NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Kimberly Coburn: From Improv Beginnings to Filmmaking and Global Adventures
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Kimberly Coburn's journey from a secretary to a multi-talented actress, writer, and producer is nothing short of extraordinary. Discover how a chance encounter at an improv workshop with Rich Telerico led to her friendship with Brian. Kimberly recounts her artistic upbringing across Cairo and Singapore, reflecting on how these experiences shaped her dedication to live performance and her eventual creation of the improv troupe, Done Did That.
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
Hi, I'm Kimberly Coburn and you are listening to the smooth sounds of NOLA Film Scene Coming up. Stay tuned.
Speaker 3:Hello, welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ and Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Plato. Okay, we're back with NOLA Film Scene with TJ and Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Plato. Okay, we're back with NOLA Film Scene, and TJ and I are pleased to welcome our guest, my friend, improper, extraordinaire actress, writer, producer and so much more Kimberly Coburn.
Speaker 1:Hi Yay, thank you so much for having me here today. I really appreciate you both. I'm filled with gratitude, thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we're glad to have you. Let's start with how we met Kimberly. Do you remember where that was?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I walked into a workshop with Rich Telerico for improv. Some of you may know who he is, but if you don't, Rich Telerico wrote the A-Ron skit for Key Peele and was here in New Orleans at the Working Actors Studio with Jim Gleason offering workshops. He was offering one day of improv and one day of writing, I believe.
Speaker 1:Joke writing, joke writing. Yeah, well, I was not able to go the second day, but I came in to that workshop and sat down next to Brian and suddenly my life changed entirely, because Brian had just decided that we were friends, that from that second on he was going to recruit me for all of his cults. So he's got me in his improv cult, he's got me in his Jim Gleason cult, he's got me in his circle exercise cult. I'm a big fan and I'm a follower. I'll just follow whatever Brian's doing. It's really a lot of fun. I've been on a fun road.
Speaker 1:So Brian had been doing his improv online during COVID, but we were about to start up Anubis Improv in person, and so he was like, yeah, come on in Anubis Improv with me. So I signed up for that. I had taken a circle exercise with Jim me. So I signed up for that. I had taken a circle exercise with Jim I think I'd taken two before, loved it. That was about nine years ago and decided, yeah, I need to get back into the circle exercise. And so I've taken two or three or four since then. I don't know, I'm losing track of time 21,.
Speaker 3:I think Tyler Rico's class was.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 3:And then we were doing Anubis workshops, not the classes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then Brian took me into signing up for Anubis Improv and so I signed up for that and just once I got involved I was just, oh my gosh, swallowed the Kool-Aid completely. I love improv. I probably had taken a class of improv before, when I was in junior high, but had not taken it as just that, a standalone class for improv. So I started with level one and then just stuck with it. We were actually in the first graduating class of Anubis, so go, yay, anubis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we see all those pictures on the wall in the studio.
Speaker 1:Once we graduated we were sort of released as adult improvers.
Speaker 3:If you can call either one of us an adult.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then we formed a troupe At that time there were nine of us and we were empty pockets and then we had a moment where some people decided they wanted to go back to class or not do the regular thing up on stage. So then the rest of us that stuck with it became done, did that?
Speaker 3:Done, did that.
Speaker 1:Done, did that? Yeah, so that's who we are now and we perform at big couch. We've performed on stages all over new orleans. We've done howling wolf den. We've done actors apothecary a bunch of times. We did some little club that was so cool, always, always, lounge. Yeah, you walk in the front.
Speaker 3:There's some stuff going on in there and then you walk in the front and there's some stuff going on in there, and then you walk in the back and cabaret yeah, they have a cabaret, a lot of the nights, we'll call it cabaret. It was something it's eye opening, to say the least. Come to New Orleans, we'll bring you there.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Yeah, it was colorful. We've done a lot of different stages, but I have found a home at Big Couch and one of my dreams I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, but one of my dreams was to do sketch comedy and I'm getting to do that now.
Speaker 3:You're not getting ahead of yourself, you're just leading yourself into the question. Before we jump ahead to the new sketch work, let's go back and we ask our guests all the time we love hearing this what inspired you to become a performer, an entertainer?
Speaker 1:I guess the first time I started acting for sure was my dad moved us to Cairo, egypt, when I was 11. And I was going to a private school there called Cairo American College. It's not a college, it was a grade school and I took theater all through junior high and high school. In 1980, we moved from Cairo, egypt, to Singapore and I continued to take acting theater and try out for plays, and the arts were really really big in these prep schools. We really really supported the arts. It was a lot of money for the arts. So my brother became the musician and I became the actor and artist and so I'm a studio artist as well as an actor and I do all the different creative things.
Speaker 1:I did that all through junior high and high school and then didn't do it. I was told when I graduated from high school that that wasn't a career, that that wasn't something that you're allowed to do, both art and acting. I was told you need a real job. So my real job was I became a secretary and I was a secretary for 20 years and then at some point, I guess, I decided I was going to go back to college and get a very selfish degree and I started at BRCC and I was at BRCC for three years and they finally kicked me out. They finally said there's no more classes for you to take, but I had won every war chancellor's award. I was voted the highest ranked community college student in the state of Louisiana. I was sent to meet the president of the United States.
Speaker 1:While I was doing that, I was taking liberal arts, I was taking public speaking. I was taking art. There was no film school at that time at BRCC. There was no acting at that time at BRCC, it was just art. So I did that. And then I transferred all my credits to LSU and finished at LSU in 2008, graduated with a bachelor's degree in studio arts and ceramics, took a lot of classes along the way, but never thought that I was going to get into acting again. I just thought, well, I'm going to be an artist, I'm going to do this. So what I ended up doing was this is just an aside.
Speaker 1:But I got diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and I was like I'm not going to take that lying down. I'm going to go ahead and just do fun things and get out and move around. And so I started doing flash mobs and I did flash mobs for five years, nice started doing flash mobs and I did flash mobs for five years. Nice, while I was doing flash mobs, I was invited to come work background acting with my friend, lulu Rosemary Lulu, who's very well known in the background actors oh, I know her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so she invited me to come on set with her.
Speaker 1:My first set was Focus and my first day was at the Super Bowl and they were tiling, take pictures of you and tile the whole studio. I was sent to hair and makeup for that and then I was just excited to be there, really happy to be there, and so I did that. And then I just kept doing it and I was working background acting when I got cast as a background actor for the Toyota commercial. That really, really changed everything. The director just pointed and said run down the sidewalk. And I ran down the sidewalk and he was like I want to see horror. And I was like, oh, I can overact. I was like horror, I'll show you horror. And I ran down that sidewalk, my hat flew off, my shoes flew off and the next thing I knew they called me and they were like we've decided to make you principal and I didn't even know what that meant and they were like oh honey, that means money. You can get an agent. That made me sag after eligible. But I was told by everyone don't join the union. You can't work in Louisiana if you join the union. And so I decided well, I want to speak on film. So I got an agent, but I never knew how to audition and I never really got a speaking part. But then I stumbled into 48 Hours and that became a huge part of my life.
Speaker 1:The 48 Hour Film Festival and New Orleans is something that you go Friday night and you get a genre and they give you a character, they give you a prop and they give you a line and you go back to your home or wherever it is. You're making your movie with your team and you make a movie in 48 hours. You write it Friday night, you film it pretty much Saturday morning, saturday afternoon, any pickups you do on Saturday night, and then Sunday you edit all day long and then you fly yourself back to the drop-off area and you have to drop it off by Sunday at six o'clock. And so I acted in the first one and then the second one. I was sort of in the holding tent for most of the day.
Speaker 1:And I went home and I told my husband. I was like I want to act more. You know, I want to do this more, I want to speak. And he was like, well, just buy a camera, just form your own team. So I did, I bought a camera and I just started, you know, making movies.
Speaker 1:I was a team leader for my first film, called A Family Affair, and I wasn't the director, it was just me learning that I knew nothing. I learned that I knew nothing and so I just started making films and I started going to places where I could learn more about making films, where I could learn more about producing, and one of the things that everybody said was make more films, just make more films, no-transcript. So I've learned things that I want to do, things I don't want to do. I don't want to operate a camera. I don't want to operate the sound equipment. I love directing, but I can't direct myself.
Speaker 1:I love producing and I'm really good at producing. I'm really good at pulling a group of people together. I'm really good at looking at all the details and making sure we have everything that we need. I'm not really good at on the set, handling every question all at once, because I want to answer all the questions and I want to do all the things. I've learned a lot about myself producing short films. I've produced now 14 short films Wow and I put them up on Vimeo. I don't charge for them. They were for me to learn how to make movies and they were for my team, and I had a great team.
Speaker 1:I did try to make a feature film. It just didn't work out. It didn't happen the way I wanted it to happen. But at some point I don't know when I decided I'm going to join SAG-AFTRA and I'm going to start acting. I'm going to take myself seriously. I'm going to join SAG-AFTRA and I'm going to start acting. I'm going to take myself seriously. I'm going to take all of this seriously. I had taken classes with Jim before, but I didn't show up to most of the classes. I didn't really pay much attention. I fought him tooth and nail about. You know everything.
Speaker 3:About how to do it.
Speaker 1:I didn't want to listen. I knew you. I didn't want to listen and I didn't want to hear what he had to say. And I didn't want to change who I was because I thought I don't know I don't know what I thought. I just know that I was being very hardheaded and I used to laugh a lot when he was like film is you know. He'd show your eyes and just like, make a little rectangle around your eyes and he said this is where film lives.
Speaker 1:And he was like comedy is and the extremities. It's in your hands, it's in your movements, your body movements and everything else. But film is in your face, it's in your eyes and I was like Jim, the only way you're going to get me to just show you what's in my eyes is if I wear a burka. And so I used to threaten all the time that I was going to wear a burka to film class and then I stopped going. I just stopped going to class and I stopped auditioning, I stopped really paying attention and I got really busy making short films and they were silly and goofy and all of my sense of humor comes out in my short films. Because I'm making a series.
Speaker 1:The series is called Therapy Sessions and it stars AJ Littell and he is my straight man and he's a therapist, theodore Crumpkin. He is treating various mythological characters as if they are in real therapy. So the first one I did was grief counseling and death went to counseling because death was depressed, Everybody was dying, and so he counsels death and they have a breakthrough and you know it's very happy ending. And then I did another one where it was group therapy and a group of mythological characters were upset because they were starting to disappear and they were going missing. It turned out to be two mermaid spies and that one won some awards. It was nominated for a whole lot of awards, but it won some awards.
Speaker 1:Then the next one I did was marriage counseling, where a moon goddess and a werewolf had met on the full moon and fallen in love and gotten married. They were having problems because they didn't know what to do on the night of the full moon. She wanted to go worship the moon and he wanted to go out with his buddies, and they had to figure out what they were going to do. We have a whole series that we want to do.
Speaker 1:You cast someone else's death this was before I knew you honey this was a while back. This was 2016.
Speaker 2:I'll allow it. I know aj I met him.
Speaker 3:He was one of the camera operators on olivia's film todd's yeah, yeah we work background together and he's one of my comic-con buddies oh yeah, he is a comic-con dude.
Speaker 1:I will tell you that aj is one of the nicest people I've ever met in the industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good dude.
Speaker 1:And his wife, emily, was my makeup artist on a few of my films and does just the most beautiful job. By trade, she owns a face painting company doing face painting at festivals and things like that. She's an artist. The work she does is beautiful, but AJ, he has been one of my favorite team members.
Speaker 2:Good guy. Yeah, I've got a question about that. I'm still trying to wrap my head around and understand the ins and outs of SAG and being a member.
Speaker 1:As a member. Does that impact like, how do do want to hire someone that is SAG-AFTRA? There's paperwork that you can do like for 48 hours. When I worked on AJ's film, he had to turn in paperwork for me to work on his film because I was in his film. I think I was a reporter, but I was in Austin, so I just sort of recorded it at my brother's house and then sent it to him over email.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't stop you from making a film if you're a union member, to make a non-union film.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no, no. To be honest with you, my films are usually zero budget, or maybe $500 for crafty and whatever supplies I need or costumes I need. I also make most of my costumes. I've learned to sew in high school and I love glitter and sequins and anything that sparkles and I love to make audacious costumes and stuff like that. I do a lot of that. A lot of the costumes I make myself for my things.
Speaker 1:But most of the stuff that I do is zero budget, just like I know how to make a movie with just a group of friends and a weekend or a few days and just not spend a lot of money and don't stress, just make the movie, don't make it harder than it needs to be. And I think none of my movies are going to go to the Oscars or anything like that, but I'm learning how to produce and I'm learning more about the industry and I've gone along the way now for many, many years and learned a lot about the inside of the film industry that way. Yeah, and I tell people you know you can make a movie with your phone. I did that in Key West. We made a movie called Search for Hemingway's Ghost and we did it. We were looking for Hemingway in all of his hot spots in Key West and we did it with a phone. It's just lots of fun, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, the quality of phones these days Android and iPhone, both is incredible.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just enjoy the process. I enjoy the teamwork. I always like to employ people who have been marginalized, so I look for people who are not the pretty gorgeous, very selective Hollywood type. I look for the people who don't get the roles very often or don't get the crew positions very often or really need that IMDb credit and I'm very good about sharing credits. I'm very good about getting them their reels, their footage, that they want and just whatever I can do to help promote their career as a producer. I'm all about helping somebody move their career along. That's one of my gifts that I give back.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's fantastic, that's awesome. There's certain things I've done and I'm waiting like a year just for footage not to share publicly. I just want to put it in my reel on Actors Access and it's like. I know it's not out yet but help me, you know. Yeah so that's great, you do that.
Speaker 1:It's frustrating when you work with somebody who doesn't take that as a priority. Because you're like I made this film with you, I gave you my time. I didn't expect to be paid, but I did expect my footage and I'm not going to promote it. I'm not going to make money off of it Gosh knows I don't make money off of my own films but I would like to have my footage for my reel. Yeah, because I know that that was some good acting I did, or that was a particular look for me that I enjoyed, or something like that. That was important to me as a producer to make sure that I gave back to my team, because I know I wasn't paying them, they weren't really getting anything out of it except the footage, so that was important.
Speaker 2:Besides filmmaking? Like do you prefer? Do you like the stand up comedy? Do you like acting? Are you starting to prefer more of the behind the scenes? Like do you have a favorite of all the things that you have experience with?
Speaker 1:I can tell you right now I saw the very first Saturday Night Live sitting on the floor in front of those great big console TVs in the 70s and I have watched Saturday Night Live through all of the years since then and I just grew up wanting to be on Saturday Night Live so bad. I wanted to do sketch comedy so bad. I love the costumes. I love the wigs. I love the characters. I love the zaniness of it. I love the timing of it. It's goofy and fun. I love physical comedy. I love the live part of it that you immediately are connecting with the audience. I just dreamed about being a sketch comedian before I even knew what that was. I just knew I wanted Saturday Night Live in my life. I just wanted that so badly. I am now into that.
Speaker 1:Going through Big Couch I met Carrie and Carrie did a sketch show Around Halloween. We did a Boo Ha Ha sketch show and I got to play four characters in it. And I got to film a short film with one of our troupe members, with AJ and Brunson, who is in Dundadette. We did a short film and they showed that also in the sketch comedy show. But I played four characters. I was a monster under the bed. I was a host for a group of aliens. I was just this real campy housewife and I portrayed a character that I patterned off of Alice from United States of Terror, and I was playing Bloody Mary at a sleepover. There was another one I can't remember now. It was just a lot of fun. It was everything I wanted it to be. I've written a sketch. I've written another short film.
Speaker 1:I'm cast in four different roles, three of which are named Cindy, which is interesting. There's nothing like it. All the wigs and all the costumes and the immediate. You know it's live, anything can happen and you know it's just a lot of fun. I like improv a lot because you can pretty much do anything in the moment. It's very, very different from sketch comedy because you have to memorize your lines, you have to know, you know what's going to happen and hit your mark and know your cues. And in improv you don't have any of that, it's all made up on the fly. So it's very, very different types of comedy. But I think there's a marriage of theater and improv and sketch comedy and that you can make up some things and you can sort of play with the live theater portion of it. But then there's that theater portion of it that you're putting on a little skit and a little play. But it's not our town, it's not drama, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:I've started to get some auditions and I'm self-represented right now, so I'm just out there on Actors Access, just submit, submit, submit, submit. Yeah, doing all that, but I'm getting better at auditioning. When I first started I did not know what I was doing and I'm sure that I embarrassed a lot of people like what are you doing, girl? I wouldn't listen to Jim and I wouldn't follow directions. I'm very hardheaded. And so now I'm just like yes, sir, I'll try that. Yes, sir, and I think I've improved. Jim has said that I've come a long way. I'm still in the beginner stage, but I feel like I've made some improvements, that I'm not as nervous, learn how to use the page to my advantage and I've learned how to not overact in front of the camera, because I do I overact. Everything's big.
Speaker 3:It took me a long time to settle down.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I made it out of premiere the first level right at six months. My last premiere was the day before the pandemic started. Friday 13th March 2020 was and I had a good class First time. I made it all the way through the scene, all nice and relaxed. The next day, I had my first line in this movie called Death Trip my first line in any movie and then the pandemic started. When we came back, I did an intermediate and I was in there for the longest time and my biggest problem was I want to do better. So I was living the life in that instead of being whoever the character was and relax blah, blah, blah, blah. I had a point when I started that.
Speaker 3:So basically, I can even hear some of the things you say like, oh, I'm making a movie, but it's never going to the Oscar. I want you to stop that negative thought right now. I don't ever want to hear that again. Doesn't matter if it's not going, don't even say it, don't put it on the universe, don't worry about that. I made a movie, I like it, that's it and everything else. I'm going to keep on you about that. That's the next step you're going through.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:The whole self-fulfilling prophecy thing, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker 2:Have a positive attitude about it.
Speaker 1:Look at how goofy people like Cameron Diaz and Jim Carrey and my heroes are Madeline Kahn, Gilda Radner, Melissa McCarthy I've been accused of being the Melissa McCarthy in my little friend group.
Speaker 2:Nothing wrong with that. Yeah, she's funny.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I think I want to overact. I want to be that character in the movie that is just over the top and ridiculous. I want to be that neighbor next door that never shuts up. I want to be the goofy too much over the top, wear glitter and have blue hair all of that.
Speaker 3:There's nothing wrong with that, as long as you embed it in truth, jim Carrey, like in Ace Ventura. The first one crazy, over the top, but he's got a truth to it, and the second one it's more like he's doing the character of Ace Ventura, like trying to recreate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And that's fine being over the top, as long as you're not in a drama. Don't be over the top in Sophie's Choice. That might not work. You know, eeny meeny, miny moe, no, no, no, no. On to a different topic. Yes, you mentioned how, growing up, you were traveling all over the world, but I know that you travel a lot right now. Tell us about some of your adventures, please.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to start with Belize, because for the last nine years I've been going to this little island in Belize called Key Cocker. There are no cars. I think they have a truck that picks up the garbage and they have a truck that delivers the beers and water and Coca-Colas and stuff like that. Other than that, there are no cars. They have bicycles or golf carts or you walk, and it is a tiny little island in the middle of the Caribbean that is very laid back. It's a backpacker's paradise. It's just not frou-frou, it's not highfalutin and it's really, really beautiful. It's very simple, it's pared down. There's just this place that we go to. That's a Jimmy Buffett song for me. I was a Parrothead. I was such a Jimmy Buffett fan. I was actually an officer in the Parrothead Club in Kima, texas. This island is my Margaritaville basically, and we stayed a place called Kalinda Cabanas. That's just very beautiful, picturesque and, just like I said, parrot Down and everything you needed to be, and I go back there every year and just spend some time.
Speaker 1:But also we cruise. We've been all over the world cruising. When I made the money for my Toyota Camry commercial, I took some of that money and Joe and I went on a cruise that was a repositioning cruise for Royal Caribbean, so they were taking the ship from Singapore to Dubai and so we went through Singapore, kuala Lumpur, sri Lanka, phuket, thailand, four stops in India, and then we spent the night in Dubai before we got off the ship and that was just like beautiful. But since then I've been to the Panama Canal cruise. I want to do that. Yeah, it's beautiful. But I would tell you, stay on the ship for Cabo and stay on the ship for Puerto Vallarta Not my favorite places. Yeah, loved Colombia, loved Costa Rica, loved Panama.
Speaker 1:I've gotten to do some interesting once in a lifetime things. I've jumped off of a 12 foot cliff, went to a waterfall the day after a hurricane, so like the water was just rushing, it was just such a rush. I have climbed to the top of the moon pyramid in Mexico. I have kayaked in the Panama Canal. I've just done really interesting things and met interesting wildlife and love, love, love snorkeling and seeing everything underwater. But also I've come to really appreciate that less is more. We don't need to have all of the charms of America to enjoy the world. You can go to a place and appreciate the people there, the culture there, learn from them and how they live and just be grateful for just what you have in the moment. And the gratitude that I have for the opportunities to travel is just unbelievable. I just really really appreciate getting to meet people from all over the world and getting to know them and understanding how they are and who they are and how they live.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I've been to every continent except Antarctica. Yeah, and I hate the cold, and so I probably won't go to Antarctica.
Speaker 3:You never know when you want to go meet a penguin. You never know.
Speaker 1:This year I did Italy and Greece and Turkey and I loved Italy. I'd been to Greece several times as a kid and got to go back and experience Greece again and loved it. I would much rather have done it not on a cruise ship. I think if I were to go back to Greece again, I'd do it take a plane there and just enjoy being there and enjoying the moment.
Speaker 2:I love to take cruises, but I don't like to get off the ship. It just depends on where it is. I love being at sea. I spent 20 years in the Coast Guard, so I love being at sea and I'll do a cruise and just stay on the ship, depending on where it's going.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I do want to do one of those European cruises.
Speaker 1:I love the ships. I love the bigger ships, the newfangled things they're doing with ships. I love all of it, but I also love a sailboat. Right, I lived on a sailboat at one time, a 34 foot Erickson, with three kids and two dogs. I love all of it. I love the water, I love the travel, I love every aspect of being able to be out on the water. My car is called Beachin'. I love the beach. I really appreciate it all. I mean, if you asked me mountains or beach, I would choose beach, but I like, you know, I like all of it.
Speaker 2:I don't like the sand, but I like the view of the beach. The last cruise we took, we were coming back as the pandemic was starting and right as we got back we sailed out of Houston for this one that the news of that one cruise ship that got held up in quarantine and everybody had to stay on board happened right as we were getting back. We're like, oh, we were so lucky that we didn't get stuck on the ship and we had one planned for about six months later and had to cancel it because of the lockdown. You've inspired me. I'm ready to go back to sea now.
Speaker 1:I think my next thing that I want to do is I want to take my daughter, my middle child, adele, to Scotland. I've been promising her Scotland. That's where my husband's family hails from. He's a Coburn. There's one clan out of Scotland that they all hail from and she is just really big into all that. He's really big into the ancestry and all and I want to take them to Scotland and let them go and see where they heal from. I'll just put on some sweaters and coats and scarves and gloves and just deal with the cold, maybe in the summer. I told her I was like I don't want to go in the winter.
Speaker 1:I lived in Singapore where it was just summer all year round and it just got a little bit spoiled there in Singapore because it was just like right on the equator and ever since then I'm like give me the heat any day. I don't care if it rains every day, Give me the heat, I love it.
Speaker 2:Do you dive?
Speaker 1:No, I'm afraid this is silly. I'm afraid my ears will hurt, because when I go down into the swimming pool at 12 feet my ears hurt really bad and I'm just afraid, so I snorkel.
Speaker 2:There's a trick to that. I won't go into detail to bore everybody with the backstory, but on my honeymoon on a cruise I decided to do a discover dive as one of the shore excursions and the dive master said just clear a lot, start on the surface and clear. And the rule is clear early and clear often and just keep pinching and blowing as you go down and go slow. And once I got dive certified there were times I had to just go really slow because I was congested. But that's the trick just to do it early and often I don't dive anymore. But my brother and other friends that have been to Belize a lot, they say the diving there is just incredible.
Speaker 1:It's so beautiful. I went snorkeling in Roatan. We have the second largest coral reef down there. It goes all the way along Belize and Honduras and I traveled to Honduras a lot. I was down in Roatan last year and it's just so beautiful. It's just so pretty and colorful, just the drops, like you saw in Finding Nemo, where there's just like this drop off and you go and you're diving along and your belly is scraping the coral reef and then all of a sudden there's a drop off and it's just it feels like miles down there and it just gets dark and deep. But along that drop off you'll see just beautiful coral and beautiful fish and I love all of it. I'm here for it. I've snorkeled in so many beautiful bodies of water. I think my favorite was the Red Sea. It's very, very colorful.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But I've swam with sharks and I've swam with the stingrays Phenomenal. I love all the wildlife. I've had a charmed, very lucky, lucky life and so what's happening right now in my life is just another stage of that. This stage is my stage of okay, I'm going to be an actress.
Speaker 3:This stage is your stage to be on stage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. The next thing for me, I think, is getting more involved in SAG-AFTRA. I have been approved to be the Baton Rouge liaison for SAG-AFTRA. Thank, you.
Speaker 1:And so I am working on getting together. I think there's around 100 people in the Baton Rouge area are in the union and just get them together and let them know that you know we support them, because my home will always be here in Baton Rouge. I wanted to do something for the Baton Rouge actors because sometimes we get marginalized a little bit. We're not as big as New Orleans. We don't have the same infrastructure as New Orleans. I do live across the street from Celtic Studios, but Celtic isn't always super busy. I imagine that by the time this podcast drops we are going to be solid. I have stayed booked since I met you, brian. I have started the acting classes with Jim Gleason. I've started the circle exercises with Jim Gleason. You got me into singing lessons with Olivia Peck.
Speaker 3:Which TJ got me into Thank TJ for that.
Speaker 1:Thank you, TJ. And then I have started taking scene classes with Gary Grubbs.
Speaker 2:Over in Gulfport.
Speaker 1:In Gulfport, yeah, but he's been very generous in his time and sharing scenes with me and allowing me to sort of stretch and grow. He's amazing. He's been up there, he's worked with Gene Hackman and you know all the big actors in Hollywood. I'm doing that A lot of lessons, a lot, a lot of lessons, a lot of classes. That's another thing. That's taken up a lot of my time. I'm hoping I'll be on set. I'm busy. I'm sorry I can't do that. I'm on set.
Speaker 3:I think I heard it actually from TJ, from his teacher You're a working actor right now. You're not getting paid by a role, but you're putting in the time, you're doing the study. That's right.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I consider myself a professional comedian, a professional actor, but I definitely tell people, yeah, I'm an artist, actor, comedian. I take myself very seriously. I take my lessons very seriously. I make sure and learn my lines and I'm listening to Jim and everything he says. I've made breakthroughs with Olivia and learned how to train my voice and what to listen. For All of these things I decided I'm going to take classes, I'm going to take this time and improve myself. I'm going to build a sound booth, I'm going to learn new skills and I'm going to improve myself. And you know, I've told everyone I'm ready, put me in, I'm totally ready.
Speaker 2:Put me in coach.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And then I am here to encourage everybody else that's coming behind, that's just now getting started. Come join the union, you know, as soon as you can, and come, get involved and keep taking the classes and get out and do the things. Even if it's just a small stage, even if it's just you're performing to one person in an audience which I have done do it. Get up there, get up on stage, get out there and just keep performing and keep doing and keep going. I just can't tell you how important that is. Yeah, believe in yourself.
Speaker 3:Every day. Do something to improve your career. That's right, Even if it's reading a line in a book. If you've got an acting book, you don't have time to digest it all. Find a quote and then you can think about that while you're at work. Yeah, so watch a YouTube video. If you can't afford a class, Find something online. Always be acting, Always be acting. A-b-a that's our new phrase.
Speaker 1:Always be acting and all of us creatives we need to remember that. You know, don't get stuck in your pity pot, Don't get stuck in your poor maze. Just get out there and create something that's right. You know, it's interesting how fast your mood can change when you get up and get dressed and just do something. It just changes your life. You just suddenly have such an attitude of gratitude, you have such an attitude of just success and you start manifesting. And the more you think about the success and the happiness and the gratitude, the more it manifests and the more it gets, you know, positive. And sometimes that's just kidding about it at a bed and for me it's putting on some glitter. You boys don't have to put on glitter.
Speaker 3:I've had to explain to my wife why I've had glitter after improv classes. But you know. Thanks, Kimberly, but she understands, she knows you.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I sit in my same seat at Jim's class and I look around my chair and it's like Pigpen was here, but it's all in glitter.
Speaker 3:Very cool, oh wow.
Speaker 2:I talk a lot. We need that. Yeah, that's the point of what we do. We get to know creatives and learn about their process and motivations, of how they got into it, because everybody has a different and interesting approach to this industry and I really like meeting interesting people and this is certainly no exception.
Speaker 1:I can't let you. Let me go without saying that I wouldn't be where I am right now if it wasn't for my lovely husband, Joe. We've been married for 30 years, oh wow.
Speaker 2:Congrats.
Speaker 1:And he is my rock. He's amazing. Anybody who meets him loves him. He's just very supportive and very wonderful, and I wouldn't be able to take classes if it wasn't for Joe. I wouldn't be able to do the things I do if it wasn't for him. He's everything to me Awesome, he's amazing. So I just needed to say that, because I couldn't go on any airwaves ever and not say hey, shout out to my hubby.
Speaker 3:You're ready for your Oscar speech. So there you go. The most important is to thank your spouse, because without them, we couldn't do anything we do. No, that's a fact. Kimberly, kimberly, kimberly, it's been such a pleasure having you here. As always, it's riding the lightning. You're one of my forces of nature. I love you so much. Thank you for joining us and thank you for just being you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me. I really enjoy you guys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, likewise.
