NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Manon Pages: A French Artist Finds Her Voice
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What does it take to cross boundaries between music, acting, and language? Manon Pagès embodies this creative journey, bringing her classical music foundations to the vibrant film scene of New Orleans.
The conversation opens a window into how disciplined training in one art form can powerfully transfer to another. Beginning with taking piano and then entering music conservatory by thirteen, Manon developed a work ethic that would later become crucial to her acting. "I always saw acting as just another instrument," she explains, revealing how she approaches performance with the same technical rigor and emotional expressiveness required in classical music.
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 . & check out our website: nolafilmscene.com
I'm Manon Pagès and I'm an actress and singer and musician in New Orleans and I'm very happy to be at NOLA Film Scene and curious, honestly, because I don't know what this is about. Like, I'm ready.
Speaker 2:Welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Plato.
Speaker 1:Obviously I know what this is about. Like I know we're going to talk about movies and arts in general, you know. But yeah, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2:But we've got you here, just a little scared.
Speaker 4:Welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me, I know.
Speaker 4:I tend to have that effect on people. I tend to scare people, so we'll try not to be scary.
Speaker 2:Sounds good. It's not the Halloween episode. We won't.
Speaker 1:Well, I should probably listen to that one.
Speaker 2:For sure, welcome Welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 4:If we mispronounce it, I apologize in advance.
Speaker 1:And you just do it. It's all good.
Speaker 4:A lot of our guests. We met in Jim Gleason's class in the circle exercise.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:You and I met on Olivia's movie Todd's Right when we were filming the last big scene I have yet to see this movie.
Speaker 1:I need to keep telling Olivia because I couldn't make it to the premiere, so I don't know yet what it looks like.
Speaker 4:It turned out pretty good. So I saw an advanced version of it and then we did the screening at the theater and she did a really good job, especially keeping with the mockumentary style of kind of the you know the guerrilla filmmaking where everything's not perfectly stable, it just it. It looked great, everybody was funny, the whole movie.
Speaker 1:I really liked it oh, I can't wait to see that. Actually, olivia and I met on the movie just like that. This, this is how I met on another like mockumentary, so I'm really into that.
Speaker 4:Ah, I gotcha. So you also are a musician and we're going to dig into that. I came across one of your music videos early on, so to back up a little bit, brian and I both took singing lessons, took voice lessons from Olivia. And she was giving me ideas, things to practice singing and watching some of her videos. One of your videos came up as a suggested video and I watched him and you were playing the piano and you were singing and it was just incredible, you're such an incredible singer thank you so much and then yeah, and so I've seen some of your videos since where you're playing all the instruments and that is incredible how many different.
Speaker 4:do you even know how many different instruments you play?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know. I mean, you know I wish I played way more if I had time to learn way more. But I played piano as my main first love because that's where I started in music when I was like eight years old and it led me to classical music and I got into music conservatory when I was 13 and then it led to a high school program that was sort of like noca, I would say, I guess. Like you know, I had school in the morning and conservatory the afternoon or like practice alone, whatever. Then I started playing guitar, just because I wanted to sing and I don't know. I just felt like I could travel with that better and so I wanted to learn guitar. I did like two years of classical guitar and then I bought an electric guitar and uh, which I still travel with, like I still have here.
Speaker 1:I bought a Fender Stratocaster when I was, when I was like 15 or something. I know it's like a bit much, especially because I wasn't playing guitar at that time. So, but I just bought a Strat. And then I started playing drums last year, which was for a musical documentary project about becoming a rock band in six weeks, which is kind of a joke, but I learned how to play like I was told I should play drums and because I was was, it was what was missing in the band and so so this is what I did and yeah, I guess I sing and, um, I have like grabbed the ukulele to just because I needed that in my music video, but I don't know how to play that.
Speaker 1:I guess I just learned it for that day, the specific chords, but I knew I could pick it up. It's just that I haven't really focused on it. Yeah, that's not too many instruments, it's a reasonable amount. And then I do music production, because obviously I produce my own stuff, so I had to learn all that which is a whole other instrument in itself.
Speaker 1:It's like this is crazy. What software do you use for your, your music production? Actually, not the one that I would say everybody uses.
Speaker 1:I use pre-sonus studio one which is I did not know when I when I first started that I just bought the one thing that was a guitar center and I was like, yeah, I just need to figure this out. And I spent a lot of time on YouTube learning how to do it and basically all the covers, and you know, I released an original too. What I do is just I learn as I go. Obviously, I spent many hours on it before I could even work a metronome, which was like I don't love computers, guys Don't love computers, but I like producing music. So I had to figure it out.
Speaker 2:TJ, calm down, it's okay that she doesn't like computers.
Speaker 1:Anyway, that's the. Yeah, I guess that's the whole music story, but there are many instruments that still want to learn how to play. I'm not, I'm only 34 guys. Like there's many instruments I could learn how to play.
Speaker 4:It gonna happen definitely do you find it easier the more. The more instruments you pick up, it's easier to pick up a new one yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:I think like drums came to me really, uh, naturally, just because obviously I knew all the music theory, and so the beginning was more about learning the symbols. For because I wanted to read sheet music. I'm just obsessed with that. I'm less comfortable with just trying to do something by heart or improvising. That's not really my jam to do that. I'm more into reading stuff and learning that. So this is how I learned how to play drums with reading sheet music, maybe not like how people really learn how to play drums. It's kind of like guitar, you know. I just I don't do tabs, I do chords and like because I don't know. It makes more sense to me because I learned how to read music. That's the first thing I learned how to do yeah, that's something I struggle with.
Speaker 4:So I started taking piano I don't know, 2016, 2017. And we actually bought an old Yamaha like 1973 model really old piano but in really good shape and I took lessons for about six or eight months or so and kept up with it. But then my piano teacher moved out of state and I started going to a place in town and I didn't really like the format that they were doing there and he and I started doing lessons outside of that for a little bit and then, when he left, I kind of tapered off. But my daughter picked it up. My son started learning drums at the same place. It was what's it called Lapa.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:Up here on the North Shore.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 4:And then he switched from drums to guitar, and then switched from guitar to bass, and then my daughter stayed with piano. So between the two of them we've got at least three instruments covered.
Speaker 1:Right, I forgot about bass. So one of my friends gave me a bass. I mean, just let me borrow one. So I guess you probably saw me in some of them with a bass guitar. But that's like I'm learning as I go. Just oh, I need to do that for this song and this is what I'm going to do. So bass is really fun. I have to say, like I didn't think I was going to like it. I thought I was like, nah, bass is boring, blah, blah, blah, like boom, boom, boom, like that favorite, or do you have something that you like more?
Speaker 1:I have a weird relationship with piano because I think after the conservatory I was really burnt and I just didn't want to hear about piano. I was like I don't even like how it sounds. I took a big break from it. It was when I first moved to the US. You know I would play chords here and there, but that was just not really my. It's not what I'm used to with piano.
Speaker 1:I prefer doing that with guitar, because this is how I learned how to play guitar, and classical is something that you know I always love to play but not really perform it. So I guess I found, yeah, there's, piano is definitely my first love and still the instrument that I will love forever. I you know, just like sometimes relationships, you have conflicts and you need to just like work those out. So I think that now I'm more interested in going back to play classical pieces, even if it's just for me. But I do have a cover. I'm going to do with a friend which is an opera piece, so that's going to be my a friend which is an opera piece, so that's going to be my comeback into classical music and actually public you know.
Speaker 1:We'll still film it, you know, and it's not going to be like a live performance. I don't know if I'm ready for that Because like live performances are pretty dramatic. If you talk to anybody that's been in a conservatory, we always talk about their trauma of conservatory. So, yeah, it's first love for sure.
Speaker 2:Still there Very cool. During my lessons with Olivia, I found I tend to go towards the crooner songs. Oh yeah, Nacho, I love Harry Connick Jr In that vein. Is there a style of music that you gravitate towards? And then is there something that you want to break into that you've never done before?
Speaker 1:Ooh, yeah, good questions. I always sang. When I first started singing, I was always picking guy song, I think, because I just like the deeper voice and I can get there. I think I have a pretty wide range, but I just find more of my colors in, you know, lower range. So I'm more attracted to guy songs in general. This is usually what I want to try. And then definitely folk music, just sad rock like old guys, not necessarily necessarily old, but I just yeah, this is more what I'm into. Uh, it's usually quite depressing too. Sorry, what was your other question?
Speaker 2:if that's your style, like where would you like to go that you haven't been able to go before completely different style.
Speaker 1:like. I love electronic music and I think the attraction to music production was also that to be able to create Like. Eventually I would love to have the money to have an entire studio and I would definitely take lessons for this, but have somebody teaching me everything about electronic music and all the machines and things like that so I can create that Like, essentially like djing, but like I want. It's not like I want to dj live, but I would love to create party songs. That would be amazing nice like beach party.
Speaker 1:I love that french people have so many good electronic music too that you know a lot. I don't love the things that are just just percussive or or or like intense, like I'm not, you know, like Skrillex or things like that, like I'm more into melodies and vibey and beach. And yeah, there's a, this French electronic music guy, I don't know Sorry, I don't know how to call it, his name is is Petit Biscuit, which means like little cookie, and he was very young when he started, like I think probably 16, and he made amazing things. That's the kind of thing I like. I mean, it's very like flowy and mellow. And I do also love the party stuff like David Guetta, completely different, but that's something that I would like to do in the future.
Speaker 2:Very cool.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:You like the genres of anything, and even the way you learned guitar and piano. You're going to do your own thing. You want to bring yourself into it instead of being the rote. Exactly this is how you do. I don't want to call you a free spirit and label you as that, but you seem pretty free to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think so. I think that's also why the conservatory was complicated, Even though I was with a teacher that, honestly, I would probably quit before if I hadn't, if I didn't have this teacher, cause he was kind of like the oddball of the school and so talented and and, like, like a lot of people wanted this teacher. I'm lucky to have had him teach me so much. He was very open to so many things, or even the things that I wanted to do in. You know, even leaving and quitting the conservatory and and just going to the US to do something completely different. He was not judgmental at all. You would think it's like no, this is your path. Now you know.
Speaker 4:Right.
Speaker 1:So I'm very thankful for people like that. But it helped me be free with, I think, just the people I was. You know, I just I always had a lot of support with my free spirit, my family and the teachers that I've had. So I think I'm pretty lucky with that. I don't feel like stuck.
Speaker 2:The only way to bring the artistry out of an artist, not to stick them in a hole.
Speaker 4:Exactly the artistry out of an artist, not to stick them in a hole, exactly so, when you were into music when you were younger, were you doing any acting at that point, or did you break into that when you were a little bit like after you moved to the states, or how did how'd that come about?
Speaker 1:sort of like like not seriously, until I was in the states I did this like. So I was in boarding school when I was in high school and the place in front of my high school had it was like a community center and had a bunch of classes and I took like this random martial art there called Viet Vo Dao I don't know if you've ever heard of it yeah, me neither. And then there was this acting class there which was a lot of improv and, yeah, just mostly improv. I was with a bunch of adults. That's where I kind of was into a theater class for the first time, aside from clubs, and maybe in high school and middle school. Well, in middle school but it's not as heavy as it is in the US the whole musical theater in the USs, like the whole musical theater, like it's very in the us, it's very serious.
Speaker 1:You know, you guys put on like amazing shows in in high school and and like I'm seeing all these like christmas shows right now that my friends are posting from their kids and I'm like what looks like broadway, what the heck like where do you find all that money? And it's just like the. The dedication is amazing to me, but we didn't have that in France, it's not like that. So if you want to do something like that, you kind of have to do extracurricular activity. So that's what I did in high school and then I stayed.
Speaker 1:I stick to that teacher who became a really good friend after high school and then I moved to the US when I was 20. So the time to you know, I mean mean I didn't move to be an actor. I I wanted to speak English, to get into a film school in France without having to go to college to learn English because I don't like it's cool. And I just never came back, you know, because life happened at the time I met someone and and then we got married obviously didn't work and I realized that New Orleans was such a really awesome spot for movies. That was in 2011.
Speaker 1:So like, if you remember, that time was like really nice for for movies in in New Orleans and and I just started doing extra work to meet people that did it Cause I didn't know anyone and, uh, I probably did extra work for two years and during that, towards the end of like me wanting to stop doing extra work because I just wanted more out of this, I definitely was like, oh yeah, this is what I want to do. I started acting lessons and with various coaches here and then I signed in my first agency really quickly. It was weird, actually. First agency really quickly. It was weird actually. It was like I I went, I think I found an audition on craigslist, uh, which doesn't sound great like this. Fortunately I did not get kidnapped, you guys right, but it could have happened come audition in my hotel room.
Speaker 2:It's just you and me.
Speaker 1:Well, I've done some weird. Yeah, I've done some weird stuff like that. Like, oh yes, just like you, you're like oh my god, if I could teach my younger self to be like more.
Speaker 1:Like, no, don't do it but sometimes you gotta make those mistakes. But yeah, that audition was in a building of that it was happening in that agency's building. And she heard the audition which ended up booking that was like my first short film. And she was like, could you have an agent? And I was like, no, I don't. Yeah, I mean I thought you know, obviously it's something I want at some point, uh, but I did not know I was going to be asked that today and you know she, let me think about it and I was like I mean, why not? You know, I don't know her, I, I she was a great first agent and and and now I have another one. But this is how I started, yeah, so everything kind of. Eventually I stopped doing extra work because I was auditioning for, you know, stuff that weren't you know, just, you can't. You know, miss your mess up your chances. If you already book a movie as an extra, you obviously can't audition for it.
Speaker 2:You got to make the break at some point.
Speaker 1:So mostly everything was in the U? S for acting. For acting, I would say the US. You said you didn't want to go to school. How much English you know? Hosting you like an American family hosting you. I mean.
Speaker 1:My grades at school went from like I mean we're talking about like D. Sudden I was like, oh well, see, this is the way to do it. And that's why, in my head, I was like I need to live in the US, I need to do something in the US for a longer time. How do I do this? How do I do this? And the time I went, when I was 17, I was like I need to go back, this is what I want to do. And then and the conservatory was like I don't know if this is what I want to do for my life.
Speaker 1:And then films were just creeping in. I was more interested in it. I was not playing music. I was watching so many movies and just pretending to practice at the conservatory, but I was not. I was like renting a bunch of DVDs down my street and just like watching them nonstop, you know, like the equivalent of Blockbuster, I guess, Like it was this like distributor thing, you know, and I would just be doing that all the time and telling my parents that I was studying real hard at the conservatory. And then I'm like well, this is what I need to do. Like it's movies. How do I get into movies? How does that work? In France, and the only thing I knew of was a film school and I was like film school has school in it.
Speaker 3:I don't love that part.
Speaker 1:And then I needed to speak English and so I went to the US, so I did an au pair program and that's when I think I went in with a good level of English. It was not like some of the girls that left France with me were terrible in English, so I feel bad for them because they must have had a hard time. I wasn't too bad, but I mean, of course, the accent and like how fast people are speaking. It's like at the beginning you're just like, oh my God, oh my God. It took me about two months and I remember going to the theater.
Speaker 1:It wasn't the first time I was going to theater in the US, us, but it was the first time I went to a theater and I was like oh, oh, I understood everything. I mean like about everything you know, and like I remember I think the movie was it was a Jason Bateman comedy, switch maybe, or something like that and I just I was like, oh my gosh, that's it. I know English. Now I can go back to France and do that film school and I just never did.
Speaker 2:Why do film school, where you can just be in films and learn Exactly?
Speaker 1:It was very convenient that this all you know, like it's just, I guess, manifesting it, and there's a little bit of that you know.
Speaker 2:And there's a lot to be said for doing it, because you can take the schooling all the time oh yeah, I felt like a student until I finally started changing my feelings. And then there's jumps when you finally get in a film yeah, you know what I mean like my brain detached from.
Speaker 1:I have to do this and I have to do this right to, oh, oh, this is how it is that is totally me, though, like I think I think the most good with school in general, like for art or anything, is just that you learn the work ethic and how like it's easy to get distracted and thinking that you don't need that much work to do that.
Speaker 1:And I feel like, especially for acting, because it's not like an instrument or a sport. I mean it is, but a lot of people think it is not and can get away with it. I mean it is, but a lot of people think it is not and can get away with it. And I think what the conservatory taught me was that work ethic and how many hours you need to spend at something to really be good at it. So I always saw acting as just like another instrument. And so I think that from the conservatory, even if I didn't go to film school or theater school, I still knew about the work ethic and I took that seriously from day one and I knew how much work I was going to have to. I know how much work I still have to put into, you know, and how much better I want to get.
Speaker 1:Every time I do something, I'm very, very critical. If I watch something, I'm like, okay, that was good, but next time I need to do this, and then I'm going to read this book and blah, blah, blah. I think I would be very much conservatory-like at the beginning, Like I need to do this. This is my checklist for my auditions. I need to go through this, this, this, this, this, this, and I cannot miss one step or I will fail. Now I'm like much looser about it.
Speaker 2:It becomes ingrained in you. A part of you. You've learned your scales, you know what the tones would be.
Speaker 2:And then you just you do the jazz, you do the free form, you do the improv while you're in the scene, you know, and you live it. Yeah, so that was going to lead me to my. I was kind of formulating the question because we've talked with many people, like we talked with Rick Overton. He talked about how it was music. Rob Paulson did and I know you hear the terms like I was one note in an audition class. So there's a lot of similarity and overlap between music and acting.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can't even formulate a question. I think you understand, but discuss.
Speaker 1:It's weird because, like I think, in so many ways I can relate music to like I do boxing too, and I think there's similarities into that as well.
Speaker 2:You want to express the emotion in acting and you want to do that music too. So if you're reading classical or reading a script like for voiceover, or just you have the words in front of you. You can't be just stuck and focused on the note.
Speaker 1:To have images. Yeah, yeah, totally yeah, and I think this is I always give images to my students when we play piano and of course it's artificial. I'm not not giving my images like how I see this piece, but like I'm also encouraging them to find their own vision in it. You know, it's like with acting. The nice thing if it's films is that usually you do have the fact that, like the situation is there, the room is there, you don't have to really invent anything unless it's theater and or unless you're cold reading or doing the audition. Uh, so it is important to know how to do that. But when you get the job, it's nice because everything is there. But I think imagining things and just being creative and and that's definitely relates with music and, yeah, cool cool.
Speaker 4:So I was gonna ask brian, when you were coming up through elementary and junior high in Louisiana, did you take French?
Speaker 2:I did not. I wanted to, especially because of my last name and for the folks out there it's Plato, but since I'm a, yet it's. Plato and like the clay. I was teased like that in the 70s. I was a kid in the 70s. You can make it with Plato flashbacks, sorry.
Speaker 1:I don't know that style you're teaching me that one because, cause, obviously we have different ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it was you can make it with Play-Doh, with the Play-Doh toys jingle, then anything goes with Play-Doh, and then Play-Doh fun to play with, not to eat. And that's when I was out.
Speaker 4:Where I went to school we took French up through. I remember taking it up through junior high, seventh, eighth grade somewhere around there. I went to a private school for a couple of years and it stopped at that point and then by the time I went back to public school I think seventh grade there were other electives that we could take. So it stopped. But I have family on my mom's side that's Cajun French, but I have family on my mom's side that's Cajun French and of course it's a very, very different kind of French. But I could understand my grandma when she was speaking you know Cajun French and she could understand what I was saying.
Speaker 4:But words, slangs, things were very, very different and then through many, many years of not keeping up with it, it just completely went away. I still hear a few words here and there and I understand what they mean, but it's been a very, very long time. In high school we moved and Spanish was the only foreign language that was available and you had to have, I think, two semesters of it, maybe one. I wish it would have kept up throughout high school, I don't know. I just I found French more interesting and for me I don't know if it was because I had family. I just picked it up a little easier than I did Spanish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I mean you heard it like I'm assuming like your grandparents were speaking it, and then you couldn't understand them.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I just hear that story often Like, yeah, I mean, I heard it my whole childhood. My grandparents would just, you know, like their generation would talk behind our backs or things like that, or like great grandparents or something you know. So I'm assuming that you've heard that. So your ear, just like music, it adjusts to.
Speaker 2:I went to French, but it was filled up, so I got Spanish. And then when I was playing it was, but when I was in, like peewee football, I wanted to be on the Saints and I got to be on the Falcons. And then now, years later, never thought I had a chance to be an actor in acting, and now I'm into it. So everything's been a dream deferred for me.
Speaker 3:Oh man.
Speaker 1:Well, you can get back to french yeah, you know, duolingo is amazing uh babble's a good app, oh yeah, babble's a good one.
Speaker 1:Uh, I do duolingo for spanish and italian. Well, italian is very new. I just started recently. But, um, but yeah, I, because I I did a good bit of spanish in school also and then, like, I spoke it a little bit in my life later on and now I'm not practicing it, so I want to get back to it. I think Duolingo is amazing. It's free. There's so many things you can learn for free. It's crazy.
Speaker 4:My daughter's learning French with Duolingo and she'll leave me notes, sometimes in French, so I'm picking up a few little words here and there.
Speaker 1:I love that. That's cool.
Speaker 4:Thank you so much for joining us. Do you have any socials that you want to plug?
Speaker 1:Yes, and again, thank you for having me. You guys, this is really fun. I do have, obviously, youtube. Since we were talking about music, it's Manon Pagès on YouTube. Very easy, m-a-n-o-n and pages p-a-g-e-s. I have instagram, manon of the springs, uh, which is a reference to a french movie.
Speaker 1:yes, I'm a nerd and you can see on youtube and yeah on youtube and instagram yes, I figured you can see all that stuff, all the music that I do on there. Uh, please follow, subscribe if you like it. And then I do have a movie that was at the Louisiana Film Prize, called Byla. So very excited about this movie, I'm very proud of it. Hopefully we can. If you stay tuned on my pages, you'll know when this comes out, because right now it's running. It's being submitted to other festivals now that we did the film prize and yeah, that's it.
Speaker 4:I actually forgot to mention this during the episode. Your 48-hour offering at Postal Apocalypse is that right? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Was brilliant. We saw all the different takes of a postal carrier and your performance was fantastic. Loved your film.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. Yeah, we shot this. This movie was like really it was much longer than the cut that we had to do. Actually, I wanted to text James, the director, like yesterday, to ask him if he because I know he was making another cut where there's more going on in it. I don't know how we we shot so much in in one day, but there's like the movie is three times longer, I think. But thank you, uh, I I some the music in that is mine oh excellent, oh wow, okay, that's stuff I had done for another movie before and we just reused that.
Speaker 1:It was the same vibe. It's okay, because the movie was the one that I produced.
Speaker 4:I'm just playing.
Speaker 2:I don't have to fight anyone. Manon, could you do us a favor?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Could you take us out in French?
Speaker 3:Okay, merci TJ. Merci, brian, de m'avoir accueilli sur ce podcast. Je suis super touchée de votre accueil et de votre intérêt. Je ne sais même plus comment parler. Super touched by your welcome and your interest.
Speaker 1:I don't even know how to speak, I just realized I couldn't make a sentence, I just couldn't finish my sentence. Anyway, au revoir, bonne journée, au revoir.
