Act Like You Love Yourself by Antoine Allen and Lester Greene
Antoine: Hello guys, this is Antoine Allen.
Lester: And I’m Lester Greene.
Antoine: This is Unscripted…
Lester: Conversations.
Act Like You Love Yourself
Antoine: This is our first podcast series. We started this series to give the film community a different view, a different outlook. Our first episode is called Act Like You Love Yourself. It’s also the new book by…
Lester: Lester Green called…
Antoine: Act Like You Love Yourself. And the reason why we call it Act Like You love Yourself because in the film community I feel like we give so much to everybody else and we don’t look at ourselves.
As an actor, how many times to you go to the casting audition, put yourself out there, get so much rejection, just waiting for someone to give you that opportunity?
Lester: Opportunity.
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“…Instead for waiting for someone to tell us we’re great, instead of us chasing money, let’s attract money.”
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Antoine: And you know what, we did it differently? Now you don’t have to wait for nobody. Get your own camera, get your own film crew, shoot your own films. So this message is for anybody that are artists. You don’t have to wait for anybody, especially now. We have iPhones, we have cameras that are 4K and only costs $2,000.
So us…we came together and said you know what? Instead for waiting for someone to tell us we’re great, instead of us chasing money, let’s attract money. And this is a whole series about Act Like You Love Yourself.
Lester’s has got a book (Act Like You Love Yourself), he’s the author. Why did you start start your book? What made you want to start your book?
Lester: Well, I wanted to give a voice to all the people out there who are struggling being actors or just struggling in life. This book addresses various issues that will help you move forward in your life.
Antoine: Let’s talk about some topics in your book.
Lester: Okay, we can talk about the first topic. It’s called Life Is Too Short, right? It started with that because that’s where I met Antoine on the set of his feature film LIFE IS TOO SHORT. And he came to me and he saw something in me. And he said You know what Lester? Instead of waiting for people to cast you, why don’t we come together and work on our own short film? That gave birth to (roll footage) my very first produced short film.
Antoine: It’s actually airing on national TV right now.
Lester: CBS to be exact.
Antoine: Exactly.
Lester: And so that was all the validation that I needed. I created my own short film. He helped me cast the crew and the cast and we we’re off and running. That’s all it took once I got that first film under my belt, we haven’t stopped.
Antoine: Yeah. And the title LIFE IS TOO SHORT, it’s basically life is too short. You’re here today, gone tomorrow. I don’t want to die, I’m 37. I don’t want to die an old man full of regrets. There are so many people that live their life for so many years and they haven’t accomplished anything. They don’t have that internal happiness. What’s the next topic?
Lester: The next topic is called I Got The Power because obviously once you start gaining momentum and you start getting your stuff on national TV and you start getting into festivals and winning awards then you create that self power that comes from within.
Antoine: And I Got The Power is basically you do have the power. Sometimes you feel like if I don’t get into this big festival, if this big director don’t call me, what am I going to do? You have to realize we all have different paths. Just because you ain’t get your film in a big festival or in a big network there are other options, there are other outlets.
Being on Youtube, renting out movie theaters…I rent out a lot of theaters just to show my own film and I make a nice little income off of it. So it’s showing yourself worth and not doing the same…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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