The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast - Actress & Director Tommy Dorfman On Owning Your Identity, Overcoming Bullying, & Learning From Different Perspectives

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

#638: Today we're sitting down with actress, writer, photographer, and director, Tommy Dorfman. Tommy graduated with a degree in acting from Fordham University in 2015. First known for her role as Rya...n Shaver on 13 Reasons Why, Tommy has since worked in television, film, and theater - recently starring in Jeremy O. Harris' hit play Daddy at The Signature. In this episode Tommy shares here experience as a trans person and we discuss all things trans rights and perspectives. We dive into how to have an impactful conversation surrounding the LGBTQ community, how to be an ally and ask questions, and what people can do to support the trans community. We also dive into her experience in childhood, how she was bullied from a young age and hid her identity for years. struggled with substance abuse & how she finally decided to own her identity.  To connect with Tommy Dorfman click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To subscribe to our YouTube Page click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential. This episode is brought to you by Momentous Visit livemomentous.com/skinny and use code SKINNY at checkout for 15% off your first purchase. This episode is brought to you by HVMN Ketone-IQ™ is brain fuel. It’s a clean energy boost without sugar or caffeine. Visit HVMN.com/SKINNY to receive 30% off your first subscription order of Ketone-IQ. This episode is brought to you by Nutrafol Nutrafol is the #1 dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement, clinically shown to improve your hair growth, thickness, and visible scalp coverage. Go to nutrafol.com and use code SKINNYHAIR to save $10 off your first month's subscription, plus free shipping. This episode is brought to you by Quince Get affordable luxury with Quince. Go to Quince.com/skinny to get free shipping and 365-day returns on your next order. This episode is brought to you by Beis Beis has thought of everything you could ever want in a piece of luggage...360 degree gliding wheels, a cushioned handle, built-in weight indicator, washable bags for your dirty clothes, and all the interior pockets you need to keep organized. Go to beistravel.com/skinny for 15% off your first purchase. Produced by Dear Media

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Starting point is 00:00:00 The following podcast is a Dear Media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to The Skinny Confidential, him and her.
Starting point is 00:00:21 I had this other passion of acting and performing and storytelling and I was directing stuff in high school. Also felt like I was really good at that and had a sort of like quality about me, if you will. I had a lot of people in my life be like, oh, you could totally be an actor. It also became kind of my ticket out of Atlanta. So I went to like a film acting camp in LA, New York Film Academy for a summer in high school
Starting point is 00:00:48 and it exposed me to Los Angeles. I made a bunch of friends, like met nepo babies for the first time as we've come to love and know them and realized how much bigger the world was. This episode with Tommy Dorfman blew my mind. The vulnerability in this episode is out of control. I really felt like I got a unique perspective of what it was like for Tommy to grow up. She revealed in an interview that she had been privately identifying and living as a woman for
Starting point is 00:01:23 almost a year. She chose to retain her birth name of Tommy, which she feels very connected to. And in this episode, you'll really see the behind the scenes of what she's been through. She was horribly bullied when she was young, and it was really interesting to see through her eyes how it affected her. She also is a highly accomplished actress, writer, photographer, and director. And this interview is fascinating. I actually loved it out of all the interviews we did in New York. This was my favorite. I think Tommy is living life on her own terms.
Starting point is 00:02:02 And I think it's really cool to see the evolution of it all. On that note, let's welcome Tommy Dorfman to the Him and Her show. This is the Skinny Confidential Him and Her. Talk to us about your childhood. You told me you grew up in Georgia. Yeah, I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm the youngest of five siblings. Wow. Two of which are half siblings, one's adopted. So kind of like a melting pot family dynamic, if you will.
Starting point is 00:02:28 There's a 14-year age gap between me and my eldest brother. My parents worked in the car industry up until very recently. They both retired from that. And yeah, I grew up around like football, you know, go dogs, Georgia football. My dad played. I grew up in the suburbs briefly, and then we moved into Midtown. And I was a weird kid. I was a trans kid in the early 90s.
Starting point is 00:02:55 My parents, while super liberal to an extent, as liberal as you can be in the South at a certain time period, right? Very progressive and growth mindset people and entrepreneurial and well-traveled enough that they understood that the lived experience of Georgia and Alabama and New Hampshire, where my mom is from in Ohio, was not the, I would say, the blueprint for the rest of the world. So they were really supportive of me expressing myself in a myriad of ways growing up. And so I wore a lot of girls' clothes and expressed a really feminine side as a kid that while it was celebrated, I guess, at home in a lot of ways,
Starting point is 00:03:39 it wasn't necessarily understood. There wasn't language to support that. My parents didn't have resources. Media was in a completely different landscape. Queer representation was not super accessible beyond like Will and Grace or terrible portrayals of queer people and trans people. So I think my parents just did the best of what they had. They really just tried to support me as a kid. And I was an artsy kid. I was a ballet dancer my whole childhood. I was into Bikram yoga. I was doing musical theater, which segued into acting, directing as a kid, making little short weird videos. It just was all over the place with my interests, like super undiagnosed ADHD, which I've recently been diagnosed and starting to like find ways to treat. But I think with expressing myself in a way that society didn't know how to
Starting point is 00:04:33 handle as a kid, I was met with a lot of conflict and a lot of bullying and a lot of like things that could, I think, have dampened my individuality and certainly put a filter on that and I learned how to contain parts of myself for safety. But it also gave me a certain amount of tough skin and street smarts to be a chameleon in my life. And on one hand, that can be a great resource. And on the other hand, I've had to relearn who I am and who I want to be in the world and not feel like I need to perform or present for people for safety or for acceptance. So it was an interesting childhood for sure. I mean, all of my siblings are cis and straight, married kids, divorced kids, living in Atlanta still to this day. And I was always, you know, black sheep,
Starting point is 00:05:27 if you will, of the family. How did you process bullying at a young age? I've had to rely as an adult on the lived realities of other people in my life. Trauma for me, my response is like, I don't remember. There are gaps in my memory from childhood from abuse, whether it's verbal, emotional abuse at school or as I got into my mid-teens, early adulthood, I took to drugs and alcohol of cope with the outside world and found myself in a lot of other situations, sexual abuse, other things. So I kind of have a very blotchy memory of childhood and I've had to rediscover in my 20s and now I'm in my early 30s how I handled situations. And so from what I understand, I, and I have like weird little letters that I had written myself or like mantras that I'd written myself as a kid, just for strange thing to do now that you think about it. But I guess if you're like desperate for help or comfort or safety,
Starting point is 00:06:34 like you, you look to different tools to find that. But I'm pretty, I was, I was like a get back up kind of kid. I was like a fall down, push me down. I'm going to get back up. And where do you think that comes from? I think it's just like an innate rule breaking kind of fuck the patriarchy, like spirit that I have. I don't know how I've been fucked. It was like, I feel like I sound like a bumper sticker right now and that's not the intention,
Starting point is 00:07:01 but I just think I kind of I became okay really early on that like I saw the world differently than other people around me and I could like I said kind of adjust myself accordingly. And then you know puberty hits and like everyone's kind of going through weird shit and so
Starting point is 00:07:19 that's when I stopped presenting in more feminine ways in my childhood because I just honestly like I remember the one thing I do remember is just being over it like I was over people making fun of me I was over getting threatened I was over getting like hit I was over coming home and from what I can remember like sobbing at the dining table with my family we always ate family dinner together like we're super super tight-knit and then rinsing and repeating. And I had to transfer schools in third grade as a result of it. This is early.
Starting point is 00:07:49 So this is early adolescence, right? And then I went to like a more progressive school in Atlanta called Paideia, which preached a lot of things, but didn't necessarily practice that in the DNA, which is fine, but it was definitely a safer space for me to explore myself and be myself. And it made being gay really easy, honestly. That wasn't a problem in high school when I came out at 14 as a gay boy.
Starting point is 00:08:17 But at that point, I had already swallowed so much of my trans identity and the girl in me, if you will. And I, I went through like a very like nasty kind of straight boy period in middle school where I was like, had like a bunch of girlfriends and like was having sex at a really young age and like smoking. You were having sex with girls. Yeah. When I was like in my early teens. And then when I was 14, I started dating guys. And I think I just, you know, I dealt with it by keeping myself really busy, which is probably why I'm still so busy. Did you feel compelled to start having sex with women to kind of rebel against what people, either the way people were bullying you or to prove people? I really, being the youngest child, I really looked up to my siblings, especially my brother, who's closest in age to me. And he was an early developed kid.
Starting point is 00:09:09 And so I thought there was a status quo I had to hit or a quota, if you will. So I felt like it gave me a certain amount of protection to have girlfriends and have these experiences at a really young age. And I was always watching really mature television and film and reading books that were well beyond what I should have been reading as a fifth grader and a sixth grader. And the internet was flourishing at that time for millennials like myself. And we had access to things that even my older siblings didn't have access to in high school how old are you if you don't mind me i'm 31. okay yeah so we're about five years older than
Starting point is 00:09:49 you okay so 87 yeah 87 my brothers yeah we i always say we're on the cusp where like lauren and i didn't get the full like iphone experience until we got out of college like it was like i think it came out we were the group that when you signed up for facebook you could only use it if you were had a college email address right and like everyone brought out a full digital camera and then uploaded the entire album that night the night of but so like well yeah no no i have i recently was going through my facebook download because i deleted my facebook when my first tv show came out that ended up being really successful so i was was like, oh, fuck no. People cannot see these photos. And it's crazy that we would post hundreds of photos at a time. And now we've posted one and it has to be the perfect one.
Starting point is 00:10:34 Maybe once a week. I want to know, you looking back as an adult now and seeing all of these young kids bullying you. Why do you think that that happened? Do you think it's because that they were ingrained with that from their parents? Do you think people are just scared of seeing something different when you reflect as an adult and look back at all those people? Why do you think that they were bullying? I think people are really afraid of the unknown. And like the best way for me to speak about transphobia especially is just to say that like to be trans and like to transition in a public way and like own this part of yourself and to choose to embark on that journey. Because it's not a choice to be trans, but like there are things that we can do
Starting point is 00:11:25 to affirm our identity, whether it's medical or spiritual, so many different ways. Coming out in and of itself is stepping into that part of your identity. That kind of autonomy and self-assuredness and clarity is so scary to people on a global level. It's also interesting, though, because even though you're talking about being bullied, to me, there's a confidence that you were that you were yourself, no matter what people thought. So that's it's interesting. It's you don't sound like you were insecure about who you were. You sound super confident and self-assured. And maybe that was something that that the the kids were insecure about, if that makes sense. Oh, totally. And I think that's kind of what I mean about this. Practicing autonomy is in
Starting point is 00:12:09 direct conflict with humanity who just does what their parents did and what their dad's dad did. We inherit our DNA and we inherit circumstance. And so I think for me to go against the grain so, I guess, profoundly at that time was really challenging for people it was challenging for my peers it was challenging for my siblings at times I'm sure I know it was challenging for my parents only because they were scared for me there was a big fear around like my safety from a really young age especially we have young kids and to think like of our kid coming home and crying at the table and being bullied like yeah I don't know how I don't know if I'd be able to contain myself so i think like to your parents
Starting point is 00:12:47 credit that must have been hard very hard yeah they're they have a really beautiful parenting style that i will not fully adopt but take pieces of as we all probably have from our families but they really gave me the room to make decisions for myself, probably younger than I maybe should have. But by nature of that, I developed a sense of self-assuredness and confidence, which has definitely propelled me in my career as an adult, this kind of dumb faith that I can just do whatever. And also liberating. No fear of failure. I mean, I fail all the time. And as my public facing stature has grown, my fear of failure has seeped in a little bit more.
Starting point is 00:13:39 It's like if you like learned how to ski when you're a kid, you can just bomb down the mountain as a kid. But then you get older and you're like, oh, wait, my knees kind of hurt. Oh, this is steep. I'm taller now. This looks steeper. As I've climbed, trudged sort of up the mountain of Hollywood or whatever the fuck, I've developed new fears that I never had before. I mean, I was just like dead set on being an actor and not just being an actor, but like being a famous actor and like building a life for myself and directing and making television shows. Like I was like, I had a really clear and then working in fact, like I, and I was like, I can do all these things. Like there's no, there's no problem. And I think a lot of that stems from one, having entrepreneurial
Starting point is 00:14:18 parents who understood what it meant to like try things out and like fall on your face and get back up and to developing thick skin from like having to combat ignore you know I morphed into a lot of different versions of myself to protect myself no doubt what does that mean when you say that you've said that I mean like you said you've been a chameleon what does that like give us an example yeah I would I mean I literally only wore girls clothes up until I was 11. And I don't know exactly what happened. But what I do know is I lit those clothes on fire in my driveway. What age did you start wearing women's clothes? As soon as I started dressing myself.
Starting point is 00:14:57 What age is that? I have a three-year-old. What age is that? Like three, four. No, I was very, very clear. I was like, and they'd be like, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'd be like, I'm a princess. Like, I'm going to be a princess. So I'd be like I'm a princess like I'm gonna be a princess you always I want to be a girl's clothes always yeah no and I just loved loved you know things that we would associate with girl you know like I loved Barbie and like all of the kind of like tropey queer narratives and you don't you
Starting point is 00:15:19 don't know why you burned your clothes at 11 I I know that I was fucking sick of being made fun of. And I was like sick of people asking me questions about what I was wearing and picking on me. And I was like, I was ready for a reinvention. And at the time, so I have two younger siblings. Okay. Two younger sisters, actually. And as an older brother, like I was very protective of them. One's nine years younger than me.
Starting point is 00:15:44 One's three years younger than me. You had older brothers. Oh, I was very protective of them. One's nine years younger than me. One's three years younger than me. You had older brothers. Oh, he was so protective. And when they see kids bullying you, how does that manifest with them? I mean, someone punched me with a school book, from what I remember, hit me with their backpack. And the textbook cut my eye when I was in kindergarten. My brother was the only overlap we had at a school.
Starting point is 00:16:06 It was kindergarten, and he was in in fifth grade about to go into sixth grade which at that time was middle school in Georgia in our public school system. And I don't know exactly what happened but I know that kid got fucked up for sure. Okay, so your brothers were protective of you. Very protective, worried for me. And so when I told my brother, I was like
Starting point is 00:16:22 so this is where we rewrite history. I thought my brother had done that. And I had this resentment towards my brother for lighting my clothes on fire. And he was like, no, you like, I think you were the one who did that. And you, you like, and I think in my vision of it, it's like, it was like a great mountain of clothing. It was like probably like a couple skirts or whatever. But I had this like idea that I could just rid myself of that version of myself and I could just reintroduce myself and people do this like I have middle school age nieces nephews kids in my family who I've watched take on completely different
Starting point is 00:16:56 personalities to assimilate and so I think that's what I mean by chameleon I just was like and he he and his friends is like bros stoner friends took me to Dillard's or like Bloomingdale's or something like at I think we were at Lenox mall maybe perimeter mall in Georgia and kind of like bought me this whole new wardrobe like went to PacSun like borrowed my brother's clothes and like the next like literally and I had a nanny at the time my parents worked so much Heather and I asked her about this because as I was transitioning I was trying to understand like what the fuck happened like when did I know she was like honestly like I saw you on a Friday and you were like the sweetest
Starting point is 00:17:34 loveliest coolest kid and on Monday you were like the meanest boy teenager I'd ever met in my life what's what's interesting to me is that Amandaanda binds was what was in a movie where they dressed her like oh she's the man she's a man yeah based off of shakespeare she said that that when she saw herself as a boy it it did something to her head she wasn't used to seeing herself as a boy it interesting it she said that there was a sort of like a switch that went off that, I mean, she's obviously had a very tough time with her addiction. Something happened when she saw herself like that. So the reason I'm asking is when you, you see yourself as a girl, but then your brothers take you to PacSun, you dress up as a boy. When you are looking in the mirror and you see yourself as a boy, but you feel you're a girl? Did that do something to your psyche?
Starting point is 00:18:30 I think at that point, I had already begun whatever subconscious process of swallowing down whatever trans identity feelings I had. And I was quick to affirm my self-worth through the lens of the people around me and the response to me assimilating into society and what was expected of like a boy was very positive. So you basically were living your life to make other people comfortable. Yeah I had girls I mean that's kind of yeah what queer people do in so many ways until we can't do it any longer. Yeah, completely. Made my life easier, made me more comfortable.
Starting point is 00:19:09 I had girls flirting with me. I started to become really popular in a way that I hadn't totally been before. And I was kind of, you know, I was like a lonely isolate. And I still would spend a lot of time alone because I needed my alone time. You know, even dancing ballet is a very binary sport in art. Like it's very like a lot of the boys in ballet are straight. Like they're just like super like masculine, like machismo kind of guys. And the girls are, you know, and all the pas de deux are male, female.
Starting point is 00:19:38 I mean, things are changing. But even when I was in like strict ballet world, you know, they would make me take my nail polish off. Like I was only in class with boys. So even there, I was assimilating into a certain type of masculine performance. And then I was getting rewarded for that. I was getting better parts. I was getting more attention. I was commanding more space.
Starting point is 00:19:58 I'm really happy you came on the show. We're having this discussion because I think a lot of people have a really tough time understanding and having this conversation. A lot of people have a really tough time understanding and having this conversation a lot of straight people feel very scared like what what you ask what do you not ask and I think it gets very charged up and people get very angry and I think like a lot of this so I my I remember at a very young age going to a gay wedding because my aunt was gay right and so for me like I grew up with there's like okay that's my aunt. Where did you grow up? San Diego.
Starting point is 00:20:26 Okay, great. And she lived in an area called Hillcrest, which is a prominently gay area. Do you know Kelly Conner? Yeah. Yeah, we do. Sorry, one of my friends. Mark Guaducci, Kelly Conner.
Starting point is 00:20:36 Mark Guaducci. It's like my... Yeah. I lived at Mark Guaducci's house for a year. Sorry, not to... No, we can cut this out. I lived with him for a year. We can keep it in. My mom was best friends with his mom. I love Mark. Mark works at Vogue this out. I lived with him for a year. We can keep it in. My mom was best friends
Starting point is 00:20:45 with his mom. I love Mark. Mark works at Vogue now. Really fabulous editor. He's so crazy what he's done. Was editor in Chief of Garage magazine for a long time and also Taylor and Gino.
Starting point is 00:20:53 Does that name ring a bell? I don't know too. So Taylor and Kelly and I know each other because I work with Tom Brown where she works now. Okay, and she used to work at Vogue. She used to work at Vogue.
Starting point is 00:21:02 We have to take a picture and send it to Mark. We'll send it. Yeah, Tom Brown's dressing me for the ABT gala and bringing it back to ballet. I think it's next week or something.
Starting point is 00:21:08 That's really cool. Yeah. We could totally we need to text Mark. Oh my God. We have to text him. I guess like what I'm saying is I think a lot of people
Starting point is 00:21:14 and I saw this big like a lot of press going around when JVN went on Dax Shepard's show and I think like that didn't that was didn't go well or maybe we did go well but I think that the thing is is I think a lot of't go well or maybe it did go well. But I think the thing is,
Starting point is 00:21:26 I think a lot of people are scared to have the conversation, scared to try and understand the perspective. I think we're scared of asking the wrong question or stepping in the wrong direction. And I think that's part of the problem because for me and why I brought up the wedding that I went to,
Starting point is 00:21:40 it was when I got an understanding in a context, it opened up my entire world. I was like, okay, I get it. I understood it. I think a lot of this stuff and bullying and anger and hatred, it comes from ignorance, right? Totally. A lack of understanding.
Starting point is 00:21:55 But I think with the way that the world is shaped right now, people are more scared about asking the wrong thing or saying the wrong thing than actually getting to an understanding. So when you're talking about these issues to people, what is something that you wish people would look at or understand that maybe gets lost in the anger from a lack of understanding? I wish that people would just listen. I think often these conversations get heated. To be clear, we're speaking like not violent situations, right?
Starting point is 00:22:27 Like people who are really trying to understand one another in some capacity showing up like Dax JVN, if you will. That was more complex, I think, because they were really debating politics and policies and they were debating children and there was maybe more research could have been done on Dax's part before having a trans person. You know what I mean? Like if you're gonna have that conversation, be ready to have that conversation.
Starting point is 00:22:48 I think for me, I'm not a super combative person and vulnerability is like the key to compassion for me. And that's the key to like liberation and acceptance and understanding one another. So as you said, it's like you saw this example, right? Well, you know, JVN's been on this show and I think the difference sometimes is I felt in that conversation when I was talking to him,
Starting point is 00:23:12 it was almost like I'm going to correct you and educate you, which is okay. But it immediately made it harder for me and I think for us to get into the understanding because I felt either insecure asking the question or I felt like I was going to say the wrong thing. And it's like not trying to offend. It's literally trying to present the information so that people can have a different perspective.
Starting point is 00:23:36 Yeah. I mean, I commend them for even having that conversation because I can't imagine what that would have felt like in that moment. It's so complicated to be on the receiving end and you're literally in the hot seat, right? So it's just like the stakes are raised. But to answer your question, I would say listening. So key. I would say generally, for whatever reason, people want to tips to talk to trans people. People really want to like ask medical questions, which is just so inappropriate. You would never ask cis straight people questions about their body in that way. It's just not okay.
Starting point is 00:24:12 But I think there's a lot of dehumanization that happens with the trans community. Really slowing down in these conversations and showing up with a willingness and an understanding that like you might not be right. I think that long form content like this is really helpful because it gives context. I mean, I'm here because I know that your audience is not my audience, right? In so many ways. There's definitely overlap. No, no, no, no. There's definitely overlap, but you also reach a different demographic than I reach in my algorithm if you will right and it's important for me to show up to these spaces because we have a lot i mean we have mutual friends like we could go have dinner after this like we could go on a trip and probably like have a fucking great time but what i'm getting at is like they're you know my cousin was the bachelorette, for example. Her followers skew in a different
Starting point is 00:25:08 direction politically than mine do. And so just by nature of her being on a show that is viewed by a different type of person, right? So I think it's exciting for me to be a trans person coming into this space with people who are calm and chill and like, you know, open and compassionate and loving and caring as I seem you seem to be because it offers an opportunity for us to have a conversation that's facilitated and then offered to the public so that there can be vulnerability and there can be compassion. There can be a different type of understanding. I mean, this is why I work in entertainment at the end of the day, because like I know firsthand how seeing versions of myself on screen, off screen in books, how like access to different types of stories helped me better understand myself and has helped me better understand the world around me. When we moved to Texas, one of the things we committed to
Starting point is 00:26:03 was to sleep better. In LA, we committed to was to sleep better. In LA, we just had a chaotic sleep schedule. It was all over the place and we just were lethargic, feeling like shit, just not doing well. So we implemented sleep. Now we're performing better. Our bodies have gotten more in shape. Our companies have gotten stronger. Our marriage has gotten better.
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Starting point is 00:28:56 I personally am going to use my own code because I love the energy that it gives me and the clarity that it gives me when it comes to thinking and podcasting. That's hvmn.com slash skinny. I was so tired of my hair shedding. It happened especially after I gave birth to Zaza. So I took matters into my own hands and I really feel like I've rehabilitated my hair. The first thing I did was I started microneedling my scalp. And then recently I've been using like a high frequency wand on like around the hairline and it works really well. I also am all about a good hair serum and some massage. And then lastly, I am supplementing and I am supplementing with Nutrafol. I'm sure you've seen Nutrafol everywhere. It's so popular. People are obsessed with it. It is the number one dermatologist recommended hair growth supplement. And the thing about it, and I think why everyone
Starting point is 00:29:55 is so into it, is because it's clinically shown to improve visible thickness and strength. So personally, what I notice from taking it every single day is that there's no shedding anymore. I just also noticed since going brunette and doing all these things that my hair is thicker, healthier, stronger than it ever has been in my life. Take the first step to visibly thicker, healthier hair. For a limited time, Nutraful is offering our listeners $10 off your first month subscription and free shipping when you go to Nutrafol.com and enter promo code SKINNYHAIR. Find out why over 4,000 healthcare professionals recommend Nutrafol for healthier hair. Nutrafol.com, spelled N-U-T-R-A-F-O-L.com, promo code SKINNYHAIR. That's Nutrafol.com promo code skinny hair.
Starting point is 00:30:49 What stories and what things did you see when you were little that helped you? None. I'm kidding. I mean, but genuinely, like for like for trans stuff, none. Like there was nothing. You're reading all these like crazy books like there was nothing that you found in any. Yes. No.
Starting point is 00:31:04 So I started reading like Augustine Burroughs and David Sedaris books when I was younger than I probably should have been, for example, or even watching 13 weirdly like that Evan Rachel Wood movie as like a young addict. That movie's heavy. It's heavy, but I felt like seen
Starting point is 00:31:13 for the first time. That was my euphoria. You know, I was like, right, there are, I'm not a total crazy person if I'm like doing
Starting point is 00:31:21 the amount of drugs I'm doing and partying in this way. And it's not to condone that or like approve that. It's just to say that like I'm not alone the amount of drugs I'm doing and partying in this way, and it's not to condone that or like approve that. It's just to say that like I'm not alone in like the struggle. One thing I won't ever understand, and maybe I need to like, maybe I need to be educated on this. I don't understand why anyone cares what someone else does.
Starting point is 00:31:39 For instance. By the way, same. I really, that's always since i was little i've always i like when you say that someone made you take your nail polish off like i looked at a lens through that and i'm like why it doesn't affect anyone of you wearing nail polish it's you expressing who you are like i don't it doesn't affect me if you wear nail polish yeah that's where it's i kind of i almost would want to interview someone that is like you should like like someone who is like you can you wear nail polish yeah that's where it's i kind of i almost would want to interview someone that is like you should like like someone who is like you can't wear nail polish or you have
Starting point is 00:32:10 to dress like this i don't understand why people get so effective it doesn't affect them they read a lot of headlines and they think a lot of things especially that are happening politically are going to have a direct effect on their life or their family and that's where people dig in we're talking about such a small percentage of the population. Sure. But I guess like what we try to do, and thank you for recognizing this and coming in here, is like, I like the idea, like as a content creator,
Starting point is 00:32:33 I feel the easiest way to grow faster and build an audience is to pander to an echo chamber and give them the same kind of thing over and over and continue to reinforce the same kind of message. And I think a lot of people left, right. Are really good at doing that. Like they find a cause they dig in and they become that person. I think it is much more challenging and builds much greater character to pivot
Starting point is 00:32:56 and go different ways and share different perspectives, for example, like we will have somebody on that. Maybe it is, you know, believes something completely this way one week and the audience will get fired up or half the audience. And then the next week we'll have somebody that's completely counter and they'll get upset. I'm like, listen, the idea is to stretch your mind and have you look at different perspectives so that you can understand a greater worldview. Does that make sense? No. I mean, that's also how I try to meet bigotry as much as possible, which is not,
Starting point is 00:33:23 this is to be clear, not meeting bigotry. But I just to go back to the initial question that I think opened this portal of conversation up, if you will, around just like engaging with people that are different than you. I mean, you could really boil it down to that is exposing yourself to different narratives and different ways of living and different lived experiences, right? Because there's so much animosity that comes out of fear and there's so much violence that comes out of fear, fear of the unknown, fear of someone doing something differently with their lives, fear of a boy wearing nail polish, fear of so many things. And the only way to kind of work through that is to be willing to show up as either talent or content creator, writer, filmmaker, what have you, or as viewer, consumer. What conversations are you having with trans children or your friends who are trans that you wish that the general population would know? I mean, I'm not having conversations, I guess, so directly with trans kids, but I do know some trans kids who are really cool.
Starting point is 00:34:30 I think understanding, I think to your point, I think it's, I think this, like having conversations of like, just leave people alone. Like this has nothing to do with you, right? But I think so often identities are wrapped up in institutions. They're wrapped up in community.
Starting point is 00:34:49 They're wrapped up in God. But your version of God, not mine. I believe in God. It's just probably a different God than Rhonda Santos' God. We have different gods. We don't pray to the same altar, if you will. I try to provide resources to experts. That's kind of my go-to. So if I'm in a situation in which a parent of a trans kid or a trans kid, whoever it is,
Starting point is 00:35:15 I can go through my DM requests and I can get an overall theme without engaging with people directly because there's just safety issues there. And I can offer different supports if necessary, right? Whether that's Trevor Project, If So Dire, or different queer accepting community centers or the Ali Forney Center. I mean, I like to give literature to adults especially. So I'll be like, oh, you should read Kate Bornstein's work. Kate uses she, they pronouns, who has had many different versions of a book about gender fluidity as the times have changed and has continued to revise this. Or there's a book called A Girlhood that is a memoir, a letter from a mother to her transgender daughter who's now grown up in this Ta-Nehisi Coates way. They had to
Starting point is 00:36:06 flee Florida because the community turned on them when her kid came out as trans in this sort of liberal blue community. This was years ago prior to everything that we're dealing with now. And they moved to the North to keep their child safe, right? But this book really is a beautiful telling of the lived experience of this from an ally's perspective. And this is where allyship I think is so important and so key. It's why we have to show up for those who are more disenfranchised than us. That's why we have to learn different ways to advocate for our community members, our friends, our family, who are maybe different than ourselves. And I think resourcing yourself with knowledge and different types of podcasts, things like that
Starting point is 00:36:52 is really the best way to expand your mind and also have like foundational key points that you can look at and use when you are perhaps in direct conflict with a transphobic person or a xenophobic person or an anti-Semitic person, what have you. You can do a racist person. You can equip yourself with a comfortable amount, I think, of knowledge and challenge yourself so that you can facilitate conversations or direct people to resources because I mean that's the beauty of the internet too right like there are just so many different types of people online and like sharing stories and content creators that there's like there's an avenue and that this is this is stuff I've talked to with like younger queer family members of mine where I'm like look this
Starting point is 00:37:39 creator is really cool and like they're a non-binary person from Texas who is now a poet and like you know what I mean like there's different ways to steer friends and family and they're a non-binary person from Texas who is now a poet. You know what I mean? There's different ways to steer friends and family in that direction. And I think when I come into contact with the youth, if you will, I mean, statistics are pretty clear. Gen Z is very fluid.
Starting point is 00:38:02 It's five times more queer than that of millennials. And do you, or five, it's two times of millennials, five times out of boomers. So all that to say like, that's really the stat or do you think
Starting point is 00:38:13 that is more people now just being comfortable? Like what I'm saying is, do you think that me, no, I don't think there are more queer and trans people. I just think more queer
Starting point is 00:38:19 and trans people are out. Are comfortable. That's what I'm asking you. So like, it's like not even coming out. A younger person in my family came, didn't even come out
Starting point is 00:38:27 to me, just started talking about their like romantic partner who's non-binary. Coming out isn't like a Broadway show. It's just kind of like this is what it is.
Starting point is 00:38:37 Yeah. These kids don't. That's cool. That's the question is like has the world and has the people really changed or is it now people
Starting point is 00:38:44 are just feeling that they're in an environment where it doesn't have to be as big of an issue as it was maybe in our parents generation there's less shame it all stems with shame because society shames people who are different and right now i feel like there's this hopefully yeah momentum of less shame and when there's less shame, people feel more comfortable to be who they are. Yeah, I think so. And I think that's where film and television plays a huge role. I think that's where including diversifying casting and fashion and beauty and wellness plays a huge role in offering the world, one, a viewpoint into different lived experiences,
Starting point is 00:39:23 trans people, queer people, differently abled people. What I think it is this too, like in the 60s with the civil rights movement, I think like a lot of issues around equality got brought to the surface and the country got very charged. And I don't think that people didn't recognize that these were issues for a very long time. It just finally someone brought it to a head and said, hey, this isn't right. And we're going to correct this in society. Some people decide to dig in on both sides. And I think what's happening now is this is becoming a louder issue, not because it has not been an issue always, but because people have finally decided to take a stand and say like, this is not okay anymore. And I think that what I'm trying to get out here is when you brought
Starting point is 00:39:59 up the stats of people being more out or more open, it's like maybe it's always this way, but people just feel they now have a community that will rally around them as before maybe they felt like if they you know brought these issues to light or came out or you know well i just think i mean nobody just think about the difference in like the last few years and in having pronouns and bios right like that was just like not a thing that was practiced. And now massive corporations have that as part of their DNA where it's like their email signatures are inclusive of pronouns. And it's not because pronouns haven't always existed. It's just because it's a way to signal like, oh, yeah, we are a place that like understands that people like to be identified in different ways
Starting point is 00:40:38 and like to use different honorifics. So yeah, I mean, I think it's two part though, because I think the conflict really doesn't stem from queer people, which I can speak from that experience. It stems from the smaller population, the smaller very vocal minority with a lot of power specifically in this country going against this evolution of humanity. And it just is that. Because of people like Laverne Cox and Hari Neff, I could understand myself as a trans woman. And because Elliot Page came out so publicly, I felt that I too could step into myself publicly. And we could trace that back, my trans ancestry,
Starting point is 00:41:20 to the Marsha P. Johnsons of the world, to ancient times, if you will. You could really keep going. And so media and storytelling and representation changes the landscape and it makes people feel safer. So it doesn't produce more queer and trans people. It just makes people feel safer to own themselves for exactly who they are, not feel that they need to hide or conform or stifle parts of themselves to succeed in this life right and then that challenges when you decided not to i think this is fascinating but when you decided to pursue acting yeah what was the like how coming from georgia trying to break into hollywood per se where do you where do you even begin like you know because i think the avenues have obviously changed like did you have a social presence no fallen before no no no no instagram
Starting point is 00:42:10 didn't come until i was in college okay and i had facebook and tumblr existed but i wasn't necessarily a tumblr kid and you know i had a myspace and you could sort of become an influencer on myspace people were able to build these like, you know, Jeffree Star is an example of someone who's like started on MySpace. Mine was pastel pink. I had like stars raining down my MySpace. But no, I never found success on social media until after my acting career had kind of taken off.
Starting point is 00:42:42 And, you know, having business minded parents and me being an artist, my brain's always kind of been split into. And so when I was in high school and my body was just like starting to really ache and be in pain from classical ballet, I felt like I could go in two different directions and I could go the like, try to be in a ballet company route and then probably have to retire at 30 and then figure out what I would do with the rest of my life and also not make a lot of money frankly like that's just like the lived reality of being a ballet dancer or I had this other passion of acting and performing and storytelling and I was directing stuff in high school and I was also felt like I
Starting point is 00:43:22 was really good at that and had a sort of like quality about me, if you will. I had a lot of people in my life be like, oh, you should, you could totally be an actor. It also became kind of my ticket out of Atlanta because my grades were really bad. So because I was doing a lot of drugs in high school. So I went to like a film acting camp in LA, New York Film Academy for a summer in high school and it exposed me to Los Angeles I got like a fake ID and was like going out to Teddy's and shit at like 14
Starting point is 00:43:52 15 however old I was when I went to that camp I made a bunch of friends like met nepo babies for the first time as we've come to love and know them and realized how much bigger the world was because I finally got to see kind of like behind the television screen for a second and be like, oh, whoa, like actors that I grew up watching
Starting point is 00:44:11 that I like see now on the street are real people. Like I could start to put those two, like two and, you know, two and two together. I ended up going to a college in Chicago called Columbia College, which is just like basically anyone can get in. Like there's like barely an application. It was essentially like a community arts college, but it is a four-year program. And like, what's great about that is like, it's a space in which you can not to look, Kanye West went there, dropped out, but you know, college dropout. A lot of people have gone to Columbia College and had found great success. But for me,
Starting point is 00:44:42 I went there cause I didn't because I just needed to get out of Atlanta and I knew that I wanted to study acting. And I started there. And then while I was there, I realized I actually really wanted to be in New York because that's just where the type of theater I thought I would be doing was. It's just home base. And I loved New York as a kid. I loved coming here. Always wanted to live here. So going to a community college gave me an opportunity to continue being a drug addict and to get really good grades so that no one had to look at my high school. When you say drug addicts, was this? I mean, I was like a daily cocaine user. Okay. When you first got into drugs, was the drugs to suppress the feelings that you had
Starting point is 00:45:18 from being bullied? You know, I don't know. I just love doing drugs to be honest like the minute I sipped from like of my you know siblings bottle of pop-pop or whatever the fuck I got my hands on a little naughty light I was like yeah not yeah yeah we did a lot of beer ponging in my house Mike's hard lemonade Mike's hard lemonade a lot of icing we did a lot of Smirnoff icing did you remember icing people yeah yeah yeah so we would ice people I grew up in the south on a lake in Atlanta and in Alabama kind of like a country kid in a lot of ways too
Starting point is 00:45:52 and I just loved the feeling of being stoned I loved the feeling of being drunk I loved the feeling of both of those things together I loved blacking out I loved the feeling of not feeling, right?
Starting point is 00:46:06 Which is to say, I don't think it was like a conscious, like, oh, I'm doing this to like run away from my, my whatever's going on. It just gave me the safety, safest,
Starting point is 00:46:18 coziest place to be. And were you still using drugs and alcohol when you started pursuing acting or at that point? Well, so I got sober when I was 21. So I i and was there like an epiphany moment or you just realized my consequences of drinking and drug use were pretty immediate like i was suspended from school in seventh grade for drinking at school like i was like very when i say like like i was driving drunk in high school all the time like drinking before school like i was a really really like i was genuinely like a first thing in the morning oh yeah at times yeah or going from a party to school
Starting point is 00:46:49 in high school like i was like a very active drinker and drug user and then when i was a senior in high school my grades are really bad i didn't get any like those consequences came became really clear so i went to the school in chicago where i was just partying every day. But I, like, as I was saying, I was able to kind of transfer to a better school that I auditioned for Fordham in New York and, you know, convince them that I was like worthy of being accepted as very small acting program. And that was my first time really, I would say like pursuing acting as a craft. It was the first time I really read plays. It was Stanislavski-based program, doing Chekhov and Shakespeare and clown work and studied in Moscow as my study abroad at Moscow Art Theatre School, which is the birthplace of Chekhov and
Starting point is 00:47:38 Stanislavski and all these foundational acting techniques that people still use today. I was doing plays and writing monologues and started writing screenplays all the while like going out every night until five or six in the morning and then at 21 it all kind of came crashing down right around my 21st birthday and it was clear that like i wasn't gonna be able to continue at school this way they weren't really gonna have me i was like failing i was gonna take me like it would have taken me a decade to graduate at the rate I was going. I would just drop courses like right and left. And I was promoting and like working at restaurants and promoting at clubs. And when I, but at that point I did really like still want to be an actor. I was like, I still want to be an actor. I really want to do like good, meaningful theater. And I looked
Starting point is 00:48:22 at the Fiona Shaw's of the world and the Patrick Stewart's of the world and the Alan Cummings of the world and Patricia Clarkson's and I could just name, you know, tell this one and whatever, like Viola Davis. I looked at all these people who had these amazing, really interesting, cool careers and was fascinated by that and wanted that for myself. But knew at 21 that like i was gonna die well before i could have ever made it in any career if i kept because at that point i was like it sounds like the purpose kind of saved you like i was yeah i mean my last okay you got heavy yeah well yeah it got heavy it was like not just party like i was like drinking and using drugs alone like most nights like i was it was it was, it was dark. It was really bleak. And I just, I had like many
Starting point is 00:49:09 versions of trying to get sober from like 19 to 21, many like lost relationships, friendships, opportunities. And I literally woke up one morning and was done. And I just like, my cousin had just gotten out of a rehab that worked for her. And it was the first of many. And I was like, I called her and I went, right. I just checked myself into rehab with my dad the next day. And what was rehab like? It was weird because you're like, I was 21.
Starting point is 00:49:39 And I felt like I'd made the biggest mistake by making, I was like, wait, why did I do this? This is terrible. Being sober sucks. I'm like,'d made the biggest mistake by making, I was like, wait, why did I do this? Like, this is terrible. Being sober sucks. Like I've, I'm like, where is my youth? Like I had a lot of regret by making that call. Cause I was like,
Starting point is 00:49:54 shit, the jig is up. Like everyone knows fuck. Now I've told my family who already knew that this was, had known that this was a problem, but also knew that like, you can't force an alcoholic or a drug addict into sobriety. It's a self-diagnosed disease at the end of the day. You as the individual need to
Starting point is 00:50:13 recognize it within yourself and make those decisions with the help of other people. A lot of people in my family suffer from similar ailments and diseases around alcohol and drugs that we had enough knowledge to that you can't force it right and so my parents were really scared for me but like hopeful that i would eventually come to a place of whether it's sobriety or um you know cali sobriety whatever you want to like different versions of uh what's cali sobriety i think that's when you just smoke weed or something i don't know okay i'm just there's a lot of different like now it's like a health thing so it's like a lot of different you know they're like oh i just microdose mushrooms but i don't drink anymore whatever you live you've lived in california um i know i know some of those people yeah yeah me too and i
Starting point is 00:50:55 i just but then part of why i love new york is i got out of rehab and I kind of struck a deal with my dad to stay sober for a year. I didn't think I could be an actor sober. So I decided to start work. I started working in retail and like I was like, I'm going to climb up the fashion pyramid. And I was working at like Balenciaga in like two months and like selling like $700 sneakers and so how and then I was working at Dover Street Market, which is have you ever been to Dover Street Market it's like the best store in the world it's like everything from Gucci to Nike super well curated owned by the brand Comme des Garcons anyway it's a really cool store yeah um where is it there's such a Murray Hill here 30th and Lex I think here yeah okay it's an amazing Dover Street Dover Street Market
Starting point is 00:51:45 it's incredible they have like Prada, Gucci, The Row Miu Miu but then also Nike Supreme men and women men and women
Starting point is 00:51:52 and like fluid whatever they have the best sneakers the best shoes like it is a like hype hype hype really cool
Starting point is 00:51:59 really good bakery Rose Bakery really good food there's one in LA Tokyo Paris is more of like an art space and then it originated in London.
Starting point is 00:52:07 Influenced. We just went on a tangent. So I was working at Derbyshire Market and while I was there at early sobriety I got the creative itch and I was like okay wait this isn't sustainable. I can't. I was helping a lot of famous people
Starting point is 00:52:23 when I was working in those stores. I would help a lot actors and a lot of like influencers at the time or actually help David Sedaris and I cried in the bathroom after I helped him buy like Comme des Garcons culottes why did you cry because I like felt like I met a hero of mine you know it's like I've never met him since but I just remember that moment in my life or once Frances McDormand bought a bunch of like bought Canada Goose jackets for me for her kids when I worked at a store and I was like I don't want to help Frances McDormand buy jackets I want to be in movies with Frances you know what I mean I just like which obviously I couldn't say that at the time and still don't never met her but I think I had this longing that was went far beyond what like a corporate retail job would have provided me. It sounds like you knew your full potential and you
Starting point is 00:53:06 were unsettled that you weren't. I was deeply unsettled. I was like, I didn't. And then it became sort of a like, okay, well, I'm sober. I have this like second lease on life. Like, fuck it. So then I entered this phase of like, fuck it. I'm going to go back to school and like, I'm going to take an insane amount of credits and I'm going to fight to graduate in a year and not two years which they tried to sort of delay anyway I just was like I didn't I went into summer school after so after I got a year of sobriety I like
Starting point is 00:53:34 went straight into summer school went back to Fordham like finished my acting degree tried to go to grad school for acting didn't get in and I set really clear goals for myself when I at this point a little over a year of sobriety and I went go to grad school for acting, didn't get in. And I set really clear goals for myself when I, at this point, a little over a year of sobriety and I went back to acting schools. I was like, okay, in five years, I'm going to land a guest star on a TV show.
Starting point is 00:53:54 So by the time I am 27, I will have done at least one episode of television and I will have done at least one play and I will not work for free or trade. Like I set these like really clear because I had a teacher, Kenny Leon, who taught my acting class. He was like a very successful director in film and theater especially. And he was the one who sort of came in and he would have guests come in like Spike Lee and Denzel Washington came into our class, like people people who had built beautiful. And he imparted on me the knowledge that you can be an artist and have financial stability. You just have to set boundaries and parameters for yourself. And I took that. And like a sponge,
Starting point is 00:54:41 I was like, okay, great. If that's the case then like I can't work for a metro card like I'll work at Baz Bagels in the Lower East Side and like make some money that way while I audition and I will like take classes with casting directors and I will just like hustle and like only take acting jobs that pay me money and like defining my self-worth that early as an artist was so key. And it's terrifying because I saw my friends doing really cool that I went to college with doing really cool theater and like really experimental things like going to fringe festivals or like, you know, going to the Guthrie in Minnesota and doing a play there,
Starting point is 00:55:17 going to Yale and Juilliard for grad school. And I didn't get into grad school. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm going to just put my, like, I made little index cards that I still do this today with goals. And one of them was like guest star on a TV show, get an agent, get a manager, do a play in New York. I didn't really want to do a tour or regional thing. I really wanted to do a play at like a reputable theater in New York and become SAG and become equity as an actor. I am all about a good classic basic. And I recently found this site. It has the chicest cashmere crew neck sweater you've ever seen. And it comes in all different colors. So I went on their site and I got the oatmeal. I also got the Heather Gray, the black, and then I threw in a green. They even have like a cobalt blue that I have my eye on. Anyway, you can't go wrong. I spent like 200 bucks and I got literally four sweaters. They're so beautiful. And the site that I went to is called Quince. I think that this is such a great place to go for luxury essentials at an affordable price.
Starting point is 00:56:29 This sweater is one that you just can't go wrong with. It's something that'll be in your closet forever. You can layer it. So you could do like a flannel over it. You could also do a blazer. And what I think is fun is to do like a white tee and then take the cashmere crewneck sweater over the white tee and have the white tee like popping out at the top.
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Starting point is 00:57:29 the cosmetic case by base. Let me tell you about this cosmetic case. They thought of everything. There is like a brush holder. There's a place to put your makeup so it doesn't get all dirty. There's like every little compartment you could possibly want in a zip-up situation. They come in all different colors. I personally am a fan of the black or the beige, but you can't go wrong with a pop of color. They also have color on there. This makes such a great gift. It's affordable. It's $68, and it's something that you'll have forever for your cosmetics, your skincare, or your makeup. I personally use mine in the car for my skincare. I'm always running out the door. And sometimes when I take Zaza to school, I don't have time
Starting point is 00:58:13 to do my full skincare routine. So I'll just put everything all organized in my base cosmetic case, and I can just open it and do my spray. I do my hyaluronic acid. I'll do my vitamin C, my sunscreen. I even have a beauty blender in there to apply it. Everything is organized and ready to go. I have my castor oil brow situation that I can brush my brows up and I look presentable when I'm dropping her off, thanks to my cosmetic case. So I would highly recommend you go on there and check this out for a gift. If you're also looking for a work tote or maybe a carry-on roller, they really have you covered. So I would go on their site. I've used my own code. Right now, Base is offering our listeners 15% off your first purchase. You're going to visit basetravel.com. Go to basetravel.com. For 15% off your first purchase. That's B-E-I-S
Starting point is 00:59:02 travel.com. Holidays are here. Hopefully we're getting ready to gear up and take a nice break. But if you're feeling stressed, if you're feeling sluggish, if you're having trouble sleeping with this never ending to-do list, we have a solution for you. And that is the Just Thrive probiotic with the stress busting mood uplifting power of Just Calm. Lauren and I love Just Thrive products so much. We've had the founder on this show multiple times. We're going to come back on in the new year to talk all good things, gut health. Just Thrive Probiotics and The Calm has been part of our daily routines for months, actually years now. And we really, over the years, have noticed the benefits. We don't get really
Starting point is 00:59:38 sick anymore. We just feel strong. Our guts feel healthy. And this is important because you need to give these products time to work. If you're having gut issues or if things just feel a little bit off, you want to implement a good probiotic into your body and take it daily. It's like a gardener for your gut, safely eliminating bad bacteria and replenishing the good. And it actually produces antioxidants too. It can be opened and sprinkled into any food and drinks. So the whole family can use it. We give it to our children. Some of the things it's going to do and what you may notice, it's going to quickly promote a healthy response to everyday stress. It's going to encourage a steady, serene, and balanced mood. It's going to drive mental clarity, focus, and alertness, and even support great energy and
Starting point is 01:00:16 optimal sleep. These are things that are so important for your body and your mind. So check them out. Use promo code SKINNY90 for 20% off a 90-day bottle of Just Thrive Probiotics and Just Calm at justthrivehealth.com. Code SKINNY90. We also have our old code active too. You can use code SKINNY for 15% off site-wide. So either SKINNY90 or code SKINNY for 15% off. Enjoy. You know, it's interesting to hear you say that. Lauren and I both read Arnold Schwarzenwarzenegger's biography which is like different tangent but he was talking about when he wanted to become an actor and that he was able to kind of be selective and do the things that he really wanted to do because he was working and kind of like figuring out a way to give himself a living besides that and he was saying that he saw a lot of his friends that were pursuing the same career
Starting point is 01:01:01 but they were like either not taking it as seriously or they were taking gigs or doing things that they didn't really want to be doing and like one of you know this is obviously not a pursuit of mine acting but he was if you're going into that pursuit like you you need to figure a way to your point to be like financially solvent and then also be smart about the things you actually attach yourself yeah you need to be focused like my dad would call all those like opportunities I could have done that like didn't really have value except for instant gratification, like shiny things. And often my dad still to this day would be like, why are you getting distracted by the shiny things? Like very, I remember I heard Oprah once say on a podcast like a decade ago or whatever it was, talk show, who knows, but just
Starting point is 01:01:40 this analogy of like a horse race where you're like, horses don't win races by looking at other horses. So really early on as I was like embarking on a career in the arts, which is to say a career in myself, I learned that comparing myself to others is fucking irrelevant because humans are so different. So even if I look exactly like somebody else, what we do with a character in the context of this story in relationship to the other actors that are hired is never going to be the same. And so once I let go of this idea that there are people who are better than me in this way, no one's better at being the type of actor I am than me because I'm the only person who can act in this way. It's not just that there are a million other people who could do this job. There are
Starting point is 01:02:27 actors who are way more talented than me, sure. But when you find the role that is supposed to be your role or the story that you're supposed to tell, I'm uniquely qualified to do that. And I started owning that from a really, really young age and not just being really not and not being afraid to fail right and and and having that kind of mindset and setting these like really clear tangible goals for myself and then within a year you know we do this thing called senior showcase where when you're graduating a conservatory program agents and managers come and they like sign you from showcase like didn't get a single call didn't get a single message like crickets for me. And I was mortified for like a week. And then I was like, okay, well, fuck it. Like, how do I figure this
Starting point is 01:03:12 out? And at some point in, and it's, it's ears open. It's like, I'm a fucking bumper sticker today. Opportunity meets preparation guys. I don't know if you've heard that before. Opportunity meets preparation. I had moved into a shared house with my boyfriend and fiance at the time and a friend from college, and he had an agent. And this is less than a year after graduating college. He was reading the script for 13 Reasons Why, and he was auditioning for a role. And I was helping him with his audition. And he was like, you should try to get an audition. I think they're seeing like a wide range of people for this. And they were.
Starting point is 01:03:50 They were doing like these bigger open calls. And I figured out who was casting. And I saw that the casting associate was teaching a workshop. And I signed up for the workshop. All right. And I had pretty much no representation. I had sort of like, I got like very, very, very entry level agents who like barely picked up the phone, you know, like, okay, well, sure. And then I had a manager, but he was like working out of his apartment in like Jersey City.
Starting point is 01:04:24 And I met him because his girlfriend worked at Equinox and she and I would like working out of his apartment in like jersey city and i met him because his girlfriend worked at equinox and she and i would like hang out together and he had no other client like i was like i'm genuinely like barrel and so i went and took this class and he put on like his managerial front like character because he hadn't really been a manager before he would hate to hear that i don't talk to him anymore sorry but that's because he ended up really been a manager before he would hate to hear that I don't talk to him anymore sorry but that's because he ended up not being a great guy but anyway I and that's what I did and I and I walked up to the associate after and schmoozed a little you know like told him I'd heard about this thing and by way of me taking that class and my my manager at
Starting point is 01:05:01 the time calling and saying like hey like Tommy took this class like I hear you're seeing a bunch of different people and he was like oh yeah we're doing like open calls whatever like you know Tommy can come in here are the sides that's how I got my first audition which was for 13 reasons why which is the show I booked so then three months four or five, six months, however long of auditioning later, I graduated in May of 2015. And in June of 2016, I was on set. Wow. You know what's a common denominator about a lot of successful people who have come on the show? They all set very specific goals. And I'm not talking about like do a play. You were like, do a play in New York City where I'm getting paid.
Starting point is 01:05:48 Right. Like, it's like it was, it was, it was so detailed of what it was. It wasn't just like, be in a play. It was like,
Starting point is 01:05:54 a play in New York City. Make sure I'm getting paid. Make sure that it's like this way. And you like wrote it out and you look at it. And I think that's really a good takeaway for the audience. It's like, if you want to make something happen,
Starting point is 01:06:07 you have to get so precise of what that is. Like, it can't just be like, make money. How much money? And you didn't just go into acting like, I'm doing anything just to take any role. Yeah, no. Yeah, I think. I was really clear.
Starting point is 01:06:19 I was like, I, and I remember that first year, pretty much all of my cards were done. Like I got a new, I got real agents. I got a real manager, like people who are really, when I say real, I mean people who are like actually in the industry, not sort of like running rampant and XYZ city, like taking on vulnerable young actors. Because there's a lot of, there are a lot lot of scary areas of every industry, Hollywood especially. So you have to be really careful when you're approaching work as a young actor and
Starting point is 01:06:52 situations that you can put yourself in really weird situations. Yeah, apart from the occasional workshop that was really low lift or whatever in that year, I just was really, really, really dead set. And you know what I did is I knew I wanted to go into film and television. So when I was a senior finishing college, I was doing student films to build a reel. What is on your cards now? What are you working on that's coming up? I can't say. Okay. But what are things that have transpired that you're working on now? Be careful. Lauren gets anyone to tell her anything i mean i am obsessed with you both of you okay so what can i tell you directing a movie okay which i just did
Starting point is 01:07:33 starring alexandra daddario and cory fulcrum manis and cole sprouse quickly what's the difference between acting and directing from like what no i know that no i know specifically what the difference is part of my brain yeah what like I mean like it is a different part of my brain it is a different part oh for sure okay but I think being a good actor
Starting point is 01:07:51 and having worked as an actor professionally although not that extensively helped me be the best director possible yeah because you're a practitioner of it you understand the ins and outs
Starting point is 01:08:00 and I'm an operational person too and I like being more of like a creative visionary and I'm a good communicator. So for me, just like directing is being good at hiring, being a good judge of people, being a good judge of character, writing a story that needs to be told, having a clear, very, I'm a very, very, very prepared person.
Starting point is 01:08:17 So I have like a hundred page plus lookbook for my department head. So for those of you who don't work in the industry, department heads are cinematographers, production designers, costume designers, casting, et cetera. I had very, very clear visions for all of these things and down to screen grabs from stills from other movies as references to palette references, tonal references, actors tiered from the dream person to like would love to explore this or need to discover this role here's why here's why we haven't seen this person before this person we have to find
Starting point is 01:08:52 the person to play this role which is I feel really passionate about because I was sort of plucked from obscurity for a hit Netflix show that we didn't know would be a hit right but a lot of us that was our first job like first big job especially but or first job period directing first big job especially, but our first job period.
Starting point is 01:09:06 Directing requires a certain amount of vulnerability, but it also requires a certain amount of boundaries. So when I am directing, writing, producing, I am really stern about the boundaries I set and how I communicate with people. I try to be a cheerleader for people, which I kind of have in my life anyway. But especially in that situation, I really try to be a cheerleader for people, which I kind of have in my life anyway. But especially in that situation, I really try to affirm. My goal as a director is to always service the story and service who I'm working with. That's smart. So if you're a production designer, I want you to be the best at what you can do as a production designer. I don't want to
Starting point is 01:09:38 force you to do what I think you should do. So if I did a good job hiring, it means I believe in you and I trust your vision. And I don't need to babysit you every step of the way. I just need to continue to sort of like guide you and lift you up. And that's the same with everyone that I work with. And I think as an actor, I'm like mush. I'm a tear. I don't even know what, like when I have like actor brain on, like I don't look at my phone really. I'm not I'm like in a completely I'm like very vulnerable very sensitive not like it's sort of just I allow I allow myself to kind of go into baby brain are you working on anything with acting right now yeah I'm it's been interesting I took a break from acting when I started transitioning because it was pandemic. Although I did do like a weird
Starting point is 01:10:26 pandemic television show because I like needed insurance. And it is what it is. You know, I needed money. I need insurance. Took the job. Job came in, took the job. And as I was transitioning those first few years, I was just really, really focused during the pandemic career wise, career wise on producing, writing, acquiring IP, investing in stories that I really believed in. And so some of those are things that if they come to fruition, I'll be acting in. And you're also launched your podcast. And I launched my podcast my first time in Curran, which has been sort of like a startup to platform other queer artists, right? Because at the end of the day, like that's, as we've talked about, more diverse groupings of LGBTQ people in the ether, like more understanding,
Starting point is 01:11:11 more compassion, more empathy, right? Can be fostered from that. Yeah. I mean, as an actor, I'm just starting to like pursue new acting opportunities. Well, I'm really excited to watch everything that you're doing. I think that you are a very multifaceted person and you've got a lot of layers and I think your podcast is going to crush it. Podcast was on my index card. Probably so specific. Current was on my index card. Yeah, I really wanted to have like a talk show format where I got to like tell, have specific stories be told to me by people, which is what my podcast is. Everyone should go on Amazon and buy some index cards.
Starting point is 01:11:48 I'm going to go buy some. Where can everyone find you, find what you're working on? Pimp yourself out. Pimp me out. Hi, at Tommy.Dorfman. I think on every social platform I'm on, so primarily Instagram, but I guess I'm also on threads and tech talk or club current.com. And that's where you can find written work. I have a book coming out with Harper Collins next fall. My movie, I wish you all the best is coming out at the end of next year. So you can get information about all these things. And my podcast is streaming everywhere.
Starting point is 01:12:18 Love it. Spotify, Apple, Amazon. It's called my first time. Patrick Stewart is on this week's episode. Dylan Mulvaney was last week's episode. Julia Fox is coming up. I've got really great people. Her book, I just finished it. Oh, I know. Is she coming on? I want her to come on. Her book was... So Julia and I have been friends since I was 21. I was literally going to ask you the way that you talked about your experience in New York, paralleled hers. I was going to ask you the way that you talked about your experience in New York
Starting point is 01:12:45 paralleled hers. I was going to ask you if you guys were friends. Yeah. Because a lot of the things you talked about were things that she themes in her book. Yeah. And I photographed her for Paper Magazine with Pete Davidson. I made them Barbie and Ken in 2019 before Uncut Gems came out. That's so cool. Cool. Yeah. And I remember them being like, oh, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. I was like, I'm telling you julia fox is it like she's the one and she's a vibe they they agreed to do it and i was shooting pete and i sort of infamously removed his penis and made him a ken doll on the cover of this magazine and how big did you have to crop to remove his we had him in really tight underwear.
Starting point is 01:13:26 You'll see if you go you can Google it. Like we just we took the body of a Ken doll and sort of like superimposed it and like put these pieces together in post.
Starting point is 01:13:34 Maybe you can shoot our next podcast and you can take Michael's dick off. Ah! That would be really funny. That would be a plot twist. Do you want to be dickless?
Starting point is 01:13:42 Yes! That's actually the transmission, right? Like that's why I'm here. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you for doing this. Do you want to be Dickless? Yes. That's actually the transmission, right? Like that's why I'm here. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you for doing this. Thank you so much. Two things before you go.
Starting point is 01:13:52 You can watch us now on YouTube. So you can go on YouTube, search The Skinny Confidential and watch our entire episodes on your computer or TV. Also, you should know Michael and I are doing a him and her newsletter. So basically, it's a him and her tip of the day, five days a week. And the tips are very specific, as you can imagine. And then we also have a monthly favorites. So basically, we collect all our monthly favorites, everything we've bought and used and tried and put it in one monthly newsletter for you. To sign up for that,
Starting point is 01:14:25 go to shopskinnyconfidential.com and sign up for the newsletter. Thank you so much for listening and we'll see you next time.

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