hell yeah.

I love that answer.

You know, another big change that happened before the pandemic.

We've talked a little bit about streaming and the explosion of streaming platforms.

And on the one hand, as actors, it probably meant, oh, there's so many more shows, there's so many more opportunities.

But on the other hand, it became even harder for shows to break through because there were so many more shows.

So I guess, you know, I would love to hear your thoughts on whether or not streaming has made it easier or harder for an actor to break through in television.

While streaming doesn't have a built in advertising component, you know what's on streaming if they advertise on it on a terrestrial channel, or if you happen to be watching and it's advertising, that algorithm feeds whatever they think you're going to watch to you.

But the stuff, the thing about streaming is you talked about it when you started this, that there's a contraction, what they call a contraction in the business.

They're always going to need shows.

They need it.

The whole idea of streaming is based on the predication.

That's a that's a jeopardy word.

It is.

Jeopardy is based on the supposition, if you will, that they need to get new.

You need to get new subscribers.

They don't care if you've been watching Netflix for ten years.

They want new people that are going to watch the new show.

They put on the platform.

So it if if having whatever they have content wise is either stuff that's aired somewhere else or stuff that just has been existing on there, their business model fails, they need new content, and the way they've gotten away with it is they all pay buckets.

You make $5,000 a week on a streamer as compared to real money.

Thank the Lord God above me on network television.

Well, I will say I'm just a button.

I'm so sorry.

I will say that there, like the show that I'm on right now, they promote it to death and which is great.

And it is.

I mean, it's showtime, but it's now paramount Plus.

I don't know where it is, actually.

Guys, it's on Showtime.

I don't know, but it's somewhere and and it is streaming and they do promote it to death.

But, the I get what you're saying about the money.

First of all, I get what you're saying, and we all deserve a piece of the pie.

We're the actors or the creators.

We're the, you know, the people that bring this to life.

But I am excited about how much there is to do.

Like, it used to just be cop show and air show.

Did it and, and, and now we're expanding that and we're getting to know women in their full light and we're getting and which is wonderful in that regard as an actor, as an, you know, just somebody who wants to create or whatever, that's it is a fun time because I feel like there's so much to grab, but we should be compensated like.

No.

Yeah.

NBC has its own publicity department.

But for our first and second, like for a second and third season, we all of us as the producers of the show, we actually all pitched in and hired our own, publicists.

Because we felt that we were we won.

They changed our, you know, like our schedule all over around.

But we felt like we were kind of getting forgotten about.

It's like, if you're not a it's like we had we hit really hard in the first two seasons and like the first season was great second.

But since they changed this around, people were still coming up to me and being like, what day are you on?

What is this?

And then just catching it on streaming or some people don't have Peacock.

Our first two seasons are on Netflix and not everyone, almost everyone has Netflix, and that helped the visibility of the show.

But we all pitched in because, you know, and that was we've kind of butted heads with NBC a little bit with that.

I'll be completely honest with you, is that we took it into our own hands and was like, if they're not going to do it, we're going to do it ourselves.

Yeah.

And then, you know, and then it became a collaborative process from that.

But it's like, this is our show, this is our baby.

Like we have to protect the show and what we believe it can go for.

Jocko, I feel like you had something.

Yeah.

Regarding streaming us as actors, if you're blessed enough to come from the world of network television that Tony was talking about, you know, you might be used to doing anywhere from 16 to 24 episodes of a show, and, streamers got hip to the fact that, wait, we don't have advertisers now.

They're starting to have advertisers, but we don't have advertisers.

It's all about subscription, and the audience doesn't care if we start making fewer episodes so they realize they can save a whole lot of money by shooting fewer episodes.

Now, if you come from, a world and you've built a life around the 22 type thing, and now we're doing 8 or 6 and you're on a contract, so you're really technically only allowed to be on one show as a series regular.

So now you work on eight episodes a year.

It's it's a bit ridiculous.

And you talked about the thing with the network.

We love the networks.

We're all in.

We're all in the same, you know, boat.

We we all work together.

And sometimes you got to push back a little bit on, to them in the studio and just it just kind of work.

Yeah.

Kind of a better deal.

Now in terms of how long they could hold you.

This is real esoteric stuff, though.

Like, they get they can.

They used to be you.

You made it.

You made it official.

Sorry, but I was always first.

I used the big word.

It's my fault.

No.

Yeah.

No, no.

You said you with the fight, you made it official.

You had to get in there and say, listen.

Yeah, because the drive off of eight episodes a year, you got a and not even a year.

If it was eight episodes a year, how many people who make their living as an actor?

I don't know how many there are of us in here, but if we were guaranteed eight episodes a year of anything, you're like, I made my insurance, right?

You'd be calling your parents.

You don't have to worry.

But it's not.

It's eight episodes every two and a half years.

You don't know when they're going to come back around with a new season.

So that's what real stingy with what else you can do in the meantime?

Well, I'd love to talk about that because I know we touched on this in our phone call earlier.

What do you do in that situation?

One of the things, you know, as actors, you have to be experts at everything, but especially advocating for yourself.

And so what do you do in those situations when you're faced with, you know, I want to do this guest spot, but my contract says, I can't I, I think it's very crucial.

And if you're lucky or blessed to have a great team, but behind you, because I've, I've heard horror stories of friends who have agents or managers who don't even want to call and get feedback on, on an audition, which I can understand if they don't really have the relationship, with the casting director of the producers, maybe you don't want to call, but I've, God bless my manager, Michelle Benedetti.

She was always down to.

If she didn't call, she would call, my agent and say, hey, let's let's find out what's going on there.

But the fact that they would pick up the phone and have these conversations has gone a long way because, I remember doing, a series ten years ago.

I was a series regular on this particular show.

One of the best jobs I ever had.

I didn't do a whole lot, but besides run around, shooting people I didn't have heels on, but, Hello.

So.

But then came along a show on Showtime that I could guest star on and it was prestigious and nice and awesome and sexy.

And I was like, I got it.

I got to do this.

And the network that I was on ten years ago said, you can only do three episodes as a guest star on that show.

And, what I said to my team was, I want to do this no matter what.

So they called and had a conversation despite the contract, and we made it work.

I got to do all seven of those and and well, sometimes it's playing work store literally.

I call it playing rug store when you're willing to say, oh, how much is that rug really?

That's okay, I'm fine.

And you walk through the door and you wait for them to go wait.

And sometimes in the in our business, if we see something.

Look, I spent a lot of years, especially when I was blond, playing a character that was a version of the woman who sticks her head out of the the trailer door going, I didn't kill him by and sorry, he's dead.

Yeah.

And I was like, I'm.

So I don't want to do that.

I'm smart.

My father was a physicist.

Let me dye my hair red and play something different.

But there were jobs that I would have gladly given up in order to play something that I really wanted to do.

And then it's just a question of, like you said, having a team, because not everybody, not everybody has got a team that is positioning you.

It's just you're a piece your cog and you get that guest star role and you're going to get paid what they call top of show, which was new for started after my, TV shows that I started.

And all of a sudden they came up with this idea top a show.

They've been lowering payments since the about the late 90s.

It used to be you made real money, you guest star.

That was your money for the year.

You made your insurance, right?

It's changed now.

So I'm going back to my original statement.

Make sure you know how to do a whole bunch of things.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, I would love to hear, I mean, first of all, my and you mentioned that your show, you know, is one of the first, if not the first that's inspired by TikTok.

How did that platform how did getting on that platform and perfecting, you know, your your style on it?

How did that prepare you for when you became now, you know, not only the star of a TV show, but, you know, a writer, producer, etc.?

Yeah, I think all about like short form can be into long form very easily because short form is it's just deepening it, strengthening it short form.

You try to grab people's attention, you try to be relatable.

You try to have authenticity in the world where everyone is lying and everything is lying.

You're you're still trying to find that people are feeling the same thing as you, and that everyone just wants to feel like their voice in their story is being told, like, I didn't we?

I had gone to castings.

My parents really wanted me to growing up.

As the daughter of I, it was very hard for me to still be myself and I didn't wait for.

And being Latina, it was ethnically ambiguous and I was always casting.

And, you know, it's as going into casting rooms, like I miss rooms, I like self-tape, but I didn't wait for Hollywood.

I cast myself like I cast myself as my character and my life, and in a way that I created a series I like to call of.

Why did my divorced parents still act like they're married and because it was my parents and I just creating content that was kind of just and as well as myself.

But all of that helped is that, you know, each each post was almost like its own lab.

Like I was getting like, sorry, did you study writing?

Yes.

In school I did.

Okay.

You've got a base to work.

Yes, I went to Columbia College.

As you go, you've got.

You started somewhere?

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

No.

And, I had worked as a punch up writer on, like, a Cartoon Network show after, So I've been, I was, you know, scrounging, doing what you got to do.

Like, I know I can write, I know I can do improv, like I was always keeping, like, things up and what help what helped and how that went over was that I when we were pitching the show, I was able to show the videos of being like, this.

Got 2.1 million likes, look at all of the comments.

And then, then the executives were able to see in real time something that worked like even still, when we were making the show, I would I would go into my dressing room and I would make a video of like an idea that was in the script or something we wanted to do, and then I would show it when we would have notes, and then they'd be like, oh, that's what you wanted to do.

Oh, then oh, okay then yeah, let's go and do that.

But they have to see it because sometimes they just can't see it because they're just like making notes and everything is wonderful.

But as the writing it was, you had we had a very strong base of a father and a daughter estranged, didn't speak for ten years.

And, you know, I'm I'm very single in real life, but I'm a TV mom.

And so we added a child and then the generations, and you just make it deeper and deeper and deeper.

And you know, I this is my first television show that I've ever done, and it's playing a version of myself.

I call her my in.

I call her sitcom Maya, because if not, then it just gets really confusing.

Like sometimes the line producer really like Maya and you read that line really wrong.

I'm really angry and I'm like, oh, that's me.

That's not, her.

But it was really beautiful to, you know, have something already known as my family.

But also it's something that's real.

Like we knew we know George Lopez, we know the first show, but this is a different George.

This is like, really him.

And both my dad and I had to be very brave of that.

And I went to a place as an actor.

Like I will be vulnerable.

I will, you know, this is I wanted my pain to mean something and I'm going to put it all out there.

And so some things you see are really real conversations there.

Mosquito in here.

That did sound like a mosquito.

But yeah, no, just always I think that they should let you be angry.

You're being you.

Oh I did, but I couldn't go like full HBO with it on NBC.

You know, it's like it's still a sitcom.

Something they used to say to a sitcom actresses in the 90s quite a bit.

We.

Well, we can't let her be angry.

Yes.

Oh my God.

Oh, so many times, everybody.

No, they actually did that with drama too.

I remember one of my first leading roles and I was working.

Oh, and a very well known actor.

And I played a butch woman like she was a very masculine woman.

And I loved her to death.

I wish it was.

I'm not going to say what show it was and but better I IMDb.

Yeah.

And and one of the, one of the leads came up to me after a taken was like, you shouldn't do that.

So angry.

Nobody's going to like you.

And I was like, I like to take my direction from the director.

Yes.

Right.

Thank you.

That's somebody who's jealous.

Oh yeah.

Well no.

But they said that they used to say that all the time back in the day they were like they wouldn't, there were so many specific things that you were and were not allowed to do in television.

There were rules, you know, this there were there were rules.

And then there came a time, thank God for those of you who are starting to create now where they went.

Oh, people are people.

Yes.

It's okay.

Natasha Leone can be nuts or, you know, there can be leads, can be unlikable.

Moms can make bad choices.

Yeah, like it is okay to show women with faults or people of color with faults.

Like my father on the show, he relapses.

And then it's like, you know, showing a relapse and showing that when I was like, it's something I've dealt with.

My father is an alcoholic and that I've also that a family has to change around.

It's not just the person going through recovery, it's everyone around going through the recovery.

And when you think about the great sitcoms and the great TV shows, it's like, think about what you want your people to think, oh, what are your characters doing when they're not on the TV show?

Like, that's like what you go off of?

Like, what are they doing?

Then you bring them back into the writers room and you just like, keep going, going, going.

I mean, talking about what you can and can't do, whether you're a woman or a person of color.

You know, Jocko, in the past few years, you've played a lieutenant in the Navy, you've played doctors, you've played other professionals.

But early on in your career, you've played some, you know, what you might describe as less nuanced roles.

In one interview, you said, quote, I was on NYPD blue, cuffed up in jail, and another I was somebody who was potentially shot, who potentially shot and killed a store owner on NCIS.

I was the main suspect.

I stabbed somebody.

So I guess from your experience, how have you seen the opportunities change over the years for, you know, nonwhite actors?

Shout out to my friend in college, Bridget Foley, who was.

This was a long time ago.

She was married to a writer, so she was a student.

We all were trying to make it, but she was very familiar with how the industry worked.

And this was over 20 years ago.

So she said, this was her way of telling me that I was a good actor in college.

She says, oh, you're going to work on all the cop shows.

You're going to work on every single one, and you're going to.

So I was ready and I was like, that's that's what I got to do.

And when I, when I started, big hair was like a big thing for a while early 2000s, like, Marlon Wayans used to have this thing.

So I grew my hair out and.

And one of my.

Yeah, actually.

Yeah.

My first show was a cop show called ten A, and then, I did, The Shield, and I was in handcuffs and I did NCIS, and I did, show Just Legal with Don Johnson, and I was a suspect and, all of that stuff.

But I was ready for it.

And, I remember that, quick story that I wanted to play a lawyer.

I actually went and auditioned for, a lawyer role on a Fox pilot, with Julianna margulies.

Ended up being on that on that show.

But I went in the casting director love me.

She said, oh, my God, you're you're perfect for this.

I'm like, I'm about to step out into something else.

And, so the network had that passed on me, and the casting director was furious.

She called my team and said, this is like, they got this all wrong.

I'm I'm going to have him come do this again.

Oh, they said the note was, we want someone who was a little more comes across a little more intelligent or whatever.

And I'm like, that's a straight-A student, magna cum laude, president of my Spanish club, National Honor Society.

No, I just laughed and she laughed.

The casting director said, come in here, I'm just going to interview you.

She was really pissed.

And, she interviewed me and I did my thing, and, she sent the tape to the network, and I go, who's this guy?

That's him.

Where has he been?

He's not me, a writer.

And I got cast in that in that pilot.

That was a first, lawyer role.

But then after that, they started to to come and.

Yeah, it's been great.

I always wanted to play a doctor.

And I gotta tell you, sometimes there's a narrow vision, there's a myopia that they have that has nothing to do with your talent.

It's what it's hilarious.

It's hysterical.

I mean, part of the reason of the.

It wasn't just the blond hair that I had from certain roles, and I had to dye my hair white for Shall We Dance?

And then I kept getting cast with that poor and white hair and.

But what's is that it?

It's this.

There's smart.

Women don't have to make movies on television.

They cast in it to play the roles that I would be right for.

They would.

When I was in my 40s, it would have been cast as a very thin white woman.

Yeah, and with a certain kind of beauty.

And I was in that there's two ethnic but not ethnic enough.

Right, right.

But those parts.

But now I'm perfect.

Yes you are, honey.

Those parts are still there.

I just think, I mean, they're just they're they're they're always going to be there.

Those stereotypes are always going to be there.

I don't think they're gone.

I mean, the first role I ever did was NYPD blue.

I played a crack addicted prostitute whose baby was found dead in the dumpster.

No.

Yes.

It first of all, as an actor, freaking awesome.

Okay, I'm not even gonna front.

I'm not even going to front.

That was freaking awesome.

But, you know, it's this thing.

You don't want to play up too much or whatever, but there's still there.

There's basically steppingstones for colored actors.

I mean, honestly, these are stepping stones to getting to a lawyer.

I think lawyers are a little more boring to play.

I like the the juice of the crack, stupid stereotype crack addicted lawyer.

Oh, you said write that down.

This.

I get the Sony 22, sir.

We want to see that pilot was new.

What's it going to be?

Call this September on NBC.

Honestly, love that I'd crack law.

It's like you have to tell.

That's good.

We get all star in it.

Yeah, you read it.

Those roles are going to be there.

And I think you just have to keep one.

You have the opportunity to write those roles, write them these characters to the top of their intelligence.

Like write them as whole hearted.

It's like I'm me and like my costar Salinas Leyva, who is on orange Is the New Black.

Like she plays a strong woman with her own business, divorce like, and bringing herself.

And it's like we are and I'm a single and I'm a mother that, you know, dropped out of high school and is still trying to go to school and figuring it out, and also being the matriarch of her own family.

And it's just real struggles.

But you have I was like, it's not for Latinos.

I can speak from like, it's from it's not how is it's better than it was 20, 25 years ago.

You know, just from watching what, you know, my dad has done and also my mother, like, both like, because my mother's Cuban, my dad's Mexican.

And just seeing the roles expand, but there's still room to go, but you have to fight it.

It also comes from the people that you're pitching to.

I just had a conversation out in the lobby with a couple people that we're talking about, you know, being behind the show, and, and all three were black.

And I said, you know, when I came into this business, they might have done a show similar to Abbott, but they would not have listened to the voice of the young woman who lived that experience.

That was her lived truth, that was her authentic voice.

And her mother's experience.

But she wrote it because she is from there, and they might not have listened to her.

And I am happy to say that as opposed to what I went through in the 90s with them really not listening, you know, having an idea of what people in America would watch.

And I'm like, I was just in America, did stand up for eight years.

I was a nationally touring stand up comic.

I know what makes them laugh and I know what their life is.

They don't.

I remember the first time I was pitching my show, the first version of my show, which is a working mom, and the show was half at work, half at home, which was different than anything that was on TV.

And they were like, she should have like a hot male nanny.

And I said, America doesn't have nannies.

America gets on the bus and takes their kid to daycare.

Yeah.

And so the idea of what Hollywood had in their mind, of what a life experience was, was not what I knew to be true about America.

But now it seems like they're listening because at least they're listening to Quinta.

Yes.

And, this came up a little earlier about Self-tape auditions, which is a holdover from the pandemic.

And, Tony, I understand you took a you start a class on this.

I would love to know, you know, what are the tips you're giving your peers?

And, you know, because it seems like this form of auditioning is here to stay.

Yeah.

What I say to young folks or anybody new getting into it, first of all, it's it sucks.

I could I could do it a thousand times and never be happy.

But, you have to you have to get over that.

I am all for being creative with it, honestly.

I get out of the plane room, you know, do something fun, make it fun for you.

And honestly, your only competition is yourself.

At this point, you're not in a room with ten other people that look like you.

All you got to do is make this audition better than the last audition.

And that's your only competition.

And.

And so for that reason, I think self taping is a really great thing.

As, as far as honing your acting and believing in yourself, you know, because that's such a hard thing to do.

I spent 20 years building relationships with cast, huge casting directors that would call me and based on our relationship, you know, and it was awesome.

And to have that taken away was a lot, getting used to that was crazy.

But.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

No, my my biggest advice is to make it something that you would want to watch.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, like, I remember, like, seeing, like, slates.

And as we were, I was part of the casting process for the show.

And I remember, like, distinctively, there's one self-tape where he was auditioning for Quentin, who plays my, my fiancé, and he took the camera and he was moving around with it.

So if the show was if the scene was in the living room, he put it in the living room, and if he put it in the kitchen, he put it in the kitchen.

And he was like active.

And it was active like the Self-tape was just not, I think so, not in the little room.

I would I would go so far as to say, if you have a scene like at a restaurant, go to a diner, get yourself get get headlines, right, get my car right.

Yeah, spend money on sound everything.

But like, do it.

Do it across from somebody in a in a diner.

Like, make it something that you would be interesting to you.

That's what I think.

That's how you stand out.

Well, and it really speaks to.

And I think, Lisa, you talked about this at the beginning, how actors really do need to I mean, to do it right and do it well.

Your lighting, your hair and makeup, your wardrobe, your creators, you're doing everything.

Were you going to say, I don't want to I don't want to speak before you?

Okay, so this is what I'll say.

I think that there are things that you can do to make it better.

I did not love self-tape going into it because I am very good at winning a room.

Yes, I walk into a room and there I know what the part is.

I remember auditioning for a movie for Edward Norton, the actor, but he was directing that leap of Faith movie with a Ben Stiller, and he was a priest and a rabbi.

There was a part in the script.

I wasn't going to tell you guys.

That's what I'm telling you.

There was a part in the script that I really wanted to play.

It's not what I was going for.

They wanted me to go in for the female ier.

So in a rom com, it's the friend of the female lead.

They didn't need a female in this movie because she was best friends with both the males, and I knew that would get cut because the movie was 20 minutes too long.

So I'm like, I'm never going to.

I'm going to wind up on the cutting room floor, but there's a part of an actress with big boobs.

And so I was low cut, square nut neck shirt, and it was a brilliant scene.

It was like a scene, like from a 30s movie with rapid fire back and forth and I walked in.

Sorry, very, very like chipper and doing that clipped kind of talking that you do in 30s movies and with the movies.

And Edward Norton was like, that was great.

There's this other part, like it was his idea.

And, and that's genius.

He said, do you, do you need to time to take a look at it?

I was like, I'll just take a swing at it right now.

Of course I was off book, but yeah, but that's what you do.

But but here's the thing.

That's the room and that's great.

So I was afraid of it, but I took a class.

It was one of the things that I decided.

Quit being afraid that if you go into a room with other people, they're going to say, well, she's done movies.

Why is she here?

Like, she must not be any good.

Or, you know, I was I was so worried about my ego taking a hit that I wouldn't go into a room.

And I went in a room with what was a zoom room, but still with Lee Kilton.

Smith and I learned some amazing things, and one of them was not to do it a million times because probably the third time, first of all, they're going to make a decision if they're going to continue to watch it in the first 10s and you're either going to be right, physically or not, or you're not going to be right physically, but you're going to hit them so hard when some choice you make and some brilliance or truth that they're going to have to watch it all the way to the end.

And maybe you don't get that job, but you get the next one, or they remember you for the next thing.

And I will say, I do it in my house and I always do it, but I have a great person to read with me.

My best friend, the mean girlfriend from The Parent Trap, Elaine Hendrix, and she reads with me because I she knows how I read and I trust her to read with me and do it right and put a light behind you.

You got a curtain.

Make depth in your room.

Shine a light.

Yeah, a tiny little light on the floor.

You can get it on Amazon for ten bucks.

Well, maybe 47 now, but get a little light and you put it on the floor and you shine it up at the curtain behind you.

You've now created depth.

And I will add one more thing.

When you're auditioning for anything but in particular a comedy.

You and I told this before the, the, the, the zoom auditions or the taped auditions.

You give them all the jokes they wrote, even if you're like, oh, I can see this one coming up Fifth Avenue.

This joke's terrible.

The man who wrote it or woman is watching the tape eventually.

So deliver the joke they wrote.

Yes, maybe spin it, make it different than what they originally saw.

But you give them their joke and you give them three more comedy beats that they did not expect.

I don't care if you add a oh, I don't care if you add a look.

I don't care if you exit frame and come back, you give them three beats that they didn't expect.

That makes them laugh and surprise them because they've seen that same scene 100 times and you surprising them makes them laugh.

Lisa, I want to do comedy so bad and I'm totally taking all of those no.

Okay.

No.

Do it, do it surprised them because then they go, I don't have to work as hard as a writer that person finds funny.

Yeah, you're going to build it yourself, you know, self taping.

I assume it also saves money and they're, you know, we are in an industry contraction and you know, so budget cuts are happening on shows both new and and ongoing.

And I just love to hear your thoughts on like as actors.

How does that affect your experience on set?

I know, Jocko, you talked about being on a show and how great it was to have the writers come out and and have the writers on set, and then that's a really rare thing now.

Yeah.

So oftentimes now we don't we used to all be in the same town and it was great.

So you had you could just walk into the writers room and have a conversation about things.

But now we shoot everywhere because it's cheaper.

And yeah, it was great.

In the beginning of our series, one of my most recent series where the writers would fly out from LA every week.

We had we had had a writer there, and I felt like towards the end and, you know, they start tightening the belt a bit and it just made such a difference.

Like I kind of took it for granted.

The idea that the writers would come out and the whoever wrote that episode is here, and we had an eclectic writers room, we had former military, and we had doctors and and people just from all over.

It was just amazing.

So every week we would get to work with this amazing personality.

But yeah, that definitely affected, you know, I would say our performances and some of the episodes, you can start to kind of feel it because we're just doing our own interpretation.

But with the writer there, you know, you can have a conversation and see what their intentions were.

So that's just one small example of how the budgets are affecting things.

Yeah, from season one to season two, which was after the strike, which we our budget got cut by 20% and it was just my and worked at a vet clinic.

And then Maya lost her job like that.

Just everything because that was where our that was the budget for like our swing set that we had.

And so, you know, everything's going to be kind of around the family and be family based and, and I think it ended up actually being like a blessing in disguise because I think it was helpful in the first season to kind of, at least for my character, help develop her backstory.

But I think it ended up being good because then it was focused around the family and going around those stories.

But it was very difficult, especially as, I like to call myself the people's producer because I think I'm like the youngest and the least threatening as the, the on set.

So people are able to, you know, come to me.

But also being an actor, like I have my, my costars, but I also have to kind of keep a tight lip of like what's really kind of going on.

But I can also tell them, like, if I were roles were reversed, like saying the position like I do tell them, you know, as much as I can.

Because we are this is all our livelihoods.

But it was very tough.

And even now we're looking at it potentially we're going to find out soon for season four in the budget now with everything with Peacock losing a lot of money and NBC and there's a lot of changes.

It's it might even be more than that.

And it's pretty, but it's pretty like jarring.

But you know, you have to make it work because it's even how many times, how many the, the building even of like keeping the offices.

And it's even just more than that.

And it's just I think of it back into my days of like seconds in like, okay, we have this much like, let's, let's get we have to get scrappy.

I didn't get here by not being scrappy.

Right?

So yeah, that's what I always think about when they're, you know, even when we were unfortunately had the, you know, the labor, what did we call a labor action.

Yeah.

They're like, oh, they're going to threaten actors with not making money.

We know how to do that.

Right?

And y'all don't know we do.

Yeah.

But, we I mean, we've been very lucky.

I can't even say that.

We've been incredibly lucky on my show.

So we haven't had it, except we went down to hot snack only twice a week.

We used to have some hot snack.

And I'm going to tell you, I will tell you on the set when you got crew used to hot snack every day and it goes down to twice a week, people are not happy.

Oh, I think also known as second meal.

Right.

So yeah, when you when you've been working, is it like a 12 hours or something.

When it's a long day, like you get like another lunch, right.

Yeah.

A pizza or something.

I mean, I've got to fit in a wardrobe, but the crew wants it and you better have a happy crew.

That's that's how I feel.

As long as the people that are getting paid, the people who can't negotiate their contract, the people that are working, are background artists are crew.

As long as everybody is making a living wage and they're not getting cut, then I'm okay.

I'm happy.

But it also affect like the amount of guest stars or other roles that people can be cast on the already established shows, because you have to keep it for the main cast or, you know, even like right now I have a we have a dog on the show and I'm like, drew might just be in the yard for this season.

It's like those little things.

Yeah, trim, trim around, but it can affect people's livelihoods.

It's like, you know, that's sometimes you need to get support for your insurance.

Like, you know, you have to have a certain amount.

Yeah.

And you know, playing a TV character is different than pretty much any other form of acting in that you can often play a character for a really long time and see them evolve.

And I guess, you know, how often are you able to collaborate with the writers and showrunners when it comes to developing a character?

And I assume it's sort of a case by case, but what's the ideal?

And Tony, why don't you talk a little bit about this?

Yes.

For the most part, there's literally no collaboration.

You just get told things about your character and you have to work them into a history that you've created already.

So acting in television is sort of like bobbing on the water, where you have to sort of go with the waves and recreate a history that you've planned out perfectly and figure out why, actually, you hate your grandmother.

I didn't know that.

It, Yellowjackets has been different.

I mean, if there's been a lot of collaboration as far as it's very it's a dream job.

Honestly, they're wonderful collaborators.

They take what I say into consideration, but I'm just an actor.

I like to say I, I'm a pawn, on a chess board.

Lauren Ambrose won't let me say that.

She's like, no, you're a queen.

And I'm like, okay, but we're still playing chess, right?

I don't I have no power.

So I just put my work out there, and what gets, you know, what gets taken gets taken and what doesn't doesn't.

Yeah.

I've I've had the experience of, being on shows where they would have meetings with the entire cast to just kind of get to know us.

I mean, that's that's ideal, right?

Yeah.

And, and and they would add more to the character based on the conversations you've had.

But I was on a series for five seasons that I didn't know where the writer's room was, and I didn't realize it until, I was going to surprise our boss with a birthday cake.

And we like, we'd go in the room and I had to ask for directions.

This is in season five.

I was like, this is terrible.

We went to the writers room.

I was like, oh, this is what?

Oh happy birthday.

Yeah, this is nice.

So, but to the converse, on on in New Amsterdam, I remember the first episode had this very, controversial line where, me and Jenny Montgomerys character, are, were hooking up in the hospital, and then she wants to take it further, and she keeps pressing me like, hey, what's going on?

Why why do you stop this?

Why can we go get a drink or whatever?

And I finally break down to her and say, because you're not black, and I want to get married and get married to a black woman.

And I remember reading that and going, oh shit, this is going to be crazy to see that.

And I'm just so used to not having a voice in general as an actor.

And before we shot it, the the creator of the show, David Schuler, call me.

And he said, hey, I said, hey, you said, you see, what do you think of that?

I said, that's wild.

He goes, no, but what do you think?

Like, I want to get your input.

I was like, what?

And and, and we had a conversation and I told him about my experience growing up and growing up with my mom as a black woman and the things that I would hear and stuff.

And so we kind of got to put my voice in the monologue.

I rewrote some lines, and I this was year 15 of my career.

I couldn't believe it.

It was unreal.

And you could see that on on New Amsterdam.

Streaming on Peacock.

Go check it out.

You need a box of Kleenex.

But, that was that was very refreshing.

But you don't always get that right.

I always had it, which is wild, because I came into the business.

Did you do mostly comedy?

I well, and also it was we want to make, we want to make a show around you.

And based on your stand up, which they were doing back then in the, in the mid 90s.

And so I came in as a creator.

Now, as I said earlier, did they listen?

I don't know, but I always spoke.

I didn't know enough not to.

Did they say, please?

Hey, I'm always difficult.

But I don't know any other way than to be truthful and speak up.

One of the ways that they I mean, we have great writers on the show now every season.

I think one of the reasons that I am so pleased with the growth of, of Abbott is because every season the writers see more what we do and write towards it, or they'll take stuff from us personally and things they've seen us do, or ways that we behave.

That stuff about like Sheryl's character, Barbara Howard, making up names for people that are wrong.

That's true.

That's all the exact truth.

But they'll do stuff like that, and which is fun for all of us.

And it's also real.

So it's it's fun to play and and I have gotten to have input because unlike I think every other character on the show, there is nobody that comes from that world.

Nobody's Sicilian, nobody has a Sicilian aunt or mom sitting at home.

I they have allowed me to write all of those.

I write all the Sicilian slang in the show, and I get to make up names for all of my family members.

Yeah.

Like for, I mean, like for us, it's like, I, I like to joke that I was like, oh, I, I was like one.

I always like to say like, I doesn't have generational trauma.

So it's like, you know, it's like we can't if something's has to come from the truth.

And I think, you know, we I mean, it's like the show is loosely based on my own life, so I will just go off of that.

But I also make the point as a writer and a producer to call, like even just a couple of weeks ago now, we're like trying to prep for season four.

Like I was calling my costars and being like, what do you want to see for your character?

And like making sure that that was important.

And every year, like, we all, I'm every each person will get a meeting with the writers room and talk about what has gone into their lives and what is like what they want to see.

And then even as we are in rehearsal, like things are changing, we're adding like we're going to the line producer, like the script supervisor and being like, can you send that up?

Or we have an idea, and on the floor we're all playing with each other.

The director is playing with and we're playing with one another.

And so sometimes, like we'll have the scene will be written one way and we'll do it that way, but we'll also pitch it as we were discovering, oh, that's a new arc that we didn't completely understand.

And that's just going to be don't don't get me wrong, like as an actor, I don't always want to have input.

Like I'm a, I'm a fan.

Two of the shows that that I'm on and I like to get surprised when I read that script, you know, I often don't have.

No, I've just, you know, but I've been able to play characters that have flipped and gone different directions than what they were, you know, initially.

And I love that excitement, you know?

So I don't need to have input.

I like, like I'm just looking forward to crack lawyer.

I'm hoping, yeah, we're going to do this.

You know, we'll do that together.

I don't know if any of you guys can write something like that.

Yeah, crack the comedy can.

It'll be a comedy.

Yeah, like we're a team of crack lawyers.

Yeah.

Crack.

Laugh.

Believe we're going to take some audience, some audience questions in a minute.

But first, I, you know, since, my.

And you brought it up, I do want to talk quickly about I because one of the protections that was secured in the 2023 SAG contract was that actors, the studios and productions need to get an actors consent before, creating, you know, a I version of them, their likeness, etc.. But I'm still interested in what are you guys feeling about?

I like, do you think you'd ever give consent to have an AI you made?

Like what is what are your thoughts about personally?

No considering finding a company that because my dad and I are huge fans and, we but they had at their last concert, they all went and did AI versions of themselves, and that's going to be the future.

And my dad and I were like, what if we found that company did our own AI versions of our of us, and then we own our own image of that, our AI.

It's something that I haven't looked at.

The only problem it's the idea of maybe I do it and then let's see what that is.

At least that's a thought.

But it's hard to.

Okay, first of all, the way they had it set up initially was egregious.

They wanted background artists to come in.

You get paid for one day, they shoot you and they own you in perpetuity.

That word was in the contract per perpetuity.

And and and we're all like, who's working?

And it's not just people who are trying to make that day of pay.

It's the makeup artists, it's craft service.

It's all the support teams.

Everybody loses a job, right?

That is that is that is industry ending.

Yeah.

So that's the reason why we wanted Gavin Newsom to get on board with protections.

That's the reason why we were so worried about it.

I personally would not do it because.

A director tells me what to do.

I know what he wants to do.

I know what he wants for the edit.

I know what he needs to live.

I also know the 14 other layers that are going on inside of that character.

That creates a version of what he said.

Maybe not exactly, might not be this hamfisted on the nose version.

It might be a version they never expected.

But that's the one they fall in love with and they use.

Because you can't tell me when that single tear is going to come down my cheek.

You can't tell me.

In The Parent Trap, when Jessie wipes her eye with her shirt.

That was Lisa.

That was not in the script.

That was me.

And once they get you on, I. Nobody is making those choices.

And I don't want my grandkids seeing me do porn.

Sorry.

Right.

I'd rather them enjoy me on crack lol.

Crack love this show is going to pitch this on.

Still, accepting submissions.

So I believe we can take some audience questions.

It is bright as hell.

All right, let's start right here.

Go ahead.

I don't believe we have mic, so just shout it out.

Can you speak to the to the use of given the coordinators?

Yes, I can.

I know that's becoming a huge thing, but with the budget cuts and everything, how does that impact you as an actor to have an intimacy coordinator?

Nancy says she wants to answer that question.

I mean, I know the answer to tell me if I get it wrong.

So intimacy coordinators are now part of our union.

We are that we have been.

Yes.

And and there are a lot of people that are getting ready to go into doing scenes where there's it's not just, you know, couples, you know, whatever couples, men, women, same sex, whatever having it's it's also touching when you're doing like something where you're restraining like a child, like there has to be a comfort level involved in what's happening.

And I think that's why they use it.

There is a there is currently I think we're getting kind of over the hump of it, but there is a sort of transition period where directors were not thrilled with the idea that there was somebody in between them saying what they needed from the cast, and they were kind of the intimacy coordinators were for a period, because they had no protections and they were afraid of losing their jobs.

They were not really protecting the actors who were saying, no, I want an intimacy coordinator here.

So I sees now that they are protected.

We'll be able to do those jobs and work well with the directors who are who.

And everybody knows what's needed in the scene.

And we won't have a, you know, Blake Lively, just a meltdown situation.

We fine.

Yeah.

I brought it up.

You look at that yeah I did yeah I, I broke that seal to that.

Right.

Certainly I mean intimacy coordinators are very new.

And I remember doing a lot of intimate scenes before they were around.

And thankfully, you know, for the most part, actors are very, supportive of each other, at least the ones I've worked with where they they it's always so weird to do those sorts of scenes in the first place.

Everybody feels that way.

So let's get on the same page and sort of work through this and and be safe with each other.

I like intimacy coordinators.

I think it's like choreography, you know, it's like a fight scene.

I like I learned staged combat, like, why can't I learn intimacy?

Combat.

Plus, you want it to look good because if somebody is taping you at home just doing it and it's not great looking, my questions are like, did it look hot?

You know, like maybe yours didn't look good.

And they're going to tell you, you know, how they'll make it look better?

I'm all for it.

I really feel safe with that.

And sometimes we don't need it.

I worked a lot with Lauren Ambrose this last season.

We did a lot of intimate stuff, over the last season and a half, and we had the the intimacy coordinator there every time, and she was like, how do you guys feel?

Me most?

For the most part, we were like, we're good, but it's good that you're here.

Thanks.

You know, listen, coming from doing this job for a long time, I used to get miked up wearing short skirts and those sound guys.

I felt like I should have been engaged by the end.

I needed an intimacy coordinator for the mics for them, but they didn't, like, say, I'm going to touch you now.

I was just whoa.

You were just.

They were in there.

Do we have time for a couple more questions?

One more audience question.

I'm going to do, this person way in the back with both hands up waving.

Go ahead.

Yes.

As a non actor and creator of a series as trying to get yourself around a lot of these rights and getting into like reach out to actors, try to get them in that they're using to help you show around other people you and and then it can take another step as an actor does that.

As an actor, does it ring true for us to be contacted or, or as a creator to have?

Maybe I have I have, yeah, I, I, shot my first short film, MTV pilot, two years ago.

Got a couple of awards here at series Fest.

Won, the jury prize at South by Southwest.

Was coming off of New Amsterdam.

I had, I got some, I won't say their names, but I got some big name producers, TV juggernauts attached to this thing, and I'm like, I'm gone.

This is I'm out of here.

I get to transition into a creator.

And I was really, really excited.

Wasn't the case.

They didn't really care about that stuff.

And I think it might be not to say that it that's going to always be the case, but it was eye opening for me that.

Damn, I checked all of these boxes, and this was in 2023.

And right when I was coming off like the South by Southwest when we went into the strike, and that's when the industry was really changing.

You know, they're tightening the belt on everything.

They don't want to take risks.

The executives want to keep their jobs.

So it's just like, so I would just I would say that attaching actors, I think it's always good.

I think you should do whatever you can, and that might resonate with someone.

But don't put all your eggs in that basket.

You know, be relentless for a series until you know.

So put some doors.

Yeah.

And, first of all, they're going to want a letter of intent.

It's not just like you.

You have to get someone to commit with a letter of intent for them to kind of believe that this is real.

A lot of actors, depending on where they are in the business.

But if it's a name meaningful enough to raise money on or get greenlit on, they're usually on a level where they don't want to be the the conduit to your fundraising.

They're they want to have the job be real before they commit to to remember on TV.

We're not talking about it's an independent movie.

It's going to take four weeks.

You're going to we're shooting now.

It is in two years.

We're going to do this or in a year and a half we're going to do this.

So it's really hard to commit as an actor.

I'm sorry.

I'm giving you an honest response.

You know, it's true.

I don't I don't want to be doom and gloom too.

But I met with a producer a couple of years ago.

More doom and gloom, who was telling me that there was a show going around with Meryl Streep attached that couldn't get arrested?

And, there was a movie with, Will Ferrell and Melissa McCarthy that couldn't get greenlit.

This is the last couple of years.

That's the new world.

We're we're in.

I've had, Minecraft two smile.

Three for.

Yeah, I p I p yeah, I've had people contact me and actually about, ten, 15 years ago, somebody tried to use my name to make their project go forward.

Well, I've had the letter of intent, and I had to call my lawyers.

Like, I had to be like, that's not how you do this.

Like you can't just.

I said, you got a good project like, I, I'm not attached to it.

So you have to really, really, really make sure your ducks are in a row with that sort of situation because actors can't just come in.

She has to go shoot a proof of concept.

Yeah.

I mean, when it comes down to it, you've got a great script that you believe in.

It's probably easier to shoot proof of concept or to shoot it as a short and do what this man did, and then you get it into festivals and people see it and go, hey, I like that.

What about that?

Well series fest though.

Let's.

Yeah.

Oh yeah.

Series Fest does a lot, a whole lot.

I'll commit to your series.

Well yes.

How much cocaine did.

Yeah.

Yes.

It's a crack lawyer.

We just created one in this room, you know.

Well, we are going to have to end it there.

But thank you so much for joining us.

Thanks so much to our panelists and have a great rest of your festival.

Thanks for coming out, guys.

So much for coming.