9021One on One: Pepper Sweeney

a third wheel here. So you were literally, I want to say, my third kiss on television ever, but you were actually my second, only my second open mouth kiss. What yep? Wait, you remember it was open mouth? Do you watch that scene? Oh? Yeah, yeah? So how was it? Pepper? It was as good as advertised. She's got very soft lips. Stop it, stop it? Sorry, I have an eyepatch. I

what's going on? I got a little ulcer on my eyeball from leaving my contacts, and so can you just say I hurt my eye because I know too much for me? It sounds gross, but I hate not telling the truth, you know me? Okay? Um, I just skimmed my eyeball. You played Chad Pepper in one episode in season four, and we still remember you. So that was so memory can you say that now? And it's nice of you, But I listened to the episode a couple

of weeks ago where nobody knew who the hell I was. Nope, and everybody's looking at by IMDb pace figure out what I did. Bye, we see, Yeah, busy you've been now. Yes. One of the things that I was really excited about when when your team contacted me is specifically Toria I. I love to have the opportunity to tell you how kind your father was to me. Um so, So the

first time I met him was in his office. I was auditioning for a show he was producing called The Round Table and um and so I was auditioning for a series regular. We had a great connection, and he brought me into network. And you guys know how, just like frightening and anxiety provoking, going into network is like you sign a contract before you go in and do the audition. And so to me back then, those numbers

were huge, life changing numbers. And you're then sitting in a room with people that want are competing with you, and it's just this whole weird dynamic. So I stepped out into the hall before we go into network and your day comes walking and he makes it a bee line to me and he says, Pepper, I want to tell you something. He said, I don't usually do this, but we're not bringing anybody else in for this part. He said, I want you to have this role, so just do your best and don't worry about it. You

got this, and it relaxed to me. I was so anxious before that. It relaxed me so much. How old are you, man, gosh, twenties seven something like that, and you've been in the business a lot, did you have a lot of experience at that point. So I moved to La probably three years prior to that, and started. I was very fortunately I started guest starting on stuff right away, Like you know, I think my first guest

star was Major Dad. Do you guys remember that show back in the nineties, and and so I had done a fair amount of guest stars up to that point, and but this was that was my first series regular role that you know that I had landed, the first pilot I had landed, I think, um and uh and unfortunately went for about seven episodes. But it was a fantastic,

fantastic experience. And then you know, your Dad hired me for some of his other shows as well, including trusting me to have a romantic scene with his daughter, so to make out with his only daughter. Yeah, yes, exactly exactly. So he was terrific. So then he just offered you this episode. Yeah so so they yeah so, and I, um, you know, I look at the nineties were that area period of time was was very busy time for me.

You know, I was guest starting on tons of shows and um, you know, I remember that time was having like three changes of close in my car because I would have so many auditions that him, and it was it was an embarrassment of riches, you know for an actor when I during that time. But I look at my like I AMD page D I AMDB page or

my resume or something now. And there's so many shows that I don't remember, but I have very very vivid remember remember its memory of this, of this particular show that doing in this gift star tell us tell us all. I don't know if I can tell you all, but I can't tell well, there were a few things that were yeah, a little strange and a little you know,

um yeah, like who like what they like? Okay, like the very first day that we were on the set, um Tory and I and the director were standing and we were talking about what the scene was going to be and all this kind of stuff, and out of the corner of my eye, I see somebody coming towards me. I look over and it's Shan Dardi with a ython around her neck, a live snake. Yep, I trust me, And she says, spears never heard that before this before Wow,

she didn't create that. Look who knew. Listen. She she was really upset with the director from the previous week's episode, and in no uncertain terms, she came up and she just kind of unloaded on this guy, telling him that she was not going to put up with that what had happened to her last week. And she said it in a way that was so colorful that I can't I literally could not repeat it to you right now, whilst wearing the while wearing a python. I can't, I can't.

I just so I just looked at her and I said, I just looked at her and I said, uh, hi, I'm Pepper what And that's how it started. The whole week was amazing. It was off to a start. Um, oh my gosh, I'm just imagine me again at that age. I already was like this cute guy and shy and having to like make out with them, nervous, and then that happened. I must have been like inside, like you you get the best story award for sure, that was

a good one. Ever, honestly, tore you could not have been kinder, You could not have been sweeter to work with and accommodating. And we had actually had several conversations. Like I said, there's a lot of shows I don't remember, but this one we had. We went outside between between scenes, we had several conversations. You told me about the guy you were dating at the time, and uh told me how you like bad boys, which I think is very funny now. But yeah, you told me all this. We

had great conversations. So so yeah, it was was I saying bad or good things at that point about the guy I was dating? Yeah, you were? It was sort of both. Yeah, it was you know, I don't know why, I like, I'm attracted to these guys, and you know, did you give me advice? I probably did. I was. I was newly married at the time that we recorded this, so I think you were interested in that and um, yeah, so we had we had a great conversation. So did you guys talk about the kiss before you had to

do the kiss or do you like rehearse it? How did it happen? Yeah, we talked about it a little bit and um, you know, and then we just kind of dove in. Good Man, good man, it looks really good. I was like, we kissed. Well, yeah, right, I thought so, I thought, so, yeah, Um, do you remember who the director was in this episode? And was he somebody that

worked on the show often? Good question guy. Yeah, So you know when you're when you're a guest on a show, you're you're a guest and in kind of like it's it's I was liking it to being a guest, um in someone's house, right, I mean, it's it's not your house. Um. You you you act appropriately, you and you know you're always trying to for me. I was always trying to please the director. So that's you know, you come and trust me, Like, Okay, what this guy says, that's what

I That's what I've got to figure out. And that's what I've got to I've got to give to the show, of course, and I gotta be honest, I didn't. I didn't care for him. Oh yeah, he could be polarizing because he was our buddy, Like we loved him because he was fun. He was like that fun friend guy as coming onto A said, and if you're like trying to be professional, he was like very like one of the gangs. Ha not Yeah, so I could see that. But Shannon saying that to him, this wasn't first rodeo

with us right now. That's probably why she's said that stuff to him, because she felt so comfortable talking to him that way because he had energy. Yeah, like their friend. Yeah yeah, why didn't you like in Pepper? Um? I just I you know, um. He he said some things, um that I just didn't appreciate. He said some things

that I just didn't appreciate. Um. So I felt like I felt like he was if you okay, so don't don't use this if you don't want But I felt like, because like I said, I come and wanted to trust the director, and he would say one thing when you were in the room, Tory, and you would leave and it was a whole other thing. And I just thought, Okay, if he's talking this way about one of the stars, of the show. I don't know how to how to trust. I mean, that's the thing in this business. Whoa can

you tell us? I'm just curious, do you remember? Yeah, we wouldn't know now. Well, so it would be like, okay, this is literally him talking. He'd be like, okay, dog, all this scene with you and him in a fireplace, you got to put this on your wheel. It's beautiful you. You are so great in this dollar You're so awesome, You're so terrific. And then you would leave the room and he would say I don't know why and stuff like that, whoa wow. Yeah, And so I was like, okay,

what am I I go from? It starts with Shannon, but what a day at work? This? And then yeah, yeah, So I felt very pective and the whole shoot, um, and I could and I could have been reading that wrong, and it could have been something that you guys, you know, um, you guys had different relationship that I didn't know about

or or whatever. I can imagine him, I can imagine him saying something like that because and like screaming it when you left the room, like yeah, when somebody gets too comfortable or like thinks that they have too much power somewhere. That's not cool though, man, So you know it, it sets you. It set me up in a situation where honestly, I just felt like, Okay, I mean, you didn't need my protection, you're a strong woman, all those

kind of things. I honestly um, but I just felt this sense of thank you want to protect you in the Oh my gosh, I'm like so embarrassed for my like eighteen year old or ninety year old whatever I was self in that moment that like, good thing I didn't know about that, and no one told me because that would have destroyed me at the time. Like it's it's like I'm tearing up now hearing it, Like I

can take it. At forty nine, I can take it, and I've taken a lot, but just like it bums me out because that's the epitome of what I worked so hard against, is being that person that was like, oh she in the show producer's daughter, like and I thought I overcame. That's ye, yeah, that's like and also in front of my leading me on, like that's just hurtful, and like, yeah, I would have been so mortified. I

wouldn't have been able to like even to a professional. Well, yeah, and I could see where it was no, no, no, I can take anything. She know, like my best friends, Like I know, I love the truth and I can take it and process it and but it's okay at the feels. Yeah, yeah, so it was that was the that was sort of the stage for for Um, I'm sorry that you were put in that position, but I felt like we had a night. I felt yeah, I loved our stuff together. I felt like we did good work.

I was proud of what we did. And um, you know, sometimes sometimes when you have aples that you have to overcome, you know, if the works even better than it would have been otherwise. So yeah, I love the scenes. I was a fan and I thought you guys were so tender, and I know, I really liked it because all we know is like Donna with David and he's such a little boy. Really, you know, I wanted to see her be appreciated by my Chad was like a man, and

like it was nice to see forget the adoration. Yeah, did you like the ski sweater though that you were wearing? Your turn action machines were really tight. Well, so let's enough about that show. You've done so much other great work. But now you've been doing a lit I mean, you've been doing a lot of voiceover work. We've heard that you were on maybe something people will know, a little movie called Frozen. You're in that one didn't two? Yeah? Yeah,

it's pretty and Frozen one and two. So um, you know, my my I had um like I said, I was, I was newly married at this at this point when the when nine or two and was recorded, so, you know, and I worked a ton of the nineties and guests, starting on a bunch of shows and everything. And then I was just following the money, right because you you know, I got a mortgage and I got a family, and so I started doing more of the voiceover stuff, a lot of uh. As a matter of fact, I built

this room here so I could do adr remotely. So I still do. I still do some of that, um and yeah. So the voiceover thing has been you know, kept my family in insurance and and all those things for all this all these years, and so it's you had to work from home and I get to work from home exactly. Sorry, I'm gonna have to tell my kids, who did you play in? Whose voice? And Frozen? So

I did a bunch of different things. Okay, okay, tell us like I came in for like three days and just we I did a bunch of group stuff and did a bunch of little individual things like, um, trying to like the guy in a hot tub the dad Yes, yes, exactly, um, and then uh um, a lot of just different towns with people with some troll stuff we did from singing with the trolls and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, it was fun. It was fun. Those those jobs are always, um,

a lot of fun to do, you know. That stuff I was doing when I was still like frozen and those things we were in person for all those COVID hit everybody was working remotely. Um. I've tried to maintain some of that remote work. Can you can you can you do one of your favorite voices for us? Well, I mean it's it's dance mokey. It's really no, no, it's really after everything you've confided in us, come on,

you can do it. But it's really like the way that the way that I work with in these kind of things is like you you, um, you see the character on screen and you figure out what kind of voice gets in there, and then you do it, so for me to like go back and just create a voice. Now, as as good as that would be for your podcast, it doesn't. It just understands it doesn't work. That's okay.

I just thought i'd try. We can, I can. I ask just curious how it works differently voicing like a movie, TV show, animated series all that versus a game versus a game transforms okay, yeah, yeah, um yeah, so uh, you know, with with a lot of the game stuff that I've done over the years, it's like, um, I did a bunch of the uh gosh, I forget that the military games to um, and it's just like basically days of UM shouting out different commands really so they

can fill in wherever they want, okay. And when you're doing you know, TV or or a movie or anything like that, it's much more like um, you know, you watch the scene and then you you fill in okay, and and you know, some some of the stuff that we did on Frozen, the animation wasn't done yet, and so you know a lot of times you go in when it's animated film and the animation isn't done, and so they'll just have storyboard and stuff going for you and you just have to kind of figure it out.

I do a lot of voice over at work, and I've never gotten a game though, so I'm just fascinated by that, Like, yeah, yeah, it's a game. Game stuff is is fun. It's but it can be a lot of like like I did like three Days of Cops stuff on one of the one of the one of the games, and it was just like command after command in different situations and they tell you what the situation is going to be and then you're just lives forever.

People just this is like exactly, and there's so many scenarios that can happen in those things, and so we got to have some of the covers pretty much anything that happened. So cool. Yeah, it's fun. Wait, so you worked with Bert Reynolds in two shows, so so yeah, so Bert was sort of my mentor. I apprenticed the Burt Reyld's Theater in Florida Attacott when I graduated from college, and I went down and was one of twelve people picked to be in the Apprentice of the Theater program

for a year and the years changed my life. It was um, I made some of the best friends in my life. I you know, it was a situation where you're doing nothing, but we had we worked for, we

worked for. It was a year. We had two days off in the year, and you worked from like eight in the morning until whatever show you were like, they would have live shows going into theater, you would you would tack or do whatever you had they with a theater, and then after that you would have classes with the actors that they brought in or the directors as they

brought it. So you'd be doing classes to like two or three in the morning, and then of course you'd had the party for a while before, you know, so you literally got no sleep for a full year, and you were just learning all throughout the year. So Bert, that's I met him down there at his theater and then I got my SAG card doing a show that he was doing. That He was so gracious talk about being good to a young actors. I mean he got us all, everybody, all twelve of us are SAG cards

and our equity cards during that year. And then he asked me to audition for the part of his son on a TV show he was doing called Evening Shade, and he said, you're too old for it. Marilyn Henderson never gonna go for you being her son, but I want everybody to meet you and everything. So I went on an audition to be his son. Meanwhile, I was working as a singing waiter at the Moonlight Tango Cafe in the Valley. I can't sing a lick, and so that was my that was my night job. So Bert

called me it. So I went on and did the audition. I didn't get it, but he said, I want you to come and just just help me with my lines for a week. So I put in a week's vacation and at the restaurant and I went to the set and I never went back, and I worked on that show evening shade. I worked on it for I guess three seasons and then I went into the round table and then I came back and finished. And the one thing that was happening on that show was I was

getting like nine or ten ideas in every episode. Like I would say Bert, what do you think about this? About this camera angle? What do you think about this joke? And he would either say yes or he would say no. And this is why. So it was like being paid to go to film school, and I'm working with all these actors are working, so I'm covering everybody. It's Charles Journey,

Michael Jeter, Elizabeth Ashley, Burt Reynolds, how Holbrook. Um, you know this amazing cast of Tony Award winner winners that were just all, you know, helping teach this young kid how to hone's cry. And Bert was just an amazing

mentor and friend to me. And um we were as a matter of fact, so I was getting so many ideas in the shows, and he was teaching me so much that he I had gone to a film festival with him on the East Coast and we were driving and he said, I brought you something, and he reached into his bag and he pulled out and it was I wish I had it right here. I have it at my other desk. It was a viewfinder and he said he told me who gave it to him. And the name has escaped me right now. He's Oh, Bill Freaker.

He said, Bill Freaker gave me this when he thought I was ready. He said, you're ready. I've already talked to the producers. I thought, to the CBS, you're directing three three episodes next season. Oh my gosh, right. Yeah, we didn't come back to the next season, right, But but it changed the tra director of my life. When you have somebody that can imagine your future for you like that, it can that believes in you like that.

So I started directing theater at that point, and I became artistic director of the of the Actress co Op there in Hollywood for a couple of years, and I I then got into producing and driving a live events, which I still do a lot of now. Um. And it really did change that. His confidence that he had in me and then he showed in me really really did impact my life in a huge way. And as a matter of fact, he also talked about Tory, how

much your father loved actors. He loved your dad. My dad loved him, he said, he said, when you go Steamsters spelling, look behind his desk. There's a statue. It was, Um, I forgot the artist's name that did all the Western It was a cowboy on a horse and he said, yeah, and it sat behind his desk right there. Yeah, So I forgot about that till just now I wonder where

that is. Oh my gosh, yeah it was a Remington. Wow. Yes, Oh my gosh, yeah, so bart was was was just really phenomenal to me over the years and so great just with his time and his love and his care and his you know, I mean he just really not just me. This is much more about him and it is about media. I mean he he did this for a lot of people. Um, and I can't say anything but great things about him, And um I miss him every day. They don't make them like that anymore, Burt Reynolds.

And it's just it's a different time, sadly, it's different generation. Yeah, And I think that the world is not necessarily a better place that that, that that influence isn't here. So Tory, you have to carry it on, you know. I mean we have a we have a certain responsibility to carry that man. So I think so, you know, just for for the next generation so that they can extend. And I try we do our best. Yeah, exactly. He hadn't been great catching up with you. What we're amazing. Where

Where are you working now? What are you working on right now? Where can people send you? You can't try, I won't tell you where. I am so so about I guess about twelve years ago, I moved my family back to Kentucky. I have three kids. They're grown kids. UM and my wife and I've been married about thirty one years now, and um we moved back here and I was still traveling back and forth to LA a couple of times in a month and then doing the

remote thing. But um I UM I do. I work for a company now where I do UM we we try to amplify voices of mostly women who are trying to improve the world, make the world a better place. And so I am sort of the head of content for this company where we work with I work with authors and influencers and um and comedians and you know you name it um uh and so we I do

live events, I do muh E courses with them. All the things that I've been doing that I did over the years, I'm I'm using the same tools to do what I do now. And that's been that's been really pretty awesome. I do a podcast with a friend of mine. His name is doctor Kurt Thompson. In the podcast is called the Being Known Podcast, and it is it is. Doctor Kurt Thompson talks about the idea of all of us coming into the world looking for someone who's looking

for us. So Kurt Say, a psychiatrist who specializes in interpersonal neurobiology, which is how the brain and the body and mind are developed and how they function and change in the context of relationships with others throughout your life. And so this idea of coming into the world with someone looking for us, you know, we all experience that to varying degrees, and you know, a lot of us spend our lives making up for screpancy of you know,

of that and of being known by others. So we can make up for that a lot of ways, some negative ways like addictions and affairs and shopping and food and whatever, all the other things, or we can make up for it in the for that discrepancy in the context of community and relationship, and the Being ONNED podcast provides the neuroscience behind this and the tools for creating a community so that we can tell our stories more truly.

And when you're telling your story more truly, as you, guys, know, when you're being seen and known and loved, you know, you can live a much fuller life and and integrated the life that you know. You can have better relationship with your family and your kids and yourself and all the things and so that will work. That's just a little side gig that I like to do and I wanted Kurts work to get out there. I said, if we get four hundred listeners, I'll be that'll be a success.

And you know, we just passed one point seven million. We're not we're not competing you guys and your numbers, but it's it's a big number for us. It's called the Being Known Podcast with doctor Kurt Thompson. Have a lot of fun on that. Everyone checked that out. I'm hooked. I'm going to check it out. You got me. I was like, okay, I'm in. Yeah. Is there a website people can go to for your courses? I they can go to Being Known podcast dot com. I see all

the episodes and everything there. Um and wherever you find a your podcasts, we're out there as well. And um yeah. So it's it's been great catching up with the two of you. Thank you, you're amazing. Oh my gosh, oh gosh, please thank no disrespect to your wife. I'm so glad you're happily married for thirty one years and three beautiful kids. But gosh, the course of my life would have changed if you had been single. Then I had gone for a good guy instead of me talking about bad guys

at the time when I was so young. I choose good guys now. But I'm saying back then, that's yeah. I figured you do now, yes, Stinkler, Not back then you wouldn't have gone for me because you were way into the bad guys. Is very fine. No, thank you, Pepper for thank you today. You're amazing. Thank you for everything, all the best. Thank you, Bye back at you, bye bye bye.