Creator to Creators S7 Ep 101 Joe Staton The Snazaroo Story

subscribe now and follow creator to creators. Hi guys, welcome to another episode of creator to creator today. Today we have a very special guest. What? Hi, I'm Joe Joe. And I'm Joe's mom Lauren state. And I am Chloe Chalkin. I love it. I love it. Well, I mean, I love to, you know, I love going back to the beginning. I always say the beginning chart, touch a trajectory in life. A little habits we pick up along the way, follow to our adulthood. Tell me just a little snippet, a little bit each, you know, whoever can go first wants to tell me a little bit about your childhood. Was that like and how did you get into the industry or doing the things that you're doing now? So to everyone, take that away. Go for it. Lauren, do you want to go fast? Um, yeah, I can go first if you like, although I don't come from the actual background. Um, I've worked with theatre people from for many, many years and became a makeup artist in my mid 20s. Um, and together with my husband, we founded Snaza Roo, which is a company that makes space paints. And it's still going, still going strong today, although I'm not part of it anymore, but spent many, many years working in that industry and working with costume and working with makeup, which was a wonderful creative career that I look back on with fond memories. We never stopped being creative. Um, and then I had Joe. Um, we've never ever dreamed that he would become an actor, but there you go. So go, Joe. I love it. I just have to say, like one of the frustrating things about doing these interviews with my mum alongside me is I have to deal with my mum's humility. Um, she started off by saying she doesn't come from a theatrical background. She literally found her own dance school at the age of 18. So shut up, man. Not correct. Yeah, it was 14. I was 14. 14. Yeah, well, yeah, I was on the stage, prancing around. I was a bit of a show off, I think. So, um, yeah, it was, I don't know where that came from. You know, it was somebody else in our family that was that creative. But my mother jumped for joy when I started dancing because she was a seamstress. So she could make our costumes. And I think that's how we got into working alongside, first of all, alongside her and then into our own industry with the making costumes. So that was good fun. So yeah, I mean, I've been back. So I'm always backstage now. That was the thing. It was always, you know, in my early days, it was great to be out there prancing around in the 70s, which was an amazing time. Um, and, uh, and there was some incredible musicians and well, our musicians were very theatrical at that time because they, you know, they were out there doing some amazing shows and everything was very visual. Um, so, yeah, my, I've got a very colorful brain. I think that comes from the 70s. It must do. Yeah, I see everything in color. I love everything. As for me, you know, how did I get into this industry and the other thing? Well, I think, I think that anyone who has met my mum would agree that I never stood a chance. I was always going to go into this industry because I grew up with face things I was supposed to say. So, you know, I from a very early age, I was surrounded by color and costumes and just ridiculously different than everything. And then at the age of 10, I read my first Shakespeare play, decided that's what I want to do and my mum being the liberal, that tastes that she is. The fact that she's a support me. And so here we are. Now I do, now I work mostly as an actor, occasionally as a producer, I'm sort of my first play. Um, I don't think it was me. I don't think it was me that got you into that. I think it was your grandmother because she used to teach you monologues. When you were little and used to stand, when he was very small and he was about four, he used to stand in front of the family and recite these monologues. That she taught him. And some of them were from, you know, way back in the 30s and 40s. And then you got, then you got into Peter Pan and it was all about Peter Pan and he wanted to be Peter Pan. And so we would hear, you know, we would have to watch the movie many, many times. So yeah, Joe was a sword fighter at a very young age. This is where he wants to embarrass me, but I can fire back really quickly. Right. And as for me, yeah, I think it's, I definitely, I didn't have a theatrical parents, if you will. But I actually got into acting and forming actually as a disciplinary measure. I was too energetic for a lot of my teachers at the right page of four or five. And it was actually a, it was a child care that I had that said, "Have you heard of something called Stagecoach?" It's really good for kids to channel energy when they have a lot of creative outbursts and things like that. And that was it really and I kind of loved it. And then that led me through just doing amateur dramatics through school and after school and things like that, those kind of programs. And then getting a drama scholarship to a really great school in Birkensted, which is a town in the south of England. And from there went to like drama, most of all, originally did musical theatre, which I still love. But I've moved away from that part of the industry a little bit and then found myself coming to New York doing straight acting at Stella Adler, which is where I met Joe. I was only supposed to be here for 10 weeks and then ended up staying for three more years after that. And then legally, may I say, changed my way to became a student for the two year conservatory. And I'm now just finishing up my visa application for my 01. So that should be coming through in the next few days, actually, which is exciting. And then yeah, we love an immigrant story. And that's kind of where I've met Joe and now we find this is going to be our nine projects. Wow. I think together eight or nine as much as we fight to stay away from each other. We end up always getting forward back to work together creatively. But I think it's, yeah, it's been a roller coaster. A crazy roller coaster for the last three years, but it's been amazing. I hate more of a first directing job. Correct. That's a real. I do. I blame Joe. I blame Joe. I love that. I love that. So, you know, I love what you're doing with this project, you know, collectively together. Tell me a little bit about like kind of like, let's start from the beginning. Like, what drew you to this story now and not, you know, years ago? Well, so basically mom wrote a book. So mom did this amazing thing in the 1980s, 90s and everything. Well, she started this big face painting brand, her and my dad, which sold all over the world. And you know, I always grew up knowing about it and everything. But then she wrote a book and I read this book and it was all about how she did this, how she created this amazing thing with my dad. And it was kind of special for me to read because my dad passed away when I was two. So I didn't know him. And so I got to sort of read a first, a first-hand account of not only what he was right, but what they were like when they were doing this sort of together. And I read this book. I think it was 2018. I was in my last year of John's tour. I read it and I could sort of see it going on things. I can see it in my mind and on screen as well. So I said to my mum at this time, I said we need to turn this into something because it was really well, I think. For the product is popular. A lot of people still know it. I still have people today say, oh my god, you're ungraded that. I know that. And so I would say, well, there's definitely, you know, there should be an audience for it. So we should do something with it. And then 10 years later, after 10 years of procrastinating, I kept, I was like, I kept trying to get other people to rise it for me because I did not think of myself as a writer. I did not think I was good enough to be a writer. I didn't think I had that in me. And every time I tried to get someone after I did for me, it didn't work. They didn't understand what was about. They didn't understand the meaning behind it and what should be in everything. So finally, in September, August of September of last year, I finally said, "Ah, okay." I think it's gone to be me and I got to do this. Okay, fine. So I sat down and I wrote it. I wrote the first draft and then I wrote a second draft and then I wrote a third draft and now I'm working on the fourth. But I put it up in front of an audience for a reading and the response was just kind of insane. Like lots of people seem to be really into it and lots of people seem to really connect with the story. And also there's a lot of people who are around because it's a true story for around in those days to remember it all. So it does, I think, mean a lot to a lot of people. And this sort of confirms to me when I started doing press for it and then the BBC reached out to me to the ones that talk about it. So clearly there is something there. And now we're also talking to a screenwriter in England who's interested in adapting it for a screen and pitching us a studio and stuff. And basically I think I was too young to write it when I first read it. I was 23 as old. I didn't really know myself yet. And I didn't know what to do. But I had now I'm 31 from a different time in my life and I think now it's just as the time for it. That's what I'm going to say. - Yeah. Yeah. And you know, mom, I'm going to say like to trust your son with this is, I mean obviously, you know, you, you, you, there's that all that faith in him to do it. I think, I mean, I can remember saying to him the best person to write this is you. And Joe saying, no, no, not really a good writer and I, you know, and I mean in the past, I've done a lot of writing and it would always be Joe on the end of the phone saying, improve your grammar. You've said this wrong and you can't say it like that. It's like, you know, I used to think, oh no. But I know he's a good writer, but I think to be able to write snazzy or a duck from snazzy tale, I think to feel the emotion that's in it because it is, it's a balance of tragedy and and success running alongside by side. And I can remember thinking back in the early days, thinking how do we, how do we deal with that in life really? And to put that on the stage and to get that into, you know, or to get it into dialogue, into it, into a script. I mean, I managed to get it into a book and I hadn't realized I'd done that. If that when I wrote a book, I went, I was on holiday in Thailand for a month. I went to Thailand on my own and just sat on a beach in a beach bar and wrote the whole of snazzy tale. Without any research, I didn't need to research. I think it just all came out. It was all there. So there was a lot of, I don't know, the whole thing came together very quickly. And then for somebody like Joe to take it and to, you know, it's one thing right in a book yourself and saying, here's my story everybody, you know, without thinking, are they gonna think I've got some kind of ego or something? This was really written for me to offload stuff. I was to be honest, I was sick of people saying, how did you start based painting? How did you start that company? And I thought, all right, I'm just gonna give you the whole lot in a book. But Joseph to take it, he's sort of because he knows me and he can hear my voice in it. It was going, he was gonna portray the story really well and he was the right person to do it. And not only that, he learned, it was one fascinating way of him to learn about his dad. - Yeah. - So yeah, I mean, I'll get little messages at night, going, what would dad have done if somebody said this to him, how would he have responded? So this is a really good way of knowing somebody that unfortunately you lost an early age. - Yeah, yeah, I was just thinking about that. How do you decide what truth to keep and what to let go of when you're adapting real life? - It is so funny because I have my mom's face right now. - Yeah. - This is so funny because mom, when she wrote the book wrote a very clean version. She wrote the nice, but it's the cool. She wrote, she didn't say anything that anyone did wrong. She didn't say anything that like, you know, would dirty or mean or anything like that. And the play is very much the opposite of that. I'd done it and I was like, okay, so with plays you need conflicts, with stories you need conflicts. So I got shot into mom about, you know, what was the, what did you not say? - I think this book that we can now say here. And it's funny because, you know, some family members, I won't say do or not, too happy. So it's, you know, I, we're not trying to make anyone look bad. So, and there are some characters that could be featured in the story that we've not put in there for reasons. Because there's just, you know, you know what they say? If you've got nothing nice to say, then those things are sort of, you know. And the characters who are in the play that maybe, you know, do come across sometimes a little, that you can always understand where they're from. You can always understand at least, you know, their position and why they are saying things or doing things to what they are. They're not inherently, you know, bad or anything like that. Those people have not made into this. Yeah, definitely. I totally understand that. I'm, I, I question for the, you know, director. When you first encounter the story, what may you say this has to be on stage or, or, or not even just that, but what responsibility do you feel directing something that is rooted in real life lives and real lines? I think, I think it's, it's linked to what Jojo said, really, it's, it's the truth. It's like any play that you do, you're always trying to find the truth. Most of the time it's fiction to whatever you have on the page, everything else you can kind of fill in the blank. You can imagine you can have your own spin on it when you're dealing with real people in a real time. It's, you've got more to answer to, you know, and people can fact check you very easily and very quickly. Mm-hmm. But I think the, the real truth behind the story that is actually a lot more universal. I guess it happens in a, in a, in a small town in England, but it's these big successful corporate commercial businesses, sorry, that start from such a vulnerable, unique place that we often forget that most businesses started that way. And then they always say never work with children, animals or family, right? In, in your career, but I think there is this, there's this teetering seesaw when you do build something with family and not just like this play, but, you know, what Lauren did with her partner. You think, oh yeah, of course, you love it, but sometimes you, you then bring work home and there's no, there's no barrier between world life and home life where often you can just shut the door and leave it behind. But, and it's that complex relationship, which I love. I love family dynamics. I love, you know, tough love and sometimes the people that you have, the most trusting, the most faith in, the most loveable. You can get so hurt the most by those people, but it's the underlying of like Joe said, like you always know where a character's coming from. And it's like, oh, but what if, I don't, I, I'm, I'm identifying more with this character, this character, but if you look at it from that one, you can really take that step back and you look at that whole, how different people's perspectives of what they have to gain from a certain argument or a certain success story. It's like how that kind of navigates the time and then when time is cut short, what you're then left remembering and what you're left going forward with. It's just beautiful. It's it's a part of the family with the addition of a successful company. It's beautiful for me. That's everything. Yeah. I love that. And telling the story, did you discover anything about yourself that you weren't expecting? Me or Chloe? You. Yeah. Oh. I think Chloe just took a very deep breath. Yeah, but she's like, my own relationship with my brother. That's what I'm saying. I'm sorry. Stuff that I wasn't expecting. I mean, I've always been a procrastinator. I've always been someone who I didn't feel is very organized. That's just who I am. I've started that a long, long time ago. So what I wasn't expecting was to finish this project so quickly. I wasn't doing it. As soon as I started writing and I couldn't stop and then finished and then did another draft and now working with another draft. I mean, if you would have told me that like two years ago, that's in five months or so, I would have been a month. my thoughts after a playoff was said, you're crazy. That's not who I am, so I can't do that. So I definitely learned, I think I'm just wired in a way that if a project is important to me, I'll give it a two-time attention. And if it's not, I just want to listen clearly, clearly something that's very, very important to me. So I think that was something I learned. Yeah, and I think I just, I mean, I already knew this, but I learned that my mum's in that case. And I already knew she was in that case, but this just like to fund it all. Yeah. - Hello, mate. - Do you hear? - Yeah, that's true. - That is true. Yeah. Yeah. Aristachia, we did, we jumped in to a business that none of us were training to do. Or had any knowledge of, I mean, I didn't, I wasn't a makeup artist or at that time. I knew nothing about cosmetics or, you know, and we sat in our kitchen and went, we need to learn how to make this stuff because there's a need. And none of the other corporations that are making it or none of the other suppliers are making it to the way we need it for our market, for our kids. And so we just sat there and went, okay, well, let's do it against everybody saying, oh, you can't do that, you can't do that. And we just did, just did. - Yeah. - And it was, you know, it took us, I think, probably about two years just to get the labor right to get the actual manufacturing right of how we pay this stuff, how we make it. Each color is different, you know, it has different properties. And so there was a lot of experimenting and I think after about two years that we cracked it and we thought, this is how we're gonna do it. And they still use that procedure today, nothing's changed. So yeah, this is really good. - I love this. This is a question for everyone or both. Was there ever a moment when you both, like saw the same scenes completely differently and how did you like work through those moments without losing the heart of the story? - Well, I will say very quickly, when it comes to me in Chloe, Chloe and I work very, very well together. I will say that we've got a very good mutual respect for each other. But I will say this 'cause we have, we get to start rehearsals and everything, but one thing that I want to say very quickly in terms of what you just asked is, I've worked as a producer with other players right before and the worst thing that you can ever have is a playwright who is interfering with the rehearsal. That is the work you can ever have. So when it comes to, yeah, Chloe and I are going to collaborate and everything, so I'm also producing and all of that. But it's very important to me that I'm not, I don't want to be fretchous about this script and Chloe had a great imagination, great mind, she's got a great sense of how to stage and everything. So yeah, I will always communicate with Chloe and everything, but I'm pretty much going to leave her alone to do what she wants to do with this script. I have ideas, if I'm to her, it's up to her whether she wants to take them or not and I will not be as a fairy with that because I trust her 100%. Now, when it comes to my mum. - Well, no, what I was thinking is, what happens, Joe, if Chloe says, Chloe, what would happen if you said, well, let's make this into a musical. - I will enjoy you. - Already done, Lauren, you once have a head of me. I've got the choreography ready. - Oh, we're ready. - Oh, we're ready. - We have to take part in the music. - Yeah, music will be fantastic. - Yeah, honestly. I think a big thing of that is when you do have, especially in a real life story, it's kind of your responsibility to pay homage to the truth of the story. Like, I'm not gonna turn like Joe comes to a rehearsal and the next rehearsal, I've set it on Mars. Like, it's like, you wouldn't play it like, it's something that, and it is true. It's like, that's why we probably do work together a lot because we choose to, because when you find people that just get it, and you can say the least amount of words, and you're all always on the same page, you're not gonna come in and have some strange surprise. And it's like, oh, right. Okay, there's a tap number in scene four. I wasn't thinking about that as an option, but, and I love collaboration. Like, I'm never, I'm not the kind of director that's like, my word is being an engine. And I come in before the rehearsals with every single thing exactly I want, because we also have live people, human beings, saying these words that, and the beauty of it is that, you know, no one's playing themself. I mean, don't have, you know, the real people, like, biopicking themselves in a, in a play. So they're gonna bring their own, their own personalities to this. And I think that's beautiful to hone. And I think it's, you want that. You want all that collaboration. You want, I want Joe's ideas, blend them with my ideas. If they're better than mine, I'm gonna steal them. Do you know what I mean? It's that it's, it's all of that collaboration, which is so key. - I love that. - It's interesting. When you actually see it being performed, and you're sitting like me, and I was sitting at the back thinking, you know, looking at the girl playing me, and afterwards in the bar when we were talking, and that was the first time I'd ever experienced somebody playing me in my life, you know, it was like, well, this is weird. And people were asking me what, and how I felt at certain scenes. And that was interesting because there were things that came through as a surprising to me. But I think, you know, when I spoke to the girl playing me afterwards, and she said, you know, how did you feel about it? And I just went, you know what, you came across much nicer than I really am. (laughing) And she said, oh really, really? I said, yeah, I think you're much too nice to be me, you know. But I was saying that as a compliment as well. But that was my first impression. But I mean, it was great what she did. And the, some of the things that hit me, you know, a lot of people, you know, in the play, at the end of the play, that's when the tragedy hits with Paul dying and, you know, and it's very, very sad. And everybody said to me, was that the bit that really hurt, you know, that you got emotional with? So actually, no, because I've actually dealt with all that in my life. But what surprised me, I got emotional, more emotional at the beginning of the play, where it was all the, you know, as they were portraying us building a business, you know, the blood sort of tears, that was emotional to me, thinking, oh my God, I remember that. Yeah, we said that, we felt like that, we did that. So that was coming across, so I was really impressed with that. And that's when I started to tear up a bit, sitting in the back row, you know, thinking, oh, I'm going to cry at this bit. Yeah, that was very real life. But, you know, the end although it was a sad ending, I process that ending so many times to just to survive. It's a survival streak. So yeah. Wow, that's beautiful. That you, like, yeah, that you process that. And not to just, you know, stay on that, but, you know, because I'm kind of going through something that is kind of like, you know, I mean, a process of things. Do you think there's moments, I mean, obviously, yes, you process it, but do you, do you ever think there's moments where do you feel like, okay, is it too soon to process something or do you think it's like, is there such a thing? I think you become, when you're going through that, you become aware of what other people may think of you processing too quickly or not fast enough, or, you know, that's saying when people say, well, you have to move on now. Like that doesn't make any, that never made any sense to me at all. And I tried to do, I tried to take people's advice and go, okay, well, I'm moving on, I'm going to move on. And then, you know, the whole thing about snazily tail was about, you know, that it came out through moving on and then realizing that you've not moved on at all. Because how do you move on from something that was so amazing? You can't just put it in a cupboard and forget about it. Because, you know, there's a child walking along the beach with his face painted as a tiger and you think, oh my god, you know, that was part of what we did. And so there's always a reminder there. But I mean, for when you say processing, you know, whether it's grief or processing grief, because, you know, I had to process the loss of a husband and then the loss of what we had, not just him, but what we had together. And that was huge that what we built together. So, you know, we sort of climbed a mountain and it was almost people telling me, forget the mountain. Yeah, forget about that. You can't do that. It's impossible. So don't feel bad about, you know, just celebrate everything. Celebrate it all. Yeah, love that. And that will get you through it. Yeah, if you're going through trauma, celebrate it all. It's um yeah you're and you know people can get through it again. Well I'm here. I'm still here. Absolutely. Still surviving. You know. Absolutely. I love that. Um you know it's amazing that you guys are both stepping into Julius Caesar. How does performing something as a classic influence how you approach something so personal. Oh yeah. Oh gosh. Um yes I think when you when it when it's it's a different amount it's like it's weird it's like a different amount of a different kind of pressure both the precious you have something that someone's lived excuse me Julius Caesar obviously was a real person and lived experience but we don't know anyone alive today that could tell us how that felt um but with snazzy like we have it's a precious it's such a delicate it's a beautiful thing that is and Lord says it it's a celebration it's a precious thing. Then with Shakespeare I think it's also you know this is this big the Shakespeare cloud of scaryness uh sometimes um yeah I think I think what I what I'll try and what I love about acting and directing and uh Shakespeare is the deep attention to detail and the focus on the words so it's like focusing on on the story that Lauren wrote that Joe has then created into a play format and it's what we can find in the words first before you start putting your you know a lot of that is actor and director ego like coming in with like a theme and a thing like before you actually dig into what the words are saying and it's the same with Shakespeare it's all there for you and then you just you build upon it rather than forgetting what that and then doing your own thing um yeah I would say that's probably the biggest thing that I try and take from something as big as Julia sees her and Shakespeare and bring it into everything. To be honest I'm just sad that Chloe gets this bad to either an idol I'm off stage when that happens I can't see and I've got to be on stage for it. But no I agree with everything close there yeah I love it. I'm gosh I could talk to you guys all day I'm so so sorry it's like a short show but please come back um congratulations um I wish you all the best and you know with with this project and um yeah congratulations again that's so awesome thank you so much yeah absolutely absolutely well um really quick working people find just social media to follow everything you guys got coming up. So we have an Instagram account for the play which is snazzy play face and that's what's good or you can follow me at the face in the back on the Instagram yeah awesome and mine is um play me dot champkin and this snazzy all over my it's come thank you so much everyone and thank you so much yeah absolutely thanks for having us on absolutely bye guys see you guys next time and always be next time to live love love bye bye