[video available on spotify] it was announced about a month ago that i’m going to be acting in my first movie, and this is a massive plot twist in my life. i was so closed off to the idea of acting that i said i’d never do it. so what happened? today we’re going to discuss how i went from saying “never”, to saying “yes”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What significant announcement did the host make?
So, it was announced about a month ago that I'm going to be acting in my first movie. And this is a huge plot twist, okay? Pun intended. It's a massive plot twist in my life. To all of you, because you've all known me for my entire career as a YouTuber and podcaster who's themselves. That's what I built my career on. But it's also a plot twist to me, okay?
Chapter 2: Why did the host initially refuse to act?
I didn't pursue a career in entertainment to one day be an actor. That was never the goal. In fact, I remember when my career on YouTube really started to pick up and it became time to sort of build a team around me, managers, agents, whatever. And I remember being in meetings with agents and them just saying to me, so you want to be an actor, right? And I was like, no, I want to be a YouTuber.
This is not a stepping stone for me. This is the final destination. I want to be a YouTuber. And I remember being so frustrated. Why does acting seem to be the final destination? What's wrong with just being a YouTuber? And I became very stubborn about this. And I feel like these early experiences in my career of being told that I should be an actor, that that should be my final destination.
I feel like these moments made me stubborn and completely closed off to the idea of acting. And so for the last few years, I've been like, I'm never going to be an actor. I have no interest in acting. and leave me alone. I just want to be myself. That's what I built my career on. That's what I want to do for the rest of my life. I don't want to pretend to be something else.
That goes against the entire ethos of my career thus far. And stop trying to tell me what to do. That's the other thing. I'm very rebellious. And when people tell me what to do, I tend to do the opposite. So I think it wasn't helpful that in the very beginning, I was told I should be an actor. I was so closed off to the idea of acting that I said I'd never do it.
Like that was my answer to the question. Like if I was in an interview and I was asked, would you ever consider acting? My answer was no, absolutely not. And now I'm gonna be in a movie. Okay, so what happened, right? How did that happen? Well, that's what we're gonna discuss today, okay? How I went from saying never to saying yes. Thank you so much for watching.
Feed by hand for a playful moment, in a bowl for a creamy treat, or as a topper to make mealtime fun. Visit TemptationsTreats.com to learn more. Now, let's get back to the episode. Let's go back to those meetings in the beginning of my career when I was building out a team. Being told that the ultimate goal in entertainment should be to be an actor really made me angry. It bothered me.
And I really don't think that these agents meant any harm. I really do think that they're trained classically to be like, well, digital entertainment, modern entertainment is a stepping stone to traditional entertainment. You know, this is all that they know. This is the world that they live in. acting being the pinnacle.
And I do not think that they were trying to insult me or steer me in the wrong direction. I really do genuinely think that they just couldn't comprehend the idea that being a YouTuber, being a podcaster, being yourself is a sustainable career. You know, I think at the time it was so new, it was incomprehensible. But as a 17, 18 year old, I was stubborn. And so this sort of pissed me off.
And I eventually did get an agent who completely understood my dream of just being myself and that being my job. And we have a beautiful relationship. I absolutely adore this woman. She is still my agent to this day. And then as my career progressed over the years, I started getting asked more and more like, would you ever act? Would you ever act?
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Chapter 3: What changed the host's perspective on acting?
By journalists and interviews and actors and directors in this industry that I meet at events. You know, I started getting asked more and more. Being asked in a more sweet sort of way like that made me rethink it again in a less rebellious sort of way. And I came to the same conclusion, but it was a bit different.
I didn't want to be an actor, not because I was rebelling against agents that told me I should. I didn't want to act because number one, I wasn't passionate about it. Also, I grew up watching YouTube. I didn't grow up watching movies as much. I absolutely watched movies and I absolutely adore movies, but I actually have a complicated relationship with movies.
I often sit down to watch a movie and I hate it and then I feel trapped. And so there are a lot of movies that shaped me as a child, shaped me as a young adult, have seriously moved me that, you know, I'm obsessed with. But I don't know, like my relationship with movies has always been complicated.
And growing up, I watched YouTube because I didn't have cable until I was like 15, maybe 14, 15, maybe 12. I don't know. But anyway, I didn't have cable television. I went to the library and got DVDs, which, you know, sometimes I'd get movies and stuff. But I ended up really loving YouTube. And that became my main source of entertainment.
And in a way, you know, the way that a lot of young people feel about movie stars, I felt about YouTubers. You know, the posters I wanted to put up on my walls were not of Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. I wanted to put posters on my wall of Rhett and Link. The YouTubers. Do you know what I'm saying? I grew up passionate about YouTube. I just never felt passionate about movies.
And so that was one reason why I didn't want to act. Reason number two was because I didn't want to get nepotismed in. Now, I'm not... A nepo baby. Okay. My parents are not famous. They're not in the entertainment industry. They're not in actually any industry that would benefit me in my career at all.
My mom used to manage an electricity company and then managed like she was like a manager, an office manager. Uh, for different companies, my dad was an electrician and then later became a painter. Okay. I did not benefit from nepotism. However, in a weird way, I have my own form of nepotism already. with myself, okay? Because I built a career on YouTube and now I'm a public figure.
In a way, if I were to want to enter into another industry that's adjacent to mine, acting, music, theater, Broadway, like all of these different, you know, forms of entertainment, if I wanted to enter into those industries, it's going to be much easier for me to do that now than it would be if I was just starting from scratch. Right. So technically, I'm not benefiting from nepotism.
Technically, I have arrived at the place that I've arrived to completely on my own. But if I wanted to enter into another space, in a way, I kind of have nepotism. But it's just my own. It's nepotism from myself. Right. okay, I already have an agent. I have a team. I know acting agents. I know directing agents. I know writing agents. I know these people. I've met them all.
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Chapter 4: How did fashion influence the host's decision to act?
And I never really thought about why I liked it as my love for it was developing. But in retrospect, it's clear to me that I loved getting to be a character. There was something so sort of cathartic about it for me because I had built my entire career thus far on being myself.
And once I got over the cringe element of posing for the camera, I really fell in love with getting to be a character, you know, putting on these outfits, these costumes almost, if you will, and trying to embody them in a way that matches the outfit, matches... you know, the theme for the shoot. And in a lot of ways, this was sort of acting.
It's obviously not acting, but it was 10% of what acting is, you know, putting on a costume and changing your behavior to match that costume. I just grew a real love for this. And, you know, over the years, I've done more and more of it. It dawned on me at a certain point, probably a year and a half ago or maybe two years ago now. I was like, I love doing this so much.
How can I chase this feeling? Like, what else can I do that sort of is like this? Because this is clearly very fun for me. And it dawned on me that what I like about it is being a character, not being myself. Maybe I shouldn't have said never about all of the acting stuff. Maybe I'll give it a try.
And it's interesting because it was really hard for me to wrap my head around the idea of me giving acting a try, but not being a TV buff, a movie buff. I was like, is this okay? Am I allowed to dip my toe into this if I'm not technically the textbook actor who is obsessed with watching every single television show, studying every single director?
I don't know if I'm allowed to be interested in this. My interest in acting has nothing to almost do with the final product, if that makes sense. I like the feeling of not being myself. I like the feeling of embodying someone else. And then as I started thinking about this more, it dawned on me that something that I'm also passionate about is analyzing and discussing people.
There's nothing I love more than analyzing people and discussing people. I find other human beings so fascinating. And I A great example of this is on the weekends, there's nothing I love more than sitting at a cafe and just watching people. I love people watching. I think a lot of people love people watching. It's a very normal human thing to enjoy. We find other humans fascinating.
But I will say that I've always been a little bit more interested in other people than, say, my parents or my friends. I'm like obsessed with analyzing people and figuring people out, connecting all the dots. You know, why is somebody like this? Why do they do the things that they do? What traits are connected? You know, I don't know. Like I've always been obsessed with analyzing people.
And a lot of what acting is, is having an understanding of people to the point where if you're assigned a character, you can create that character in your head and then be it, you know? I think me being somebody who loves to analyze people goes hand in hand with acting, right? So it really, I was like, oh my God, what is happening?
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Chapter 5: What are the host's feelings about acting now?
I didn't go into this like, I'm gonna book a role. Yeah, I'm going to book a role. That's my goal for this year. I went into it like, I just want to try this and see what happens, you know? But once I got over the cringe of it, I just loved doing it. I loved analyzing the scenes. I loved trying to figure out who my character is. I loved making the scene my own. I loved improvising.
I loved it all. I loved every single part of it. And I ended up just having fun doing the auditions. And so anytime I had extra time and there was an audition in my inbox, I was like, fuck it, let's do this thing. And I would just do it. I had no expectations. And let me tell you, I've done... Not, I will say I haven't done as many auditions as the classically trained actor.
Like most actors are doing audition after audition, after audition, after audition, like 50 a month. You know what I'm saying? I couldn't dedicate my entire life to this, but anytime I could dedicate time to it, I would. And I got a lot of no's. OK, I got a lot of no's. I wasn't right for a lot of stuff. I got shut down a lot.
And what I was really grateful for was I didn't feel like I had a leg up because of, you know, my YouTube career, my podcast career. I really did think that that would give me a leg up. You know, I was like, am I going to like get this role because I have followers on Instagram? Like, I don't know. Sometimes that's how stuff works in this industry. Absolutely not.
I was relieved to find that they do not give a fuck. These casting directors are like, are you good? Are you right for this role? And for a lot of the roles I wasn't, or they didn't like my take, whatever. And it was totally fine. I didn't care. I'm very fortunate that in this thus far, I've had no ego. I don't care. It's just fun. And now I'm going to be in a movie.
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Chapter 6: What challenges does the host perceive in acting?
Chapter 7: How did the host's relationship with YouTube shape their career?
I don't know if I'm allowed to be interested in this. My interest in acting has nothing to almost do with the final product, if that makes sense. I like the feeling of not being myself. I like the feeling of embodying someone else. And then as I started thinking about this more, it dawned on me that something that I'm also passionate about is analyzing and discussing people.
There's nothing I love more than analyzing people and discussing people. I find other human beings so fascinating. And I A great example of this is on the weekends, there's nothing I love more than sitting at a cafe and just watching people. I love people watching. I think a lot of people love people watching. It's a very normal human thing to enjoy. We find other humans fascinating.
But I will say that I've always been a little bit more interested in other people than, say, my parents or my friends. I'm like obsessed with analyzing people and figuring people out, connecting all the dots. You know, why is somebody like this? Why do they do the things that they do? What traits are connected? You know, I don't know. Like I've always been obsessed with analyzing people.
And a lot of what acting is, is having an understanding of people to the point where if you're assigned a character, you can create that character in your head and then be it, you know? I think me being somebody who loves to analyze people goes hand in hand with acting, right? So it really, I was like, oh my God, what is happening?
A few years ago, I'm having these epiphanies and I'm like, what is actually happening? Like what is happening? I literally, this is the one thing I said I'd never do. Actually, I also said I'd never make music and now I'm learning how to play guitar. So I'm fully just a walk. I'm a hypocrite. I'm a liar. I'm a hypocrite. I like, I mean, I'm not writing any music.
I can barely play a song on guitar right now, but I don't know. I was so against music. doing anything outside of my little entertainment bubble, YouTube, podcast, whatever. Like I was so against it that it was really uncomfortable to be having this epiphany that I am actually interested in this thing. And so I started auditioning. I didn't want to take a class, to be honest.
And this is a controversial take, but I really wanted to discover this my own way and teach myself in a way that's intuitive and And if that lands me roles, great. If it doesn't, great. But I want to do it my own way. And so I started doing some auditions. I will say I have some actors in my life. One incredible actor in my life is Owen, my best friend, Owen Thiel. He helped me so much.
He's so talented and so good. And he's always been like, Emma, please, you have to act, which I was like, why? Why? What are you talking about? Since I met Owen, Owen was like, I just know in my gut that you will act. You have to act. You're made for it. And I was like, why? I never understood. Anyway, so the second I showed interest, he was so excited. And he helped me with so many tapes.
We did a lot of tapes together. But I also have other people in my life who did theater. I have a lot of actors in my life. So I had a lot of support and a lot of people around me who were down to just fuck around and do these tapes with me. and I ended up having a lot of fun with it. I will say in the beginning, it was really embarrassing.
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