Greenlight Your Own Success - An Actor’s Journey | Christian Meoli’s Pathway to Peak Performance

One of my absolute favorite movies of all time. Okay, so not only was my life like that, but I was literally hanging with Favro and Vince Vaughn and the cast of Swingers. It must be intense. Suddenly, I'm on set in LA, right? And they say to me, "We need you to drive Eric Roberts." Right? So, I start driving Eric Roberts. And we hit it off and I ended up working with him on four other movies. And it started to get momentum. And then I am like the place for independent movies in Hollywood.

Steven Tyler's walking by. Jack Nicholson's walking by. James Cameron. Quinton Tarantino's walking in. Gus Van Sant. I'm hanging out with Richard Lewis in my lobby. We're, you know, we're kabitzing for 30 minutes. He's here. Fay Dunaway rolls in. I think Cinn Lounge is the coolest movie concept. You get magic when you are with people sharing a story. It's a campfire. It goes back thousands of years in our psyche. Christian Mioli, welcome to the Pathway to Peak Performance. So great to have you in, my friend. Great to see you. One of my favorite people. You just always bring the energy. You're always just like a charged up guy. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Jo. It's a pleasure to be here.

All right, man. So, hey, we're gonna do something kind of cool. Yep. These are ketones and um they're a ketone esther. So, what I'm gonna do is you can see here in the and take the cap off, right? Unadulterated, right? There's nothing, no magic stuff. What I want you to do is pop the top of that and pour six caps into your cup and six caps into my cup. We're gonna take a cheers and then we're gonna see how we feel about midway through the episode. So, there you go.

You know what's interesting is this same thing happened when I auditioned for Star Trek, which was weird. It's the only time they literally came out with ketones and said, "Let's do this." No, it was different. They were just like, "Drink this. Drink this. Oh, you will be a true Klingon." Remember, you need we need the cap, right? Beautiful. This is how I was a bar. When I was a bartender early on, I would pour drinks like this. See? And I'm already I can't even know if I hit six. Okay. So, there you go. I think I went seven. Shall we? Shall we? Cheers to you. Wow. Tastes like maple syrup, right? Yeah, it does have an aftertaste. Yeah. Mhm.

All right, so um first things first, um charity. So every every episode has a charity and um all of the proceeds from the views go to that charity. Correct. So question I have for you is what is the charity that you would like to choose to have all of the proceeds from this episode go to? Marin Humane. Dude, what a great Yeah, Marine uh Humane Society is just a phenomenal organization and they really need the help right now. Actually, they're really understaffed.

Chapter 2: Why Pets are the Ultimate "Healing Modality"

Their funding has been cut. They really do need the help from the community and they serve such a vital role within the county. Right. They reached out to us. They have um they have some animals that are in need of homes, right? And there is an awareness issue. People don't know about it. So for us, it's very important that we can uh give this give these funds to Marin Humane. Wonderful organization. Yeah. And maybe even more importantly is the awareness piece. Absolutely. Right. I mean, maybe that's worth more than the actual and we'll put everything in the show notes with the links and all of that. with a, you know, call out to action to say, "Hey, by the way, for those of you who are watching or listening, please go to Marinhumane Society, um, I think it's.org, right?"

Yeah. And, um, and check out the the animals that need to be adopted because it's it's almost heartbreaking when you go in there and you look at these dogs that are sitting there just waiting for somebody to take them home or a cat. Um, and that's, you know, it's been a been a minute since I've been there, but yeah, what a phenomenal organization. I I'm not sure people realize how healing it is to have pets in your in your life. And for me, having that ability to, you know, I have a rescue and she's been with me 10 years now. You know, it really creates a great balance in my life. I've had, you know, animals and pets since, you know, I got to LA and became an actor. And I wanted that on purpose. I needed that stability. I needed someone to care for and love unconditionally and have someone do that to me as well.

That's an amazing thing, right? Because every time you come home, they're super stoked to see you. And then that just having that time to just actually kind of maybe decompress with them. uh take a few minutes. Sometimes when I come home, I'm just like I'm completely cooked and I'm like ah but you know you take that time uh just like you take the time with your kids and basically you know that kind of brings you back to what's most important in in life.

Yeah. It's a balance you know I mean we one of the biggest challenges of being a a human is our ego right and thinking that we know everything. Yeah. Right. and to find and we're at a day and age where we are finding out all these incredible new ideas that are really changing how I see the world. And one of those is the healing modalities of animals that we didn't even recognize that cats are, you know, are crawling up to you for a reason because they're psychically healing, you know, and that's just such a bold idea that is happening now.

I think we're at a day and age, a precipice where things are changing and and there's more truth and and just, you know, ideas, alternative ideas are not being crucified. They're they're actually reaching out into a public awareness and that's happening on the social platforms, you know. So uh that's another reason that you know Marinhumane is because I'm becoming more knowledgeable you know as each as I grow older each day about things that I don't know that I thought I might have but I was just limiting myself in beliefs.

Isn't it interesting too as you get older um you realize there's so much more that I don't know and you want to dig deeper and I think that's the interesting thing is that ability to continue to like search for you know what what do things really mean what's truly important how do we want to show up in the world and ultimately um you know what's the legacy that we want to leave behind I think that's become more important um than ever now because the world seems crazier than it's ever been. I mean, it just I don't know. It It feels to me like today we're we're in a we're in a time in an age where it's like, whoa, is this is this the best that we can do in 2026?

Interesting. Yeah. Well, you, my friend. But enough about me. Let's talk more about me. Yes, exactly. Um, that's what the show's all about. I am always on my mind. But I am always on my mind. Yeah. You know, that's so funny because we're going to we're going to get to the whole um Octimom musical, you know, but the thing that I think is really interesting is here you grow up in Philadelphia, right? And you start in regional theater. So, when do you figure out that you want to be an actor? What's what is it? Did you see a film? What was it?

Chapter 3: The Actor’s Journey: From Philly Theater to Hollywood

11 years old. I go out to visit uh I go out with my mother to Los Angeles to visit her best friend. The best friend sets up an interview or private uh coaching session right with uh a casting director. That changed my life because within that one hour he saw that I had a particular look that was commercially attractive. and he set up meetings with agents that day. Wow. Right. But I was leaving the next day to go back to Philadelphia. So when I got home after that experience, which was kind of like a shock, I jumped right into acting and uh professional training and within a year I'm working professionally. 12 years old, you know, doing theater, music videos.

Not only that, the whole course of my life changed from that one meeting, right? I I left the school that I was going to. I went to a performing arts school. All of my summers became focused at a performing arts training camp, doing classes on the It became just like I knew it. It was it that was it. Yeah. By 14, I'm traveling up to New York by myself, going up for auditions, you know, like previously I was go with my mom, whatnot. And I was in a circle with people like Seth Green, people like RD Rob, uh these are uh people who continued to to grow in the industry, right?

But just from the start, I was already with people who were working, who were doing movies with like Jodie Foster, you know, Hotel New Hampshire with Rob Low, you know, people who were crushing and and so uh that was already the bar was was set. People who were in like a Christmas story. These were like people I'm going to auditions with, you know, and uh I was just it was going to happen. I didn't know when it took me seriously six years to land my first film role. Six years of auditioning and telling my agent at that time, listen, thank you so much. Don't give up on me. I know something's going to break. You know, six years of investing in those train trips, which would take three, four hours each way for for an audition. Those were my afternoons, you know, and so that focus just got me, you know, really straight on what my path was going to be.

Yeah. You had it. You knew it in your heart. Yep. That that's what you wanted to do and you were locked in and you're like, I'm doing this. I'm making this happen. I'm going to stick in and do whatever it takes in order to make it make it go. I think it was it Denzel Washington said the other day or somebody said about being an actor like I'm not I'm an actor. I'm not a movie star. I'm not a television person. I'm a I'm an actor trained in the theater in in your world something that's so completely foreign to me. Is there sort of a feeling of like, hey, if you came up in the theater and you really understood how that is that live performance piece, is is there sort of a feeling around that?

Absolutely. You have a you you have a you've gone deeper with the work of uh building a character. You've had the opportunity to do a role or a performance more than just uh one day. You grow with that character. Uh it also presupposes that you've had a certain level of training as an actor to be able to be on a stage and to understand uh uh build a character, work on a performance, you know. So there is always there's always this like judgy thing between actors like you know theater people uh are known as like theater snobs compared to television. You know television people are I don't know people just look at it differently because you know you're you're in and out. You're shooting an episode in 11 days. More pages more pages. You know you don't really get to uh dive into a role unless you're series regular and then you're really diving into a role. Yeah. you really establish the character.

It's interesting because, you know, I've watched my daughter who's, you know, come up through the theater her entire, you know, since a little little girl doing that and I watched one where they did over at Redwood. It was Cabaret. It was so good. I was blown away. Now, you know, every parent probably thinks, "Oh my gosh, my kid was amazing." But I was like I was so impressed with like the depth of work, you know, that sort of like the real character development and seeing that on stage and then just watching you knowing her and then seeing her completely transform into this other character and really play it was just like it was a it was a mind-blowing, you know what I mean? To have to have that. Um, of course, you know, when I lived in New York, I saw shows on Broadway and all that kind of stuff and had a friend who was in Rent and all that kind of stuff. But, you know, it's different. I don't know. I think it's a it's a really interesting um interesting thing to see that kind of uh character development, isn't it?

Yeah. It's always interesting, you know, when someone someone really goes there, creates a character, and they they lose themselves in it, you know, and I've done a number of roles where sometimes I've I've really kind of crossed that line. I've lost myself in the character. Suddenly, I'm going to Nordstrom's, I'm shopping, and I'm dressing as the I'm looking for clothes as the character I was playing, not myself. I got lost in it, you know. Is it is that part of the process too a lot of times for actors to go to go that deep into it? I mean like people have to go that far into it to actually really to to take those characteristics on to really be that person. It's pretty it's pretty intense, right?

Yeah. You know, I mean, look, everybody tries so many different methods of uh connecting, you know, you want to it's like the end of F1, man. You know, with Brad Pitt, he's just he's they're saying he's flying, right? You want to reach that point where you're just you're not thinking about it, you know, and when you can let go and really if and that could happen with putting a ring on and feeling that character, right? It could be a certain pair of boots that you put on that you just like it it is like the mask sometimes, you know, where you just kind of it just it connects you and you're locked in.

Sometimes for me it's been a pair of glasses. Uh absolutely. And I change the look or uh I change a dental structure, you know, or I've gained weight, you know, yada yada clothing. All of these things help because you're serving a purpose. You're serving the purpose of bringing this character to life, but ultimately what you're doing is you're telling a story, right? If you're choosing all these things to get connected in the character, but you're not connected to the story, then it's like what's the point? So for me an important part of what I do in my life has been service and that that structure really has helped me to not make it about me really when I'm in the creative process not just doing it alone but doing it with a team serving the story.

You know I remember the first time I met you it was just like it was like in a kind of a I was like wow Oh, that dude is so cool. Like we connected and it was like it was just you were just amazing. We connected. Yeah, it was it was just a really cool could have gone either way, man. So, I want to talk to you about you're you're an actor, right? You go to Hollywood, you're deep in it and you've got you're getting lots of roles at one once you that point in time where you said, "Okay, my first film role, it takes six years to do that." Meanwhile, you're doing theater, you're doing that stuff, you get this role. Which one?

Chapter 4: The "Alive" Audition: Winning When You Don't Know the Stakes

The the first film role. Yeah. What is the first film role? First film role is first genuine like film role is the movie Alive, right? Oh, wow. That's Is that the one with the plane crash? Yeah, that's the one with the plane crash. Yeah. It was unlike any audition I'd ever had. Okay. What happens? I go in the first the first run. I meet the casting director. Yeah. He doesn't talk to me like you're doing now. He talks at me, right, about everyone who's involved in the movie. We've got the producers of ET. We have the producers of Raiders of the Lost Ark. We have the producers of Star Wars and this person and that person's involved. Right. And look, Sabine, he goes, "Thank you. It was very nice meeting you." And I thought, "Okay, what a waste of, you know, eight hours that was, right? I didn't even say what do I do?"

I go I get a call back. I get a call back. I meet Frank Marshall and Kathy Kennedy. All right. Kathy Kennedy who just left Lucas Film as the CEO. Frank Marshall who's produced all the big I mean these are Spielberg's producers, right? I go in. One of the benefits is I don't know who they are. Okay. I don't really know. They're just two people. We sit down. We're talking again with the talking. There's no auditioning. And I'm like, "Yeah, you know, I'm doing a play with Jason Miller right now from The Exorcist." And I was I was doing a production of Inherit the Wind, right? And we talk. We talk and they they look at the different parts. They give me this. They say, "Come back for this."

All right. So, I come back. This is my third time now. And it's basically like a screen test. Okay. And I do I do the audition. Afterwards, I feel something. I feel like this psychic hangover, like I'm I'm a bit numb. I'm a I'm a bit I'm a bit out of it from this from this audition. All they said was, "Good, good. Thanks so much." Right? But something in me knew something was up. I know exactly the day. It was Martin Luther King Day, 1992. Right? I ended up going in a kind of a not a drunken stouper, but just kind of like what just happened? I'm kind of fl I don't know what just I go to the Knicks game. Blah blah blah.

All right, long story short, 6 weeks later, my agent starts calling furiously. I got it right. I got the part and bam, I fly to Vancouver. I'm working with, you know, all these great people and it's amazing. It's amazing. And I work on the film for four months, right? And it was like the first day I got there, I meet Ethan Hawk, I meet uh the other uh actors, and I knew I knew a bunch of the actors from Dead Poet Society. He knew a bunch of people from the summer camp performing that I went to. So when we both knew that, it was just like, "Okay, yeah, you're in. you you know all my friends. Yeah, you're connected, right? Uh incredible journey.

And when I ended the film, I went back to Philly and went back to school and I realized, what the hell am I doing here? You know, like all the other actors moved immediately to LA and were like starting to book stuff. And I thought, I got to get out of here. I left school in January 1993, the week before the movie opened, I moved to LA and I had no clue what I was doing. I was I mean I was just kind of rolling with it. But I had a bunch of friends from different parts of my life out there that I connected with and and I started, you know, and I started. You have to start whatever you're going to be doing. You can't be thinking about Yeah. I could have stayed in Philly. Could have stayed in Philly. Who knows what that storyline might have been? You know, maybe I've been working with Might Shyamalan on on all his movies. Maybe just who knows what happened. I went to LA and I stayed there. I wasn't like, "Oh, I'm only going to give it blah blah." No, I moved there. I was like, "This is the place. This is what I wanted to do. The chips are all in." Exactly. You know, it was hard. I couldn't get a job. Uh, you know, I couldn't find things. Blah blah blah.

Chapter 5: Dealing with the "Psychic Hangover" of High-Pressure Environments

It was like I didn't really know about auditioning. I didn't really know the business. I had raw talent. I had a lot of theater experience. But auditioning for film and television, whole another beast. That's I mean that's got to be a super stressful process when you're like when you're like really counting on this next one. You're like it's kind of it's must be intense. The stress off the charts, man. Off the charts for me, you know. But, you know, I kept showing up. I got a great gig as a production assistant, right? Um, they would call me dog boy when on on the set, right? The first ads. But my friend was working on it. It was an Eric Roberts movie with Kelly Preston, right? Travolta's wife. And suddenly I'm on set in LA, right? And they say to me, uh, you know, why don't you become, uh, we need you to drive Eric Roberts, right? So I start driving Eric Roberts. and we hit it off and I ended up working with him on four other movies, you know, back to back to back to back and it was just a crazy time, you know, it was a crazy time for me.

This is the early '90s, like '92 to '95. Yeah, this is 93. This is 93 in LA to like 94. Then I started acting, you know, I got I got guest star parts like on 90210, which I didn't really know but was huge at that time. Yeah, it's like the big show, right? Big show. It was like the first time my name was in the TV guide, I was like ripped it out and kept it for the records, right? You know, and and then you just LA is a small town like like everywhere it just becomes a small town, you know. I had a I had a part-time job. I was like selling sandwiches at um to uh offices and stuff like I you know was really hustling you know I couldn't make it. One guy I would sell I would sell like sandwiches and donuts to like I see him on the set of one of these Eric Roberts movies and I'm like hey what are you doing here? He's like oh I'm the director.

So this is a time of great expansion for you. you're you you know you've made this massive you know chips are all in I'm going there I'm doing this and then you're starting to explore like you're really coming into yourself you're learning about who you are and and as how you fit into all of this stuff so in your pathway to peak performance uh and we're going to talk about this adaptability thing that I think is a big part of who you are as I studied up more on you and yeah adaptability it's also pivoting it's pivoting yeah I mean it's that ability to reinvent Right. Absolutely.

I'll tell you about a couple inspirations to me as early on as an actor, you know, cuz I I got connected with a couple people who showed me that there were other paths in in the in the world of entertainment and acting. And that was essentially actors who were writing who were writing their own stuff for themselves. And that was like mind-blowing, you know, you know, to to meet like a young John Favro and, you know, Billy Bob Thornton Swingers. I mean, it's kind of funny because when I think about when you mentioned this, like, you know, in that movie Swingers where John Fabro comes from Queens, right, and he's like he's out there and then um uh Vince Vaughn is out there and they're like doing that. It's kind of like this is what I'm kind of imagining almost in like your life is almost like that in some way, shape or form.

Okay, so not only was my life like that, but I was literally hanging with Favro and Vince Vaughn and the cast of Swingers. One of my absolute favorite movies of all time. I think it's just like the coolest. We're all at the Dresden room listening to Marty and Elaine. Just like the movie, right? Favro walks in. He goes, "We got the money. We're going to shoot it for 300,000. There's no trailers. We can't afford trailers. We got this guy. He's he's going to shoot it and direct it. His name's Doug Lyman, you know, but uh we got it. We're doing it. And it was an experience where I got to see a circle that I was hanging with all become famous. Now, that period of time, there were a number of those circles that were happening in LA for me with the like I was in the indie film world. I was working with stuff. But it was like, oh my god. Like I first met Renee Zellweger. She was washing dishes at the Three of Clubs. you know, she was a barback. She was dating my friend uh this guy Rory Cochran who was I was in a movie with. So, I was meeting these people who would like rocket to stardom within like a few years.

Uh I think so many so often today people feel overwhelmed by these feelings of you know impostor syndrome or you know what's somebody thinking about me and you know I think when you're on or in those situations where you're continuously being judged you know and your performance is good enough or it's not um it's got to be really tough. How did you do it? How did you keep moving forward? Is it just you just have to? Well, it's l it's funny you say that because at this period of time, you know, there were other um writers that were very important as well and one of those was Florence Scovel Shinn. I really started getting into affirmations for myself, you know, and I would say, I brought you a gift cuz this right here has been my affirmations page for 30 plus years. It it feeds me. It it feeds my belief that you got to keep going, you know? It's it's it's hopium, I guess. I've never heard that before. Hopium. That's pretty awesome. So, can I like Yeah, dude. Let's go.

Chapter 6: The 30-Year Affirmation Sheet: Rewiring the Brain for Success

You know, when you tell yourself that I work with the spirit and follow the divine plan of my life now, and you say that to yourself every day, you are connecting brain waves. You are feeding yourself in a positive manner. Um, affirmations aren't always like that, you know, but what you're doing is you're planting seeds, you know, you're planting seeds. When they will arrive, I'm not sure. But for me, this page right here has been so Look, look, I welcome and invite acting work and TV and film projects. I give thanks for my successful acting work. Now, God is leading me to people and places who fit my need and special talent. Well, I would go I would go to nightclubs like all my life. I would bring this. God is leading me. The people are the places my needs. I'm a special talents lead places fit my needs. I'm a special right and I would and I'm dancing and I'm just repeating affirmations. And guess what? It felt amazing, right? Because I had chills, right? Because I knew I'm locking in here. I'm locking in. I'm not going linear. I'm going vertical when I say this. Right. And that to me was like has been my secret weapon.

You enter a flow state with this. Yeah. Wow. And you can tap into it because you've actually you've patterned it. You've actually laid it all out. You have like a you have this thing. You take it with you right now. How do how did you come up with it? Did you sit down? Did you did you iterate on that a bunch of times or was it just it just flew? It just came out what it was. A lot of these were lifted from the books that I mentioned to you from like you know the game of life and how to play it you know um the pathway of roses you know a lot of these and um some of them I came up with yeah absolutely you know the writing career and so forth uh you know also at this period doing things like um it was so popular Julia Cameron wrote it it was like what's the name of that famous book the writer's way you know it was about self-help in LA at that point in time for me you know what year is this now basically like 94 to 2003.

um I'm doing a spiritual course like in my my own self course that I'm you know reading and doing different workbooks and so forth keeping kind of I'm also starting to write I'm also following like the Billy Bob Thornton and and I decided to write about something I just thought was really really fascinating it It's called the Dada art movement and it took place in 1916 in Zurich and it literally forged the path of art in the 20th century. They made a major pivot. They did a major pivot, right? It was a point in time when we had uh we had artists that were doing um illustrations of beautiful parks and so forth and then you were in the middle of World War I. These artists connected with the killing of the times and the and the the critical thinking was in was you know and they they they went into surrealism and before surrealism there was the art movement of dada which was very nihilist right so I loved it and I deep dived and wrote about this I didn't it wasn't swingers you know it was like some period art piece you know that I'm sending to people and by the way being an actor and being a writer, two different things, you know.

So, I'm starting to write more. I'm writing more. And um I ended up doing that play. I wrote it and I made it a play and I got reviews and I produced it. I raised the money for it. And that was another jump in my life because everything that's happened today was because I took the action to write a play to write that project and then decide, oh, you know what? Instead of just waiting for the screenplay for someone to make it into a movie, which doesn't seem to be happening, let's just tweak it, make it a play, and you know, find a theater in Los Angeles that wants to do it. You go back to your roots. Yes. You greenlight your own project.

Yeah. I raised the money from people in Philadelphia and uh you know we ended up doing this play and you know I got reviews. Some were good, some were horrible. You know I mean what's that like where it's like you have these people that are basically you know you're putting yourself out there right and then they have you know business school professors who don't really do it. They just talk about it. Yeah. Well, I'll tell you. I mean, a perfect example was when I did the play. One reviewer was trapped in their parking cuz it was, you know, they couldn't get out of the car. It was one of these lots where every you're stuck. And she was screaming that she needed she she wanted to leave early, but she couldn't leave early, right? She ends up writing like this play was one of the worst plays ever written. I hate this play.

And I, you know, at that point, I still got upset, but I thought this is a brilliant quote. I mean, the reviewers like, you can't believe it. You if you're going to if you're going to believe the good, you have to believe the bad. So, you know, if you could take if you can just take it with a grain of salt and not get to you, you're you're much you're much better off. But it's hard, you know? I mean, are you kidding? I'm I'm I'm freaking out when I'm getting one star Google reviews right now in my life. Nobody likes to be criticized or reviewed. It's It's annoying. Yeah, it's terrible. So, all right. So your your acting career is continuing on. You're you're you're acting.

Yeah, I'm working on a lot of television. I I get cast um opposite Don Johnson and Cheech Marin. Yeah, I mean Nash Bridges. Nash Bridges big. That was And that show ran for a good number of years. So this was another audition that was so rare. I got the script and I was like it's 1997 now. I got the script. I was like, "No, I'm going to say this. I'm going to say this. I'm going to say this here. This is good. This is good." And I came up with the whole character, right? So, and I changed all the dialogue and I went in and I did it, right? And I got the part. I I found out later one of the producers like was in the other room and could hear me and he was like, "Oh my god, this guy's like making it work. It wasn't working before. Nobody really knew how to make this character fly and I, you know, I got it and I got to come up first off working in San Francisco in a TV show shut the front door.

Yeah, dude. It was amazing. It was amazing. Right. Plus, Don Johnson, are you kidding me? Don Johnson, he was like, he was there for an hour and then suddenly he was gone and they were like, "Yeah, Don went to Aspen. He won't be back for a week." I was like, "Uh, can I stay here?" They were like, "Yeah." I'm in North Beach. I'm like in San Francisco. I've got per diem for the week. I ended up doing like 10 episodes. So, I got to work and come up to San Francisco for like four years. And I kept doing the same thing. Every script they gave me, I'd be like, I'm going to say whatever I want. Like, but I It was better. It was better than what they were giving me. Well, it's interesting because like you had like your whole that that ability you started writing and so you could see things differently. Correct. That's really that's a really interesting pivot, right? I mean, and also to have the guts to actually do that when there's so much on the line. That's really being authentic. That's like really being you, right? I mean, that's like who does that?

Chapter 7: Octomom The Musical: How to Greenlight Your Own Viral Project

Yeah. It was the first time where I really started kind of as an actor going in and realizing I'm going to do my thing. But it was also a period of time when you know I was looking to like my friends from swinger saying how did you do this you know and you know I remember Ron Livingston I had lunch with him and he was like well you know it's opportunity meeting luck you know it's preparedness or what is luck it's preparedness and opportunity aligning you know and uh I was finding myself and it came to a point where it was like you know what like when I go in I'm doing my version of this right and Yeah, I worked as an actor, but I auditioned. I was like almost like a professional auditioner, you know, all the time, you know, and you know, maybe I did maybe my batting average was like 10 10%. You know, I mean, it felt it didn't feel super high. It felt like, you know, I'm getting I'm getting some, but it's also it's peak performance.

just it's totally a mind focus you know being locked in you know and there was just I would I would have so much anxiety okay so it comes to 1999 suddenly I'm having these panic attacks massive panic attacks shut me down right that's when and and changing and going to auditions then kind of changed for me you know it's a great business if you if if you're a wealthy kid, you know, where you got nothing to worry about. You got nothing to worry about because you got to walk in, right? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. You know, like I heard like when Brad Pitt auditioned for Alive, right? He wore a safari hat in the audition and they asked him to take it off and he wouldn't.

Yeah, that's Hollywood. You know what I mean? Like my friend uh Rory Cochran when he auditioned for Coppola, right? they were doing on the road. He didn't like the casting director. He was like, "Yeah, that casting director's got to go." All of that is to tell the casting director to leave the room. Guess what? This ends up the script. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're playing uh this part. You know, you have to walk. I was just like, "I don't like this part. I'm just going to walk in and do it and leave." Yeah, you got the part. Yeah. It's the swagger, right?

Swagger. So, the auditions that hurt the most or when I cared I cared too much. Uh, I had fear. How am I going to make my insurance? Uh, is my agent going to like the fear enveloped, right? Oh, I'm suddenly actor number 387 walking in, right? I'm doing the line. But when I had those moments, those days when it was like, you know what? I'm walking in. I really don't care. I'm just going to do this. There was something that they felt was magnetic. You know what I'm saying? Now, there were also times when I knew exactly what I was doing and I got a ton of parts that way too. You know, I want to give an experience to you as an actor, okay?

There was a play like it was going to be like they were they were like, "Oh, Philip Seymour Hoffman's going to do El Guante." They were they were going after a names for this play, right? I go in, I do my thing, the audition. They were like like I did like a five-page monologue and I was just like I had it down. I was there right walking around the scene seeing the right I get the part. I'm working with a great cast, you know, we're rehearsing. We're rehearsing. We're rehearsing. It's not something towards opening is not working. And suddenly everyone looks at me and I'm like, "Oh my god." Even I looked I was like, "It's me. I figured out what to do in the audition and I've been doing the same thing for now like two months and it's just not ringing. It's not authentic. It's not in the moment, you know."

And so they were like, "All right, let's do this rehearsal." I go behind the stage. I am I hit my knees. I go, "Dear God, please help me. I do not know what to do. I am frightened. I do not know what to do. Please work through me. Please let me do this." I get up. We do the scene. Probably one of the greatest acting moments of my entire career was that rehearsal, right? I was there. I was totally naked crying. I was in the scene. I was powerless. I was didn't. It all connected. After the scene, it was like I won the World Series. All the actors jumped on me. They were like, "Oh my god, I've never seen something like that. Oh my god."

And I knew immediately I knew I don't know if I can get there again. I entered this phase of total just like right. And for me that was a huge challenge in my career of letting go. Really letting go. You know what I'm saying? And not knowing how each moment is going to play out. And I mean, my god, I look at it now, I'm like, yeah, I mean, that was my one of my like moments in my life. And it was it had nothing to do with me. It had to do what was working through me. I couldn't get back there, though. Every performance I couldn't reach it. Maybe I was too scared. I don't know. But I couldn't I couldn't get there. I was It was a good performance, but it wasn't where that rehearsal was. Everybody has those moments, right? Where they're just like they're just locked in and it is hard. I mean, it's a moment in time, right? It's like hard to lock back in to something and like recreate it as though, you know, every single time. I mean, it is. It It absolutely is. It absolutely is. It can be very hard. It can be very hard. In the process of doing all this stuff, you also keep writing.

Yeah. You keep creating and you create this play or musical. It's a musical, right? Octomom. So, this tell us about how this hits. How does this come about? I mean, we all know the story, right? But wait, tell us about the the whole workup on this.

Chapter 8: Hacking the System: Re-writing Scripts on the Set of Nash Bridges

Yeah, this is a really great story. All right. Um, what's great about it is completely self-initiated. Um, I I I need to backtrack though. I got to backtrack because there was a moment in my life that I I got to share with you. It was my relationship with uh a book called A Course in Miracles. Oh, yeah. Jerry Jampolsky. Right. And it was also about the the death of my mother. Oh, so it's it's 2003, 2004. I think she died in 2004. Um, I'm working as an actor like you wouldn't believe. Okay. I'm just I'm I'm really crushing. I'm like booking like guest star, guest star, this that I mean like one of my best years my mother dies.

Everything changes. Everything. My best friend, the one who was like the reason that like she made me an act. Um, I decide I'm going to study a course in miracles. I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to walk this psychic mountain here and go there with it. And I did deep course of miracles self-studying for about five years. And that was enormous, enormous to my life because the teachings in the course, it's a full confrontation with your ego. Okay? You can't love unless you realize how much you hate. How can you love until you face your hatred, right? You're just BSing yourself. Amazing. Terrifying.

I ended up kind of, you know, as soon as I opened, as soon as I did this play, I kind of left A Course in Miracles. But what I learned from A Course in Miracles is recognizing a couple core ego beliefs that I was telling myself over and over again. One of them, uh, never enough, not enough, I need more, I need more, never enough. Right? I mean, it's like it's like a hamster wheel of life, that thought. Okay. And it drives people completely insane. So, I decide I'm going to write a musical. An idea hits my mind. Three words. Octo the musical. Immediately, people are laughing, right? immediately. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I I feel it. I dive in.

I do the casting. I put out a casting notice. CBS calls me within 2 minutes. TMZ calls me. They want to live stream the auditions. I mean, I am just I am suddenly involved in the story. I had not written anything. I had three. I had a title. That's it. Right. And then I asked a friend, can you make a a silhouette of Octomom? He did. I was like, okay, this is the poster, right? So I then, so I was doing it a bit, you know, basswards. So I write the script. Great. Who the hell's going to do the music? I go to I go to an Italian restaurant where there's a a Machelli's where there's a guy singing jazz tunes, right? I'm like, you're good. You want to do the music for my show? He's like, "Yeah, no problem." I go, "Here's the script." We meet. He's like, "Here's the first song." I'm like, "No, this is not going to work." Holy, now I got to fire the guy I just hired. Keep the $500. I got to find someone. It's not going to work out.

Luck. As luck happens, I get introduced to someone who can do the and she was brilliant. She was essentially coaching actors for musicals. But she was like a dynamo. And I was by this point I have the cast. I don't have the music. I have a script. I don't have the music. I'm looking for venues. I'm like literally but I'm getting just like CBS is ABC, NBC, you know, like Conan O'Brien is doing jokes about me. It was like, oh my god, right? And people knew about it. I'd go up to people, oh, you know about this Octomom the musical? Oh, yeah. I heard about it. Yeah, I'm writing. I wrote it. Yeah, it's me.

Um, I go under a pseudonym because it's parody. I don't want to get sued. It's satire, right? At the core of the show, what's it about? It's about America's insatiable excess for more. So, I made her a representation of that. I just can't I can't have one baby. I need to have eight babies. I want another and another and another and another and another. Right. Bernie Madoff was happening at the same time. I'm not fine with that. I need 50 billion. So I made the show basically like this. um she was just representative of what was happening in the the country at that point and also it was the year after the collapse from 2008 right so all of this was like unprecedented stuff at that time and uh I thought it was a really smart way to examine I wouldn't have been able to examine that story if I hadn't had that course in miracles.

Course in miracles is really like psychoanalysis on a certain Christian level. Being able to have that psychoanalytical viewpoint uh helped me in storytelling like it was an exponential jump. Now there's we've kind of jumped a couple things, right? But it's okay. You know what I mean? Like my mother died. I ended up I didn't know how to deal with cancer. So what did I do? I came up with a show called The Big C where cancer survivors are paired with writers and directors and they can tell their stories. Right? That was another thing I was doing during this period. Right?

The writers from Nash Bridges, they all became famous. They wrote The Shield, they wrote Lost. I couldn't get in any of these shows. It was brutal. It was brutal for me. I didn't know where my path was going still. But everything that was happening was leading me to another direction because I wrote the play. I invited a producer who did the play I was telling you about where I had the moment, right? She saw that I could bring an audience. She hires me to do marketing for her film school and her entertainment company, right? I end up going to Vietnam and the Philippines, working on movies, right? being an acting coach and in it, but also because of my psychoanalytical, you know, because I'm I'm in a different place. I can now read scripts like much deeper and know what this story is really about, you know.

So, yeah, that's that's it was a really the 2000 to 2010 was an interesting period really finding myself kind of, you know, going in different paths, writing, I wrote a script. I had Michael Chiklis involved, you know, as he was attached to play the lead, you know, we were sending it out. It was a great point, but it was also like powerless, you know, that you're on other people's time, you know, and it felt very like it didn't you can't have just one project. You got to have 40 projects, you know. A producer said like I was sitting on one script that I wrote for like months and months and months. That's why you got to have like a bunch of different things. So that I was learning as well, you know, and and being a writer, you know, and focusing on that.

It was just it was really hard. It was really difficult. But I had some success as a playwright, which is great. And Octo the musical, I mean, Tom Hanks' wife, Rita Wilson, came, you know, they were scoping me out like, you know, I mean, people were scoping me out. It didn't it didn't go further than you know it's short-lived because it was a current event story. It was like it was something that people get tired of it. They move on. It was in the moment. It was in the moment. But the next year I opened a movie theater and then my life changed. So now we get to the spot and we're going to talk about Arena Cinn Lounge. Yeah. So let's talk about Cinn Lounge.

Chapter 9: The Birth of Cina Lounge: Turning a Living Room into a Movement

So cool. I mean like I've said this to you before. I think Cinn Lounge is the coolest movie concept that I've ever seen anywhere bar none. There's nothing else like it. It's the coolest venue. You see this in the gym space where the gym space has totally changed, right? Yeah. You totally reinvented the movie theater world. I mean, it's like a it's like a totally different deal. And this all came out of here, right? You and your wife Camila, right? You know, put this thing together and you really went all in on it. It's a phenomenal I just can you tell that story like how did this all happen?

Yeah, absolutely. I can share with you that you know um I you know it it goes back to theater. It goes back to theater. I basically took an old theater in Hollywood. Yes. It was dilapidated and but it was right off Hollywood Boulevard in the middle in the like the ground zero of Hollywood next next to the famous Egyptian theater and I basically told this acting school, you give me the keys, I'll make money for you. They threw me the keys to the theater and said go. Okay. So, I'm in the film entertainment business, right? I'm going I'm working in Vietnam, Philippines. They also start buying movie theaters. They buy this enormous movie theater, 500 seat movie theater in Westwood in LA. And I'm kind of not I'm not officially running it cuz I'm like a VP, but I hire the guy to run it.

Anyway, that that is a seed. And then I find a theater where I can do it myself during a time when movies are just starting to premiere on iTunes. Okay. And I'm driving in LA and it suddenly hits me there needs another like why are movies premiering on iTunes? like I don't want to watch it on my computer. There needs to be another screen in in in in LA for independent films. That became like the the mission. So I take this theater and suddenly I'm now working seven days a week running an independent theater. I had really no clue what I was doing. Okay, no clue.

But I had that passion and I started and people started finding me, distributors, filmmakers and it started to piece together right and it started to get momentum and then I am like the place for independent theater for independent movies in Hollywood. Okay. And I came out of nowhere and I'm running the whole thing. It was a complete disruption. It was a complete like I'm walking in and now I'm a movie theater owner and I'm in Hollywood. Steven Tyler's walking by. Jack Nicholson's walking by. James Cameron. Quinton Tarantino's walking in. Gus Van Sant. I'm hanging out with Richard Lewis in my lobby. We're we're, you know, we're kabitzing for 30 minutes. He's here. Fay Dunaway rolls in.

I mean, it's like, yeah, whatever. It's it's it was great. I I leveraged it. I leveraged it, you know, because I knew, look, this is a very special place. I'm doing something nobody else is doing. I'm I'm really promoting independent films. I I basically created a hack, okay? And I hacked the system, not only for myself, but for the independent filmmakers. Big. It's huge. because I was able to get them more press to promote their film. You get more press, you get more cachet. People can't find these films. That's how you find them. And so, you know, this was a period where streaming was just starting. And I'm working with all the indies, not the studios, all the indies. And they recognize my worth. Suddenly, IFC is bringing me to the Spirit Awards. It's like the second biggest, you know, awards show and they're letting me sit at their table of six people. It was a huge honor because this guy recognized that I was really helping them in in LA, putting their horror films out. The other theaters then didn't want to play horror. I was like, "Give me horror. I don't care."

Now, here's here's the secret. I couldn't make a living running that theater if I was just surviving off the box office. It wasn't fair. I was putting a lot of work in. So, I was essentially asking those distributors, you got to give me a guarantee. I got to know that I'm going to make some money, right? Those guarantees helped me. really helped me, you know, because essentially I was, you know, protecting myself from being, you know, losing money and the business grew and I was dead set focused. Like I'm sitting at home when I'm not at the theater. I'm on Google Maps. I'm looking for locations in Tampa. I'm looking for locations in Sacramento. I'm looking for locations in the top 20 DMAs. Atlanta. Where can I put a Cinn Lounge? I have two nickels to scrub together. You know what I'm saying? No, but I have I I have a vision. I have a vision and it's going to be something now.

The whole arena thing was like it was starting to get annoying. It was too long of a name. Right. Exactly. What is this? I was also saying to me, what is this? What is this? What is my business? What am I doing? I'm not just a movie theater. I'm a Cinn Lounge. I'm going to embrace the intimacy. I'm going to embrace the living room aspect of this intimacy, right? And then that's how I was able to kind of have a vision for what this is and I trademarked it. Right. Good. And I started to be thinking outside the box before in a within a few years. I don't just have one theater. I have five theaters in LA. Okay? I'm grabbing screening rooms. I'm grabbing rooftop cinemas. I build out my own theater in an office building. Nobody does that. Nobody, right? But I kept it all in Hollywood. Why? Because I recognize nobody in uh whatever country Poland is going to know where Eagle Rock is. Like don't go for the hipster. Embrace Hollywood. It's the place of dreams for filmmakers.

And I'm showing films from all over the world. All over the world. and I become academy qualified and I'm investing in my business to make my presentation the best it can be, right? Business grows from nothing to a little under a million with a little team, you know, uh and then the pandemic hits and you know, things change, you know, and it's just like what the f. But it was what it was. I didn't see an issue with reopening sooner, right? I'm cleaning the heck out of it. I've got the degreaser. I've got the we're wearing the mask. I've got the heap. Like I went right into solution. Oh, I'm not just closed and defeated. No, we can reopen. In fact, we're we're we're hitting all the beats. We're going to reopen in June. I got all this press, right? The first theater to reopen. And then people were like, "Yeah, I'm just hearing from people saying, "No, don't don't do that. Don't don't do that. You're going to really set yourself up." Like they were like warning me like, "If you do that, you're going to they're going to come down on your heart." And I I backed off. I backed off.

And a couple months later, I opened a drive-in movie theater in the old theater in Hollywood between Fentanylville and and the town of Fenty, right? Is the drive-in theater in Hollywood, right? I'm just surrounded by drug addicts. It's a drug. I knew then that the homeless issue was a drug issue. Okay. and I opened the movie theater in Hollywood and the drive-in and at that point every studio is connecting with me. If I didn't open that drive-in, I wouldn't have the studio relationships that I do today. Right after the drive-in SF, I came up here. I saw that there was this theater in a little town of Tiburon where I was staying with my pregnant wife and you connect the dots. Okay, he's got a drive-in surrounded by drug addicts. LA is becoming a hell hole. Uh, his wife is pregnant. He just found an opportunity in a little small town by the bay. And I did it. I closed four of the theaters. I kept one. I took the money that I was given. And I I I I went all in again. I went all in. I'm not waiting. I'm going to reopen this place.

And I did not know anyone here in Tiburon. And what I knew was if movie theaters are going to work, then this is this has to work or I'm out of the business because I'm gonna really test myself. I'm going to a place I have no connections. I'm moving up there to have relationships with the community. Like, I'm trying to do something that nobody is doing. And I'm going all in on basically a new concept for movie theaters that is kind of more curated where the seats are custom seating by yours truly. The design, the interior design, the style, the food. I want to give you an experience and I want it to be personal like you're at my home and I want you to feel like you're my guest. I want us to have a relationship. I don't want you to just scan a kiosk, walk in, stand behind a line. Nobody wants to know you. Nobody cares. Nobody cares. Yeah, go ahead. You know, cattle, go into the theater. Don't that that doesn't work for me. That's not how movie theaters started. That's not how they grew. We needed to go back, offer the best, right? But offer it in a way that's that's that's unique, curated, personalized, and it's going to change people, you know, and it's been a challenge. I'll be I'll be honest with you, it's been a big challenge because I don't consider myself I consider myself more than movie theater.

One thing that is really is really showing up for me in this is there is a pathway to peak performance for you and there is a pattern to this and there's this knowing right even in the midst of all like oh my gosh man like it could be chaotic turmoil like I don't know but you lock in and you never give up you stay in it all the way until it's going to hit. It's either going to hit or it's going to break and you do it. But you're a rebel. You're a pioneer. And that's what's really amazing about you. You really are a rebel, dude. Yeah. Maverick, bro. Yeah, you are a maverick. That's a better term. You're a maverick. You You put something in.

First of all, I'm an agency guy, right? I mean, like, you know, tech guy, agency guy, whatever, right? I look at design all the time. Designing stuff all the time. Dude, when I first met I remember I said it to you. I was like, "Dude, this stuff is this this design is so cool." It was like it was in the colors that you would expect, but it just worked. It worked in a way that was so different. Everything that you put together was like it all snaps in in a way where it's like, dude, it's like electric. It's almost like that like a lightning bolt thing that you have in the lobby. When you come in there, you go, "Oh, oh, there's a reason why this lightning bolt is here." Because you're going to get hit with lightning. You're going to get struck by lightning in here.

Yes. You don't you you don't get that in other places. You just don't. There is a science to it. There's a science to having Robin Williams, you know, right at the door. It's to open your heart. If we don't have connection, what's the point? You know, you get magic when you are with people sharing a story. It's a campfire. It goes back thousands of years in our psyche. I mean, like, look, look what you brought to this community. You brought something that did not exist. I want to go back. I want to ask you something because there are some really cool things that you did when you were in LA. Yeah. You helped a lot of those independent filmmakers at a time when indie film kind of really blows up, right? It it takes off. And you helped a lot of those people get to Academy Awards. You know, you were instrumental in making a lot of things happen down there. How does that feel?

Yeah, it feels good. Good. I mean, it just happened, you know, this year with the Academy Awards, like, you know, I showed this film, this short film, my uh a friend of Dorothy, and I was the first person I I gave it a Academy Award qualifying run, right? So, you know, I gave him an open door and like I said before, you know, really we created a hack where people could, you know, people can call me. Yeah, people can call me. I I look I've released 35 independent films across the country, you know, I'm not even talking about that. That's like between all of this stuff, you know, and and I'm a part of that system where if you find me, uh, yeah, I can I can help get, you know, your film out there. It's a trip, dude. What you've done is is connected a lot of people and you're making a lot of things happen for people. I think one of the things about the pathway to peak performance for everybody is there are moments where you're putting your head on the pillow at night and you're going I don't know how or you're on an audition. I have no idea how this is going to work. Yeah, there are people who are you know certainly working against you, right? They don't want they don't want you to win.

Chapter 10: Why the "Matrix" Wants You Watching Movies Alone

I only hang out with people I will only associate with people who are basically like happy for you when you win. Yeah. I will only talk to and I will only spend my time with people that I can be genuinely happy for them when they win. Yeah. And how do you know? Do you see it in their face? They're like, do you feel an energy that they're not into it or jealousy or cuz I by the way as an actor I would never talk about the jobs that I got and a lot of my friends wouldn't either because we didn't want that energy. So we always when we were talking was just like yeah, you know, I'm hanging out. I I can't imagine. Your world is so like foreign to me. Like I just I can't even, you know, it's almost like you can't fathom it unless you've lived it. There's no way to even come close to understanding what that's like.

And I just like, you know, we we talked about Swingers earlier. Like, hey, I remember watching that movie and going, "Oh my gosh, I watched it in the theater. It was 1996, 97." It comes out. It's the same time that Bottle Rocket comes out. Those two happen. So you have Owen and Luke and Wes put together Bottle Rocket, which I thought was like a brilliant indie film that just totally just, you know, was so cool with James Caan in it. Yeah, it was such a great movie. And then Swingers that that kind of those two thing those were that those two films really stick out to me. Of course, Pulp Fiction blows up. Tarantino brings back John Travolta, brings back Bruce Willis. Like I mean Uma Thurman. I mean like that was such an incredible film. Yeah. Tarantino man he just incredible.

Yeah. You know it's interesting the myth that you know his stature that was growing in LA during that time. You know I remember going to see um Once Upon a Time in the West with uh with John Favro and and Vince Vaughn. We used to watch westerns a lot and Tarantino was sitting right in front of us and laughing and blah blah blah and uh and I, you know, he was like, you know, it wasn't just like he was whoever it was big as he is now. Yeah. He blew up. Like Reservoir Dogs hits. That's what, 91, 92. Yeah, it was 92. 92. Reservoir Dogs hits. You've got really great players in that. um Madsen, you've got Keitel, you've got all I mean, you know, the list goes on. I mean, like when we get to Pulp Fiction and Samuel Jackson, you know what I mean? Just like I mean, dude, he just I don't know who did he cast that who cast that movie, how did that all come together?

Yeah. Uh uh I want to say Ronnie Yeskel, but uh he know I mean obviously had a casting director and then you know he read people he had his he had his list of actors that he wanted. You know, I'm sure there was probably somebody in front of Samuel L. Jackson, you know, right? Or I think Michael Madsen was supposed to play the Travolta part, you know, right? That Eric Roberts movie that I mentioned, the first one I got um it was produced by Travolta's manager and um the production office was the the manager's home. So we I was like hanging out uh in uh Travolta would roll in with um in his Bentley and um his wife Kelly Preston. They would be like uh uh Christian, can you uh hang out with Kelly for the day and just take her around and I'd be like she was a an actress that had done a lot of work, right? So she was like um I got to I got to share something with you.

Let's go. Um, after I did Alive, one of the uh, one of the actresses in the movie was Illeana Douglas and she was dating Martin Scorsese at the time and, you know, I told her about my my uh, she knew about my father. My father was in one of the first rock and roll bands in Las Vegas in the 50s, right? My father's band was Freddie Bell and the Bell Boys. They were the uh between Mama Thornton and Elvis, they did Hound Dog, right? So, she connects me with Scorsese. Scorsese takes all my dad's 8 mm footage from Vegas, saves it, and uses it as research for his Las Vegas project, right? Which ended up Casino, right?

But I I start getting invited to watch movies in Scorsese's screening room. And this was the seed that essentially became Cinn Lounge because I they were big couches, right? They were love seats. And I thought, "Oh my god." Like it was like a mind-blowing experience, you know? And I'm watching old films with him and he's using these for research for The Age of Innocence, right? We're watching Shane, we're watching Moulin Rouge with José Ferrer. We're watching Lawrence of Arabia, you know, and I'm talking like me, Daniel Day-Lewis, Ethan Hawke, uh, Illeana Scorsese, that's it, right?

Like I went to I went to the Museum of Modern Art. I got to watch Lawrence of Arabia 70 millimeter with just Scorsese, Illeana and his daughter. Okay, those are very special memories. But they come back. It it comes back. I if I hadn't had that, I don't know if I would have understood what intimate living room type of theaters could be. It feels like it's like all as you kind of retrospectively look back at it, it feels as though it's like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? In some weird way, shape or form, right? We're kind of like as you rewind, the course grew back through this thing and you look at your life and you look at all of those things and then rewind to where you are and what you were able to create these experiences, the cumulative, you know, what happened there is so powerful. And you know what's really interesting, dude? You're not even close to being done.

Yeah. Isn't that amazing? I hope to God, you know, I mean, yeah. I mean, 53. So, you know, I do recognize though that I have, you know, there there is time, but I also recognize that we're at a period of humanity where longevity is like an opportunity, you know, that that's that's what's changing now. You know, there we no one's talking about no one was talking about we could live to 100. We could live to 120, 150. That's like, you know, and I love it. I love I love the these new ideas, new concepts. It feels like anything's possible. And I think it's the it's the will to stick in. It's the will to stay in those uncomfortable moments. It's the shattering of the ego because I think we live in that space where it's like, well, I have to be this. But do you have to be anything?

Yeah, it's a great point. You know, ego ego is look, it's the biggest it is it is our challenge. It is our challenge to recognize our self. And you know what? We're so deep in the matrix there. When I was reading a course in miracles, my eyes would literally say some sequences backwards. Like it would say, uh, you know, God God is in your eyes. And it would be like I would I would be reading God is nowhere near you. God is nowhere near your eyes. I'll be like like uh there's something in me that is translating this truth and saying I need to tell you the opposite. That's heavy, dude. You know, and look, I mean, I can still have my I got my attacks. I don't like to wait in line. I don't like, you know, I have an ego, you know, I I understand these, but you know, I also have a have a line to, you know, something much much greater than myself. And that's where the ideas come from. When I'm writing, by the way, it's channeling.

Yeah. Like we go back to the swagger stuff, right? Well, there's ego in that. You got to have a little bit of that. Or or is it maybe it's just the complete abandoning of the ego so much so that you just don't care and you're just in a flow and you're just like whatever. I don't know. I don't know what that is. But I guess you know what? We get to keep living and uh and and finding out. Yeah, we do. you know, and we're we're at a we're also at a time when we can bring our visions and ideas and dreams to reality much. I mean, the speed up, right, compared to where we were 30 years ago, the speed up right now, I'll tell you, I I I I I'm very I'm very intuitive. I'm very I I I definitely see things that are going to be happen. I I can imagine I can I can definitely see each generation speaking a little bit faster maybe even earlier generations unable to keep up with what they're saying you know I mean it happens now you know I mean there is a speed up happening we have to go air travel you know we have to go faster we have to have more abilities to create and and I definitely I see that coming. I see universal high basic income. I see, you know, that there will be um I wouldn't call them rewards, but that the system is changing, right? The system is changing as we speak and we have to all just it needs to move faster.

Yeah. And I think the reality is is like a decision to it's a decision to actually participate in that or to be left behind by what is the inevitable. I think at the end of the day, the world is changing. A lot of it we don't know how what is it going to be like. We don't know, right? But we just keep going going forward. And I think we've got to adapt. One of the things that's really cool about your story, you are on a peak performance and you are adaptive. You are a person who channels energy and sees the future and you and you get into a flow state and you let it happen. You go with it and you make incredible things happen and people really respond to it, man. It's really It's Universe responds. Universe responds.

Chapter 11: The Future of AI and Independent Filmmaking

Yeah. Well, yeah. Well, there you go. I'm with Camila on Sunset Boulevard. We're like, man, we got to meet Jason Blum. You know, Blumhouse. He's doing tons of movies. We got to we got to get on his radar. Two days later, we just walk into a hotel in downtown LA and he's at the table next to us. Literally, we were both like, and you're just like, we were just talking about you. Yeah. But I also recognized, that's why Camila and I are great partners. I recognized that there was something where we're we're like we're flowing together. We're aligned, you know, that was really kind of like can can that things like that were happening.

What's great about her is that she has such like incredible energy. It's a really just a really pure good energy that seems very like grounded and you know so man we've covered so much and you know what we could go on and on and on. I could spend the entire day and we could do like a 10 hour episode and just keep just go go. So you know what man here's the thing I would say season 2 you got to come back. We got to talk about the expansion of Cinn Lounge because I think that this is just destined for, you know, this new kind of like expansive sort of thought around that. And uh I can only imagine what's going to happen next for you.

And also I I can't wait to hear about what what's going to happen with the acting stuff because I feel like that's like the acting thing is interesting. We just talked about Pulp Fiction and how some of those guys like you know they it comes back who you know your greatest your biggest your biggest movies may be just right around the corner right man right? Yeah. Yeah, it could be. You know, I definitely um am not giving up. Uh but I am focused that if uh as an actor that um I I I want to break through as myself in this role as a movie theater owner, you know, and uh I want to tell the story because I think that people when they they get connected with a human and the movie theater business that they may have more affinity, you know, for what we're going through and and and that it's It's it's about bringing people together, but it's it's a very uh you know, it's a special experience and uh we'll see we'll see where it goes.

I mean, there's a you know, look, we could we can keep talking, but look, people right now are making their own movies. How do I get them in the theater? Because that's happening now and it's only going to increase. Yeah. So, if you're not kind of thinking like that a couple steps ahead, then I I think you're kind of, you know, you're not seeing it. So I look forward to season two to see where we where we are where where we wind up because I mean that if you think about that that's kind of wild in the sense that you know now the person who had no way of ever they they don't know how to do it but now maybe there's a framework maybe there's a possibility for them to express themselves creatively in a way and get something done that they couldn't do any other way but they always dreamed or wanted that which is exciting.

Are you kidding? I've got a ton of screenplays I've never written. And I'm like going in there like, "Yeah, let's go. Let's go. Let's let's make this dada screenplay, you know. Let's let's go ahead AI. Let's make it." At the end of the night on a great night at Sin Lounge when a movie was played and you see the people and they're coming out, they've had great food and they've had whatever. You know, what does it feel like to have created something that's totally unique? I get as much joy from it as I do with my daughter. You know, it's a it's a child. I mean, I I I literally have two kids, you know. I've got the theater and I've got I've got Cinn Lounge and I've got, you know, my my baby Mini. So, I I get a lot uh I get a lot of reward from that. And um it's probably why I stay in the in the game, you know? I mean, there's a lot of other reasons I stay. I love it. I just love it.

I love bringing people together. What am I in? I'm in the bringing people together business. Yeah. And you know what? In an age where people are so disconnected, they're on their phones, they're living their lives, they're not connecting with their friends because they think that they can just text each other or they can, you know, uh do stuff on social media. you're doing the exact I mean I wouldn't say exact opposite but you're doing something that is really bringing people together where they're interfacing with one another and you're building a help you know helping to build a community that uh is vibrant and uh experiencing things together is super cool we can't lose that we can't we cannot lose that you know on our watch and you know we've had a really great conversation for you know almost a couple hours here you know and um and I'm very grateful I'm grateful this for this experience man. So, thank you. Hey, thank you, man. It's great to have you in.