When Nothing Is Happening Here Is How To Get A Movie Project Off The Ground by Mark Gantt
Film Courage: Jesse [Warren] came to you in acting class and said “I have a part for you that’s perfect.” What was the process like writing the script because you were putting in your own flair to it (personal or imagined stories)?
Mark Gantt, Writer/Director/Actor/Photographer: So he [Jesse Warren] brought me the script [THE BANNEN WAY] and then I read it. I said “This is great. It’s very similar to THE ITALIAN JOB.” He’s like “Yes, I know. I’m thinking about reworking it.”
“You’ve got to build your own door and walk through it. Forget her thing. Forget her journey. You’re on your own journey.”
Then literally nothing happened. Six months go by, we sort of do our own thing and that’s it. I read it, gave him some notes and he was doing his thing, I was doing my thing.
And then I’m in class, I’m acting and I’m doing all of these scenes that they had assigned me because I was having issues owning myself as an actor. Like…I can do this! I can have a career. I was sort of frustrated and I wasn’t really breaking through. So I was on this journey of two years, breaking through, taking really big risks as an actor. At the end of this period (the six months after that) I was realizing like “Oh man…I’m feeling really good. I can’t get a job in the real world. It’s just not happening.”
Alan Barton who was teaching that night said to my scene partner…she was frustrated with her career, her sister was very famous. She felt that she was better than her sister as an actor and yet she couldn’t get a job. And he said “You’ve got to build your own door and walk through it. Forget her thing. Forget her journey. You’re on your own journey.”
He was talking to her but I heard it and was like in that moment I’m worried so much about getting a casting director to call me or the right agent to submit me that I should just be making my own stuff?”…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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