Speaker 1i listen to a lot of podcasts and i love hearing from successful people how they now run their life or they run their business but oftentimes i feel like the conversation glosses over the parts that i want to hear the most i feel like a lot of people share kind of their origin story where they started from in the beginning and how they got started and the leap of faith maybe like their first audition their first big booking and everyone loves talking about that breakthrough moment and the current success someone is experiencing and maybe how their habits stacking to like continue achieving success and momentum and all those great things that kind of come after this breakthrough moment has already happened but i feel like all of the juicy bits from the in-between they're touched on but they're more or less mostly glossed over and i crave learning about the messy middle that most actors and creatives are currently existing in for me i'm wondering if everyone feels like they're partially in a version of a messy middle and maybe that is the career and maybe we from old narratives or old stories thought that there was going to be some sort of like level or tier or moment of arrival and it's the arrival fallacy right there's no moment of arrival maybe it's all the messy middle so i want more of that and that is exactly what this series is about for those of you who've been here before and for those of you who are new hi welcome to get messy the mindset space helping creatives build sustainable successful careers without losing their sanity i'm maddie and i've earned over seven figures as a commercial voice actor and i'm currently in grad school to become a therapist and i will never bs you about what it actually takes to stay in the game and today i'm launching something that i've been really excited about it's a new series within the get messy podcast umbrella called the grind it's a collection of real honest conversations with women in the entertainment industry who are in the thick of building their careers women who are in it for the long haul who they all live in different states and different cities and who are doing the damn thing on their own terms and each of them is designing their own unique roadmap of what this career looks like and is like for them we're pulling back the curtain on what a career in this industry actually looks like the mindset battles the beliefs you've had to dismantle the ebbs and flows and how you hold space for your craft while also running the business of being a creative and the business of being an artist so it's very similar to what we already do at get messy but just kind of honing in a little bit more on the intricacies and nuances of someone who's in the trenches and what their messy middle looks like and what we can learn from what they're willing to share about what it is like being in this messy middle and i couldn't think of a better person to share with you today i'm maddie and i'll see you in the next episode in this episode we talk about what it looks like to finally come into your self-worth after two decades in the industry while you're in the industry and you're not sure if you're going to make it or not you're not sure if you're going to make it or not you're not sure if you're going to why deb did over 300 auditions last year and then had to completely recalibrate and what happened when she let go of the booking she desperately wanted and then got it anyway we also get into riding the emotional waves of rejection without toxic positivity learning to say no from an empowered place and why the big things not happening in your 20s might actually be the greatest gift deb is warm wildly self-aware and one of those people who makes you feel less alone while we're all in the trenches of this career path together without further ado please welcome the lovely deb foster deb i'm so excited that you're here today i've been looking forward to this interview and to give everyone who's listening just a quick little rundown of some information about you and where you're located in your career where are you located right now currently in venice in la oh love venice i lived there up until i left l.a and it is so spectacular i'm so excited to be here i am jealous i keep forgetting you're not in l.a i know no i am currently in kansas city we just moved here june 1st but i was in l.a for a very long time and the west side my husband was living there so i moved on to the west side with him and there's nothing like it yeah we talk about it all the time it's so special so i'm so jealous how long have you been acting professionally or
Speaker 2pursuing a career in the entertainment industry i would say since i was about 20 or early about 20 years let's just put that out there but i started in new zealand doing like commercials and i did like one indie horror film in new zealand when i was like maybe 20 or something yeah so about like 20ish years i ended up moving out to the u.s eventually and then like pursuing it i would say like in the last maybe 10 years i've taken it a lot more seriously i think before that it was kind of like bumping around in the dark and not knowing what i was doing and like figure it out and figure out surviving and all that stuff so i think solid last 10 to 15 would
Speaker 1be like when i really went for it it's so funny you say that deb i was just reading you know some people on instagram could you like ask me a question and this one person had asked a question and was like okay i'm 30 years old now i've been doing this for three years and like nothing's really happening and the person responded like despite your age like three years is nothing that's an infancy in our industry so i precisely know exactly what you're feeling where i'm like oh yeah the first like six seven eight nine ten years is truly grabbing different things and being like is it so i just i appreciate the honesty because i think you're like oh i've been pursuing something for 10 years and you're like no the first 10 was literally just playing around
Speaker 2in the dark no i had no idea what i was doing and also like on that whole thing about the infancy now i have friends who are like much younger than me and they are exactly like me like in their 20s being like i just wanted to happen now like i just want to like put this thing now and i i'm like oh girl not to say that that can't happen but there's so much self-growth that happens and also like learning as you go and like stepping into who you are i'm actually grateful that the big things didn't happen in my 20s because i wasn't ready in any sense you know so i just
Speaker 1got chills as you said that because i think i remember being that girl in my 20s wishing it was that way and now being in my 30s and i was like thank god some of those things did not pan out because yeah there was no way i would have been able i think to take care of myself the way i needed to to thrive and survive in that type of environment and this is precisely why i wanted to do this series within the podcast right to talk about like okay the people who've been and are in the grind and have seen every trench and turned over every stone in the industry and can tell just from experience like yeah it took 10 years where now i'm like now i'm in the next 10 and i'm like oh okay now i'm in this new area of the playground i guess like now we're in the instead of like the tree house or whatever and like yes would i have liked to be famous when i
Speaker 2was like 26 hell yeah of course and like yes that can happen i'm actually so blown away by like how talented and grown up and like mature a lot of people in their 20s are now because i wasn't it could totally happen for people then too but for me on my journey it's good that i'm booking things now where i'm like okay now i like kind of know who i am and i know what i still want to do i can just be more honest about the work and what i want to achieve absolutely yeah i have like more
Speaker 1of that inner alignment that kind of won't sway as much no matter what happens externally where in the my 20s it was like blowing with the wind you know you're trying to find that external alignment but you are truly discovering the basis of who you are and you do so many different things to deb you're a filmmaker you're an editor when you are looking at your primary focuses in the industry is it theatrical commercial acting do you do theater voice over filmmaking like what is your i guess top priorities as a creative i would say like film
Speaker 2and tv like theatrical that's where i see myself in the future and then i also do love creating and producing films my ideal world is getting to work on different shows and movies hopefully more regularly and then also being able to still produce my own films as well and hopefully in the future as well especially i love like female filmmakers so the dream would be to be on other people's projects but also be able to create my own and then give opportunities to like female crew female directors writers or female identifying or even just you know diversity in general just to give opportunities to maybe people who haven't had that so that's like the
Speaker 1dream in the future and i feel like you are on that path you are doing that even with like the smaller projects that you are working on so i'm like that is like a path you are creating for yourself currently that will just keep scaling absolutely and the last question you don't have to say who you're up to by i ask it just because i feel like a lot of people are so concerned about finding representation that's like such a big focal point for so many people as they're trying to get into this career path and trying to become sag or understanding the union and it's so complicated and challenging and complex what is your current union status and rep situation
Speaker 2i'm so happy finally with like all my representation I have a team of all women, funnily enough, and like, obviously male reps are awesome too but like it feels so amazing to just have like all these amazing people that I know that I can reach out to and I'm not afraid to reach out or ask questions everyone's very like supportive and rooting for me and that's so important there's been so many times where I've stayed in situations before out of fear of like not having a rep and not leaving on time and I know we all do this we're just like oh it's better to be represented than to not and so I would stay in places where I wasn't happy for too long but anyway to answer that question I have an agent in LA like a theatrical and a commercial agent in LA I have a manager and then I have an agent in Atlanta as well for theatrical and I'm SAG eligible but I think I'm a must join so I think I'm close I've been wanting to join the union just kind of like waiting for that right time that presents itself but I've been so close like I was really in the zone this year of like and then it was like okay maybe let's not rush this until the thing that makes me join like
Speaker 1presents itself you know totally and I will tell you when that does happen because you are so so close at that point then it's like a fire drill it's like oh I need to do it literally right now because I'm going to be on set yes so trust me like it will happen and when it is you'll be like I am racing to now get the paperwork and the money and all this stuff done but you are so close and you're right there and I feel like that's like the beautiful sweet spot of the union and I feel like a lot of SAG eligibility before you're a must-join is having just so many opportunities available to you but I'm so curious about the Atlanta rep situation because I feel like that's another hot button thing everybody I feel like wants to find rep in Atlanta and we're all told it's so difficult they really really want to prioritize people who live there how did that come to be
Speaker 2well I had an active friend who had an Atlanta agent and she was getting some great auditions from them and I kind of was just like oh I've never even considered having reps in different cities before because you know some people might have New York or even like Austin is up and coming I think now as well but I asked for a referral they did say that a lot of stuff will only cast Atlanta locals and to be honest I have been an Atlanta local which means you're willing to pay for yourself to be there and luckily I have friends who live there so I did a movie last year a lifetime movie it was one of my favorite experiences yet and I got to be like a basically a lead and it was one of the best experiences I've had and I did have to be a local for it because especially these like non-union movies they might not always have the budget to like fly everyone out but I love those reps so much being with them for a long time like a good several years maybe even like five years now and they're so supportive and so lovely and I think so long as you're honest and upfront with them about what you're able to do like they won't send me out for auditions that are like not worth me paying to go out there but we've had a discussion on like what am I willing to fly myself out for and maybe I have to do a little bit of that groundwork before they are willing to fly me out for like bigger roles you
Speaker 1know totally which makes a ton of sense whenever I hear people have Atlanta up I'm like I know people listening are like how how did that happen so I appreciate the honesty and just kind of like showing us behind the curtain a bit because it's like such a hot button I feel like thing it's such
Speaker 2a cool city too like I would live here if I didn't have a husband and talking to life in LA a husband
Speaker 1who needs to be by the beach you know what Deb my husband grew up on the East Coast was Bureau living on the West Coast and he claimed he would never move to a landlocked state and here we are in Kansas City and you know what I don't know if we'll stay here but it's not that bad so I'm just saying that was always a qualification of like that will never happen and here we are I
Speaker 2would be so amazed he's a sofa so he's just like okay he like literally needs to be yes but I love to be by the ocean too so it's very special to be able to do that the ocean is absolutely incredible
Speaker 1even on the East Coast we lived in Virginia Beach right by the beach and even just five minutes touching the sand being there does something internally you've lived so many places you were from Auckland you moved to London then New York then to LA I feel like some people one are afraid of moving so they don't do that or like they're like moving is so treacherous or they have like a goal like I want to end up here I'm gonna go here what kept you kind of moving and bouncing around and what finally made LA the city to be yeah I think like so New Zealanders are
Speaker 2really adventurous people and it's so crazy because it's such a beautiful country and everyone's like why would you leave there but for some reason we always want to like go out exploring so I think I knew from a pretty young age in my teens that I didn't want to live in New Zealand forever and that was basically just like I want to like see things I want to go out and explore and like see how different people live and also I had wanted to be an actor and I was like you gotta go to Hollywood even though the film scene in New Zealand is awesome but I don't know that was just my goal but the London thing happened because I didn't know what I wanted to study at University you know how a lot of people come straight out of high school straight into University but I was like well I don't know like what I want to do I knew I wanted to be an actor I can't just be an actor I have to have something else that I need to do which now I kind of would tell myself don't worry about it just go for it but like at the time I was like oh I have to have something else but I don't know what I want to say so basically I went to London on this program that they do which is like live and work in a pub and it was like a program that would take young New Zealand that's why there's so many Kiwis and Aussies over there in London did that for a year came back and then I was like I kind of want to study photography that's what I had come to me was there so I did that I studied photography in New Zealand but I was still acting like really I just wanted to be an actor but I kept thinking oh I have to have something else I have to have something else that I do and I was acting in some commercials I kept having to like leave my photography classes and I'm definitely making the tutors really mad because I'd be missing class to go to like auditions and then recording commercials and some and they're probably like what is this girl doing so I did that and then this is crazy I won a green card in the DV lottery I don't know if you know about that but they offer these to certain countries are allowed to enter and I didn't know it was real and I got told about it I was in my photography like finishing up an assignment and it was like the last day to enter the green card lottery for that year and I was like oh yeah I'll just enter it and I like did all the things like you're supposed to have a passport photo I just took it of myself upload boom forgot about it and then I got this letter in the mail like you won the green card lottery and I was like oh my God I'm moving to America and I had no plans I didn't know what I was doing at all I had no savings I just was like okay I guess I'm going and like the New York choice was just like I didn't know if I wanted to live in New York or LA somehow New York was calling to me first and I'm so glad it happened in that order because New York is like so much higher energy I was 24 crazy and doing all the things that 24 year olds do I went there I tried to be an actor in New York but I had no idea what I was doing nobody told me what to do I moved there by myself I didn't know anyone but I met some like New Zealanders there as you do because we're everywhere I spent three and a half years in New York and I did do a little bit of acting but I had like three jobs at a time and I was just like fumbling this was the fumbling phase through my life and then one day I was just talking to somebody and it suddenly clicked for me and I was like I really want to do film and TV because I had done like a little off-off Broadway in New York and like background work for movies and stuff like that and they were like why aren't you in LA and I was like huh why am I not in LA good point I can't argue with that point now so I moved to LA it was really amazing because I probably spent about six months finding my feet and then I met my husband and yeah and we had a really good time and I was like okay I'm good and yeah and we started like creating films together basically I had all these ideas I found my collaborators in LA friends who wanted to make stuff I started writing things and Eric was like I've got a camera I can shoot it he's a DP and he has like a full-on production company now but at the time he was only just starting as well so it was really cool because we both started creating stuff like little sketches and then we made a short film like after a few years that's how I ended up in LA and then once I was in LA I was like oh this is the place this is my people and I live in Venice Beach like I've always loved being by the ocean I love New York and I'll always love New York so much it's such a special place but yeah for now at least and it's been 12 years now in LA I think so I think for now this is the spot you know oh you know when I think of LA I think about
Speaker 1the creative collaboration like I think about my time back then and I had a couple friends that we did projects together and produced projects together and it was just so creatively fulfilling and free and fun and you hear people say oh is it like hard to make friends there and I was like no because there's so many other actors and writers and producers like if you find the people who do want to collaborate and create it's so special when I ever think about LA the way you just described it that's like what I think about in my time there too which like what a cool thing and the fact that you have to meet your husband and create together that is so awesome and what's so cool about our conversation already is like we're kind of zooming out and looking at I guess the whole trajectory of like literally the last 20 years from when you first started and kind of ping-ponged around now knowing what you know is there something that you wish you knew when you started that
Speaker 2you learned along the way yeah like I think about first of all just on a practical level the basics of how to do things because it was quite embarrassing sometimes like I did some casting director workshops in New York and like we just have a different resume system in New Zealand and it's called a cd it's not a resume and the layout is different and just little things like that nobody told me and it was kind of humiliating because I would stand up at the casting director workshop and they'd be like this is not how you do it and I would come home like but that's just little stuff that I don't know it's nice when actors are ahead of the game at an earlier age however they can be I just feel so happy for people when I see them being so ahead of where I was you know because that's like half the battle is just like having all your stuff together but like the other thing on a deeper level and it's kind of what we said before is like it's going to be a journey I don't think young me would have wanted to hear this at all but like it's not gonna happen right now because you have to like have all this life experience before you become like the right person to be able to handle these jobs and I would have hated hearing that but it is true like really like just relax don't try to make it happen right now because when you're stressing all the time about like I want it now all you're doing is throwing yourself out of the flow and out of being in the zone because you're too busy stressing about making it happen
Speaker 1so yeah yeah and like craving that result or craving that one yes and like you said then kind of you're so stressed you're not even present and aligned with like the opportunity that is right in front of you you're kind of future tripping or and it's so hard when you're that young but that is such good advice being able to look back yeah young me would have said no I don't want to hear it yeah watch me I'll see you in a year I'm gonna do it now yeah exactly in your current season of your career dad you're like I'm gonna do it now I'm gonna do it now I'm gonna do it now I'm gonna do it now what is your biggest mindset challenge and how do you combat the mindset yeah there's a couple of
Speaker 2things I really noticed coming back from like a recent vacation and you know like pulling out and like looking at it from the outside just this feeling of like why do we put ourselves through all this stress why do we do this to ourselves so coming back it was like hard to motivate again because I was like oh my gosh some people are living this beautiful stress-free life and we're like doing this to ourselves and it was kind of like hard to get back in it but then I was like okay I have to find the purpose and like the reason and the meaning and then I find my motivation and a lot of it comes from the creation of my own stuff once I was like okay why don't we just go back and like focus on like the films I have a few films in post-production focus on creating and basically just like the meaning and the why am I doing this and I'm like why am I doing this and what do I find joy out of doing because sometimes we definitely bust our asses maybe auditioning for projects that don't even feel good because we feel like we have to so I'm also like saying no to like more things now as well as much as I feel like I can say no to it's such a like balance but I think if your soul is like I really don't want to do this but I have to do it because I don't want to upset somebody or I need to make money or blah blah blah blah and of course we do still we do have to make money so sometimes we do have to do the projects that we don't want to do but I've found myself at least saying no to things that I felt like I'm not being valued in this project like this isn't paying me enough and I'm not even passionate about it you've got to have one of those things really to say yes I think so learning to find the reason why I want to do this and then also I've noticed that I have like a roller coaster habit with my brain of going up and down a lot like I'll be like really high really good really like in the zone and then I might just get like one rejection and I hit this big low and I'll be like oh this feels bad but what I learned is that it's better to let yourself feel your feelings I know that I can ride out I can be hopeless for a few days and be mad and be disappointed and be sad that I didn't get something or whatever but then it like passes through your body whereas if you're like no I'm just going to be positive all the time no it's all fine I'm good I'm good I'm good then you're going to have a huge crash and meltdown over the tiniest little thing yeah I have a bit of this but more and more I'm learning how to like ride the waves of the down and just let the feelings pass through me like if it's going to be a few days it's going to move through and then things always change and good things always come but yeah just like learning to like let yourself feel your feelings you know
Speaker 1like let yourself feel the disappointment and the grief right the grief of sometimes things so not going the way that you want them to and feeling like they're so out of our control and there's two things you just said Deb that I was like creating some different content and I coach some people who want to get into voiceover and it's like I always say I'm like you're not going to like this but like the first step is like why do you want to do it and like have a very very very clear why because if your why is like make loads of cash you could do a lot of other things that don't require this hustle and this level of rejection or what is like that deeper why because that is the thing and I think that's the thing that's we will always come back to when we're kind of missing that passion and missing that inspiration even if the why changes over time so you just made me think about that because I'm like the why is always that guiding light to kind of reconnect us and I was thinking about how as artists like we I think sometimes have that like over productivity problem because I feel like we've always been told like well if you don't want to work that hard someone next to you will work harder so like you need to say yes to that audition there's a million other people willing to take your place and so you always have to be so focused so I think we've especially I've been acting for similarly probably almost two decades and I just think about some of the stories that we've been told and that was one of them of like you need to be hustling all the time because there's someone right behind you that is willing and ready and able to like take your spot and that is so unhelpful and you can
Speaker 2burn out that way like I burned myself out last year hard I did so many auditions last year I trapped them all because I was like self-reliant and I was like I was like I was like I was like self-submitting every day I highly recommend this though if you want to get more auditions self-submitting every single day my reps were submitting me and I was doing so many auditions and mind you mostly non-union obviously obviously the number goes down once you're SAG but the quality probably goes up a lot but my spreadsheet said I did like 300 and something auditions last year so it's almost one a day some days it was more like it was like yeah one a day average but some days you'd be doing like four auditions and then you'd be like oh my god I'm gonna do this and then you'd be like oh my god I'm gonna do this and then you'd be like oh my god I'm gonna do this five a week it was so many there was only two weeks of the whole year maybe that I didn't audition and I burned out I was like I don't have it in me anymore like I don't want to do this I don't want to audition I'm not excited about it I had nothing left and then I was like okay and tracking my bookings my booking rate was like three percent of that which is actually which is crazy not a bad booking rate but the number of auditions the number of work so yeah so this year like okay let's do something a little bit different I'm still tracking and I'm still doing a decent amount but I'm also turning down stuff and I've also cleared this with my reps so I don't have to feel like they're gonna be mad at me like I had a conversation with my commercial agent and I was like some of these rates I just don't feel like they're valuing me and she was like that's fine she was just I'm gonna submit you for everything but you can turn down whatever you want and I was like okay I have the freedom there now I feel good about that and in the same with like my theatrical agent I was like if I don't feel comfortable with the script is that okay to turn it down she's like absolutely I never want you to do something that you don't feel so if you communicate with your reps and you have that awesome understanding it gives you more freedom to be able to say no and you don't have all that guilt or at least it takes that one factor among the many reasons that we have guilt and overthinking 100 that's a good one to take off
Speaker 1the plate and I think that what everything you said Deb the word that comes to my mind is empowered everything that you're doing is like okay I'm now trying to come from an empowered place and I have a team that's also empowering the decisions that I'm making and that just feels so much better for the journey because again what can we control we can only control like how we're showing up how we're taking care of ourselves how we're like working on our craft in the business and like making sure we're not burning out and letting ourselves feel the grief and the rejection and the things that come up and that allows us I think to again be more as my therapist would say like stay near yourself she's always like you're staying near yourself you're not kind of like departing abandoning yourself yeah right you're staying near yourself and I feel like that's in what you said it was like so much of what I gathered of like choosing to stay near yourself even when it's making hard decisions having hard conversations we talked a little bit about kind of your dream I guess and like where you want to go in regards as a filmmaker and an actor and when you're kind of thinking about what you're trying to grow to towards is there a thing that you're afraid to do but you know you have to to reach the next level
Speaker 2of growth oh goodness me yes it's kind of very aligned with what I was saying but I have so much more work to do and like not worrying about what other people think of me 24 7 and I've sort of been a real chronic over apologizer just in life like I'm so sorry was I weird like all these overthinking things all the time I think this year's been really me trying to come to my worth like my self-worth and like every way and it's still a huge work in progress but I think I have to like truly confidently embrace who I am and like not be worried if someone doesn't like me or if someone has critique for me or something like that I think it's more stepping into that is what I have to do and that's like a real tough one for me well and you know what Deb because I
Speaker 1feel like it's I was talking to one of my friends he was an actor and he became a therapist we were talking about authenticity and he's like you know we hear especially in social media like authentic content this word has been such a buzzword and he's like the thing about authenticity just like self-worth or like feeling empowered it's fluid or like confidence I've coached with some clients before where they're like I was feeling so confident and now I'm I'm not and I'm like well it's not like this state that we just arrive and it's like this more of like a relationship that we have that is like ebbing and flowing constantly day by day and so he was talking about authenticity more of like a state that we're moving in and out of and he's like authenticity like you're being authentic right now and in 10 minutes when you're talking to your husband like you're still Deb and authentic I think it's because we sometimes when we have more self-awareness it's like such a beautiful thing and it also almost puts a magnifying glass on us more where now you're like I'm noticing like why do I feel weird even though I was just being myself but now I'm overthinking like did I find that person or was I being too you know it's so
Speaker 2fascinating so that's me I'm way too self-aware and way too aware of everyone else's like manners and little things and I'm kind of like huge empath I'm constantly like running running running in my head about like everyone and myself at the same time it's crazy so yeah I feel like for what you
Speaker 1said it's like that it is almost that constant work in progress of life like the self-worth the feeling authentic staying near yourself and so it's so funny because I feel like the more work we do I almost feel like first it's a little bit harder because you're so aware and then it's like okay now I'm able to like almost move through the patterns or the phases faster where even your self-recognition of oh wait I'm feeling really sad about this let me just feel sad for a day two days three days and then I'm like guess what the next wave comes and something else good always comes so I love that Deb something really exciting happened recently for you you booked and filmed a co-star for for all mankind on Apple TV talk about the process of auditioning and filming for this show and was there anything
Speaker 2that surprised you about the process yeah so first of all like I really love the whole audition process for this one because in a way it's kind of like that story that everyone says so I got it and what was so special about it was I got to use my natural New Zealand accent for it which I don't usually get to do I'm usually American in most of my auditions so that gave me like this level of like appreciation and even though I mean I was already so excited I was like this is such a great audition but I really locked in on kind of creating my environment for this audition so I like took my husband's bomber jacket of his it's like gray and it kind of looks like an astronaut suit and then I had all these hilarious props around me that you couldn't see because I was supposed to be in a spaceship thing I had like a little you know those like scarlet boxes that you use for like voiceover and stuff with the knobs I had one of those down the bottom like I was just turning knobs and like I had a keyboard and I was just keyboarding and I was turning this it's so crazy I also lit it like a little more dramatic than like a very flattering lighting like I just was proud of the way that I set this one up I was like this is a cool setup you know and I coached with an acting teacher that I love and I just came away from the audition like really feeling like I did really good work and I'm really proud of this I can see it like it looks right and a week went by and I was like oh I probably didn't get it because it feels like it's been the amount of time before they would tell you and then I had my little wave of grief like I actually cried and my husband was like yeah but you go through this all the time and I was like no this one felt special and I feel really sad and so I cried I didn't dwell I just like had a little cry and then we were going away the next day which is like always the typical story got on a plane we were going to Sedona with his parents for a little trip the plane was like landing and I was having this conversation with myself and I was just like okay you did a great job if it isn't yours it's okay there'll be another one and I like let it go fully let it go and we're like waiting for his parents to arrive and there's this like surf ranch in Arizona I guess and Eric was like I really want to go check that out it's got like a few hours is it weird if I go for a surf right now I was like yeah there was like a bar in there and I was like oh my god just embracing life being so present and just like I'm just gonna like have a beautiful present time in this place that I haven't explored before and I'm like standing there on this like sand in the desert so funny there's like a bar and Eric's like walking off like looking at the wave pool and then my manager calls me and I answer the phone and she tells me I'm on a bill and I just start crying and then Eric comes running up and I'm like no no it's okay it's good tears it's good tears I'm good I'm good and like I got off the phone and like my intuition was like it won't be long until you find out like I got this message like very clear and so I was like very relaxed and excited as hell like crying and texting all my friends and then an hour later I found out I'd booked it and I was like whoa that's so crazy filming was just like I was like magical for me it was my first SAG-COSA my first time being on a studio lot having a trailer like all the magical cool things I was just like wow they were probably all like oh she's new but what kind of surprised me a couple of things the first day was just magical and I worked with an amazing actor that I don't think I'm allowed to like say yet but anyway he's so amazing but then day two my overthinking crept in again and I started doing all this weird maybe sabotagey stuff to myself and I was like whoa what's going on here like I mean granted day two was a lot bigger I was around more of the main cast and there was like a lot more going on but I was surprised that even in this situation you can still kind of go back to these habits of like do I belong here thinking I was weird ruminating on little moments that I had so yeah not a great surprise to have but also like it just made me aware that this is work in progress I have to keep working on this and feeling worthy of showing up and being there I think it's a great
Speaker 1reminder because I remember the first time I was ever on set too and there was a part of me was like wow like I'm here this is great and there was that other side like the duality of the voices being like wait a second I think that I felt like because of all the classes I had taken and the fact that I was made to be here and then you're like no this is a totally new arena that you've never yet played in and I always try to remind younger actors that it's almost like there's no replication of set of like being on a set as many classes as we take whether it's on camera like nothing can really replicate the experience of like being on set having so many people around you learning how to take direction in a way that like sometimes it's for the emotional acting side but sometimes it's really technical it's like hit this mark and then look over here you know what I mean like all these things that we're doing and then you're like oh my god I'm like oh my god I'm not typically doing and so I appreciate you saying that because I think it freaks people out when they get sometimes to set and they're like I've committed my whole life to doing this I figured like here I am they said yes like they chose me I'm doing it and now I'm still having maybe some of the battles of the self-doubts that we have yeah so true and there was like
Speaker 2little things that I just had to learn like you're not gonna get told great job because they're just going going going going the director was like hi nice to meet you okay you're gonna be over here great great great okay cool and he was nice and I think people did say good job it's just that I wanted people to be like you were a mate in your co-star role so just having that like not needing to be affirmed that you did a good job like you know that you can do this you know that you are good there's a reason they chose you for this role so not needing to have that affirmation at the end of like great job you're amazing you know like that's a big one
Speaker 1as well for sure I was like craving that external validation even when we've already gotten like the biggest external validation of booking the job I have one last question to ask you I know I could talk to you all day part two is coming this podcast is called get messy what is the messiest thing about you my house but only
Speaker 2when I'm in a messy mood my house will reflect my state of mind and if I'm crazy busy and just like then the house gets out of control and then I can't stand it so I'm just this all or nothing like either clean the whole house or it goes out of control and I can't deal with it right now I'm just like so it's messy when my life is like messy in terms of like I have too much going for sure I get that
Speaker 1I feel that so so hard Deb this was so lovely I'm gonna put everything where people can come find you in the show notes thank you so much thank you so much you're the real hero if you've made it this far thanks so much for hanging out today and check out the show notes for any resources or cool info mentioned in today's episode or places to follow along if you want to hang out some more I'm rooting for you today and always stay messy I'll see you next time.
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