COVEpod | Carganilla Online Variety Entertainment Podcast | Storytelling, Interviews, Poetry, Music, Arts & Inspiration

Nell Teare | Anticipation, Grief, & the Magic of Being Present | COVE Podcast 33

• Paul Carganilla / Nell Teare • Season 1 • Episode 33

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Actress / Writer / Director / Producer / Singer / Dancer - Nell Teare

COVEpod Host Paul Carganilla has the pleasure of sitting down with the multifaceted Nell Teare: an award-winning director, producer, actress, and writer whose story is marked by resilience and a steadfast commitment to the arts. Nell's creative journey encapsulates the heart's fire of a passionate creative spirit.  In this episode, she opens up about her roots, her family's struggles, and the serendipitous shift from acting to directing, offering an intimate view into the trials and triumphs that have shaped her remarkable career. Take a peek behind-the-scenes into the process behind writing, producing, and directing her independent feature, "Bolivar", which is making festival rounds and available to stream at home on many platforms. Join us as we celebrate the collaborative beauty of Nell's work and the narratives that connect us all.

OFFICIAL WEBSITE: www.nellteare.com

EPISODE VIDEOS: www.covetube.com
COVE DIRECTORY: https://linktr.ee/covepod
COVE PATREON: www.patreon/covepodcast
CONTACT: covepod@gmail.com

POETRY PERFORMER: Craig Jackman
POETRY: “Star of the Show" [ Rhona McFerran ]
VOICE-OVER INTRODUCTION: Malcolm McDowell ( "A Clockwork Orange", "Star Trek Generations", "Halloween" (2007) )
SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM: Craig Jackman, Emily Thatcher, Christina Marie Bielen, Dary Mills, Amanda Benjamin
PATREON CURATORS: Jamie Carganilla, Emily Thatcher, The Faeryns, Charity Swanson, Krista Faith King, Kelsey B Gibson, Angelica Bollschweiler, Anna Giannavola, Gina Dobbs, Merrill Mielke, Susan Kuhn, Josefa Snider
INTRO MUSIC: “Papi Beat” [ KICKTRACKS ]
CREDITS MUSIC: “Fat Banana” [ KICKTRACKS ]
HOST, CREATOR, EXECUTIVE PRODUCER, CREATIVE DIRECTOR, EDITOR: Paul Carganilla

Speaker 1:

I feel like these moments that we actually sort of memorized or like crystallized, are the times that we are present.

Speaker 2:

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cogginilla online variety entertainment podcast. Here's your host, paul Cogginilla.

Speaker 3:

Hello, and welcome to Cove. This is the online variety show in which we aim to both entertain and inspire our podcast listeners and YouTube viewers through a variety of art forms, including music, poetry, storytelling, special guest interviews, travel blogs, dramatic readings. So much more a whole grab bag, a jumbalaya of conversations, experiences, thoughts, reflections to listen to each week to keep you going and to get you excited about new episodes every Tuesday, right here. And I am super amped, so excited, to introduce everyone here in the Cove community to a new friend of mine, whom I met because she's the director of a project that Everly's been working on. But her work, her art, her creative journey is one I cannot wait to dive into, and I'll tell you all of the reasons why in just a sec. But first, of course, we've got to pull the cart back in front of the horse and say hello to the man behind the scenes, our producer, producer, craig Jackman. Welcome.

Speaker 4:

Hello everybody. Oh, my God, paul you. This interview today is going to be exciting. I am looking forward to it as well. I read her bio and boy talk about somebody who she's driven. She's gone through a lot to get to where she is today and what's amazing is she doesn't. She's she's young and she still got more to give. And I'm just excited to listen to her and listen to, like you said, her experiences, because this is what makes this is what makes people go to the next level. Each item that you take in, each item that you learn to do, each item that you experience graduates you to a new level.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, every step of the way. As we talk about often on this podcast, it's important to celebrate the milestone and celebrate what we have accomplished, while we continue to move forward and while her journey has been pretty incredible so far, we know, you know, just like so many creators and people, with that heart fire burning in them. Like she's only just begun, I'm sure, and but we will have a chat with her. I cannot wait, as I've already stated, and I'll tell you all more about her. Professionally, our guest today is Nell tear.

Speaker 3:

She's an award winning director, producer and actress and writer as well. She's a native Texan and graduate of the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. That's where Jamie went so cool. She trained as a stage actor and was a member of the original cast of Memphis, which went on to win the Tony Award for Best Musical in 2010. In 2012, she began her career as a director and has since completed over 150 projects, including more than 20 foreign language dubs for Netflix, amazon and Disney.

Speaker 3:

She's directed feature and short films, commercials, live stage performances, pilot presentations, web series and music videos, and her feature film Bolivar is available on all cable, satellite and digital platforms through freestyle media. She's currently attached to three feature films and is adapting a book into a limited series through her production company, teer Lit. Nell is also the founder of Harmon Creek Press, through which she published her children's book Celia and the Witches, and she is dedicated to mentoring teens and young people. I can say firsthand she works with kids so well. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming to the Carganilla online variety entertainment podcast Now Teer.

Speaker 1:

Wow, that was really wonderful. Thanks, guys.

Speaker 3:

It is really wonderful of you to join us, and I'm so happy to be here. Oh, are you excited about the 60 second icebreaker introduction challenge?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, man, I'm going to go way. I'm going to try to go way back in and come to now.

Speaker 3:

Wow, I like that you are challenging yourself with this. I'll get the stopwatch ready and here we go. Okay, three, two, one.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so my name is Nell Teer. I was born Eleanor Gibson Teer in Houston, texas. At about age six I moved to our blueberry farm and was a farm girl until I was 11. Moved back to Houston, went to a performing arts magnet middle school, performing arts, high school, hspda. Then I went to New York, lived in New York, ford was on stage singing and dancing, grew up performing with my mom. She was one of the original Dean Martin Goldbeards. Moved to LA 14 years ago I was doing the Randy Newman musical and then I became a director. I'm a dog mom to Moe Moliere, a little cheapoo. I'm a plant mom to multiple indoor and outdoor plants. I love to paint. I love to sing and dance, still and write. I think I'm a great bread baker. My boyfriend's name is Rich Paul and I love him very much.

Speaker 3:

That was like 60 seconds exactly. Did you rehearse that? That was amazing.

Speaker 1:

No, no, I did not that was so good Love it.

Speaker 3:

We're going to dive into some of the stuff you just mentioned, but I have to say off the bat that I've never I haven't. My show is young. We are toward the end of season one. This is episode 31 or 32 ish and I have to meet someone who I saw so much of myself in as I was doing the prep work and research and learning more about you. Of course we spent a little bit of time together, but it's while everybody's working and we're. You know we don't have a whole lot of time to really chat and get to know each other, but there's so many parallels in like your journey so far and mine. I grew up like. My first love and desire was to be an actor, just like yours. And then, along the way, people are telling me you should, you should direct, you should really be a director and I started writing and producing my own stuff Web series, music videos to finally made my own, wrote, directed, start in my own short films up until my own feature film.

Speaker 3:

And looking at your background and I'm like we've taken the same path on a lot of this stuff. But then I was listening to another podcast that you were on called the 101 podcast, and you said something that just blew my mind, because I was just like, oh my God, like are we the same person? So they were asking you. They were asking you, like, what your advice is when you, when you meet people who are experiencing trepidation or intimidated to take the first step or a big creative step, and you said something that took me right back to so back when I worked for Disney, my commute was like two or three hours each way a day and I used to film these while I'm sitting in traffic.

Speaker 3:

I used to film these like encouraging things that I would just post on Facebook, and one of them I'm going to play for you. I'm going to producer Craig's going to play for you right now and we'll see if it, if you catch the part where I was just like, oh my God, craig, if you can't wait. So this is from November of 2015. So this is from eight years ago.

Speaker 2:

Today is freaking amazing. It already is, so treat it that way. You are a magician, you are. You are magic. You're not what you see in the mirror. You are a ball of love and magical energy, driving a flesh covered skeleton on a rock that is rolling through space. You're freaking awesome and today is here for you to enjoy and grab by the nuts, do it. Make today as amazing as it is. Give it the credit it deserves. Give yourself the opportunity to enjoy everything that today has to offer. Drive that skeleton, make that magic.

Speaker 1:

Oh my God.

Speaker 3:

So I think your words on the podcast were like we're, we're like oh, it's my mantra.

Speaker 1:

It's we're on a rock spinning an infinity, next to a ball of fire, and it's a star. It's a star. It's a star that's circling through space. That's my mantra. So why not do everything, because it's already like the fact that we're here is just kind of like Wow, a mind blowing miracle, that is hysterical.

Speaker 1:

That's amazing, and so I was listening to it. I was like what, oh my God? And they made me. They made me like a Monday motivation meme, which is Everyone actually rich makes fun of me, because I somehow am able to weave that into every new person that I meet, into that conversation. I'm like just sitting on a rock spinning in the middle of infinity, like to a ball of fire, you know.

Speaker 3:

Do you understand how magical that is and how magical this experience that we're having is Right. So, not only like our journey and our background, but like I had through the themes I had the absolute pleasure of watching Bolivar this past week and the themes that you touch on with that film I'm not going to give and we're going to talk more about the film later but are so many of what was woven into my short films that I made before my feature and my feature. My feature is about a team of ghost hunters. It's a fun, popcorn, entertaining flick but the woven into the core of the message it deals with grief and moving on and appreciating the day while you have it. But dealing with that stage of grief is a big theme in my own feature and it's obviously a huge part of yours. And I was just blown away. I was like you cannot wait to talk to her about her journey and her motivations and well, I think we're always grieving.

Speaker 1:

I mean human beings, you know, we're set up to anticipate and then to grieve the thing that we've been anticipating, right. So there's like this longing and loss that's so woven into what it means to be a human being and I feel like these moments that we actually sort of memorized or like crystallized, are the times that we are present and those are the things that we replay because we were present in that moment. You know, like in Boliver, all of her flashback for the, you know. So I love that, I I love it. Sorry to interrupt, continue please.

Speaker 3:

No, I was nervous going into this because, like I was, like I have so much to say to her. But you know, this episode's all about you and your journey. Oh my gosh. I didn't want you to feel like I was. I was taking Us. But yeah, so we've gone over. We kind of went step by step through your, your bio. But Tell us how it all began. I know you grew up on stage with your, with your, surrounded by family, performing. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so well. My mom Was a stage actress from the time. She was very little, I mean, I think she was probably like six or seven when she started performing on stage and Tore it all over as a melody made. She was a beautiful singer, dancer, and she was performing in Houston in the late 60s and producer named Jonathan Lucas Was coming in, like they did back in the day, to direct regional productions in the bigger cities and he asked the both of the Susie at the time one now Susie Ewing and my mother to come and be Gold diggers on the D Martin show and so they did and it performed in Vietnam and traveled with Bob Hope and Ann Margaret and everybody.

Speaker 1:

And she came back, married my dad and we grew up in Houston but she was kind of the host of the town through the 70s into the 80s and that's. We started performing with her and we really performed everywhere we possibly could, no matter where we lived. Like oil market crash, dad lost everything. We moved to our farm, we were doing community theater and she went back to get her degree at Sam Houston State University, so we were like the kids in all the productions and then moved in to her childhood home in Beaumont for a little bit Work at Beaumont community players where I met a dear friend named Jessica Rush, who's a Broadway star, and I'm still in contact with her, but it was like a year and a half. And then back to Houston where she stopped performing because of her struggle with drugs and alcohol. But then I picked up the torch and Was performing all over Houston and then New York and then all over the country and the world, and then, you know, and I got behind the camera. I don't know. Can I answer that question?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. And somewhere along the line you know I remember it was a funny from the other podcast said you, some people started to mention you should direct and you took that Like a oh, I was heartbroken.

Speaker 1:

I was doing greats of wrath with my mom. I was 10. She was this adorable Tiny little thing, like five foot two lawn, so cute, adorable, you know. And the director of greats of wrath was this Very sort of you know loud. I remember her being tall and like large, like it was the 80s or early 90s. It's like you know she had on those shoulder pads and her hair was big and I Was, I guess I was holding court with some of the other adult actors and she came out to me and she goes oh, nelly, I think one day you'll grow into a great actor, a great director. And I, I went home that night and cried my eyes out because I thought she was telling me I wasn't pretty enough or like Cute or little. I wasn't enough, like my mother, to be an actress. So I was gonna be a director, you know. And so for years people were like do you want to direct? Absolutely not. No, thank you. No, I don't. I'm an actress, thanks, no, no.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it's not funny. It's such a thing like when you, when you've made up your mind you want to be an actor, you want to be on stage in front of the camera. If anybody suggests that you should write or direct, excuse me.

Speaker 1:

It's like why.

Speaker 3:

I haven't gotten my actors my Oscar yet.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you don't think I'm. Yeah, I was heartbroken.

Speaker 3:

What's really cool about the experience that you had growing up was being around, constantly being immersed in it. I remember, you know, I grew up around, mostly around music, and it wasn't until high school, college, that I started to hit the stage and I really fell in love with acting and performing. But what, how valuable did you find that to be? To just like, from your earliest memories, to be around veterans of the craft?

Speaker 1:

Oh, man, I, you learned so so much just by listening and that was all you know. I, I loved the world. I've always been so in love with the world and the people and sort of the like. You know, the traveling, circus aspect of this lifestyle that we have and Most of my mentors have always been Older in the business and I just sit and listen and listen, and listen and I remember being in the green room doing homework and just Wanting to hear every story of, like the faulty scenery or the headdress in South Pacific that set on fire and, you know, forgetting the lines and the whole.

Speaker 1:

You know it was just yeah, I think that it it adds so much depth to life. The arts, you know, and people are so hungry for it and I think We've really lost, especially in this country, the focus on that and I was lucky enough to to have it sort of built into my existence. But you know, I mean just thinking about school and plays at school and being surrounded by people who draw and paint, and that that's cool and it's not weird. You know poetry and write your poetry and be the adolescent and you know, I don't know. I loved it, I love it, I seek it out wherever I am always.

Speaker 3:

Wonderful. Can you remember what happened or what the catalyst was for you to start writing?

Speaker 1:

Well, the interesting thing is that, like I was saying, poetry, I think my first my like, my first loves were plants and, and like creatures and plants and poetry. I fell in love with poetry when I was a little girl, and so I started writing poems as early as six. I think my dad kept them all. He loved my writing and so I've always, always written. I tried to write novels when I was in high school. I Would publish things for myself and print them out and like make books, and so I've, I've always written, and then in 2009, I published a children's book. You know, kind of did it myself, but Barnes and Noble picked it up and Did some school touring with that.

Speaker 1:

So it's always a love, and the first, the first full screenplay I ever wrote is an animated feature that we're still Shopping around now that we're working on selling but or making. I hope to sell it, I want to direct it, but so that was the first one and I have a couple. But, yeah, I think the writing was always a very. It was very much like a personal or private love. The the performing was an extension of my mom and Kind of an expression of our relationship and our love. The writing was very much my own and I loved that. My father thought it was really my strong, my strongest talent. That's awesome.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I Wish I'd known ahead of time. We share poems on this show as well. Do you stop? If you have probably handy, we could feature some of your poetry as well.

Speaker 1:

Let me see, we'll keep talking, but I'm gonna see, I'm gonna search it out.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we could always fix it in post and add it in later.

Speaker 1:

Exactly right. Oh the scariest phrase will fix it in post. It never gets it or it just takes way longer. Way longer than the fix just right here, but so?

Speaker 3:

but screenwriting and Writing poetry, writing children's book? Is there different beasts? Did you have any outdoors or did you take a class? Is that all self-taught, all self-taught?

Speaker 1:

I Mean in school. You know, right, I loved. I had the most wonderful English teacher my junior year of High school. Ms Ballard loved her. She's no longer on the planet, but she was just fantastic and she recognized my talents In that department and that gave me sort of that Excitement.

Speaker 1:

And then, when I was at NYU, I took a class called Autobiography, writing, the autobiography and oh my gosh, oh my gosh Laura what is Laura's last name? She was just she was. She was one of my advisors too. I took her class and everyone was just like intimidated by her.

Speaker 1:

She was such a great writer and I Took the course and I fell in love with it and she also really loved my writing and so I think it was the encouragement that kept me going and and really it's kind of my dance on all things that you know you can, you can watch others and you can take courses and you can do all of that. But if you're trying to create something that is outside of yourself, it's gonna fall flat. And If it's coming from the inside and it's just something that you see in your mind or you hear in your head and you have to do it, then Just do it. You know, that's what editors are for, that's what you know you can. You can adjust things afterwards, but like get out the raw, that raw thing, that raw stone and Creation, whatever it is.

Speaker 3:

That was a big, big learning curve, or a big milestone, when I was. I'm also self-taught screenwriter. But yeah, the whole idea of get that first draft done, no matter how crappy it is, because I would fall into that pitfall of one day I would write ten pages. The next day I would sit down and I would spend my whole time Rewriting eight of the ten pages.

Speaker 1:

I know I did that too.

Speaker 3:

You get stuck until you finally you realize you just get that first draft done and get that turd out there and then polish it right, right, and I don't know about you, but like I'm a, I Will think things for years before I ever write it down.

Speaker 1:

I, if I don't know where I'm going and that doesn't mean the middle is necessarily solidified, necessarily solidified but if I don't know where I'm headed and I don't know where I'm starting, I won't write it. That's kind of how my brain works, you know. It's like I need to know where I'm going.

Speaker 3:

Got to have that outline and that breakdown before you sit down and plow through. So tell me about that feared and horrific transition to directing. What spawned that and how did that begin?

Speaker 1:

Well, that's interesting because I've been doing a little bit more introspection on that, or excavation, rather. I stopped performing on stage when my mom died and I didn't even recognize that that's what was happening. She died in the midst of a show that I was doing called the Last Berry Tail. She was very sick. I had just finished the Randy Newman musical and then I went directly into rehearsals for the next Berry Tail at Celebration Theatre in LA and she was sick and I was flying back and forth and flying back and forth to be with her and when she passed away, it's when I started painting. I really I had a year where I was just ravenous, I just wanted to paint, and paint, and paint and paint, and I think it was like the beginning of the directing, because it was all everything inside of frame, maybe the control of that, but I think I was so wounded that I just the idea of doing a musical without her on the planet would kind of. But again, it wasn't conscious. I didn't recognize that until now I'm looking at it 12 years later. But then I was asked out of the blue to direct a one woman show stage and we shot this little Kickstarter video to go with it. It's a show that's still kind of going around.

Speaker 1:

Jessica Abrams, great comedian, actress, writer, and I went around and I started interviewing all these women about what they see when they look in the mirror.

Speaker 1:

Because the play is called If I Look this Good, why Do I Feel Like Shit? And so when I did that, I edited it with my friend, bobby Field, and sat there and like, put these things together and added music and timing and I was like, oh my God, oh my God, I love, this is what I am, this is who I am. And so I enrolled in a course called the Art of Visual Storytelling, taught by Miles Watkins, and it was like this three month crash course you wrote, shot, edited a film each month. So put all of my money into that and made these three things and just was in love with it and I had like boundless energy to do it. I mean I was walking all around town with sea stands and like my car destroyed my. I had this little Acura that my father had given me when I moved to LA and I just ran that thing into the ground. I mean I stuffed it with camera gear and all sorts of stuff.

Speaker 3:

That Tetris game of going.

Speaker 1:

Oh oh.

Speaker 1:

I'm so good, I'm like, oh yeah, that'll fit, that'll fit, that'll fit. High hat, give me the high hat. You know that kind of thing. And then Adam Cushman, at film 14, he and his wife were waiting tables together at the time and so when I'm like 30 and he watched my stuff and said, yeah, you're great. And then I started directing all of these commercial book trailers for, like Penguin and you know all the, all the big like YA stuff, and that's how I really cut my teeth. But I was able to you know, not paid to to kind of learn my craft and I think at one point I had directed more commercial book trailers than any other director in this country. It was crazy. Yeah, you know I'm manic.

Speaker 3:

Did you find that it was a bigger challenge to direct things that you were hired to do as opposed to the ones that you wanted to make?

Speaker 1:

Well, I didn't have an opportunity to do any of the ones that I wanted to make, because I didn't have time to even create them. I went straight from the class and I started directing like scenes for my friends reels and then got picked up to do all these book trailers and then all of a sudden, I started getting asked to direct everybody else's short. So for like seven years that was my job. People would say, oh, nell can do it. Now, now call Nell Pierce, she'll make it. How much do you have? Oh, $150. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she'll, she'll figure it out. And so I had this. Obviously the budget got bigger, thank God, but that was how I did it. So Bolliver is actually the first project that is mine. So it took a decade, but I finally directed my own stuff.

Speaker 3:

It is a long road but usually worth it, and you talked about this. So I kick started my first web series, my two short films and my feature, in that order. And you talk about this moment on the podcast I was listening to where and I connected so personally with it. But that moment when you realize it's going to happen and the fear and terror that comes with that, when you've worked so hard to raise the money and to do all the things to make it happen, and then it's, you see that it's going to, and then there is a moment of, oh my God, this is going to happen. I am terrified.

Speaker 1:

Oh, yeah, and, and I think it's like it's and you know this feeling it's like the fun terror, right it's. You're like, oh God, oh, my God, Okay, Okay, oh sure, Okay, I have to have all of this like figured out and organized and ready, and you know, and my whole thing with Oliver was like if this sucks or fails, it's all on me.

Speaker 2:

That was that's all on me.

Speaker 1:

Like I wrote it wrecking it, starring in it, producing it, like I put the team together, I put the script together, I, you know it's like, oh man, yeah, it was. It was one of those moments where you're like, okay, don't be here, here we go.

Speaker 3:

It's not only the the, the fear of letting down the backers and the people who believed in you, but it's the team For sure it's the people that you're working with that have For sure. Yes, I will come with you on this journey.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I, and I honestly think that, for me, once I'm there, once I'm in it, I'm just there and I'm, and I'm excited and I'm in it and I'm trying to do the best that I can in every scene and every moment, every day, and I'm not thinking about failing. I don't have that personality, thank God, when I'm in it, you know I'm just doing. You know I also am like I am the ultimate optimist. So it's like no, no, no, no, it's going to be great, it's going to be great, it's going to be great, it's going to be great, it's going to be great. That was wonderful, that was amazing. And then, if it's not, you know what's that line? It's so great, it'll all be okay in the end, and if it's not okay, it's not the end. You know so.

Speaker 1:

But yeah, I don't know. I guess, being on stage so many times, you know you learn this thing. It's like it looks like nothing is going to come together in a theatrical performance. You know, you're like a week out and you're like we're not ready, we're not ready, we're not ready, we're not ready. And then all of a sudden, boom, opening night, and you're there and it's like we were ready.

Speaker 3:

So ready or not we're doing this in the lights.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3:

There are butts in seats and this is happening.

Speaker 1:

Let's see, this is happening.

Speaker 3:

Yeah Well, bolivar happened and the. Let me I'll read the synopsis for everyone. It's about Maggie. Maggie's a struggle. She's struggling to keep her life together after the death of her mother when her addict brother shows up, forcing her to make sense of a reality that she may not.

Speaker 3:

That may not be what it seems and what I what I love about it personally, I love films and who doesn't that? Where you get immersed in the world, like within the first five minutes. I was in it with Maggie and I like, but by the time that it ended I went oh yeah, so my house is here too, like. I was there with her, like throughout the whole journey, and I love. I found a review online where somebody wrote, subtly and slowly building up to an emotional climax beautifully realized, lost in your memories, daydreaming inescapably, trying to hang on to what is inevitably slipping and fading away, even if it hurts beyond measure and words, and that, like, pretty much summed it up for me and the theme of loss and grief is. So that's what the movie's about. Did you was it? Obviously, did it come from that personal place of losing your mother?

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So I just I remember specifically this one day, the day I found out that it was stage four and you know, I it was just. It was crazy. I was doing a movie and the director and writer had been there as an actress. I was doing a film with an actress and they left and I had this vision.

Speaker 1:

I was crying so hard by myself in a house where all the lights were off but the light was coming in through the windows and I thought I wonder if my body, what would it be if it just ripped open and all of these tears just carried the pieces of me away, the two pieces like that was the. That felt hard. I was crying, I was watching myself from like the upper corner of the of the room that I was in, and the way I brought myself back into being was that I noticed on the bed skirt there was like a, a string that was hanging off and I yanked it and it was tactile and it was real and it brought me back into that present moment, like in my body, and that was 10 years before I wrote fall over that moment. But all of the experience of my loss of my mom I put into Maggie's experience. Now, she's different than I am and the story is not the story of our family or anything, but the loss was the same for her and, I think, for me. What I wanted to create with it was like an open-faced sandwich, kind of grief sandwich, where people could put their own experience into the structure I had created, and as a director, that's what I try to do always is just create the structure. It's about the actors filling it and the cinematographer filling the frame with light, and so I'm just kind of like, okay, here's our vessel, now let's make it float, let's go. And for this it was that I was a watcher.

Speaker 1:

As a child I memorized my mom. I memorized my siblings, then my dad. I remember floating with my mom at the beach in Boliver, which is where all the memories take place in the movie, and she could just float in the tide pools that would. They'd be like maybe three feet deep or something. She could just float. She had these little beauty marks on her thigh and I just remember trying to float next to her. I'm much more earthy. My mom was all water and I was just like I'm a tree, but I'm trying to float next to you, and those are the moments that I made. The tomato moment. That wasn't a real moment, but that's who I saw for Maggie, based on her dad and that connection. So yeah, that's probably very long-winded, but yes, it's based on my own spirit and grief.

Speaker 3:

You know we write what we know. When it's a project that comes from you, you're the writer, director, actor. One of my favorite books, steve, like an artist, says like every creative work is fan fiction because you're inspired by something that has kind of shaped the way that you're gonna create your work, and that you know when it's a cathartic feeling, when it's something that is that personal for you and you spend so much of your life putting it together, wrapping it up, putting a bow on it and showing it to other people to judge, how has the experience of creating your own feature film from such a personal place, how has that been for you?

Speaker 1:

Well, you know, I think there was one reviewer who just didn't like the structure, like didn't get the sort of flashing back, and but otherwise I think the people who have responded to it have responded to it in a way that I hoped that they would. You know, obviously films find us. You know the ones that sort of open us up or show us something new or scratch an itch. You know, and this was a dream of my mom's, that we would all make films together one day, and so I put my brother and sister and some of my nieces and nephews into it. And 10 years after her death, it was a realization of something she like, that desperate dreaming. You know, the desperate day dreaming.

Speaker 1:

You know we're in this double wide trailer on 180 acres in the middle of Southeast Texas, and this woman has performed for thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of people, with some of the greatest performers of all time, with Bob Hope and Anne Margaret. And here she is with her three children, who sometimes, you know, she has to leave the grocery basket at the door because there's no money. And you know she's telling us we're gonna write these movies and we're gonna make these movies together and we're gonna do that and you know, after she died I was able to do that. So it was quite cathartic and also it just filled my heart. You know, when I watched Mimi and my niece and my brother and my sister and Wyatt and Sadie, and this I'm like man, she would have loved it and then sadly we lost my dad right after we finished the edit, kind of in the midst of the edit. So it was wow, it was yeah, it was a wild time.

Speaker 3:

It's like a perfect transition. That was gonna be my next question because I came from well. Two summers ago we had the pleasure of Everly worked on a Robert Rodriguez film out there in Texas and I got to go spend a summer out there and watch Robert Rodriguez work and he has now hired all of his children to be on his crew.

Speaker 3:

like the visuals, the sound effects the score the co-directing and I thought this dude's got it Like what a dream that would be to just grow up and make art with your family and then to see that you were able to do that with Boliver and to hear that it was a dream of your mother's is so inspirational, and your niece and nephew did a great job in the film.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. I think they were brilliant and I thought I was so proud. I mean, my brother is like tiny little part, but I was so proud of my sister too and I just thought she was beautiful as the flashback mom, yeah.

Speaker 3:

Oh, she was your mom.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

Okay, yeah, I'd known that they were in the film, but I hadn't IMDb'd who played what. But yeah, yeah, well, that makes sense because you look a lot like each other.

Speaker 1:

Well, that helps with the transitions as well. You know, bone structure matching is kind of a cool thing, and she looks so much like my mom, so it was perfect.

Speaker 3:

You're a magical being making magical art here on this magical experience of life on this rock by a fireball you mentioned you have stuff coming down the pike. What's next for Neltyr? Ooh, okay.

Speaker 1:

So you know some. There are some projects that just take long time and I've been working on a pilot presentation for a while that we just it's just taken forever, like I'm talking two years, and it's a short concept piece. So we're in the throes of like the sound and the color edit on that. We're sort of world building still, but that's a really cool thing I shot with Alexander Grzinski and written by Josh Adwar. It's called Folklore Americana and hopefully that'll be we'll be submitting soon, like in the next month.

Speaker 1:

There's some festivals and things. We have a pilot that Josh is working on that's attached to it. So it's kind of, you know, we want to do the festival run with it, kind of get the world out there, but it's very much kind of a climate sci-fi but again very much an emotional like relationship piece. I'm attached to a feature Christmas movie called Winter White Wedding, which I'm excited about and that was shoot in Texas in a town called Ruder-Exburgh, written by two wonderful women and really looking to kind of create like a you know, like a the holiday or family stuff, like a holiday or family stone, you know that kind of feeling. It's really a love story about sisters. And then I've got a project I've been working on for a long time which looks like it might go, which would be a big one, like the biggest budget that I've ever done, and I wrote it with my good friend Ford Gunter and have some really exciting actors verbally attached to it, so fingers crossed for them.

Speaker 3:

Nice, yeah. So that's all very exciting and we wish you all the very best. And before we say thanks and good night, but wait and then the thing that I've written for your child.

Speaker 1:

Very which you haven't read yet, but anyway, so go on.

Speaker 3:

I told my wife, I told Everly and Jamie about it at lunch one day and just like the brief synopsis, and everyone at the table was in tears. So we can't wait to hear more about it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we've heard your mantra and it is loud and clear on this end, but do you have any other other lasting advice or advice that you normally will find yourself giving to people who might be intimidated or afraid to take the first step, the next step in their career or take on a big project that it may be scary for them?

Speaker 1:

I think my the thing that I continue to say to myself is do not, do not allow your definition of success to be narrow. Let success be this mysterious, vast thing, so that you're like I think of a shrimping boat. Right, if anyone's ever seen that, the nets go way out and they sort of gather everything. Because if success to you means I'm a series regular on a on a TV show, one hour drama on ABC, well, good luck with that. But if success is something faster, like I, will feel fulfilled in the roles that I play. I will be financially stable in this industry. I don't know what job could possibly do that, but I'm ready to find out. Well, you know, then you might start directing Dubs that you never knew was a job, and you might. You know, there's so many things in this industry that are fulfilling, that are creative, that you could never put your finger on or or even know about until you do. So if you're shutting down that lens, if it's so small that space is too narrow, then you shoot yourself in the foot.

Speaker 3:

Very wise and very great advice, in my humble opinion.

Speaker 3:

My thank you, congratulations to you, like for for all of your accomplishments I I mentioned you know how similar our journeys are and how I see so much of myself in you. But you know I I did the thing where I said I can't, I can't do this anymore, and I made a career pivot and I'm doing something else now. But staying in, you know, in the filmmaking, the creating as a hobby, you know with podcasts or side things, and I still, you know, am able to, you know, experience a lot of the fulfillment through watching my children work and things like that, but a huge. I cautioned people against, like you said, getting so just focused on one goal that, like that's going to define you and that's going to define success or failure for you. You need to be open to finding, finding the places where you belong and and or the places that work for you, the places where you find success, and you know when you do that it doesn't mean that you have failed, but to keep that in mind.

Speaker 1:

And also, you know, having other jobs and other skills is a gift to to an actor or a writer or a director, because you get to live in another world, like you get to know other truths, and there's there's nothing more helpful than that and and yeah, I think that's a huge thing. Also, one more thing to selfishly plug, but Bolivar was nominated for the Texas Independent Film Award by the Houston Film Critics Society. That exciting, and we'll find out on January 22nd. So keep your ears peeled if that comes down, because that would be special and we'd get people to go and rent it and watch it, which we desperately need you to do.

Speaker 3:

Keep us posted. I'll definitely share that info on our socials for the show. Before we say goodbye and find out all the ways we can stay connected. Before we do, did you happen to find a poem that you wanted to share with us on the program today?

Speaker 1:

I did find one. I don't know what the name of it is, but I wrote this years ago when we were out on a patio. The whole family and my nieces and nephews were little.

Speaker 3:

Luffy can't wait to hear it.

Speaker 1:

Right. Handfuls of fantasies fall from her young lips as the heat of the day blows 100 miles an hour around us. They make a machine of ordinary things to whisk them away. The speed of life. The first sounds of night surround us in this outdoor space that wants to be what we pretend it is. Arms and legs fly through the air, no meat, just intention, building something from nothing on just another night, finding things to reinvent and spend into my heart.

Speaker 1:

A coaster star, a garden, stone piece of moon, his familiar voice and the swirl of his wine. Sitting here, like always, somehow guarded from time, sand, the storms he has weathered, attempting everything at once and not at all the whipping by of time across his heart, our hearts. I only feel her empty space when I think about things later, how it could have gone had she not gone. But she did before she was, and I hear their laughter cutting through the desk, ringing bright eyes, loose teeth and a styrofoam cup. The straw, the straw stands at attention before my face and she sets her brow drink, she crushed it, a small piece she grabbed from the sun for me, crushed into this weird white cup so I could taste it, and her excitement transfers and her little brother runs, and it only took a second to sip the sun.

Speaker 3:

Beautiful Wow, being present in the moment In nature with children.

Speaker 4:

So many images, so much visual to it.

Speaker 1:

She just it was hysterical. She was like drink it. What is that? She goes? It's the sun. I crushed a piece of it for you. Taste it, oh my god. I think it was like Dr Pepper, but it was delicious.

Speaker 3:

That was beautiful. Do you have like a poetry book? You need to be sharing that stuff.

Speaker 1:

I have been thinking about it more and more. I think I have enough to actually do one, so maybe someday.

Speaker 3:

Which is another perfect segue to tell us where everyone can find. You can find Bolivar. How can people stay connected with Nell and her work?

Speaker 1:

Yes, Well, Nell, T-E-R-L-N-E-L-T-E-A-R-Ecom, and that's pretty much the same everywhere Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn I think I'm here, Nell, on Twitter. And then Bolivar is available on every platform, Anywhere that you can buy or rent films Xbox Roku, Hulu or not. No, it's not on Hulu yet. Ooh, maybe that was. Putting it out there here Putting it out there, yeah, but it's like Apple, amazon, u-verse Direct TV anywhere where you can rent or buy, you can find it.

Speaker 3:

Well, thank you so much for taking the time spending an hour with us today, on a Saturday, and what a wonderful gift. Traveling. It was a gift to have you here with us and sit down and get to know you a little bit more. I'm sure it is the start of a journey, a friendship journey that will continue through the years.

Speaker 1:

It will continue through the years and hopefully we'll get to collaborate on things and you know, just keep making these stories.

Speaker 3:

Let's do it. Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up at home for our guest today, Nell.

Speaker 2:

Tear.

Speaker 4:

That was a great interview and I mean what I love some of the takeaways that I saw that I think everybody who listens and watches this podcast should consider is the fact that she's self-taught, she took it on herself to do these things and that encouragement keep kept her going and that's what we all need is encouragement, regardless of whatever talent that we have, whatever we're good at. Keep going, keep developing it, keep fueling that passion. I love that. Get out that raw stone of creation. Yes, those words embody so much about how artists and not only just artists passionate people should be about what they do. Get that raw stone of creation out there. Some other notes I made is obviously she is a metaphorical driver of her own car, not thinking about failing ultimate optimist.

Speaker 4:

The poem that I have selected for today I mean, oh my gosh, she fits right into it. She mentioned being a gypsy with her sister. The poem that I found was from poetrysoupcom. This writer, rona McFerrin, is known as a gypsy soul poet. I love what her comment that she says in general, but the poem just explains a lot. Rona says never stop creating what you love and never stop being yourself. You never know who you might inspire. I swear. If Nell does not inspire people to do what they want to do, to feel that passion to follow through, I don't know. I mean, she is her story, her history herself.

Speaker 3:

So a lot of vibes from a lot of people. Who have been listening to the podcast from the beginning know that this was a project that I wanted to do for years and it was always in the back of my head and I always thought could I keep that up? Could I do it? Would people listen to it? And this little guy in the back? I can't do it.

Speaker 4:

Okay, I'll stop over there Staying on top of the clock is from the book that we talked about.

Speaker 3:

What do you do with an idea? And it is that raw stone of creation that you bring out into the world. You polish it up, you carve whatever you're going to out of it, and it all takes drive. It all takes not just the first step. Of course, you can't get anywhere without the first step, but you need to keep at it and follow through. And yeah, she's a prime example of that.

Speaker 4:

Absolutely, and the beauty of the poem that I selected is from 2019. It's called Star of the Show by Rona McFerrin.

Speaker 3:

Can't wait to hear it. Here is Craig Jackman interpreting Star of the Show by Rona McFerrin.

Speaker 4:

Narrate your own life's story and tell your own life's tale. Don't leave it up for grabs or even up for sale. Write down your own life's story before the others do, waiting through words and phrases that aren't remotely true. Plan out your own life's story before it's done for you and you're stuck acting out a life that you despise and rue. Plot out your own life's story or at least act two or three. Rewrite your script, if needed to set your spirit free. Dress yourself with color, costume yourself with care. Create the character you want to be and strut with catwalk flair. Design and build your life's stage, or at least rearrange the props and play your role with Moxie, not caring if it flops. Create your own life's story as producer-director-star. Then kick back and enjoy the show, no matter how bizarre. Be your own show's critic, ignoring all other reviews. Lavish your life with praise, acknowledging cast and crew. Become your very own fan club, awaiting each scene of your day, taking joy in each thoughtful detail of your glorious, quirky play.

Speaker 3:

Subscribe or follow on YouTube or wherever you're listening to us, whatever podcast platform. Every like, comment and review helps us with the algorithm to reach new audiences. As a small, independent podcast, this is very important to help our show grow. So thank you in advance. I appreciate your time always. I hope you'll tune in to the next one. Until then, make each day count.

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Paul Carganilla

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