The Determined Society with Shawn French
From Playmate to Filmmaker: Brande Roderick’s Journey of Grit and Growth
Tue, 06 May 2025
Brande Roderick joins Shawn French to share her incredible journey from Baywatch and Playmate of the Year to directing and producing her first feature film, Wineville. In this inspiring conversation, Brande opens up about building resilience, overcoming rejection, and creating her dream project against all odds. If you're chasing a dream, this episode will show you why the setbacks are part of the setup. Subscribe for more inspiring conversations! Comment below: What's one dream you refuse to quit on? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is Brande Roderick's latest project?
Let's get back to Wineville. Everybody, go watch it.
It's a horror film. It's not for the faint at heart.
It's your first time directing and producing it, correct? Yeah. It's a big freaking deal.
Well, it's based in 1978. My character, Tess, she ran away when she's about 15 years old because of some horrific things that happened to her at her family home, which is on a vineyard. Years later, she got a call that her father had passed away and now she has an 11-year-old son and has to come back and take care of the
family estate and when she comes back she learns that everything has just darkened and festered and gotten worse please let me go and now not only does she have to escape herself but now she has to do everything she can to save her son messed up screwed up serial killer family will they get out alive i don't know sharp french what up
This one luck will let the pain inspire me. I put my all in everything I'm doing. Up until it's done, I'm me for the entirety. I put in overtime. I be working. Just know I'm a go for mine. Cause I earned it. They watching. I know it's time. I confirmed it. The whole society determined.
What's up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode. I am your host, Sean French. Before I introduce today's guest, please feel free to hit the follow button on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts, and share this episode with a friend that you know would get a lot out of the conversation. So today I have with me Brandi Roderick. She's a 2001 Playmate of the Year.
She is now a director and producer of her own movies. She's an author. She's been in many films, and she's just an incredible businesswoman. So Today, you're going to hear a lot of her story and what she's doing now. And so without further ado, welcome to the show. Hi, how's it going, Sean? It's going good. How are you doing?
I'm doing fantastic. Doing really good.
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Chapter 2: What challenges did Brande face while filming Wineville?
Absolutely. That's all I saw in front of me. There was no plan B. But yeah, it's just something that I really wanted to do. And there were, you know, there are... There's a lot of rejection, right, in this career. And you go up against a lot of hurdles. And one thing I learned, and I'm such an advocate of self-help type books, anything you can learn. And ever since I can remember the young...
Young teenager, I had been reading every book you can imagine. So, you know, there are so many tools that I learned. And, you know, anytime like a door closed, I would find a window to crawl into. You know what I mean? And you think outside the box and I do all the things that no one else was doing.
Like, for example, when I go into a casting, no matter what it might be, I would always find something. I'd be searching and looking like, well, what is this person like? Let me find a connection because I would always send them a thank you card and a gift and I would. you know, do something like that. So I'd be memorable.
And let me tell you, there were so many times I kept getting called back with that certain casting director for different roles. You know, so that was always working. I mean, even Starsky and Hutch, Todd Phillips, you know, Academy Award winning director went in for the audition for Starsky and Hutch.
Him and Ben Stiller were in the room and they were like, oh, my God, we're we're such huge fans of you on the surreal life. They said, but we love Emanuel Lewis. Oh, my God, we love him. He's so funny, blah, blah, blah. So they were huge fans of Emanuel Lewis, who is on my season. So I called up Manny, said, Manny, you got to get me an autographed picture of yourself.
Send it to Todd Phillips and say, hey, hire my girl Brandy. So genius. I had him do that and I got the freaking job. And who knows, you know, was it because of my amazing acting? Yes, of course. But, you know, I'd say it was between me and one other person and they really didn't know what to do.
That could have put them over the edge like this girl's cool, like to do this out of the way and like make this happen. So I was always and still am thinking of really creative out of the box types of ways to get what I want.
Yeah. I love that about you. And it's funny because I've experienced it with you a little bit as well. Right. So we had, I mean, we had a mutual contact connect us and we hadn't had any real communication, talk on the phone a couple of times, but you were always so kind. And I was like, this person is my people.
Because I could tell that you're big on the relationship aspect of, let me peel back the layers and see what this guy's about or this individual's about so I can make sure I nurture this interaction. And I haven't had one interaction with you that has been lifeless. Right. And again, I mean, right? Think about that, though. How many times have you had conversations with somebody?
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Chapter 3: How did Brande Roderick become Playmate of the Year?
Roughly the same area. Yep. But all right. So one of the biggest things that you've been able to do in your careers is work multiple projects, multiple careers at one time. You've been super effective at it. Most recently with Wineville that is streaming everywhere right now, you are not only the director, but you produce the thing too. So walk us through that.
That's a big project and I'm sure it took a lot of your business savviness, your creativeness. Walk the audience through that journey.
Oh, it was a crazy journey from start to finish. So it started actually with... there was a gentleman who was going to wrote a story, not wine bill, but a previous story. I wanted to do a horror film and he was going to direct it. And, you know, during the whole pre-production process, he went to jail. I mean, that's just to show you or tell you the start of this journey.
You're like, great, here we go. like start all over from scratch, find a new director, find that, or excuse me, find a new writer, uh, to create and write this new story, which I'm so glad that we did because now it became my story with the writer, right? It wasn't someone else's story. Um, so we went to the location, which was my friend's winery, um,
He said, yeah, you should maybe shoot it here. So we went to his winery and, you know, was able to scope out and create the story around the location, around myself and my son, who was going to be playing my son, you know, what kind of characters I wanted us to be. And so we were able to create this story, which was kind of cool. And it made it, you know, logistically easier to shoot.
But it was just it was a crazy journey. We also were shooting kind of still in that COVID era where you had to still wear masks and still had to go in and test, you know, to make sure everyone didn't have COVID. Well, the day one of shooting, I was all excited. And then we did our testing and then our.
wardrobe gal the costumer had freaking covid and my film is a as a period piece it was based in 1978 so it's not like you could just go down to walmart you know and get some clothes i mean it was serious business um so we had to scramble to get someone to replace her for you know that first week while she's you know masked up in the hotel room um but there was constantly things like that happening and
Wasn't that at the time, sorry to interrupt. Wasn't that also around the time like SAG, there was an issue with SAG too. You had to get approval to do movies and all types of projects. Oh yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. COVID, which was another whole crazy thing. And that's, you know, wearing all the hats being producer and actress and all the things on set. I had to be pulled in so many different directions. You know, speaking of SAG, um, last minute they had, we had to do a FaceTime with them while I'm on set trying to do a C had to run in and FaceTime with them. Uh, another day, uh, the, um,
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Chapter 4: What pivotal moments shaped Brande's acting career?
So it's funny because like, I'm kind of sick like that too. Yeah. Like I like watching, if I get a new, like a Netflix documentary on Charles Manson or the Zodiac, the Zodiac. I mean, cause that's where we grew up. Like, dude, like that, that, that shit happened within 40 minutes of where we live.
I know. Yeah. Petaluma. I mean, it was like all over those areas.
Vallejo. Vallejo.
I know. Oh my gosh. What about Marine World?
Marine World. That's where you go. Yeah. That's where the Zodiac hung out. It's crazy to me, but like those things, like those...
You know, chronicling those types of killers, like, you know, and it's great because when we do passion projects, right, when we do things that you're doing with Wineville and, you know, you start with like what you're really interested in, you know, and it's interesting that you went down that path. How did that creative process work with you? I mean, like afterwards, were you super excited?
Did you go down like a... Because I've never acted, right? So I don't... Like getting into a character or getting into like a storyline, how does that work for you?
Well, as far as acting goes, the storyline... it's not like it was, you know, a cat in your war, you know, worthy story acting because my character, you know, I was a single mom, you know, with an 11 year old, 12 year old son. And guess what? In real life, I'm a single mom with an 11, 12 year old son. I'll protect my son. So the acting was not farfetched. Like I will fricking kill for my kid.
Right. Yeah.
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Chapter 5: How does Brande handle rejection in her career?
Oh, yeah. Oh, me too. That was our jam. I love that. I wanted to recreate a new show kind of similar to that, which I'll tell you. Because I was so influenced by that show so much, right? And the best part of that show was you'd watch it, and at the end, you would wait to see, did they capture him? And you'd always hope, you know, because then it would show you, oh, we captured blah, blah, blah.
And you always wanted to see if they captured him at the end of the story.
Yeah. Until they freaking didn't, and you learn that the killings were happening in your area, and you're like eight years old. I'm like, oh, shit. I don't want to go to bed.
Polly Klaus, right? Petaluma, right? Yep.
Yep.
Yeah.
So many of them. So many of them.
It's kind of a little sick. We had a lot of sick stuff going on in Northern California.
Our generation is just destroyed, isn't it? Good Lord. Watching The Exorcist and America's Most Wanted on Friday with their mom.
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Chapter 6: What is Brande's approach to self-improvement?
That's why we're so creative.
Exactly. Very well-rounded.
Very well-rounded. Thank you, mom. Thank you, dad. You did a great job.
Yeah.
Kicking ass. This is great. So, okay. So what's next, Brandy? Like what, what, you have any new projects you're thinking about? Where are we going here?
Well, I mean, I'm, I'm definitely heavily out, you know, getting the word out about Lionville, but yeah, my book of all the the films and tv shows and everything that i want to do so as soon as i'm done out promoting wineville i'm going to kind of you know see where i'm at in my life and which one of these projects do i want to spend the next two years working on because i have any i just i i
I am a very creative person. And every time I like, I have all these ideas and stuff happens. Oh, that'd be funny for this show. And that's this and that. Ooh, and that's nice and sick. You know, whatever it might be. I love comedy and I love horror, suspense, drama. But anyway, I'm always creating and writing stuff down. So I have my book of stuff.
So when the time comes, I'm really going to sit down and where do I want to spend the next two years of my life on? I love it.
In the meantime, as far as getting the word out about Wineville, talk to the audience. I know it's everywhere, but specifically direct them on where to go. Because if, if, you know, I know the audience, you know, starts to key in on certain things that we talk about and they're going to want to go watch it.
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Chapter 7: How important are relationships in Brande's career?
Yeah. I'm big on that.
Take, take, take, you have to give.
Exactly. I got, I got somebody that I want to connect you with. They recently put out a good, really good independent film. And then I want to put your movie in his hands and, you know, you kind of like a thing. So like you guys are both watching each other. Like that's, it's exactly what we're talking about. Right.
100%.
Yeah.
Yes.
To the audience. The audience, I want you guys to really go check this movie out, right? And I want you to share it with people. Sit down with some friends and keep talking about Wineville because there's amazing things going on in Brandy's career and things that she's doing. We want to support it. That's why we have her on the show. We want to promote Wineville. Big deal, you know? So...
Yes, I appreciate that.
Absolutely, absolutely. Well, I just want to thank you again for coming on and sharing your journey, first and foremost, about just who you are as a person and some of the things that you believe in. Because what I do know, people that love about the show, The Determined Society, is when people like you come on the show...
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Chapter 8: What is the significance of grounding in daily life?
Absolutely. You have to have all the little wins and those steps to get to that goal. You can't, you know, Rome wasn't built in a day, right? Yeah.
It's so funny because people say, oh, that's a cliche. Well, yeah, for a reason.
Yeah, exactly.
For a very good reason. You cannot build Rome in a day, right? Right. So I really enjoyed this conversation with you. You're my people, my friend, like straight up jacked about this new friendship.
NorCal, man.
Yeah, NorCal, NorCal. So, but, uh, yeah. So thank, thank you again. Um, I look forward to meeting you in person soon. And, um, for the audience, um, I want you to look at the deeper meaning of today's episode, right?
It's always about moving forward in the moment, no matter how you feel in that current state, whether you feel bad or feel good, there is a goal that you have that you have set and it is your job to move forward no matter what. Doesn't matter how you feel. What matters is that you move forward on your dreams. Until next time, stay determined.
This one's luck. I let the pain inspire me. I put my all in everything I'm doing. Up until it's done, I'm me for the entirety. I put it in overtime. I be working. Just know I'm a go for mine. Cause I earned it. They watching. I know it's time. I confirmed it. The whole society determined.
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