Speaker 1: If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Software Radio Special operations, military news and straight
Speaker 1: talk with the guys and the community. And hello and everyone,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Software Radio. I'm your host today, Steve Balistaria
Speaker 1: joining me, and we have a very special guest today,
Speaker 1: Jake Lockett, who's an actor out of Los Angeles. But
Speaker 1: Jake as a really interesting biography. He's a lot more
Speaker 1: than your typical actor I think that you'll find in Hollywood.
Speaker 1: He's pretty inner, resting guy, has a lot of different
Speaker 1: irons and the fire going on and we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: to him about that. But before we get into that,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to wish everyone the best out there.
Speaker 1: I know people are very upset with this whole COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen thing and they've been locked up, and you know,
Speaker 1: for all our listeners and readers out there, we hope
Speaker 1: everyone is doing fine and uh, you know that they're
Speaker 1: all hanging in there. Hopefully this stuff will all be
Speaker 1: over shortly and we can get back to a normal life,
Speaker 1: whatever that may be for any of us. But anyway,
Speaker 1: we want to welcome Jake to the podcast. Jake, thanks
Speaker 1: for taking the time. I know it's really early for
Speaker 1: you out in Los Angeles, and you know, we really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. No worries, glad to be here, you know. Uh,
Speaker 1: but military is something that's you know, I have been
Speaker 1: in my family, so I'm happy to be on here
Speaker 1: with you guys. Yeah, well, we appreciate it. And uh,
Speaker 1: I was, I was looking at your bio. You grew
Speaker 1: up in a little town in Texas. Uh, Aquila. It's
Speaker 1: actually Aquila, they text ended. Um, yeah, they it's a
Speaker 1: It's a tiny little town outside of Wakeco. There's about
Speaker 1: a hundred and I think the city limit. Science has
Speaker 1: a hundred and six now, um people in the city limits.
Speaker 1: So it's a small place. Um, but there's some good
Speaker 1: stuff comes out of that, you know, hard work. Everybody
Speaker 1: you know is family, which is good. And then um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I just they teach you how to like use your hands.
Speaker 1: My grandfather taught me how to weld at like twelve.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of cool things that comes when
Speaker 1: you when you have your whole family around you and
Speaker 1: you you start working early. It's good. Yeah, I'll be
Speaker 1: perfectly honest with you. I had never heard of it,
Speaker 1: but I have a brother in law lived, so I
Speaker 1: asked for that. He hadn't heard of it either, No,
Speaker 1: he had. He's over the road truck driver, so that yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh he was like, yeah, that's about an hour
Speaker 1: south of me. And he's like, they have they have
Speaker 1: a nice lake. And I thought he said a Quila,
Speaker 1: but maybe he said Aquilla. But uh yeah, he was like,
Speaker 1: they got a nice lake out there. Yeah, he's probably
Speaker 1: gonna we have a little go go ahead, go ahead. No.
Speaker 1: I was like, so he must have been by there
Speaker 1: at least once or twice. Well, I think he's if
Speaker 1: he's ever gone on down, he's he's seen a sign
Speaker 1: for it. But that we do have a good lake.
Speaker 1: We got Aquilla Lake that people um fish at. It's
Speaker 1: a really good fishing la. I wouldn't call it a
Speaker 1: recreational lake. And it's a it's a shallow damn lake
Speaker 1: and you can you can get some good trot lining
Speaker 1: going out there. It's it's great for fishing. So you
Speaker 1: grew up there, you went high school there? I take it,
Speaker 1: and then um, I read the mhm go ahead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I went to high school there, I grew I graduated
Speaker 1: with a class of fifteen people. Um, the school there,
Speaker 1: if you played sports. You played all of them. So
Speaker 1: I played. I was football player, you know, by baseball
Speaker 1: when we had a team, basketball, track and field. Um,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting thing like one because I might agree
Speaker 1: or what I ended up getting into. Um, I was
Speaker 1: I was the only person in one of my classes.
Speaker 1: It's just me and the teacher. So that was always
Speaker 1: a that was a experience. That's a that's a definite
Speaker 1: one on one time with your teacher to to to
Speaker 1: sometimes to a bad fault. You know. I'm sure I'm
Speaker 1: not the first kid to fall asleep in the class.
Speaker 1: And when you're the only one in the class, um,
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot for the teacher to do
Speaker 1: if you're sleeping. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: hide when that's that's the uh situation there, which I was.
Speaker 1: I was really good at hiding in the back of
Speaker 1: the class. But uh, you know. But yeah, so I
Speaker 1: read that you you you went to Texas A and
Speaker 1: M and and obviously you're a smarter guy than most
Speaker 1: of us in UH software up here because you studied
Speaker 1: aerospace engineering. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I always liked planes. I'd actually never even been on
Speaker 1: a plane until I got into college. I was playing
Speaker 1: rugby for the School of Freeing, UM and I went
Speaker 1: on a trip with them, and that's the first time
Speaker 1: I was ever on a plane. But I was already
Speaker 1: in my degree program. But planes had always been interesting
Speaker 1: to me, um so, and I guess mechanical math, those
Speaker 1: types of things came to me pretty easy. So, um,
Speaker 1: I I went into aerospace engineering. It was it was
Speaker 1: a great, great, great field, a lot of work, um
Speaker 1: but it was one of those things where it was
Speaker 1: just it was cool enough at the time that, uh,
Speaker 1: it kept me focused. Oh that's I mean, that's you
Speaker 1: know we always joke about you know, in the military,
Speaker 1: we always choked about guys. Oh well he's uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a rocket scientist. Well actually you kind of were one.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we had T shirts, you know, as nerds,
Speaker 1: as nerds can be at times, we had T shirts
Speaker 1: that said I am a rocket scientist. That's awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, I could never pass the math cours,
Speaker 1: as I can tell you that that was my downfalling college,
Speaker 1: you know, and as it was, I mean, I studied
Speaker 1: journalism in English and my English is horrible, so, um,
Speaker 1: you know, that's that's why I ended up joining Special Forces.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean I wouldn't call my English perfect either,
Speaker 1: So I feel you that well, you know, I speak
Speaker 1: Bostonian with the side of English, so you know that's
Speaker 1: you know, that's what we that's how we's good. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But you know, in college I read about you studied
Speaker 1: German language and you actually spoke with some some CIA
Speaker 1: folks about possibly joining up. Were you ever close to that? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: I was close on a couple of things. I am,
Speaker 1: you know, I I I studied German um as a
Speaker 1: as a minor, just because my family was German or
Speaker 1: is German part of it at least. And one of
Speaker 1: the one of the speakers that the Aerospace h organization
Speaker 1: that I was a part of was a former c
Speaker 1: I Black Ops UH officer, and he uh he told
Speaker 1: us about his life and like some of the stories
Speaker 1: that he did, and so I stayed in contact with
Speaker 1: him and met with him a couple of times. But
Speaker 1: you know, as life does, I had a fiancee who
Speaker 1: was not interested in and me going into that left
Speaker 1: of work, so it kind of it cut it shorter
Speaker 1: than it maybe would have been if I hadn't been
Speaker 1: with someone. Um, but yeah, like I always thought it
Speaker 1: would be cool. You know, sometimes those things sound cooler
Speaker 1: than they are. And so I think part of that was,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not always. It's not always, um, Jason Bourne,
Speaker 1: you know when you're right, you know, it's tough. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's tough on the families too, because you know,
Speaker 1: you're I knew a lot of guys overseas when you know,
Speaker 1: I worked out of American embassies overseas, and the CIA
Speaker 1: guys it was tough on their families because they have
Speaker 1: to live that double life and the families didn't really
Speaker 1: sign up for that, the guys did, or the girls
Speaker 1: in some cases. But uh, it's tough on the family.
Speaker 1: So I mean, I you know, I get that part
Speaker 1: of it. I mean, we we all kind of want
Speaker 1: to be Jason Bourne. And I if you ever hear
Speaker 1: my ring tone, it's James Bond because I grew up
Speaker 1: a Bond fan. Fiming up. I mean, I am I
Speaker 1: six guy. And he told me, you know, um, uh,
Speaker 1: we we don't do that stuff. Like wait a minute,
Speaker 1: what yeah you mean you don't get it, asked In Martin,
Speaker 1: and he laughed and he was like no, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was with Jim, like the the guy that
Speaker 1: was recruiting me, was he was talking about his life
Speaker 1: and his wife was there with him on some of
Speaker 1: his message because he was in Russia. Like that was
Speaker 1: a lot of his UM undercover stuff went and his
Speaker 1: wife had to be there with him. And it wasn't
Speaker 1: It was when their kids UM started came along that
Speaker 1: it became very difficult. You start worrying about their safety
Speaker 1: and things like that. So that's what actually put pushed
Speaker 1: him outside of it into into operations, I think, managing operations.
Speaker 1: So it's it definitely limited. I mean the same thing.
Speaker 1: I almost the same thing. I was on my way
Speaker 1: to finish my UM Air Force. I almost went into
Speaker 1: the Air Force as well. But again that fiance may
Speaker 1: have saved me or not saved me from a different life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you never know, but I know that. Yeah, when you
Speaker 1: first get out of college, you work for Boweling for
Speaker 1: a while. Uh, and then you obviously got hit with
Speaker 1: the acting bug. But so what was it like workingna
Speaker 1: for for Boeing? Was that an interesting job or was
Speaker 1: that like a kind of a boring thing. No, it
Speaker 1: was it was one of those things that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: I got to degree because it was interesting. And you know,
Speaker 1: again once you get out into the private sector, it's
Speaker 1: not always what you expect. So for me, I had
Speaker 1: a cool job. I mean I worked with on planes.
Speaker 1: I literally I was a stress analyst for production support.
Speaker 1: So when something would go wrong, we would do a
Speaker 1: stress analysis on the part or the greater family of
Speaker 1: parts that UM to make sure it could handle all
Speaker 1: the ultimate loads and fatigue loads of of the lift
Speaker 1: span of the plane. And so I had to climb
Speaker 1: inside wings, on wings, on top of planes, and the
Speaker 1: tail all over the plane. I went on with a
Speaker 1: couple of test flights. UM. So it was a cool job.
Speaker 1: It just wasn't something I had already gotten halfway to
Speaker 1: the highest point I could be. But after a couple
Speaker 1: of years and it wasn't something that I woke up
Speaker 1: excited to do. It was like, oh, this is a
Speaker 1: good job, you know what I mean. I'm grateful for that,
Speaker 1: but it wasn't something that really impassioned me. Right, And
Speaker 1: I think we've all known a lot of people that
Speaker 1: did jobs just because they were good jobs, and didn't
Speaker 1: do them because they were im passionate or passionate about them.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a lot of people in different people's lives,
Speaker 1: and so at that time, I didn't have a fiance anymore,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have any kids, so I got back
Speaker 1: into the performing um and that's how I ended up
Speaker 1: getting here. You know, it was that it was that
Speaker 1: transition from you know, a really cool job for a
Speaker 1: company that was great and very good to me, um too,
Speaker 1: just the recognition that I an't happy doing it right,
Speaker 1: And I totally get that. I mean, you have to
Speaker 1: have passion for what you're doing. And I think we
Speaker 1: all agree with that. No matter what you're doing, if
Speaker 1: you have a passion for it, if you love doing
Speaker 1: what you're doing, it's not really a job. It's it's
Speaker 1: doing something you look forward to going to work. And
Speaker 1: I look back upon my time in the military. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I used to look forward to going to
Speaker 1: work every day. I mean I did. I mean, I
Speaker 1: loved my job, and that's I mean, I get that completely.
Speaker 1: So uh but anyway, yeah, so you you know you
Speaker 1: I think I read that you did a little acting
Speaker 1: in high school, so you got you get bit by
Speaker 1: the acting bug, and you moved to l a tell
Speaker 1: tell us about that a little bit. Yeah, No, I
Speaker 1: in high school, I I one of my football coaches
Speaker 1: actually was the head of the theater program, and my
Speaker 1: senior year he he was like, you needed this extra
Speaker 1: credit because he was because it was a small school.
Speaker 1: He was also the principal. He's like, you need this
Speaker 1: extra credit. Um, why don't you come in and do
Speaker 1: a role. Just audition for a role and see what
Speaker 1: it is, to see if you like it, and that
Speaker 1: way you get this extracurricular credit that you need for graduation.
Speaker 1: Like okay, So I auditioned and I ended up playing
Speaker 1: the Reverend and the importance of being earnest, this older guy,
Speaker 1: and it was it was a lot of fun. You know,
Speaker 1: I really had a good time. But you know, things
Speaker 1: like that seemed far away. Acting same seemed far away
Speaker 1: for someone in a town like like I grew up,
Speaker 1: didn't seem like a viable option. So I got done,
Speaker 1: and I remember my dad asking me after the last performance.
Speaker 1: He's like, do you think you'd ever want to do that?
Speaker 1: And I was like, nah, no, definitely not. And then
Speaker 1: you know, I, um, I cut to cut to you know,
Speaker 1: I guess what. Yeah, six years later, seven years later,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting up in Seattle. I'm not excited about where
Speaker 1: I was going with things. And so I started performing again.
Speaker 1: I used to play guitar and singing, and so I
Speaker 1: started performing. And then I started, you know, I was
Speaker 1: looking into acting, and I started doing some acting auditions,
Speaker 1: and I booked some roles up there, and and I
Speaker 1: met a manager and I started working with him, and
Speaker 1: he said, look, if you want to do this, you
Speaker 1: can't do it legitimately in Seattle. You gotta get to
Speaker 1: l A. And so that I ended up going to
Speaker 1: l A. On that It's funny. One of my classmates
Speaker 1: from high school sent me a photo of my signature
Speaker 1: and her yearbook and apparently I knew better than than
Speaker 1: I knew, and I thought I did um, but I
Speaker 1: put look for me on TV and my signature in
Speaker 1: her yearbooks. I was a little surprised I had forgotten
Speaker 1: about it. And then I looked back and say, oh,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess it was in there, and I
Speaker 1: just didn't even know it. That's awesome, But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was a little bit of a premonition there, so yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess. So I had completely blanked it out of
Speaker 1: my mind. Apparently because I didn't even remember doing it,
Speaker 1: but apparently did to l A. Yeah, and I got yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. No, I love, that's
Speaker 1: what I was about to say, I didn't, you know.
Speaker 1: I moved to l A, you know, uh, and just
Speaker 1: got into the work. And in Seattle I studied theater.
Speaker 1: I did some theater work up there at a theater company,
Speaker 1: and then I moved to l A. Sorry if there's
Speaker 1: always in the background together, don't trash trusts coming by.
Speaker 1: But I moved to l A and started working in classes,
Speaker 1: doing doing different training just to make sure I was
Speaker 1: ready for what I needed to be doing here. And
Speaker 1: you know, just got into the life of being a
Speaker 1: someone pursuing act thing here where you gotta get a
Speaker 1: side job, you know, you gotta be able to support yourself,
Speaker 1: and started booking things, which was good for that. Actually
Speaker 1: flew to boot Charest for a film, and then a
Speaker 1: couple of years later I ended up going to Hong
Speaker 1: Kong for a film, so I got to travel the
Speaker 1: world a little bit, which is really cool. Um yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it just kind of just keeps, you know, building. You know.
Speaker 1: My first job was a comedy, which I never would
Speaker 1: have expected, and I've learned that. I've done a few
Speaker 1: comedies at this point, and I really enjoyed doing comedy work.
Speaker 1: I think it's one of them, especially on a on
Speaker 1: a a live studio set. My most recent role was
Speaker 1: on a show called Fam and it's a multi camera
Speaker 1: comedy or like a sitcom, you know, like Friends or
Speaker 1: any of the Seinfeld that type of stuff. And you're
Speaker 1: there in front of hundreds of people shooting your scenes.
Speaker 1: You know, Um, you rehearse them a lot, you rehearsed
Speaker 1: for the whole week. Um, but then when you shoot
Speaker 1: them that day, that's it. They're done, you know, Like
Speaker 1: you do it with the studio audience, the directors there,
Speaker 1: and you're performing. It was an amazing experience in super
Speaker 1: collaborative as well, Like you get to you get to
Speaker 1: watch some people you really admire and you get to
Speaker 1: be side by side with them and like recognize that
Speaker 1: you're ready to be with them on that level, and
Speaker 1: it's a it's a really amazing experience. I was gonna
Speaker 1: ask you, I'm glad you mentioned the comedy because I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask you about that, and that segue perfectly
Speaker 1: into this. I mean, one of your first roles, I
Speaker 1: believe was on Two Broke Girls, which that's one of
Speaker 1: my wife's favorite. Uh that was one of her favorite
Speaker 1: shows and I've watched it with her many times. That
Speaker 1: was that in front of a studio audience. Yes, that's
Speaker 1: another studio audience option as well. Yeah, so some of
Speaker 1: the scenes, it's interesting in in TV, they they they
Speaker 1: have some of the stuff is shot in front of
Speaker 1: a smaller audience, um, the night before because you just
Speaker 1: can't shoot all of it until they shoot some of it,
Speaker 1: um the night before the main taping, and uh, so
Speaker 1: you get the studio laughter and then you get laughter
Speaker 1: the next day as well when they showed the scene.
Speaker 1: Because what they'll do is they shoot those scenes just
Speaker 1: at a time the day before, and then the next day,
Speaker 1: in between transitions of different scenes, they'll show those scenes
Speaker 1: just like it would be on the show. Like your
Speaker 1: your timing is very similar. Um. The audience gets to
Speaker 1: watch that scene leading up to the next scene that's
Speaker 1: actually live in front of them. Yeah, because I was
Speaker 1: curious about how, you know, condensed the television shooting schedule
Speaker 1: has to be just by the nature of it. Because
Speaker 1: I worked for a couple of years as a security
Speaker 1: adviser for film, which is very different. And because I've
Speaker 1: talked to some actors who said, yeah, television is it
Speaker 1: is a lot more difficult because of the condensed schedule
Speaker 1: where you know, usually on a film it's a little
Speaker 1: bit more relaxed, and I was wondering about that, but
Speaker 1: so yeah, you've been. You know, you're getting mhm. Like
Speaker 1: on a like on a multi sitcom, you have five days,
Speaker 1: So you come in on Monday, you read the script
Speaker 1: to do a first rehearsal um that day, uh, and
Speaker 1: then and then you do rehearsal on Tuesday and Wednesday,
Speaker 1: and then on Thursday you do a light rehearsal, you
Speaker 1: shoot the scenes that you're not shooting on Friday, and
Speaker 1: then you shoot on Friday. Generally, I mean it could
Speaker 1: be you know, any variation of those days around the
Speaker 1: weekend even but generally it's a Monday through Fiven thing,
Speaker 1: and it's you're shooting the whole episode in five days,
Speaker 1: so you gotta get right. For drama, uh, TV, it's
Speaker 1: generally like a sixth day, eight day turn around, but
Speaker 1: I mean you're still shooting an hour worth of content
Speaker 1: and to get it right in eight days at the
Speaker 1: most or a six, and so you have to It
Speaker 1: really forces everyone will be on their a game. It
Speaker 1: puts you in a position where the team that goes
Speaker 1: behind a television show is critical. I mean, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people working on it and it um,
Speaker 1: it is h it's it's you really understand how important
Speaker 1: each cog in the wheel is. Oh yeah, And that's
Speaker 1: why I was curious about it because I was talking
Speaker 1: with an assistant director on a war film I worked on,
Speaker 1: and he told me he was like, if we get
Speaker 1: two or to three minutes of film in the canaday
Speaker 1: on a feature film, we considered that a pretty good day.
Speaker 1: And he's like, if you ever work in television, and
Speaker 1: he was like, he was the one that's saying, they
Speaker 1: basically do you know after rehearsals, they basically do about
Speaker 1: a thirty minute you know, television show and about a
Speaker 1: day and a half. And so I was like, that's
Speaker 1: a little right, Yeah, yeah, I mean and in some guys,
Speaker 1: you know, some people are even more intending. You look
Speaker 1: at someone like Tyler Perry, who's who's shooting? Or or
Speaker 1: soap operas for that matter, we're shooting in the episode
Speaker 1: a day like that's how quick to turn around is
Speaker 1: you know, I mean you as an actor, it forces
Speaker 1: you to really have your tool sharp. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that think soap actors aren't as
Speaker 1: good actors, but I would almost you know that they
Speaker 1: have a less time to like get it perfect. That's
Speaker 1: that's the hard part with with being on the soap.
Speaker 1: But as far as actors go, it's just you're you're
Speaker 1: you're turning and burning. You know, there's there's no second
Speaker 1: taste that either they would take to rehearsal and then
Speaker 1: you get one take and that's it. So you gotta
Speaker 1: get it right. So it's a it's a totally different
Speaker 1: pressure house, pressure cooker for that world. Well, which brings
Speaker 1: us to one of your roles. And I know that
Speaker 1: our our own Brandon really wanted to talk to you
Speaker 1: about You've got to play on Seal Team on CBS,
Speaker 1: but you weren't really a good guy on that one.
Speaker 1: Tell us about that, tell us about that role. No,
Speaker 1: I it was interesting when you know, Uh, I was
Speaker 1: contacted about it. Um because it's it. I'm looking right
Speaker 1: now to see the name of the actual person. Um.
Speaker 1: Uh because you guys, you know, given that you guys
Speaker 1: are representing sof you know, it's it's just it was
Speaker 1: a role about a deserter. UM. Uh. So it was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't the most amazing soldier, but it was interesting
Speaker 1: working on a show that has you know that has
Speaker 1: has x s O f UM xcess soft uh guys
Speaker 1: on it. You know, there was a couple of former
Speaker 1: seals on the show, and they really helped me a
Speaker 1: lot as far as prepping for the role. I played
Speaker 1: a guy named Lucas Garner who left UM, who deserted
Speaker 1: his base, his post in Afghanistan and was captured and
Speaker 1: held for four years UM in captivity and tortured. UM
Speaker 1: and and understanding that world. I wouldn't have known I
Speaker 1: would have understood it until I talked to those guys.
Speaker 1: They were key and helping me with that UM and
Speaker 1: just recognizing the world that they had lived in. It was.
Speaker 1: It was a very humbling experience to be next to
Speaker 1: them and hear their stories. UM. But yeah, for me
Speaker 1: like that role, even prepping that role was difficult because
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly I'm I'm someone who believes that if
Speaker 1: you sign up like you have to, you have to
Speaker 1: do your duty. UM. And so it became an interesting
Speaker 1: conflict because for me, acting is always about how you
Speaker 1: fit into a role because most people can't. You know
Speaker 1: there there, I've played terrible people, I've played really nice people.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's all in there. We all were
Speaker 1: all just like shades away from being you know, a
Speaker 1: little wild at times. And so like finding a reason
Speaker 1: as someone who doesn't agree with that, who would in
Speaker 1: my mind would never do that, Like what would have
Speaker 1: to have gone down? What would have to have happened
Speaker 1: in my mind to think that it was okay too,
Speaker 1: or that that was my only option was to desert
Speaker 1: my post right, So which is I'm sure for you
Speaker 1: as well, Steve, like what would have to have happened?
Speaker 1: So you have to create as an actor, you create
Speaker 1: all that story um to to validate it, because if
Speaker 1: you don't, if you're like, well, I'm just a guy
Speaker 1: and that's what I did, then you don't actually live
Speaker 1: a life on screen. You're or there's an idea about
Speaker 1: it and you understand that that's what has to have happened,
Speaker 1: but you don't believe it. And for me, I'm very
Speaker 1: much a window actor, meaning I let people in. I
Speaker 1: don't present a scene like you you see me going
Speaker 1: through it and it is um it is. It was
Speaker 1: a lot of work to be able to do that.
Speaker 1: It took, It was a it was a frustrating thing.
Speaker 1: So you kind of have to immerse yourself in that
Speaker 1: character while you're you know, portraying that role, so you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's being real at that point, am I right?
Speaker 1: There is my often to a degree, I mean to
Speaker 1: a degree. I think you know, there's you know, people
Speaker 1: who consider themselves method actors, meaning they they jump into
Speaker 1: that life like they don't think once they're in that role,
Speaker 1: once they're shooting, they don't leave that character. So outside
Speaker 1: of the shooting, there that person that you know, which
Speaker 1: which isn't what I what I do it. It's more
Speaker 1: about the development of the character in in my life.
Speaker 1: Once you once you develop all that stuff, then it's
Speaker 1: about being present, you know, and just being there. But
Speaker 1: for me, I really had to like understand who where,
Speaker 1: what would have to have happened for me to do that?
Speaker 1: And it was you know, because that because that makes
Speaker 1: you look at yourself, right, because no one wants to
Speaker 1: think that they would ever do that, right, So it
Speaker 1: really forces you to personify like what Like I said, like,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe there's nothing that would ever let you
Speaker 1: Steve have done that obviously, Um, but you know what
Speaker 1: if you can think about it, what could it have been?
Speaker 1: And so like that. That was really difficult for me
Speaker 1: because again that's not something I agree with. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's what once should do. But obviously it's happened,
Speaker 1: so those people thought at some point that it was
Speaker 1: what they had to do. So how do I portray
Speaker 1: that in empathetic way as much as possib Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's funny because how you're describing as uh. One of
Speaker 1: the war films I worked on, Jason Isaacs, that British actor. Um,
Speaker 1: he was playing a Special Forces officer. So when he
Speaker 1: found out what my background was as a security overall
Speaker 1: security advisor, he'd come walking up to me between takes
Speaker 1: and he asked me, you know, what would you be
Speaker 1: thinking about during this? What would you what would your
Speaker 1: reaction be with this? How would you talk about this?
Speaker 1: So we we were talking and I said, you if
Speaker 1: you want to look like the real kind of deal,
Speaker 1: I had a Special Forces ran said where this during
Speaker 1: the the next shot? Because anyone who's an SF guy
Speaker 1: will see that ring and they'll recognize it. Well, Jameson
Speaker 1: is not really a big guy, so he put my
Speaker 1: ring on. It was falling off, so we had to
Speaker 1: tape it all up. But then the in the UH
Speaker 1: in the UH got that scene got cut out on
Speaker 1: the cutting room floor. Say, no one ever saw the
Speaker 1: But it was interesting because he's like, yeah, I want
Speaker 1: to get this right because you know, I want to
Speaker 1: talk like you guys would talk. I want to act
Speaker 1: kind of like you guys were. And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a film, and we understand that things
Speaker 1: can't always be totally realistic sometimes because of you know,
Speaker 1: you're trying to tell a story. But it was interesting
Speaker 1: because you know, he was getting in his mind he
Speaker 1: wanted to be you know, he wanted to be that
Speaker 1: person while they're you know, the cameras are turning, so
Speaker 1: I kind of get that. It's it's really interesting to me,
Speaker 1: especially I mean getting to see a little bit of
Speaker 1: it from you know, my perspective, which was out the
Speaker 1: creative process. But I love watching how it all comes together,
Speaker 1: and I think that's really really interesting. Yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: the same way you know it was. It was whenever
Speaker 1: I'm on set, it's always magic, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I'm not bored. I'm not I'm not a one of
Speaker 1: my one is my shot. When I can, I go
Speaker 1: home like it. I think it's all interesting. I think
Speaker 1: it's the art form. The collaboration throughout the art form
Speaker 1: is really cool. Um yeah, I mean, I said, those
Speaker 1: those guys, they told me a lot, you know, from
Speaker 1: what what prisoners go through. Like I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen anything like live like videos of someone
Speaker 1: being beheaded, but the some of the things that I
Speaker 1: looked into just to understand what world would be, what
Speaker 1: that world would be threatened with. And I asked one
Speaker 1: of the exteal, I was like, why did those gets?
Speaker 1: Why do those people always look so calm? And he said,
Speaker 1: one of the things that they do is they take
Speaker 1: you out on a regular basis and they they um
Speaker 1: tell you they're gonna do it. They tell you they're
Speaker 1: gonna do it, they're gonna take it, and then they don't.
Speaker 1: So after hundreds of times they of them doing that,
Speaker 1: you're almost ready for it to happen. It's just it's
Speaker 1: that collaboration that allowed the piece to be what it was,
Speaker 1: you know, is being able to talk to everyone on
Speaker 1: set because those guys are producers, they're also they also
Speaker 1: have roles in the show. Um, and it was it was.
Speaker 1: I think it was imperative for me and what I
Speaker 1: had to deal with as the character two. UM, be
Speaker 1: able to be there in the right moment, in the
Speaker 1: right space in my head. Now, that's that's that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you, do you have a favorite type
Speaker 1: of Do you like being heavy, the bad guy, the
Speaker 1: good guy? Are you like comedy? Is there any favorite
Speaker 1: or do you just take it as it comes and
Speaker 1: you just want to experience all of it right now?
Speaker 1: I'm taking it mostly as it comes, But I would
Speaker 1: have to say I I I like it all. I
Speaker 1: played a lot of bad guys. Um, I think a
Speaker 1: bad guy is fun. You you don't have a lot
Speaker 1: of rules, which is awesome. You know, you can kind
Speaker 1: of make it whatever you want it. Of course, I
Speaker 1: like the idea of being the hero, the reluctant hero
Speaker 1: as a character that I'm I'm a fan of. I
Speaker 1: think they're the most honest because I don't think a
Speaker 1: lot of times in real life heroes are said trying
Speaker 1: to be heroes they're they're just doing something that was
Speaker 1: put in front of them and they don't. Then they
Speaker 1: don't back down, you know, they step up to the
Speaker 1: to the situation. And so I like that type of role. Um,
Speaker 1: And you know, I like it all. I can't I
Speaker 1: can't really, I don't want to say. I can't really
Speaker 1: say that one thing is preferred over the other. I
Speaker 1: liked doing it all from comedy. I like the collaboration
Speaker 1: that everyone has. Everyone wants to make the joke plan.
Speaker 1: It's such a team effort. Um. In drama, when people
Speaker 1: are good, it's it's you're you're living different lives. You know,
Speaker 1: you really are living different lives, and it's it's amazing.
Speaker 1: Um too. That's part of that's the main reason we
Speaker 1: got into this is to be able to live different
Speaker 1: I said, actors, you know, to portray different stories, and
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I love it all, man, I gotta be honest.
Speaker 1: There's not one thing that I think is better. I
Speaker 1: really enjoy doing it all. No, that's awesome. Um. I
Speaker 1: saw in your bio that you trained and I'm probably
Speaker 1: gonna mispronounce this, say CALLI it's a Filipino martial art. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll be I'll be perfectly honest with you.
Speaker 1: I wasn't familiar with it, so I have to look
Speaker 1: it up. UM, but uh, it seemed really interesting. And
Speaker 1: tell our listeners a little bit about this. And you've
Speaker 1: been doing this for about four years you said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been training about four years. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: really um it's a bladd uh weapons martial arts, so
Speaker 1: you're dealing with knives and bolos. It was developed out
Speaker 1: of college UM by permonitu On Chris Tayok. And it's
Speaker 1: it's really all encompassing. It's about awareness. UM. You know
Speaker 1: that for me, that's the thing. It really opens you
Speaker 1: up to the understanding, um, what's around you and how
Speaker 1: a lot of times people aren't aware. Helps quantify a
Speaker 1: lot of states stuff logically UM, as far as um
Speaker 1: different um, the way things happen and how how to
Speaker 1: avoid them UM. And then it teaches you the motion
Speaker 1: and the motion the reps. Those are the things that
Speaker 1: come into play when actual things are happening in real life.
Speaker 1: You know you're you're not sitting there. You don't have
Speaker 1: time to think about it in your life when when
Speaker 1: all the ship hits the fan, if sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I can say that, but when everything goes down,
Speaker 1: you don't have you don't have time to think about it.
Speaker 1: The reps that you do before that are what come
Speaker 1: into play, and so it teaches you a lot about that. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, I've gotten an opportunity to work with you
Speaker 1: know x UM military and learned from them in that
Speaker 1: as well, people that have had boots on the ground
Speaker 1: and and did those real reps, and it's it's a
Speaker 1: powerful tool. UM. You know. We we work we have
Speaker 1: as tactical group, which is a they work with the
Speaker 1: military and training military. We have a lot of people,
Speaker 1: we have some higher ups that that trained military um folk.
Speaker 1: And then we also have a combat choreography which is
Speaker 1: our our Hollywood UH department if you will, that works
Speaker 1: with doing real choreography in film like the movie The
Speaker 1: Hunted Tommy Lee Jones and Minsia do Toro. We did that, um,
Speaker 1: which is a really powerful UM. Like you watch it,
Speaker 1: you see some real blade work, which is really cool.
Speaker 1: That's awesome and uh again, you know, it wasn't something
Speaker 1: I was familiar with until I looked it up and
Speaker 1: then I saw that there's quite a few of the
Speaker 1: Navy Seal Team guys that are firm believers in this,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure that's some of the guys you've been
Speaker 1: working alongside with. So that's, uh, that's really cool. I
Speaker 1: was curious if and and you again you segued perfect
Speaker 1: into it, is this something that we're gonna see more
Speaker 1: of in the in the movie industry and you just
Speaker 1: answered that, So that's that's neat. Yeah, you know, it's
Speaker 1: something that you can segue into like if you get
Speaker 1: a role and you already know what it's required, right,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's It's helped me a lot and just
Speaker 1: you know, because what part of what we do is
Speaker 1: an integrated combatist. So you really learned to use from
Speaker 1: hands to blades to two um um guns, how that
Speaker 1: all plays together, and how to deploy in close quarters
Speaker 1: and like I said, real combat now and then you
Speaker 1: have to then kind of explode that and then put
Speaker 1: it into film and how can we make that as
Speaker 1: real as possible? Um Because as anybody who's ever done
Speaker 1: real martial arts are seeing real things happen, the movies
Speaker 1: sometimes can be a little frustrating to watch because of
Speaker 1: all the wide open hands and everything that happens so
Speaker 1: it's um it's an interesting experience for sure. Does that discipline,
Speaker 1: that self discipline, does that help with you're acting? I
Speaker 1: think so. I think you know a lot of times
Speaker 1: one of the things that people misses is being able
Speaker 1: to sit back, um and and watch how things go,
Speaker 1: how you interact in auditions, especially like people don't actually
Speaker 1: evaluate how things um. You know, in the military they
Speaker 1: call it the a R. So you do you do
Speaker 1: that as an actor. It's important to do that so
Speaker 1: you know what worked and what didn't. And it's helped
Speaker 1: me those those types of you know, observer experiences have
Speaker 1: helped me um uh, understand things and get better at
Speaker 1: different things that I do in the audition room because
Speaker 1: that's that's a totally different world. Then then the actual
Speaker 1: acting on set that you know, there's that observer rep
Speaker 1: that you can do, and then you also have the
Speaker 1: rep where you're going the room and you're trying to
Speaker 1: book the job and how do you do that the
Speaker 1: best and give them the most powerful experience that they
Speaker 1: can receive as well? That's awesome, And I also know
Speaker 1: you do some personal training on the side as well.
Speaker 1: You know, how's that going. It's good, It's you know,
Speaker 1: not exactly a lot of gyms open out here, but
Speaker 1: you know, you develop what you gotta, you know, you
Speaker 1: learn to survive. And so during this whole thing, I
Speaker 1: was I was doing it by FaceTime, just trying to
Speaker 1: make sure I was able to keep living in life.
Speaker 1: I want to keep living and not get held down
Speaker 1: by the fact that you know, there's no TV or
Speaker 1: film work happening right now. Mhmm, yeah, because everything slowed
Speaker 1: down right now. So yeah, oh yeah, so there you're
Speaker 1: probably gonna be coming back in August. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: gonna be. My next question is, uh, you know what
Speaker 1: with the COVID nineteen coronavirus stuff that's going on, when
Speaker 1: when do you think that, uh, we'll see something you know,
Speaker 1: back in the production. I guess you could say a
Speaker 1: phase of things going on and what's what's next for you?
Speaker 1: Do you have anything lined up for one that this
Speaker 1: stuff is all over? Well, Um, for the first part
Speaker 1: of that, the production looks to be coming back in August. Uh,
Speaker 1: some people maybe a little later, depending on where you're at,
Speaker 1: like Toronto or Vancouver. It should be coming back in August,
Speaker 1: so it didn' it depends on what the studios want,
Speaker 1: but it looks like they're be doing what is considered
Speaker 1: kind of a pot and experience, so they they'll be uh.
Speaker 1: Once the actors are together, they quarantined for fourteen days
Speaker 1: and then they don't they don't separate, so they're gonna
Speaker 1: be by themselves a lot, um so that no one
Speaker 1: gets infected. Um. And then the how people tape is
Speaker 1: gonna be changing. I don't think there's gonna be any
Speaker 1: more fight scenes for a little bit or love. Love
Speaker 1: scenes are gonna be limited just because you can't really
Speaker 1: not share at that point, same thing with fighting and
Speaker 1: lot of the heavy breathing and things um uh. And
Speaker 1: then taking will be a little farther apart as far
Speaker 1: as how close you are, and then you know that
Speaker 1: that'll that'll that'll get things back in the work until
Speaker 1: there's a vaccine hopefully which as soon as the later
Speaker 1: hopefully um. And then um as far as me, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm kind of seeing where things come after this,
Speaker 1: and you know, I have a couple of things that
Speaker 1: I'm waiting to hear about, um, whether they're going to
Speaker 1: go through or not. And then also my writing partner
Speaker 1: nine we've been working together for ten years he's actually
Speaker 1: my manager as well, the same guy that told me
Speaker 1: I should come down here and do this. We've we've
Speaker 1: been doing a lot of writing and UM, we have
Speaker 1: a couple of TV pilots as well as UM a
Speaker 1: couple of features that we're shopping gonna start shopping around
Speaker 1: when everything kind of clears back up. One of them
Speaker 1: is actually a based around an x UM or XF
Speaker 1: SF guy coming back UM two after UM being discharged.
Speaker 1: UM and UH, it's it's an interesting film kind of
Speaker 1: Keller high Water meets Taken. UM. It's it's a really
Speaker 1: cool story that I'm excited to tell. UM and a
Speaker 1: couple of the main characters are both ex military and UM,
Speaker 1: it'll be fun. It'll be a fun one to shoot.
Speaker 1: We're gonna shoot a teaser for it after once everything
Speaker 1: settles down and then move on from there. Well awesome.
Speaker 1: Well Jake, Uh, we really appreciate your time this morning.
Speaker 1: I know we got you up earlier, but yeah, we
Speaker 1: uh we love having you on the show. And hopefully
Speaker 1: the next time when you play the SF guy, you'll
Speaker 1: play a good guy here. So uh, yeah, I would
Speaker 1: love Actually, I was so exactly. I was telling some
Speaker 1: of the guys, maybe I could pick your brain make
Speaker 1: sure that we're given this uh this guy because of you,
Speaker 1: this sf uh some some stuff. Maybe not right now,
Speaker 1: but I'll try to get your I'll get your email
Speaker 1: and I'll send you a request an anytime. I don't
Speaker 1: know if i'd be the guy you want to talk to.
Speaker 1: I usually did everything the wrong way so when I
Speaker 1: was in but uh, maybe we'll put you in with
Speaker 1: one of the Yeah, I will put you on with
Speaker 1: one of the other s f guys, and because I
Speaker 1: usually did everything the wrong way. But no, but we
Speaker 1: really appreciate you having you know, the time for us
Speaker 1: this morning, uh, you know, and being on the Software
Speaker 1: Radio podcast, and we hope we can do this again
Speaker 1: with you again real soon. Yeah, me too. Sounds good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Steve. I appreciate you, guys. Thank you and
Speaker 1: all the best to you and uh stay safe out
Speaker 1: there in l A. Listening to self up to India