Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with Higheartradiots and Katie Lows.
First and foremost, Guillermo Diaz.
And Katie Lows.
I haven't seen you in so long. It breaks my fucking heart.
It's fucked up. That's not right.
But you know, the one place we do hang out is on the picket lines, bitch.
Yes, yes, yes, with a ton of other actors.
Yes, yes, a ton of other actors. At the time of this recording, the WGA is working it out and and airstrike has come to a close. And right now sag our union, sag After, Yes, is still at the negotiating table and so to be in solidarity with our union, sag After And also you know this pending sort of murkier area with the WGA, we are doing bonus EPs right now, Yes.
We are. We're doing this new thing where we're going to unpack the industry, if you will. So we're going to kind of highlight those folks that work in movies and television that don't normally get, you know, the attention, They don't get the platform to speak about their journey and how they got there. And you know where where they came from and all of that stuff, which is super, super exciting. And again, like Katie said, we're standing in solidarity with our you know, with the WGA and with
our sag after brothers and sisters. So we want to be respectful and thoughtful and we thought this is a really great way to do that and still continue on with the podcast.
Yes, and give you guys some hot hot content. Oh yeah, that isn't the REWAT podcast, which will be coming back when our awesome negotiating committee gets our fair deal, because I'm putting it out there people.
Yes, we'll be back. And speaking of hot hot content, we have a new buddy that's gonna join us on unpacking the toolbox. I'm back in the industry and Katie and I have worked with her for a long time. I've known her forever.
She's pretty freaking awesome the best. And when we were like, let's do some bonus apps where we're not going to do the usual rewatch, we will bring that to y'all when we get our fair deal, hopefully at some point soon. And in the meantime, we're going to bring on this cool cool, cool cool check probably one of the coolest chicks, who knows a lot more about the industry actually than me and g because me and Gen correct, we are
just act tools. Although Gaiatramo has directed it before. However, we were like, let's bring on someone from Shondaland that actually knows about all these people. We want to spotlight on the bonus apps, like we want to bring in makeup and wardrobe and salad supervisors, music supervisor, cinematographers. We want to talk to just a lot of the people that make Hollywood Hollywood. Yeah, this new content we're bringing to you hot off the presses is felt good to us. Yeah,
but also we needed a little bit of help. Yes, G and I were like, who could we bring on that knows way more about this than us?
Yes? Yes, And the person we wanted wasn't available, So non kidding this person listen, I've known this person for a really long time. I did a film, one of my favorite films with her that she produced, and then we spent years making our show of course, where we all met and she is should we uh yeah?
Should we can't give you a few other tips?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, give us some more, give us some more likes fine wine.
She loves dogs, she loves architecture, she loves art, she loves Venice, Italy. She loves cool fucking glasses. She likes cool, interesting, kind of vintage jewelry pieces.
And she used to be she used to be a comedian.
Oh, she's a comedian. She used to be an actress. She is the greatest stage direction reader that has ever been birthed. On the history of the Santa Earth.
And Katie she was the original podcaster for the show. We would go into her office at Shondaland and get interviewed by Homegirl. Yes, so she was the original, the original of the og SO.
Ladies and gents and everyone everywhere. Unpacking the Toolbox, Unpacking the Industry, brought to you by Katie Lows, Gear Moodiaz and.
Betsy Betsy Beers.
Yea, that's a sound of me laughing. You just unpacked my toolbox.
Yeah we did.
I didn't have to say anything. My toolbox is just all over the place there.
Well, as you said, this toolbox is heavy.
It's a heavy toolbox. And I think what's really exciting about this is that y'all are going to get to hear some really cool stories from folks that we've had a chance to work with and really surprising ways that people have ended up kind of doing what they're doing and loving what they're doing. But what we thought we would do today is a big special treat for me and for hopefully anybody else is I think we need to unpack Gerramo and Katie's toolboxes just to start out.
We can all just sort of, you know, get into this new process. And I had there are a lot of things that I bet all you don't know about Katie and Giam. I mean, they get interviewed a lot, and they're fabulous, and they're famous actors, and they have the Instagrammy and they put their faces and stuff on and it's super cool. And then is Instagrammy's Instagrammy? And I say that because I'm a Grammy. I'm not really, I've no children, but are so nice? So hot? Is
a Grammy you are? But we thought it'd be really fun to actually do a little bit digg and just have a chat about how the hell these two big buckets of endless talent started talenting their ways across the world, and how do you start and do and survive and thrive in this business? Because I don't. I don't know. I couldn't do it. I was kind of a shitty comedian and thank god I.
Found I'd doubt that.
I doubt it. Oh there's evidence to prove it.
You're one of the funniest people I've ever met, Betsy. You're the wiest. You crack me up every time.
But I think you bring up a good point, Betsy, which is everybody in this industry that we've ever met, And like g was saying, how whol people are who do so many different jobs to make shows and make Hollywood happen, and it is such a non traditional life, and no one has a linear straight line to get there, you know, everyone's way, Like Betsy is one of the most prolific, respected and highly accomplished producers in the business. And the way that you got here is insane, and
the way that we all got here is crazy. And I feel like this new podcast AEPS we're putting out are all about cool jobs in this industry and how the fuck did people.
Get there exactly, And I think that's incredibly well put. I would like to do a throwback to the old days when I did this, and I want to tell people what you are wearing so that they can picture what we're doing because we're in a split screen, because we are doing this remotely, which is really annoying because I love being the same room with people, But like whatever. So Gierman is wearing a fetching black T shirt with a big red heart on it, which is sort of a red heart with gunshots.
No no, no gunshots. It says breaker.
I can't read it because you're a tiny bit blurry.
But why does he say breaker.
Because it's heartbreaker?
Okay, So I'm the one who thought his gunshots. Okay. So he's wearing this incredibly cool T shirt which I totally misidentified with my blurry eyeballs. Katie y'all, Katie has accessorized for this podcast. I did a gorgeous necklace which surprisingly has a ch on it from assuming.
Shocker Katie Katie.
She's wearing some baller glasses frames which make her look like super powerful and maybe just a little bit like oh, I don't know, like Margot, Robbie and once upon a time in.
A ship on these glasses for everyone listening, I love glasses. I'm so jealous of Betsy Beers and.
Does because I need them cool cool glasses.
I don't know.
I don't need glasses. I have twenty ten vision. I could be a fighter pilot. People a fighter pilot. I get tested every year. Nope, eyes are still fine. Really, oh yeah, but I buy fake glasses. I put first of all, glasses are the best accessory. Like, I'm sorry, you look immediately more fashionable.
Okay, And hey, can I tell you what they do about the eyebags, because let me just say, when you have the eyebags, just get a big fucking frame. Stick them on your face.
It's great, Uh, covers it all up. But also, Katie, you're around around I'm not going to say your age, but you're around the time when I was like, oh, I can't quite read that print.
It's starting, it's starting, might be coming at night. Yes, I'm turning forty one at the time of this recording tomorrow. Actually no, no, turn forty wonderful And maybe I'm going to go to that eye doctor. And this is my whole cute like, ooh, aren't I so cute? My eyes are perfect and eyes are going to be like he's gonna be like, you're a danger on the road at night. It's time to get some real lenses up in those glasses. We'll see you eyes. I'll keep you posting.
That's the sort of thing you get for your birthday. Now, speaking of your birthday, Katie Lows, where were you born?
Look at that pivot. This queen is the queen of pivots, which is what we're doing on this podcast.
That's right, we're pivoting.
I was born in Queens, New York, Oh, Zone Park, and my mother talks.
Like this, and really she really talks like this.
Oh, She's like, unbelievable. You're from fucking New York too, aren't you know?
You're island in Long Island, which is very, very different. But I didn't grow up at a place with that.
Every very well. I moved to Long Island, so it went there too.
To specifically wear Katie to Port Washington right.
Or Washington Long Island, which is Betsy Beers.
I lived in Huntington call Spring Harbor, Oyster Bay area, where we worked very hard not to have accents of any sorts so we could be as bland as possible, so I could develop an accent really fast to distinguish myself from the assholes with whom I grew up. No offense. If anybody's listening to me, you're sure you're great now from Oystervey, So you were How long did you live there? As a tiny little tot.
I grew up in Ozone Park till I was about seven or eight. My dad's a fashion photographer, which was very cool. I nice, you know, you know, you know, of course, when people think fashion photographer, they think Vogue or they think something you know, fancy. But he was a male order catalog photographer, which in the eighties and nineties and two thousands before everything went digital, this was huge. This was how people shocked. The Llban catalog came, the
Blair catalogs came. Yes, all of these catalogs, that's how people bought their clothes. And my dad was slammed busy. But growing up it was always very cool to have a parent who was an artist, a free lance artist.
You know.
My dad is like an actor. He's like a gig person. It's like he went from magazine to magazine and not doing the vogues or the oscar winning like he was doing the stuff that put the food on the table and with security and like we had great years and we had very lean years, and I got to see that sort of thing. And my dad always said, if you can make my hobby was always photography, And if you can make your hobby your job, you have you stand a chance of being happy.
That's that's so great.
So he was always very supportive of acting until I was twelve and I begged for an agent.
Wait did he ever? Did he ever photograph you, Katie?
For any to ask you that? Did you model for the cattle Hucks?
Right?
Well, remember when starter jackets were in?
Yes?
No, what are like big puffy, disgusting jackets have like the dolphins, Miami Dolphins like my jackets?
Yeah?
Whatever, So he rented out all of Metz Stadium for that photo shoot, and he thought it would be so fun if I like camee. But and so I did do some pictures, but guys, I am not model material. I'm not. I'm not, And that's fine. But he knew a lot of models who were also actors. And so when I begged at twelve for an agent and to do it professionally, my dad was like, absolutely fucking not.
He was like, no fucking way. He was like really, yeah, he just was around a lot of young girls who were doing this and he just was like, your mother is not driving you and your little brother around to auditions, You're going to school, you're focusing on school. You're gonna be with the family if you want a major in it. I think he was loving enough to even support that.
I mean, which is crazy, but he really was like, do community theater, do the high school plays, do dance class like I will support you through and through because it's just all I ever wanted to do. I was one of those fucking annoying children that was making everybody watch me perform at all times.
I am so sorry, but that's great advice that he gave you, Katie, right because that pushback, like, you know, I'm the same way like nobody. My parents could have been like you're not doing you're not acting. Ever, everybody could have turned me down, and I knew in my heart that I was going to do it no matter what. Same, So it was great advice because he was probably like, let me make sure that she really really wants to go into this profession. And you did and you continued and you did it.
First of all, you were born I know the answer to this, but go ahead and tell the listeners.
I was born in Washington Heights in Manhattan, in New York City, so you.
Can see we're all sort of like New York based, which is great. And when did you know, When did you first kind of get the inkling that maybe this is what you wanted to do.
I remember the exact moment, and oh wow. I was in high school. I was a sophomore in high school. So I was about seventeen, and my two best friends were going to be part of the Talent Show and they were doing the Beastie Boys and one of the guys that was playing Mike D, one of the beast Boys, dropped out. And till this point, I never thought about acting. I didn't care. I didn't even think about it. It was an interested in it. And I was like, and they asked me, will you be Mike D? You know,
will you join us for the Talent Show. It was like, in two weeks.
Awak something we all want to hear at some point in our lives. We all want to be asked to be Mike D. Exactly, go ahead.
And so I was like, yeah, sure, and then you know, the minute I hit that stage on that first before we had like two performances like a Thursday and a Friday night. I knew instantly that this is where I wanted to be and this is what I wanted to do. Wow.
Yeah, was it the crowd? Like the crowd roaring like in your head? Was it like you felt good being somebody else or you felt good because everybody was watching, or like what.
Was I think it was a I think it was a combination of all of that. Sometimes I think back in it's it makes me a little sad because in height, I had a really tough time in high school because I was bullied a lot and all that shit. And when I was on I remember being on stage all those people that bullied me were cheering and jumping up and down and clapping. So I associated being on stage and performing with people liking me and not fucking with
me anymore. So I think that's what drew me into it immediately, you know what I mean?
Yeah? And did you find as soon as you got off stage that people started to treat you differently?
Yeah? Absolutely. They were like, oh shit, you were so good man, And I was like you just you know, threw me down the fucking stairs and now you're like, yo, that was so good man.
Oh I bet they just want to be friends with you now and smoke a joint. I bet they regret that anyway.
Right exactly. Wow, See that's crazy. So Katie, from the very beginning you always kind of knew it, but Geirmo, it was like a lightning bolt for you.
Yeah. And then of course listen that's what That's what sort of lit me up. And I thought, oh my god, this is you know, everybody likes me, and this felt really good. But then, of course, with time I fell in love with acting and performing in the craft and all of it. So it wasn't just just that sort of you know, superficial if you will, feeling of like, oh, people like me. I grew to then fall in love with acting, So that felt really good.
Now did you go to school? Did you simply act in plays and kind of do stuff locally or did you go someplace and kind of make a big effort and go train.
You know what? I didn't. I remember like maybe a month after that that BC Boy performance, I started I started researching, and I found out about Backstage, which was a newspaper that we put about you know, auditions and open cars.
Yeah, I had a number put on me. It was like chorus line, I'm like dancing, and they're like, next, get the fuck out of there.
Horrible.
Also, I remember we all found our resume photos, like the photographers always advertised in backstage, and that's how you found the incredibly shitty photographer who took your first hyper creepy photo. And maybe, if you're lucky, you get like a triptych and it would be you as a wacky housewife for maybe playing a dentist, just as a policeman,
and it's like, it's it's great. Actually, I somewhere on my Instagram I have because I've only posted like five times, but somewhere on my Instagram, I have one of my first likedhots headshots. All there was a few years ago. We all put our headshots up. It's actually I should dig it up and you should do it too, because.
My dad took my first one. I have to from college. It's a night at the time of the airing of this podcast, we will release some of our first headshots.
Yeah, no exactly, but it's it is that weird thing. So you both did a backstage was just like torture on paper. You both did the sort of backstage thing Katie, you train, did you go to You went to school and did all that kind of stuff.
The same conversation literally like like I came out, you know, dancing and singing and acting. Oh God, I think that would annoy me so bad if that was either of my kids. Right now, I'm so sorry to my parents. But the same conversation where I said to my dad, like, I want an agent. I was in an acting class
when I was twelve. My mom found me, like some local thing in Long Island, and I would go and I did this, and that's when I was like, I want I did and my dad said no. And in that same conversation, I said, fine, I'm going to college and I'm going to study acting, and I'm living in New York City for the rest of my life. And I'm going to NYU and I'm only doing theater and I'm never going to learn how to drive because I'm
just taking to taking the subway forever. Yes, and I'm only going to speak in a theater voice for the rest of time. Darling.
Wait, you weren't even in high school yet yet.
I was thirteen. I was like about to be in high school. Wow, that was young for my grade. But so at you knew, Yes, I knew, and I remember my parents. I would figure it out, I would find it. I remember taking the Long Island Railroad train by myself to look at Tisch School the Arts and go to a visiting day and I sat there in the glee club saying walk in on broken Glass, and I was like, this is my school. This is my school. This is
my school. This is my school. But I had to go, and so I applied early decision and I think I got in and I this was that cheesy theater college
kid theater major at tishchool Yards. But then my parents it all took a hard left turn because little Katie musical theater smiling taping across the stage turned two experimental nudity nasturbatory dar everybody's naked, everybody's jerking off, everybody's calling at art for four years and my parents would come to every show because that's you're so wildly supportive and
would be like what the fuck was that? Like what like in these small thirty seat houses and my boobs are out and like my dad, you know, and I'm all making a stand like well you have to come, like this is my art and they're like, well, we're not bringing your fourteen year old brother, and I'm like, yes you are. If you love me at all, you will love the plays I'm making, which, by the way, I just want to say, like, yes, the art was trash. Okay, it was not good.
It wasn't well, I don't know, I don't know that that's a great I don't.
Know that said a lot of the people, like I wouldn't say. I mean, yes, I think the training was great, but really what NYU gave me was an amazing group of people who shockingly I keep running into them on the picket lines because it's so amazing. But so many of them actually ended up getting hired and actually getting paid to act or direct or write or produce, you know what I mean. And so for that, even though we made this craziest, stupidest, most experimental I mean, body
lice broke out in the experimental theater wing. That's how disgusting we were.
Rolling around were that is that is that's like that should be a whole class in itself. It's like body Light Theater two o five.
That's right, how to get rid of it?
We will be back with more after the break.
So wait now, gearmo, so take me back. So she's her tits are.
Hanging out in a black box theater.
In a black box theater, she's doing newer renditions of Sylvia Plath and really really wishes that she was, you know, in the performing garage. So that's where Katie is with Body Lice, with Body Look most importantly starring the Body Lice co starring Katie. So yeah heremo, so then, so Katie's like doing doing all that stuff, you find yourself, you start to audition for things. How quickly did you
actually start to work? And my memory, knowing a little bit about your family is they were not as loosey goosey as Katie's family in terms of a lot of stuff. But they were sort of vaguely supportive in a benign kind of way, weren't they.
Yeah, yeah, they were listen. So I started I started buying backstage, and I started freaking going up even for background work like I was applying for. Like I did a ton of extra work, which I'm so glad I did that because I feel like I super like totally paid my dues and and like Katie was saying earlier, I just wanted to act I wanted to be around actors. I wanted to be around directors. I wanted to be around that world. So I just kept finding a way to be around that. And a lot of it was
student films. I did a million student films for and Why You? Oh my god, I did so many NYU student films and School of Visual Arts, and and then I did I started doing a ton of children's theater all through backstage. I did children's theater for like two years, and I would get paid twenty bucks a performance, and we would do all the you know, children's fairy tales, like the Three Little Pigs and a Little Red Riding Hood.
Yeah.
God, I did not know that.
That's why this is so good, right, So Caramo, what did you play in the Three Little Pigs?
I was the wolf. I'm the one that blew the house down.
Amazing.
You're the star of the show.
Yeah, I have that a performance on VHS from me playing the wolf.
Can you believe I? If I don't get to see that, I'm gonna come over and punch you in the face.
Same I will be right behind you to kick you in the I know.
I got to get my parents to transfer it over to you know whatever video files.
That's amazing.
I remember playing the wolf and then when it came to the part where the wolf blows the house down, I would get all the kids up out of their seats in the theater to help me blow the house down. And that was the most exciting part, and the little kids would love it so much. So we were like a repertory company. It was called a playhouse something playhouse. Oh my god, I can't the courtyard playhouse that's what
it was called. Oh so yeah. I worked there for like two three years doing doing shows and we would get to pay like twenty bucks a performance or something like that.
It was basically yeah, yeah for tokens together. Yeah.
And then and then, you know, moving forward a little bit or fast forwarding a little bit, I saw an ad for a theater company called Intar Lab, and I went an auditioned and it was with Gary Perez and John Ortiz and Daphne were being Vega lies. So we
they started this theater company for latinos. So I began sort of my theater of training with all of those guys, and we would go into a theater that wasn't used anymore on fifty third between like tenth and eleven, and they would give us that space and let us just do our thing, and we would you know, read scenes and improv. I remember one time we dressed it was like kabooky night and they were like, just grab whatever shit you want and make up in costumes and come
on stage and doing a performance. It was stuff like.
That and unbelievable.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then into our Lab obviously became Labyrinth Theater Company. Yeah, with philippsymore Haw.
Yeah. Yeah. For anybody, any of the listeners who aren't familiar with that, it's one of the premiere theater companies in New York. And the fact that we're hearing about the roots of this is insane because I never knew any of that. That's amazing. No, I never knew anything. I never knew that you worked with this theater company, or if I did, I have the ausis and I forgot the.
Alsies in the instagram is I'm dead.
My first play was called rough House, and we did it. You know, it was the first It was the first intar lab production and John Ortiz played my brother and okay, so so much.
Wait a second, what was what was rough House about?
It.
Maybe Katie could have been in it from the sound she could have.
Yeah, it was a dysfunctional family who there was an alcoholic sister who you know ends up dying in a in a car crash because she was drunk driving. And it was just it was a really well written like dysfunctional family, uh drama.
It was your long day's journey in tonight exactly, except not as long.
Yeah, but also paint this picture. I love this, g tell Betsy because I love the story so much on our listeners. Like the crew that you were running and rolling around with in the theater at this time, like you got invited because you were. Daphne Rubin Vego was in there, yes to like a first reading in an apartment with.
Phanie were in Vega. Yeah, they were doing Rent is she I remember her coming into the.
Theater kidding like the first fucking.
Act one of those nights, and and Daphne was handing out. Daphanie was handing out or not handing out, she was giving us, you know, these little pamphlets saying, hey, I'm doing this new show called Rent. And yeah, we were there from the very beginning of that, and they were, you know, I don't think they really knew. Obviously they didn't know what it was going to turn into. But I think they started it at p S one twenty two is where they first started performing, and then it
got picked up from there. But yeah, I remember Daphanie being super excited and all of us checking it out, and then all of a sudden, next thing we knew it was.
You know, it was amazing.
Was John and Larson in the room when you were there?
I don't remember, I don't think so, I don't remember. Yes, he must have been.
He must have been if you were doing readings and workshopping and yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And then I all to remember, like Sam Rockwell being in the you know, in these in these uh these nights with us at the theater, and and you know, all of us were were nobody's We just and we all had that that love for acting though, and we we were so filled with passion and we were hungry to just act and that felt so good. And oftentimes I don't know about you, Katie,
but we do. You know, then you years later you started doing work and and you it's nice to sort of think back on those times and remember how much you love acting, and and why you really started doing it, and and and whenever I think about those times, it brings me back and it reminds me again of why I love acting so much and how lucky I am that I was able to have all those experiences and stuff. And then and and then at that at that play that I did, rough House, an agent saw me in
that play and signed me. And that's when I got my first, uh my first agent. So an agent came to see rough House. They were like John Ortiz's agent. I think it was a Lucy Kroll agency.
Yeah, Lucy Crol. Remember Lucy Croll. Yep, she wouldn't touch me.
She wouldn't touch me.
With the ten foot fucking poll people. And it turns up Lucy Kroll was smarter than we thought.
Piermo Yes, no, anyway, So then it all started started working from there.
Did you another just like question? And then I've got a follow up question because that's what I do. All I do is just have so many things I want to ask you. Okay, so did y'all do commercials at this point? Or did you audition for commercials? Did you get them? Did you not get them? Because that was when I was living in New York, and I was doing bad theater and comedy. The bread and butter was commercials, and I always had a I got like one or two, but I was kind of sucky at it. Yeah, I
was like I couldn't hold a baby. There were all these problems. And by the way, still true, dear listener. But so tell me a little bit about that, because when you're in New York, that's definitely something. Especially in those days, it became oh yeah, it just became a thing. Was always sort of write a passage. Germo. Did you do many commercials.
I didn't. I auditioned for them a ton. I remember doing a bunch of music videos for no money. No, it's just crazy, like rap music videos.
Music videos equals no money though. I mean, like, oh, I don't know anybody who got paid sometimes, including directors, unlike music videos.
Right, yes, yes, but I did like one beer commercial. I did a Coca Cola commercial in Spanish. I got cast in a lot of commercials in Spanish because I'm fluent in Spanish, but you know, the regular run of the mill commercials, on just American commercials, I was never cast. I don't think I was wide enough.
You know, oh my god at that age, well, and you know that was really I had a similar thing where like some really shady manager saw me in a show at NYU, like a maze stage, and he signed me and made and there was this like hefty contract and this guy was a real fucking shady shady mixed Shaderson and uh but you know he would get me
some auditions for shady shit. And but then like he got me with a commercial agent and I did start going out in commercials and I actually did book like that's how I. I did, like got flown to Indianapolis and guys, I was the face of Steak in Shake for about a fifteen episode slot where I had to go for two weeks and I did like fifteen commercials in two weeks where I was a Steak and Shake waiter and I was really really great at the waiting
tables part, bad at the acting in commercials part. And I just I remember feeling so terrible because they just made my lines less and less and less and less, like they started taking away more and more of my responsibility because they just weren't happy with what I was doing and it just felt terrible. But it was ten thousand dollars. It was non union, and that was like
the most money fucking ever. And then I got my SAG card SAG after it was separate at the time, by booking a birth control commercial wow, for the birth control patch. See. I always book the jobs where you actually have to have the thing because it cuts out a lot of the competition. Like, if you're auditioning for a commercial that's about a birth control patch, technically you have to be somebody who uses that shit. And at the time I was actually using this fucking birth control patch.
So that's how I got my SAG card, real fancy. And then similarly my first job, which I also beat out a lot of people who couldn't even get there because the line was, I don't eat fish the toxins while you're smoking a cigarette. And the joke is that you're inhaling a toxin, but you wouldn't eat a fish because of the toxins. And all the young girls didn't smoke, but I did.
I'm a smoker bitch, like, I'll smoke this shit.
Let's go go again. I only book the job when, like, for actual reasons, most of them have been cut out already.
Unbelievable. So I so.
Oh, but I do remember moving to LA and never booking a commercial again because it was so different.
Yes, now, both of you, it would be curious to hear. So, Katie, obviously there came a point where you where you had to make money and you weren't making enough money acting and years of that. So tell us a little bit about what you did.
Yeah, I had.
So.
I mean, you know, there's a reason a lot of actors wait tables or bartend, and it's because you can work at night and you can be in an audition class in the day or actually make it to auditions if you're lucky enough to have them. And so in New York the minute I graduated school, and it's incredible that I even made it that far with someone supporting me. My dad was like, I'm done. Like, here's the info for your health insurance, here's the info for your cell phone,
here's what your rent costs, here's a metro card. Good luck. And so I started my first waiting tables gig in New York City was at bb King's Jazz and Blues Club and Times Square and it was a fucking nightmare. Wow, I had anxiety attacks nightly, and I actually had to leave because I had my first real anxiety attack when like, like there was a band playing. You have tables of hundreds of people. You can't hear anything because it's a live music show, and you're screaming and running around and
it was horrible. And then I started waiting tables at a much better, like theater restaurant that had a that was in the theater district, so you would get slammed from five to seven forty five and then everybody was gone. It was great, little privately owned Italian joint. Shout out Cafe Cello fifty third and eighth Avenue for anyone who's ever been there. It was right around the corner from the Letterman Show. And I was really good at waiting
tables once I got the hang of it. I was never cool enough to I filled in for bartenders here and there, but I was never cool enough. I'm such a waitress and not a bartender. I don't know what that means, but that was who I was.
Oh, I bet people loved you though. You're so great with people, You're so personable. Thanks.
When I got the hint to move out, like oh shit, you know, in New York. I got my equity card, I got my sad card. I'm working, but I cannot get ahead. I can't make a savings. This is so fucking hard. Maybe if I try a late it'll be different. Nope. Waited tables in La Forever too. Shout out to Ammo on Highland just north of Santa Monica. It was a big.
Power, gigantic power place. And the irony is there is a very large likelihood because I used to go there every week. There's a very large likelihood that at some point before I knew Katie Lowe's she waited on me.
Oh, I waited on you. I fucking waited on everybody.
I know so much to recreate that we do after we watch Skirimo's tape of Like the Wolf, I think we got a lot of catching up to do on this.
I waited on everyone. You fucking name it justin Timberlake, Orlando Bluem, Mick Jagger, Both Cohen, Dan Jinks, Ryan Murphy, every fucking day Table seventeen. Don't fuck with him not sitting at table seventeen. He will ream you out. It will be back, oh, Ava Mendez, Ryan Gosling, Jake Jill and Halls.
Oh s, no, wonder was so hard for me to get a table. See that's that makes total sense because, like I'm sorry.
For it was Ryan Murphy, Katie Holmes, Kirsten Duns, everybody. I mean, our regulars were so crazy who And it was really it was kind of fun because it was so Hollywood and I was such a New Yorker and I really hadn't been around a lot of stalls.
Do you know what I mean?
And yeah, and it was really it was an amazing community because all my friends guess how I got the job. The friend from NYU all moved out here and we're working an AMMO before me and got.
My I'm telling you this is the way this stuff works. Now. At any point at that point did you feel like quitting or giving up or was there any a point where you all you ever just sort of went, yeah, I've got a pivot, Like I've got a pivot.
No, I know, in my gut, I knew I was never gonna quit, but I sure as fuck cried a lot, Like I just cried, Like again, I think I had had this sort of I had had this sort of sparkly uh childhood of acting, meaning like, you know, I was the lead in the plays and I always got the part I wanted. And so as soon as I realized, oh shit, this is really hard. I'm twenty one years old. I can't book a job to save my life. Nobody cares.
I'm one in a billion. Everybody's like me. I'm literally sitting in rooms where all the girls look like me, and all the girls are good, and I don't know why someone would take a chance on me. And I think I'm gonna be waiting tables till the end of time, and I can't. Every month when the first comes around, I'm back at zero, Like I only ever made enough to just just.
To pay the rent to get food, Yeah.
One hundred and fifty dollars phone bill. I was on the lowest health insurant, you know all that shit. So it was just such a grind. And guys, I wasn't only waiting tables. I was waiting tables at night running to This was at a time when the business was very different. I would have like a million auditions and
not get them. But I would also be like side hustling, like babysitting for this family over here to make a few extra bucks, or like, oh, Disney is asking you to come in and do a few like scratch voices for one hundred dollars for six hours of work, and then you're going to start a theater company with your friends because it's the only thing that gives you any sort of purpose, or like make sure your artistic soul isn't dying, you know, in the busser line to clean
the dishes. But you know, I think that everyone. I wish it was mandatory that everybody.
Yeah, work to go through that. Hell yeah, I agree.
Wait, Garamo, did you wait on tables too? Or did you do something else?
I didn't? I didn't, I did. I did so many different things. I worked at the Javit Center, at the concession stand.
Listen, that's the service industry.
Yeah, sure is.
I had a crazy job which I loved, where I would hold a box full of cassette tapes for this musician that would play the guitar in the subway, so we would go. I would meet him at like thirty four Street in Pestation or forty second Street in Times Square. He would call me and tell me where to meet him, and then I would just sell his tapes and then he would give me out of it was like forty bucks he would give me for the night. But I did that for a while and I was I loved doing that.
So I spent a lot of time in the subway with this guy playing his guitar and selling his tapes.
Do you remember his name?
I don't. I wish I did.
It's the kind of music. What was the music it was?
It was kind of folky, but it was all original stuff. It was. He had really long hair, long black hair. He was into it though, And I sold a lot of tapes, like people bought his son.
For a second. How did you? How did you meet? Like like this guy who sang folky stuff.
A friend of mine had that job before me, and he was moving on and he was like, yermo, do you want to do this job? And I was like yep, So he passed along the job. My friend Robbie masonutt I still remember his name. He's great. He's a director now and he's he's created a lot of great theater.
And then I had a job at a at a photo stock agency called Retina, where I would I would file photos, slides and eight x ten photos of celebrities and I did that for a bunch of years, and and you know, so paparazzi photographers would come into the office and sort out all their material and then I would have to file it.
And it's the weirdest job I've ever heard my life. Hours. Was it like nine to five?
Yeah, it was like nine to five, yep. And I would be there filing pictures of celebrities all day long, and of course I would get to see, you know, Madonna's file. I would get to see all the new Madonna paparazzi photos that would come in. And they all knew I was a big Madonna fan, so they would be like, looky Emma, we just shot Madonna and this is unbelievable.
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
We'll be right back. Guys.
Now, did you did you ever get to a point through all this where you actually considered quitting?
You know what? No, Just like Katie, I knew in my heart that I was never going to quit. They were really hard times, and I cried too, But even with all the rejection and all the insecurity that I had, I wish I had the freaking courage and the strength I had during that time, because nothing was going to take me down. I never had one ink of a doubt that I was not going to make it.
You gotta want it so bad.
Can you imagine?
I try to tell people, I'm like, how hard it is to get a job, right, like, and how much you put on the line of like insecurity, and you know, and most people probably interview for X amount of jobs in their lifetime. What what twenty thirty, I don't know something
like that. Actors are doing that hundreds. I mean, if you're lucky, en, if you're really in the game and you're auditioning a lot, I mean, you're getting opportunity and told no hundreds and thousands of times a year, and some of them you get really close, some of them you're some of them you really want, like you are like like, I mean, that's what I mean. So you're you're it's such a hard career and that your heart
broke in a lot. You have to be kind of naively hopeful, like today is going to be different than the rest of this year where I haven't gotten shit, Like it's just like so crazy.
But it would also like I don't know about you, Katie, but it would drive me even more when I got a rejection. When I get didn't get a job, I would be like, you know what, fuck this shit I'm getting? Then it would it would make me even more passionate for the work and to get that next job, you know what I mean. It made me stronger. And I think a lot of people, I think that's what. You know, a lot of actors that that A are pursuing acting.
I think that's what. That's when you you discover who who really wants it bad enough and who doesn't, because then there's that group of I have a lot of friends that were actors that were just like I just couldn't do it. It was too much, and they you know, they they fell away, and but then there were there were the group that continued on and most of them made it, you know.
The perseverance man.
All your stories are so interesting and inspiring because you all figured out a way to both stay yourselves and adapt to the marketplace. And part of the reason I'm asking all these questions is it's sort of like a lot of this has to do with constantly pivoting. It's like Katie goes to Los Angeles, it's totally different New York. So she constantly pivots in order to figure out a way both to fit in but remain the talented.
If you remember, I stood on a fucking soapbox and said, I'm living in New York till the day I die, and I'm not even learning how to drive a car. I had to move to Los Angeles, in the hardest driving town of all fucking time, and I got my first car was from a company called rent Toreck, where.
You were rand that could afford yes.
Right, it was three hundred dollars a month for a fucking beater piece of shit. And I remember landing at Lax. I'd spent all my money on the ticket, getting my rent to wreck and driving on the ten in the right lane because I had driven like ten times. I mean, I got my license my mom forced me when I was eighteen, but I had never practiced, like I had never really spent a lot of time behind the wheel. I'd probably logged I don't know, twenty hours driving and
then I'm on the fucking ten. Guys, not I got in so many car accidents when I'm moved out here, and thankfully not like scary big ones, just like dumb ones like I hit a parked car like stupid shit.
But that is the best metaphor, by the way, that's the best metaphor. I didn't know how to drive, and I got in a car and I did it anyway, right, Yeah, yeah, because that's what you all have to do, which is you're constantly and you're also you know, so part of this whole world, which most people know obviously is the audition, but you're constantly walking into different rooms and you're having to deal with how do I assess and adjust to
this energy? All through this, like throughout all this for both of you, is there like like a person who you always sort of saw as, for lack of a better expression, your north star, like were there was there somebody or people who like you always felt like you did your best work for you, felt like they had your back, that also were your inspiration for things.
I had a professor in college that the men I did any kind of work on the stage in the one sort of uh drama. There were like three drama courses. I went to Baroque College, which was not a theater college at all. It was a business school that Jlo went to. But of course, right, but of course I gravitated towards the theater department and did all the plays at the school. And but I had one professor, professor that believed in me more than I believed in myself.
And she, you know, for the duration of me being in in in the school, and even after that, she she was always like, like you said, she was like my my guiding light, like my my my northern star. And she again, she just believed in me more than I believed in her. In every job I did, you know, whether it was theater or TV or film or whatever. I always thought of her. She died shortly after I
graduated college, unfortunately from cancer. But she's always been in sort of my heart and in my head and I always I always always think of her all the time because she was just such a wonderful guiding light for me.
And she's somebody you really did your best work for in a weird way, alive or even after she passed away, it's like, yeah, she was still there voice in the back of your head going that was greater, you can do better, or so to this day, yeah it's amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing.
I had like for me. Again, I think I don't know if it's because of n YU or that I don't know, Like me and g together were just such and even how us three met, Like I'm such a community person, yep, but I do find such a sense of Oh I went to n Yu. Then this group of friends all worked at the same restaurant, and then this group of friends made a theater company, and then this group.
It doesn't have to be one.
This group is like this group. I'm thinking about them right now. I'm in an acting class. I'm never not an acting class. I fucking love acting class more than anything. And yes, our clothes are on and there's no longer body license.
You could change that, you could change. You have that power, Katie.
Well, yeah, I did hear that there is a life outbreak in the tkse uh the little kids classroom at my kids school. Okayidd get that I have to say, Like I get such strength from I've always been like a let's put up scenes with my friends, and they hold me to the highest accountability of what I can deliver. And I feel the same way with them, And and I get to do work there that no one that the professional world has never seen me do, Like I get to play part like Martha and who's afraid of
Virginia Woolf? For right now, I'm working on Private Lives and Noel cow would play and we're talking like this and I'm wearing to slap of clothes. Who the fuck is going to let me do that and get paid for it? No one. So it's just I've always held myself to being around other actors who I think are awesome and they think I'm good, and I ask a lot of them and they ask a lot of me, and I just need that space constantly and always. And the only other person I'll say is Benny Boom, who
was the manager at AMMO. If you're an actor and you're listening and you have to have a side hustle to pay your bills and all that, like if you actually have a boss who supports that you're doing it versus is angry at you for doing it, it is the key because I used to leave him high and dry, have to run to auditions and callbacks and stuff, And I would say to him, Benny, when I am here, I'm going to be the greatest waitress caterer you've ever seen.
And sometimes it's going to suck, and I'm going to be late because I'm going to be coming from the valley to a callback some show procedure not procedural. I will be coming back. And he would always say, kill it, break a leg. I got you, And then I would come back and he'd be like, howout the man? And I I love that guys. He's the manager at Jelena right now, which is a very restaurant in Venice. And if you ever see Benny More, to.
Drop your name, baby, because let's go. I want it.
He is the greatest human being and was and he believed in me, like he was like I knew you were going to make it because you worked so hard. And I worked so hard at that restaurant. Man, I did because he he deserved it. Like I was like, this is the best, dude. And I'm going to tell Jake Dyllenhall that he can have his alg apple lemon ginger juice without ice this morning, and I'm going to remake that latte because we didn't do a really good job and we fucked it up. We're like whatever it wants.
Yes, you were fucking top notch, top drawer in that restaurant.
See, but that is that's and it also just speaks to it. It seems like to sech a degree the importance of that kind of community and the importance of that connection. And look, it's why we're all doing this podcast is because we all are unified by this incredible love and certainly my insane respect for what you all do,
obviously because I know how hard it is. And I also I mean, it's the things that people don't realize when you walk into a room in your auditioning and people aren't even looking at you, they're talking on their phone there. I mean, things that I would not believe would have ever happened, you live through on a regular basis. And that so the people who are around you, who support you, who believe on you, believe on you. That would be a really dangerous position. I want to believe
on you. I believe on you. It's very odd, but I think that's I think that's really it's really important because three quarters of how we all survive in this is whatever workplace family you're in. And you know, Katie, you create an entire theater company that gives people a safe space and supports them to do what it is they do. And gearamaust so much of the work that
you've done and the energy that you put forth. Even when you do the amazing genres that you do, you know like you dig into it and that every single person to a letter always says, you know, when I work with Gearmo, I feel like I just feel safe and loved and respected. And it's that's so much of I think what we're always craving for, which is a community where we can be super different in ways, but we have this one thing in common and that's what's like super cool totally.
And I think also coming from where Katie I came from, we don't. I don't. We don't take shit for granted, right right, Like every day I'm on set, no matter what, to this day, I'm like, oh my god, I got to do my best. Like I'm so grateful for this job.
And if I hadn't come up through you know, background work and working in the subway and you know theaters and student films, I don't think i'd have that sort of you know, appreciation and gratitude for any time I work, you know, And I hope that never goes away.
Is there anything you really want to do that you haven't got a chance to do yet? Look if you guys can see Katie's face. So Katie's face, her eyeballs just popped out. Her eyeballs.
Oh yeah, I say for sure. I mean I feel so like, oh I want All I wanted to do was like was was you know, a procedural I wanted to do. That's so bad. I knew I would be great at it, and and and and beyond. All I wanted to do was a series regular on television, and like great, And then all I wanted to do was a wife on a sitcom. All I wanted to do is a wife on a sitcom. And all I wanted to do was a Broadway musical. And I feel so fucking grateful that I need to check those things off.
And now I'm like, all I want to do is like sci fi or like I mean, I want to do something fucking weird sci fi, like oh yeah, and then I want to do horror, like I got I've got a fucking sick scream and I can run and I can be really.
So I'm just going to tell you something. She does have a really sick scream.
I want to do that, like I think I could do so Like there's just so many cool things I've never done period, Like I would love to do seventies or eighties. I've never gotten to do something.
Where it's like sixty seventies and eighties.
Whoo.
And I have a great head of hair for that. What the fuck people do?
I'm telling you all, she's wearing like aviators from nineteen sixty nine.
You I could do it. I can do it. So I think there's a little bit of that, like I'm a little bit I feel bad, but you know when you I audition a lot for like modern comedies where we're just sort of like trying to be funny and we're speaking like how we speak. So I'd like to do something that's like more elevating, like if it is period, or maybe it's horror or like a psychological thriller or sci fi that's weird and everything gets to be a
little bit more presentational, Like that's cool for me. I'm super pumped about that, and I'm putting it out guys, which.
Also like, let's see you do something we're totally surprised you're doing.
Yeah, right, what about you, Germo?
What about you?
Sir? Yeah?
I thought I loved you more than anything. Katie and I can't love you even more now knowing that you want to do horror and sci fi because you know that my number one love is horror movies and horror horror, and oh my god, let's freaking do a fucking horror movie or a sci fi movie together. And it's so funny just to go back really quickly. You grew up in Port Washington, and you know I'm all down for
all the horror stuff. But yes, I was gonna mention Amityville Horror, which was a house that was haunted in Long Island. But I've never ever done like a proper, proper horror film, so I still really want to do that. And I want to do Shakespeare. I'm terrified, terrified, and I know ke yes, please, and I know listen. I remember on set Katie sometimes Katie would go into a soliloquy from a Shakespeare play and know it by heart of something she did, like I don't know how many years ago.
I feel like a dignity and Favarona, where we lay out blood makes sibil hands unclean, and from fourth the fatal loins of these two foes, a pair of star cross lovers take their life. I could go on for I've got tet.
I love it, so I want to do that, but I'm scared ship but I'm down hard.
Would you want to do I.
H I would love to do the Scottish play.
I think you should do the Scottish play. I think your Scottish play is a really really good idea.
I love Caesar.
Yeah, I also like the weird thing. And I'm not going to nerd out on this, but anyway, Coriolanus is very underrated. I'll just say that.
That, peoples, that's a little bit rated.
That's a little bit of pretension for a day where you're listening to a podcast.
I think I've ever seen Coriolanus done.
Yeah, well I have back in the geriatric days. It was amazing. It's about a guy with a mother complex. It's awesome.
Oh.
I love that.
I can usually figure out a way to redo anything into one sentence, which is not really accurate, but at least it makes you think I know what I'm talking about. So, as we wrap up this amazing deep dive into both of your lives, as we understand more what makes you tickies? So are you pretty much? If it all ended today, I would imagine you're all pretty proud of the work you've done.
Right, absolutely fuck yeah, right, yeah.
I can't fucking believe anyone anywhere ever, was like, here is a check for your acting services. I cannot. I still am shocked, Like I'm like, wait, what I mean. It's truly Uh, it's so hard, as you all have heard, to be employed as an actor, and I just can't. Sometimes I'm like driving my minivan around and I'm like, I can't believe I like have a minivan that I or from acting. It's insane. That's insane. It's insane, right,
it's one in a billion. And it's really like my dad said, like like I just feel like I'm happiest on set and I love my job and I can't believe that I've gotten to do it, and I hope I get to do it again. That's like really yeah, And I don't want to wait tables again. I don't want to.
Be no, no, no no. I think it's one of the germo. I'm assuming you feel the same way. It was sort of.
A absolutely oh yeah.
For what everything that we all do. I just every day get up and I feel so incredibly lucky and I am so passionate about it, and I'm I feel like that's that's the beauty of your work because you can see that coming through. You can see the hard work, but you never make you never make it look hard. You just know there must have been hard work somewhere. And so anybody who's listening to this, when you see these two work again, you're gonna know what the journey
is and the work is behind the scenes. But what you see looks incredibly easy, and that's because they're really fucking good at what they do. But thank you for doing this. It's been so much fun packing and unpacking and then putting more crap in the bag and pulling out a screwdriver and then drinking exactly exactly. But this was really fun.
Oh, it was such a blast. And we've had you on unpacking the toolbox, so we people who are interested can actually go back and listen about how Betsy Beers became the prolific twoty beer.
So the garbage pale that is my strange past career.
It's so interesting because you were good and interest in a lot of different weird fucking things that sort of all came together to make you so incredible at what you do and in episodes coming up. We have awesome gas coming up.
Really, Like, I think what's super exciting about this is if you've enjoyed, Like, if you've enjoyed listening today's podcast, you've got to treat in store because we have some people lined up who have incredibly surprising stories.
Yep.
I think it's we all feel like it's it's just great to understand how people that we've worked with got to where they get what it is they do, because I believe that a lot of people out there may want to work in this business but may not know exactly what it is they want to do. And it's
why I'm always preaching up producing. You see actors, you see directors, you hear about writers, but there are all these other incredible jobs that you honestly could not put anything on without the participation of these folks and learning a bit about what they really do do, where they come from, how they got there. I think it's going to be really fun and yes, I'm really looking forward to it, and I can. I can if I get to god back and guys.
Of our trio. Betsy is the she is the most talented interviewer.
So I don't think I.
Have Betsy asked the questions while Germo and I just put in some funny interstitials.
I think I think y'all have been doing just fine old job burning a podcast yourself. This is about the fact I like hanging out with you too, and this is the easiest way to do it at the moment because you're both really busy.
We're lucky.
Well, it's this was really fun. That would be it for us.
Yes, stay tuned, we'll be interviewing and unpacking some other peeps from the industry on Unpacking the tool tool Box the industry.
Thank you, Betsy, Thank you Katie, Thank you Katie.
That was such a black That was fun. Yea Scandal is executive produced by Sandy Bailey, Alex Alcea, Lauren Homan, Tyler Klang, and Gabrielle Collins. Our producer and editor is Vince de Johnny, with music by Chad Fisher. Unpacking the Toolbox is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the iHeartRadio app or anywhere you subscribe to your favorite shows.