Who's your biggest fan?
I wish I could say it was my wife. I know she’s my biggest supporter but it’s pretty dicey getting her to go to one of my shows or readings or what-have-you. I think it’s my dog, Sneaky Tiki the Freaky-Deaky Land Manatee of Love. She is always very excited to see me, to hear my do my stories and if allowed, would go with me to every performance.
What brings you inspiration the most?
Currently, a good deal of my inspiration comes from the weekly workshops I run for Active Voice Productions (http://activevoiceproductions.com/workshops). As I write this, I realize that in those sessions as well as in the private coaching sessions (http://activevoiceproductions.com/coaching) we work with the same structures and mind-setting technique that I used when I ran martial arts classes, and that I used to find a great deal of literary and creative inspiration in the martial arts training. Also – and this may sound odd to some people, I think – but I find that every professional gig I get, no matter how mundane, gets some of my gears turning and leads me to my next spec piece, or my next creative endeavor.
Which actor or director would you like to work with?
I want to put Paul Provenza and Kate Orsini on the screen together and am currently building a microbudget script out for that precise purpose.
Have you ever seen a film that was better than the book?
I think any film version of Moby Dick is better than the book. The book bores me silly. The film versions would too if any of them suddenly devolved into lengthy edutainment pieces on the romanticization and minutiae of the whaling industry only to justify a story of interspecies brutality. At least on film there’s cool stuff to watch sometimes.
What's the movie that taught you the most?
William Forsyth’s Local Hero, my all time favorite film, taught me how small a film can be. In terms of visual dynamics and set-pieces, if we are willing to really indulge a great love for the characters and their world, we can allow conflict to come organically and without the overbearing hand of writerly ambition.
About your artistic career, have you ever had the desire to quit everything?
Occasionally, when I’ve been dead broke at the same moment that some particularly painful professional body-blow threw me off balance, I’ve entertained fantasies, but suicide is never considered the right answer. Oh. Wait. Is that not what you meant by ‘quit everything?’ Then no.
On set what excites you the most?
When I see two actors find the rhythm and the life of a scene in a usable two-shot so that the performances, the text and the technical execution capture a moment of shared singular creativity I feel myself starting to do a happy dance even before I call the ‘cut.’ Also, the single, clean take of the close-up monologue makes me happy. When I know that what we’ve captured will get the laugh. That excites the hell out of me.
And what scares you the most ?
A DP sighing after I say, “We’ve got it, moving on,” or a sound man shouting, “Hang on,” after the take I loved. Also, moths. I don’t know why. They freak me right out.
What's your next project?
Right now the first film I shot, pre-covid, long-mothballed comes close to finishing. The re-edit gives me hope that it might work. I abandoned it thinking it utterly unsalvageable. After a couple of years away from it, I looked at the footage again and found some solutions. I’ve got picture lock and now we’re doing sound passes. That should hit festivals and competitions by end of year.
The new solo show THINKING ALLOWED takes me back on the road as a performer as I gear up for Edinburgh in summer of ’24 and a shoot of that piece as a special. Then, I start book tour for Merlyn’s Mistake, the new novel (Danu Books, dropping in hardcover, paperback and audiobook, Sept. 30, 2024.
You can steal the career of an artist you really admire, who do you choose?
Dean Devlin. Or David Sedaris. Crap. No. I’d screw up everything good about what they do. I’m okay here in my own career, I think.
An actor/director/screenplayer is made of....
Anybody with the creative spirit and the impulse to express ideas unsuited to simple conversational language will likely find his/her/their way to the arts. To be involved in the over-time collaboration of making a film (or a play or any other production) one must also have the long-term sustenance of focused energy combined with the ability to work with others. A painter must maintain focus until the canvas is finished. He need not complete that task while having committee meetings, each brush, palate depression and the canvas puller herself at every stage, as well as discussions with each figure within the painting, each of which has concerns about its own appearance. It’s a complicated thing to do vulnerable artistic work in a densely populated setting, surrounded by sensitive artists as well as expert technicians, all of whom have opinions, concerns and work ethics of their own.