How I Invest with David Weisburd
E165: Hollywood Lessons on Risk, Reward, and Relationships with Alexander Ludwig
Tue, 20 May 2025
Alexander Ludwig is best known for his breakout roles in The Hunger Games and Vikings, but behind the scenes, he’s a multi-hyphenate: a passionate actor, a devoted entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Their Jewelry—a sustainable, recycled gold and silver brand he runs with his wife. In this episode, Alexander opens up about the brutal realities of Hollywood, the myth of overnight success, and how ego and humility have shaped his 20-year career. We also dive deep into how he's channeling his platform and resources to build a purpose-driven business that could help tackle the e-waste crisis. This conversation covers everything from surviving the actor’s feast-or-famine cycle to the importance of storytelling, Stoic philosophy, and finding peace in a hyper-competitive world.
Chapter 1: What are the brutal realities of Hollywood?
Audiences don't come to see you, they come to see themselves. So you want actors that have that sort of vulnerability. When actors start to put themselves on a pedestal outside of their work, I do think that that translates into your work and suddenly you're not seen as like the everyday guy that you want to root for.
Welcome to the How to Invest podcast. I'm your host, David Weisberg. Today, I'm thrilled to sit down with Alexander Ludwig, actor, producer, and star of hit series Vikings and The Hunger Games. Alexander shares his journey from child actor to landing his first major role in a movie.
We'll dive into the business side of entertainment and how he approaches risk and reward as an actor and businessman. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Alexander. When we last chatted, you quoted Pitbull that if you chase money, it runs. How do you relate that to the movie business?
Steve Jobs talks about this too. If just making money is the object in my business, I think you would quit because it's just such a... brutal business to be a part of if you don't love it. If you're chasing things like fame or money, you're going to be, I think, in for a really rude awakening. So much of luck is involved in this business and every business in a lot of ways.
The only thing that really... guarantees a semblance of success is persistence. The only way you'll be persistent is if you truly, truly love your craft. And I think that applies to a lot of, you know, a lot of businesses, if not all of them.
And the luck is not only about getting your first big role, it continues throughout your entire career.
Absolutely. The misconception in our business and the misconception in, um, I think actors have in general, is that once you get that role, you're set. I've been in this business now for about 20 years, which is crazy to say. I'm 32. And the longer I'm in this business, the more I realize it's the exact opposite of how it works. Just because you have one great win. It doesn't insure anything.
And then you realize it's no different from pretty much every other business. I mean, you need investors to say yes to you. You need people to believe in you. You need mentors. It's the exact same thing. Literally the other day, I was at an amazing birthday party for a friend of mine in Austin. His name is Hayes Barnhart. He started a company called Goodly.
it was an amazing birthday such incredible people there and we got went to this bar and this one guy was a big fan of vikings this tv show i did and he came up to me and he goes you know my god i'm such a big fan you know and then we kind of got into the you know my process and and how it works and then he starts asking like well why haven't you done this right like well why haven't you you know why have you done a marvel and i go let me ask you a question um
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Chapter 2: How does ego affect success in acting?
I'm lucky enough that I didn't have so much success that I was stuck in that, but I could keep working.
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It's, it's very easy to just assume that like every actor wants to be the biggest actor in the world and wants to have the most success. I don't actually think that that's true for a lot of people. I know people who like genuinely don't want that at all. That just love doing it and just kind of want to just pull it back. I mean, I don't know him at all.
I can't imagine how he did it and like survived through it because that is like, man, that's hard. That's really hard. Like getting stuck in that, having that much success, that young. And by success, I mean like success in our business. Based on the things I see about him, he seems like he's doing great and he's like had this big turnaround, which is awesome. And I think he's a great actor.
I just, you know, that, but maybe that's what he wanted. Maybe he wanted to pull back. You know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not sure. I would imagine it was really tough for him. Yeah.
after having so much success as a kid to find it kind of like transition into uh into adulthood and if you take away the money you take away the fame what is it about acting that you love so much it's the only thing i know that i probably do for free because i love it i love it so much if i you know i'd figure out some other way to live but like i think i i have it inside of me that i have to tell stories and transporting people to other worlds and seeing other cultures like i'm a
history both through and through. Like I love history. So Vikings is truly like one of those like dream roles that I think my 12 year old self would just be like, just losing his mind that I ever got to do. Just bringing an audience into, into a place away from, you know, the craziness of life and, and, and,
allowing them to be introspective or inspired or scared or excited and feel all these emotions with a character it's magical man it's it's truly magical i go as far to say i think film and television is one of the greatest arts if not the greatest art in the world because it is a culmination of so many other artists to make something great and you're using every one of your senses
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Chapter 3: What is the importance of persistence in an acting career?
In terms of how successful you become, that is an interesting topic for me. And this is where your question just comes in for me. Because You know, a friend of mine, Joe Gebbia here, who I love dearly, he founded Airbnb. And I look at that and I look at VRBO, you know, and, you know, both are in a lot of ways a similar platform, right? What is it that separates the two?
And I'm sure we can find a million reasons why Airbnb is probably more successful. But, you know, how much of that was timing? And because he's so successful... I think Joe is probably a multi-multi-billionaire. I'm just talking on financial level. But is it because he worked harder or did he work smarter or did he get luckier? What is that? I will say this.
The most successful people I have met, Joe included, are some of the nicest and most humble people I know. I have met other people who are also massively successful, who, for lack of better words, are like assholes and like really savages. But I believe in my heart of heart, those are the outliers. We're talking about probability.
Every once in a while, one of those guys is going to make it through.
you know, but across the board, I have found that it is the guys who have a mission, a purpose, you know, who believe, like this birthday party that I had for Hayes, Hayes is another one, you know, multi-billionaire, good leap, unbelievable guy, nicest, humble, you know, amazing guy, just wants to celebrate, you know, his success, wants to share it with his friends.
He's a lovely human, wants to give back to the world.
Jeff Bezos has this quote where in baseball, you strike at the ball and, you know, people with a higher hit rate do better, but you could only really score four runs if it's a grand slam. But in business, once in a while, you could step up to a plate and you could hit a thousand X, you could hit a thousand runs. So in venture capital, you call this power laws. You try to build a portfolio of
30, 40, 50 companies that could all be the next Airbnb. And if you hit one, it accounts for all the losses and many times over. Those have been some of the best portfolio. It's not about making sure that each one returns, you know, three, four X, like a private equity deal. It's more about how do you find that, that one huge outlier.
And Kutcher is a really, really brilliant example of this. Ashton and I are repped by our manager, Stephanie Simon, and she's just incredible. Ashton went and started a fund back in Silicon Valley when it was really getting going and invested it.
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Chapter 4: How does luck play a role in Hollywood success?
Nobody could have told me.
This is where I go back to like, you know, child startup and how grateful I am for how it has happened for me because I cannot imagine what I would have done. I look at somebody like Justin Bieber as an example of somebody who is just so massively successful, so young. And I just...
don't know how he's done it he's managed to keep it together and it's just you know i applaud him for it here's my one rule if it's an experience spend the money like 100 if you're gonna go on a trip or you're gonna do something that is like that will that will fill you like fill your soul like you know bar like barring buying like you know getting in the presidential suite somewhere and chartering a jet like go spend the money to go you know um
explore and see other places and climb that mountain, go on that hike, do that thing because what are you doing if not living life, but responsibly. At the same time, you got to be careful and live below your means. And for everybody, that means something different.
It's also a misunderstanding of the business model. If you had a big hit, You can maybe expect that every five years. So if you plan out in that way versus the idea that now you've made it, now you don't have to audition, you don't have to do more, you're going to get this twice a year. I think that's where people get in trouble.
It's not that dissimilar from private equity or anything else. You think about it, you get one great one and then that's awesome. People know you from that. You can always go back to that and be like, hey, I'm the guy who did this. And then they're like, oh, we love that. So we'll get you in this. But it certainly isn't every year.
And I think something that really frustrates me as the artist side of me and the business side is that we have limited time. And I want to be able to tell as many stories as I can that I love. And it's frustrating at times when you have years. Last year, there was maybe three things that I was really excited about. But it's far and few between where you get to find those projects.
You're like, oh my God, I would love to be in this. And I would love for the audience to watch this. I am so excited. Vikings, it was on the History Channel. Hunger Games was one of the biggest films in the world. And then I went and just did a show for the History Channel that people were just like, dude, what? What are you doing? That was a World War II documentaries.
And we got lucky that the show became what it became. And the only reason it did is because I think because it was like, I would watch that show. Like I loved, you know, I loved it because like I would watch it. So like, you know, I have to trust that there'll be more people like me. who would like to watch it too.
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