Ever found yourself captivated by the on-screen performances of actors in blockbuster films like 'Top Gun Maverick' and 'Mission Impossible 8'? This episode welcomes talented actor and coach, Jim Gleason, who breaks down the authentic nature of on-camera acting and how accepting your circumstances as truth, staying in the moment, and dismantling emotional walls is essential.
Let me take you on a journey - a journey of a man who dared to dream big. Jim shares his gripping tale of survival in the competitive entertainment industry and how he found solace and success in teaching. His students - whom he fondly mentions, Creek Wilson, Ashley Greene, and Greg Tarzan Davis - have landed roles in hit films, making him beam with pride.
But let's not forget, the world of glamour and fame is as unpredictable as it gets. Age, often considered a limitation, is merely a number in Hollywood. We'll hear about an elderly couple who travelled in their RV to LA, audacious in their pursuit of acting. Jim highlights the relevance of the circle exercise and the skills it teaches. Get ready, as we prepare to tear down the emotional walls and expose the raw and real side of acting.
Follow us on IG @nolafilmscene, @kodaksbykojack, and @tjsebastianofficial. Check out our 48 Hour Film Project short film Waiting for Gateaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pFvn4cd1U
Ever found yourself captivated by the on-screen performances of actors in blockbuster films like 'Top Gun Maverick' and 'Mission Impossible 8'? This episode welcomes talented actor and coach, Jim Gleason, who breaks down the authentic nature of on-camera acting and how accepting your circumstances as truth, staying in the moment, and dismantling emotional walls is essential.
Let me take you on a journey - a journey of a man who dared to dream big. Jim shares his gripping tale of survival in the competitive entertainment industry and how he found solace and success in teaching. His students - whom he fondly mentions, Creek Wilson, Ashley Greene, and Greg Tarzan Davis - have landed roles in hit films, making him beam with pride.
But let's not forget, the world of glamour and fame is as unpredictable as it gets. Age, often considered a limitation, is merely a number in Hollywood. We'll hear about an elderly couple who travelled in their RV to LA, audacious in their pursuit of acting. Jim highlights the relevance of the circle exercise and the skills it teaches. Get ready, as we prepare to tear down the emotional walls and expose the raw and real side of acting.
Follow us on IG @nolafilmscene, @kodaksbykojack, and @tjsebastianofficial. Check out our 48 Hour Film Project short film Waiting for Gateaux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5pFvn4cd1U
Hey, I'm Jim Gleason and I got Warren Swaggle the end of being on Nola Films.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Nola film scene with TJ Play-Doh. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Play-Doh. Hey, welcome back to Nola film scene and, as you've heard, as we've presented these podcasts, a lot of our friends and the ones we met in the circle exercise and our current guest, no exception, except he, was the teacher, jim Gleason himself. How you doing, sir? I'm good in yourself, doing great, doing great.
Speaker 3:Good so let's start it off with the circle. We've been telling people we can't dive into it because you want people to be fresh when they come to it. In your words, tell them okay, cool, the circle exercise.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you the long version. I was in Los Angeles and I just started studying at the studio and the woman who ran the studio said you should take this class. It was taught by a guy named Corey Allen, who was an actor in the 50s and then a director in the 80s. If you ever seen Rebels out of cause, he plays buzz, james Dean's chief rival. So then he went on to direct Hill Street Blues in the 80s and got Emmys for directing. Just a great, great guy toward the end of his life had the chance to take this class and I had no idea what they did when I went and it kind of blew my mind, you know, because I had always approached acting from the perspective of trying to get things right.
Speaker 1:And one of the things the circle exercise Emphasizes is there is no right or wrong, there's just whatever you would do and you take that perspective. It really sort of liberates you to be a little more reactive and true. So there's a lot of benefits to the circle. So I took the circle exercise and he didn't. He didn't call it that. I called it that because of the way that the room is oriented. He didn't even have a name for it. It was just like the Corey Allen class. So I took it every opportunity that I had it really really Opened my mind and open my eyes to the being a much more present and real in my acting.
Speaker 1:What he didn't do was explain how can we take this exercise and apply it to on camera acting. He didn't do that. I had to figure it out on myself, by myself, but I did, and that's one thing I include when I teach it. Now you know one of the precepts of acting that the perspective that I teach from is you have to believe that the scene that you're in or the story that you're in is your actual life, and I call this accepting your circumstances as truth. That's kind of a paraphrase of what Sanford Meisner says, which is acting is behaving honestly under imaginary circumstances. But in order to behave honestly, you have to accept those imaginary circumstances as your actual life. In the circle exercise, one of the things that, one of the benefits that you can get, is to not only understand what it means to accept your circumstances as truth, but to feel it. And you can't see now, but I'm pointing at my heart.
Speaker 3:So Proves, you have one, I understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll go with that. So that's one benefit. Another benefit and you probably heard this if you're an actor, you want to be in the moment. Actors say I want to be in the moment, man, I want to be in the moment. Well, we live our lives in the moment. You and I, you know, are living our lives in our moments right now. The circle exercise can really help you to take your focus off of yourself and what you're doing and and on the moment, because you don't know what's gonna happen next in the circle, which is one of the benefits of it. Another one is for film and television. Acting, the truth of the matter is just like we are now. Each one of you is kind of like that this is this shot. You know, this is the shot they always work toward, whether it's a wide shot or whether you know, we start with Kubrick and you have a giant shot and the people listening is basically mid chest to top of your head.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's the shot that you see right now right, they can't see these eyes.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, hopefully we get some video on. I'm sorry for interrupting listening.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's from. It's basically a bust shot. You're from the middle of your chest, the top of your head and your eyes are very prominent. So film and television acting is not really about the lines that you say. It's about what you're thinking and what you're feeling and the words have, I have, importance, them in the words have a definition and the words lend themselves to what you're going through. But really it's about what you're thinking and feeling. The words kind of Don't matter, one of the things that you find in the circle exercises. The words really do not matter, they have no bearing on what's happening, and it really helps you to understand, oh, what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling, what I want to say, what my heart says is with why we're watching.
Speaker 1:And then the final and the most, for me the most powerful benefit is that in life, you know, we put up walls Around our emotions. You know we don't leave our emotions on our sleeve. We manage them. For the most part it's a very healthy coping mechanism to get through life. And you may know some people that don't that. Every emotion they feel they fully express, and boy is that exhausting. But so we put up these walls right.
Speaker 1:But as actors, we have to have access to those emotions, and what the circle exercise very often does, and that these are the most powerful moments in the circle, to me, are the ones where People believe their circumstances and are emotionally moved, and it helps you to break down those walls to a degree so that when you're playing a role, you have access to those feelings, because it you have to have that. So there's a lot of benefits. The circle those are the four big ones accepting your circumstances as truth, understanding what it feels like to be in the moment the words don't really matter and Tearing down those emotional walls. There are lots of other benefits. Those are the four big ones. It's like the right rush more, and so that's what we do, and the more you do this exercise Is, to which Brian can attest the deeper the benefits go. The more access you have to the emotions, the the more you understand all the words don't matter. The more you do it, the better.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've taken it a few times about 18 Non-actor friends like what are you crazy? No, but it's a really good exercise. It's. It's Like I say, I think I was a little bit slower accessing my emotions and I think one of the things because I wanted to be an actor so much, that's what I was living I got to do this, I got to be right and we have slowly chipped away at that, you know, and I was very fidgety in the audition room. So, working away from that, the pendulum swings up, very fidgety to very still. You got to be a little alive, brian. Oh wait, I gotta do what it's been. It's been a great journey and I thought about this before we started recording. We're recording Halloween 2023. For those listening, it has been four years since my circle exercise because, like October 28th and, by the time this comes out, four years since the premiere class that I took.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, you've come along, wow, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you. You've come a long way to Jim. I just want to let you know I.
Speaker 1:Appreciate that.
Speaker 2:So, jim, one of the things we've asked other guests Brian and I have taken your classes, so we know your history, but especially more experienced actors, we like to hear how their journey began. Can you take us back, tell us what got you interested in being an actor?
Speaker 1:I live right now. I live about 100 yards maybe if that much from Menville Elementary School and we moved here when I was in fourth grade and in fourth grade I got the lead in the classroom play. I don't remember the play, but I remember that I was a judge and I was judging all of the pencils. I just loved it. It was exciting and that's really set the hook.
Speaker 1:So, coming up, whenever there was a chance to do a play, whether it was in middle school, I would do that. And then in high school I did the high school plays. And then when I was a senior in high school, I was at Manneville High and there's a community theater up the road in Covington and I did community theater plays there. And then when I graduated, between high school and college, I did plays there as well in the community theater playmakers. And then I went to Tulane and studied theater there, started out undecided because my dad wasn't sure of and I was on the fence because I didn't know if he could do this. And I took an acting for non-majors class my first semester and I was like that's all I want to do. So I told my dad he was like okay, okay, get your degree and then we'll get you a job at a bank or something.
Speaker 1:And I was like, okay, because he, his parents, he was born in the middle of the depression and his parents lived through that, so that's the whole mindset is like you can't do anything in the arts, you have to get something stable. But I decided not that's what I wanted to do. He supported me and he was, you know, it was. He never said this, but it was kind of like, yeah, my son the actor, and then I booked something. He's like my son the actor, so because he was a trial attorney and they're all frustrated actors, you know, in fact it playmakers, the community theater that I was talking about. You go see a play there. There's probably about a 75% chance that there's a lawyer on the stage. So they all, they do the plays, they all do the plays there. So I got my degree. I started out in New Orleans working in film and television. I still live in Mandaville. I can move back to Mandaville after my college experience and there really was no film scene here. There were a lot of local commercials, non-union stuff, industrials, but mostly it was all non-union, and then every once in a while they'd be a you know, a movie come to town. You know. I remember Clint Eastwood's tightrope was won over in Baton Rouge everybody's all American with Dennis Quaid and John Goodman, which is kind of how John Goodman came down here. But I got a role in an HBO movie and it was called Double Cross. It was a story of a guy named Barry Seal who was running drugs for the Colombians and actually they did another version of that called American Made here, and I worked on that too. The Double Cross was my first project and that's how it became SAG Eligible. For years prior to that I was like I wanted to be in the union because to me that was the market of a professional, because I wanted to be a pro, and so I became eligible. I did a scene with Dennis Hopper and it became eligible and I joined and I stayed for another. I was in probably 91 because I got my SAG card 92. And I stayed in New Orleans for another five years and then at the end of 97, I moved up to Los Angeles because I built a lot of credits here. I'd worked with Robert Duvall and I'd worked with multiple on multiple television shows and TV movies and I did a scene with Annabeth Gish and I made for TV movie. And I did a scene with Craig D Nelson, and I ended up working with him again out in Los Angeles, which was kind of cool. He did not want to, but that's okay. Yeah, right, coach, and he's the voice of Mr Incredible he's also. They was in a great show called Parenthood, he and Bonnie Vidalia, and they were both in the TV movie that I worked on, but I digress. So I built up a pretty good resume before I moved up to Los Angeles and then I sort of, you know, started from scratch again but then eventually ended up booking a regular amount of projects, and that's where I started teaching too.
Speaker 1:I started as a student at this school out there and after about a year the woman asked me if I want to be an instructor. So I said, heck, yes. So I dumped all of my other survival jobs and that was it. I started there and, like I think it was October yeah, it was October of like 91, I want to say At the end of December I was prepped to go home for Christmas, come back home for Christmas, and the woman said, oh, and by the way, when you come back, annie's coming off from a tournament leave. I didn't realize it was a temporary position, so I had no job when I was coming back and I was like, okay, well, I guess the grand Los Angeles experiment is going to come to an end.
Speaker 1:So I came back from Louisiana and the woman said I'll tell you what why don't you work with I bring in groups of international students and why don't you work with them? So I was working with these groups of international students, which barely kept my nose above water, and one of my old jobs they sent me a check from a 401k which I didn't keep in a cash because I'm an actor, and that kept my nose above water. And then in June it took about six months, but in June one of the most popular instructors there left and there was a space for me a legit space for me then. So I jumped in and that's how it started and I was there for about six and a half years and then I left, do my own thing in LA, and all the while, I'm working in film and television, working on national commercials for, like, olive Garden and Lending Tree and stuff like that. And then I was home in 2010 for Christmas and I met my now wife and I've been seeing all these people working in film and television.
Speaker 1:I'd go to see the movie out in Los Angeles and I'd go. That's my friend, mike Arana. What is everybody's working there? It's crazy. What am I doing out here in LA? Oh, that was successful in LA, but it's a rough go If you don't have a strong team.
Speaker 1:And I was an older guy when I moved to LA. I was 33. I wasn't the hot, young, 22 something year old newest thing who had been a child star and then moved to the big time. I was 33 years old and I was like I'm moving home. So I came home, was able to afford to buy a home, I was able to marry the woman that I love so much and I have a daughter, a handicapped daughter, from a previous marriage and she lives here. So it was a lot of reasons to come home. But when I met Lydia, my wife, it was that that's the sign. There it is. So I came home. Now here we are.
Speaker 1:It's hard to believe I've been teaching longer here. I've been teaching here for 11 years. No, yeah, 11 years. May made it 11 years. My longest stint has actually been here and I've had a lot of celebrity. I say celebrity, but a lot of my students go on to success both in Los Angeles and here. You know I worked with Ashley Green from Twilight. I worked with Angela Johnson, who was best known for being Bun Quikwi on the Mad TV. She also does a standup bit about going to the Vietnamese nail salon, which is real. It was real hit the viral for a while.
Speaker 1:There's a guy named Kyle Bornheimer who was a funny guy and he's had success and every time I watched the office there he's in one of the episodes and I'm like, look at Kyle. And I knew these guys, like I could tell those guys had a quality that if they met the right project or the right people they could have some success. You know, and since I've gotten home, there are a lot of people that have studied with me, that have taken what they've learned and turned it into success to varying degrees. Creek Wilson I don't know if you know Creek, but Creek started studying with me and he'd been studying with other people, deese told me. He said you know, I learned a lot with other people but it didn't start booking till I started working with you. I don't take credit for his booking stuff because he's got to do it right, but I do know that the ideas and concepts and tools that I gave him helped.
Speaker 1:And then you know, the highest profile person recently that I've worked with is a guy named Greg Tarzan Davis. Yeah, greg came to work with me when he was with an agent in town and he came to work with me and he's a driven guy, he's just, he's very focused on what he wants. His motto is don't get tired. So he was like I want more, I don't want to just come once a week. I said, well, you can come twice a week if you want.
Speaker 1:And so I mean I said it's going to be the same script twice a week. He said that's okay. So he came to class twice a week and built the skills and built the skills and moved out to LA. Actually, I coached with him over the internet on a few things and he booked a job in Chicago, chicago PD or one of those shows. And one day I got a call out of the blue Guess what I put that job. We coached. I was like, yes, super excited for him. Goes out to LA, get these long dreadlocks. And he was like should I cut my dreads?
Speaker 1:I was like well they're going to get you some jobs but they're going to preclude you from a lot of them. You cut his dreads. Two or three weeks later he has an audition for a little two line part in Top Gun Maverick Auditions. For that they like him, they book him. They like him, they expanded his role, they gave him more to say. Tom Cruise takes a liking to him and then brings him over into Mission Impossible 8 and it's a two parter. So the first part came out right before the strike. I went to a screening at that. That was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:But he's had some big time success and a lot of these games and I'm the only person he's ever studied with Now that doesn't mean that if you study with me, in four years you're going to be working with Tom Cruise, but you can become a very steady working actor.
Speaker 3:Which is why you call your place.
Speaker 1:The working actor studio with Jim Leeson. There it is. So that's my story, that's my history right there, excellent.
Speaker 2:So I'm trying to do the math in my head, not counting teaching as a survival job, because that's I consider that part of the industry. How long was it for you to you felt comfortable not needing I don't mean necessarily financially comfortable, but just comfortable not needing a survival job aside from teaching when you started out in LA, because I know it's expensive out there?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I had to. I was working as a telephone operator, for when I first moved out there, one of my friends from New Orleans had moved out there and I was like Eric, I'm looking for work. He said I'll hook you up where I work at 1-800-DENTIST. So I was a telephone operator. There Was founded by two actors who started this as their survival job out of the garage, where if you don't have a dentist, you call that number and then they have member dentists and they, you know, hook you up in your local area with what you need. And so I was working there and there were some. There was all actors that worked there, which was pretty cool. I say all actors. There were some non-actors, but a lot of the people there. Most of them were actors. In fact, I worked with a guy named Seamus Devere who, if you've ever seen the show Castle, he's one of the two junior detectives there's an Irish one and a Hispanic one. Seamus is the Irish one. I think his name is something like Kevin, kevin, you know, stereotypical Irish last name. So I worked with him and I worked on Castle. So I got a chance to go and sit down with him and hang out with Seamus, which was cool, and have a little reunion. And then Angela Kinsey also worked there as a telephone operator and she went on to play Angela on the office and she obviously ditched her day job. So that was my first survival job and I was there for about three and a half years. I also had a second survival job at the same time, dropping dummy mail around the city of Los Angeles. It would, when it got to its destination, it would track okay, how long did it take it to get there? Pricewaterhousecoopers was the accounting firm and they would basically track the efficiency of the US Postal Service. I know it sounds exciting. It's about as dull as it sounds. So both of those jobs were a drag, but the people at Dentist I'll tell you, the people that I worked for were cool. The job and the pay were a drag, but the people. I've got lifelong friends from that job, which is really wonderful.
Speaker 1:In answer to your question, tj, the only way that I could have ditched those jobs was to have. I'm a believer in God, so God opened the door for me to be a teacher, because I'm a communicator and I'm an educator, so, and a performer. It wasn't a question of whether I was comfortable or not, I always knew that I'd have to have something while I was working my way to the point where I wanted to be. I just saw it as part of the gig. You know, yeah, you know, waiting tables. There's a lot. I didn't wait. I did wait tables for a hot minute.
Speaker 1:You know, in the job, waiting tables, you got a lot of tasks. You got to collect menus, you got to see people, you got to now collect and get your tips. That's the big, that's the best part of the job. But the rest of it, there's other stuff you got to do. For me, acting was something that's the best part of the job. There's other stuff I also got to do. That's the way I always kind of looked at it. And now everybody says, well, didn't you have like a fallback plan? Did you have like a double major where you majored in something and minored in something so you could fall back on it? And I was like, no, no, I didn't, because I didn't want a fallback. So if I don't give myself a fallback, it forces my hand to make it work. And so I did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good way of putting that. Thank you very much. I've heard other actors say that that they intentionally didn't have a fallback plan because it was making a break it. It makes it a little more critical that they succeed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, in for a penny, in for a pound. I'm either gonna do it or I'm not gonna do it and do something else. And there's nothing else I want to do and I've been blessed in that. One of the main reasons I moved to Los Angeles was for training, because when I was here in New Orleans after college, there was nowhere to train. There was, and I had a college degree that I got was in theater, wasn't for film and television. They a lot of schools now, like Tulane, loyola and UNO and LSU, they have film departments. We didn't have that. You know I had to go where there was training. I knew I needed training. So that's one of the reasons that I moved out to LA.
Speaker 1:As you, to which you guys can attest, everything that I learned out there whether it's from where I studied, whether it's from my own life experience for teaching there for ten years Everything that I learned out there I packaged into you know what I do here, and so now people don't have to leave New Orleans. They can come to where I, where I teach, and they can learn 40 years of experience and learn from that and implement those tools. It's just shortcut. It's taking me 40 years to get here. What I want from my students is hey, let's do it in a year or less, it depends. It depends on opportunity coming up.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I was interested in it. We had talked about this before, when I was 13, that one of those production companies came to town. My mother put us in for it. We got the job, me and my friend and that night on the news it turned out to be a scam. It broke my heart not only for me, that I Accidentally cheated my mom out of money and so I never thought being in this was possible.
Speaker 3:I'd watch the movies and watch behind the scenes. You know, you kind of got that thought in the back you had I'd like to do that, blah, blah, blah, blah. So then, after I did that background work and then did the stand-in work and I got I want to do this. So who would I want to study with? And I kind of looked around like there's somebody, there's somebody, and I thought about it. I said I want to work with somebody who actually does the job. Yeah, I think that's the most important thing for an acting teacher. If you're looking for an acting teacher and you hear the phrase oh, those who can't teach what they can but they suck at they can't give you the right advice. So, trying to formulate my question, what would you tell? Whether the person's older, like me, starting Mm-hmm. Young and fresh right out of high school. What is the the main thing that they would have to do to be an actor?
Speaker 1:Well, the first thing that anyone has to have to get into this is a real desire to do the task, to Act. If you're getting into it because you want to be famous, if you're getting into it because you want to, you know, be a star, or you want to be on a certain show or Whatever it is, you have to love it for its own sake, right? Yeah, there are people, if you get, if you get into it and you just want to be a star, right? Or if you get into it, you're like, ah, you know, I want to come to class, but my, my nephew, has his birthday on that day. I can't make it to class. Will then save your money and Don't do it, because there are people that go to sleep thinking about it, they wake up thinking about it, while they're eating, they think about it and everything they do is geared toward that. Brian, you're one of those. Yeah, thank you. And someone who is like, not really dedicated to it. That's who you're up against and you won't win at.
Speaker 1:A student back in Los Angeles Name is Jonathan Chesner. He's a real interesting guy, a surfer, not a stoner, but you, you could believe he was a stoner. He was that kind of a surfer, surfer vibe, dying Exactly. Yeah, it's a real fun-loving, like quirky, quirky dude. I love Jonathan Chesner, good dude.
Speaker 1:One day I get a call, it's Chesner, and he says I say hey, ches. He says hey, I have to ask you a question. Should I do this? I said no, and I know he was asked, he was looking for me to pump him up. I said no, I said exactly what I just told you guys. There are so many people that want to do this that if you have any doubt, you shouldn't do it. Well, he went on. I saw him on a couple of shows. He was on an episode of bones and he did a regional commercial for Jack in the box. So he took that and he applied himself now the roles that he played. Like Jack in the box, he pulled up in a, in a pan, you know, in a conversion van, with a surfboard on top, yeah, and it basically played himself. Hey, listen, there's.
Speaker 1:And that's another thing I would say is no matter how old you are, you never. It's a crazy industry. You don't know, there are no rules. Don't let anyone tell you that you're too old. Don't want anyone to tell you that you they don't know, they think they know, they don't know. And here's a story to exemplify that. I'm living in Los Angeles. I there's a convention out there was called after fest and it was a convention of actor services, like photographers had their boots and different Studios had their boots. We had a boot from our G H Studio had a booth. So I'm there at the booth and this elderly couple comes up and they were in their 70s and they walk up. And how, what do you guys do? I said, well, you know, we're told who we were. Well, we're, we're just here from Baton Rouge. I said, oh, from Louisiana too. Oh, that's great. Yeah, I'm retired. We just decided let's get in the RV. We got to Los Angeles and track and I thought, oh, that's adorable, bless your heart.
Speaker 1:Yeah, bless your heart, you're gonna walk around for a while, you'll drive the streets and then you go home and that will have been a fun experience. It was just great. And don't you know, I'm watching. I think he says his name was Clyde. I'm watching television.
Speaker 1:This Bud Light commercial comes on with these Italian guys sitting at a bar how you doing, I'm doing all right, how you doing Right. And this guy walks in. They go hey, how you doing this guy? He's got a 10 gallon gallon hat on. He goes hi, I'm doing good, my name is Clyde, I'm from Texas and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and just goes off. Sure enough, it was that dude and it was a popular enough commercial to where they did a sequel, a follow up commercial same character. So you never know, you never know. So you need to love it and don't let anything get you down. Yep, you just go for it. Go for it. You're gonna have ups and downs, hills and valleys. You're gonna have successes and failures, but failures aren't failures. Failures is a chance to learn. That's all it is.
Speaker 3:Yep, this industry will kick you in the teeth any chance it gets and not even mean it.
Speaker 1:Put your mouth. Put your mouth, guard in.
Speaker 3:I got the two. Wait what?
Speaker 1:Sorry, put your mouth guard in and go.
Speaker 3:Exactly, Exactly. I feel really good about this audition. I didn't get it. Now come back. Okay, I'm doing the next one. You're gonna go through tough times. You have to persevere.
Speaker 1:And you know what I do is I still do this. I'll do an audition and then forget about it. I just look forward to the next audition. That's it, and whatever comes back comes back. The only reason I look back on my auditions is to judge whether or not I did thorough preparation is whether I was really doing my best. That's the only way that I look back at my audition.
Speaker 1:You can't judge success booking as a success or a failure. Obviously, you book something. That's a success, don't get me wrong. But the fact that you don't book it does not mean it's a failure. There are so many factors after you do your best that are out of your control. You have no idea. I saw a documentary about these guys that had an ACDC tribute band and ACDC found out about it. Their singer, brian Johnson, had to sit out and they auditioned this dude. They really liked him. Who'd they pick? Axl Rose to finish the tour. So it was ACDC and Axl Rose. I watched some video. Axl Rose did an okay job. This dude would have done fine. But it comes to the point where, okay, do we want to get some unknown tribute band guy, or are we gonna get the lead singer for Guns N' Roses?
Speaker 3:Little bit of fame and bump it up, so yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:That's it. So there's so much out of your control. One of my favorite auditions I didn't book. I auditioned for a movie called the Secret with Josh. Oh, it's his last name. Is it Duhamel Josh? No, no, no, duhamel Josh, I don't know Katie Holmes. It was a great audition. I was really super happy with it. It put Jerry O'Connell in the role, because Jerry O'Connell's a known quantizer. That's what they wanted, so they got it. Now I have to look up Josh.
Speaker 2:You guys ask me another question. Did Josh Brolin? No, it wasn't Josh Brolin.
Speaker 3:It's the blind-haired guy from Sweet Home Alabama, isn't it? Yes, it is.
Speaker 1:I just don't know anything Because he was in the Hulk as.
Speaker 3:Glenn Talbot.
Speaker 1:I think Betty Ross is the rival for Betty's affections to go back to the context, that's exactly who it was Josh Lucas. Josh Lucas is his name and I think he does the voice for the Home Depot radio commercials. Make some of you want to ask yourself isn't that Josh Lucas? And if you answer yes, you might be right what else you got?
Speaker 3:You got any TJ?
Speaker 2:I could keep us here for hours, but I know that's not reasonable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just coming up on the time. So if you want to shut us down with the outro TJ.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jim Gleason, thank you so much for joining us. Just about every episode that we've done, we've had somebody that has either been to the circle exercise or knows about the circle exercise, and that seems to be the common bond in this Noah film scene and we recommend it to everybody that listens and comes on. We're very, very grateful that you took some time out to sit down with us today. We know you're busy. So, jim, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1:My pleasure I'm doing with you guys in class and this is good fun.
Speaker 3:Thanks, TJ Thanks.