NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Jana McCaffery: Acting, Law, and Finding Your Moment
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What happens when a childhood passion refuses to be silenced? In this captivating conversation, Jana McCaffrey reveals her remarkable journey through multiple careers while never letting go of her dream to perform.
Sponsored by Jana McCaffery Attorney at Law. Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999 focusing on personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously and, if you are a fellow member of the Louisiana film industry and have been injured, she is happy to offer you a free consultation and a reduced fee to handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at Have you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana since 1999, specializing in personal injury since 2008. She takes helping others very seriously. If you have been injured, Jana is offering a free consultation AND a reduced fee for fellow members of the Lousiana film industry, and she will handle your case from start to finish. She can be reached at janamccaffery@gmail.com or 504-837-1234. Tell Her NOLA Film Scene sent you
Jana McCaffery Attorney at LawHave you been injured? New Orleans based actor, Jana McCaffery, has been practicing law in Louisiana
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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 Jana McCaffrey, actor, lawyer, real estate mogul, and I am thrilled to be on NOLA Film Scene.
Speaker 2:Welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ Plato. I'm TJ and, as always, I'm Plato.
Speaker 3:We're really glad to have you, Jana. I didn't realize you did real estate as well. I knew that you were a lawyer. That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:It's a lot. It's got me a little bit crazy these days. Well, I mean, we know that the crazy never really goes away. I'm a little extra today.
Speaker 2:Okay, if you can't lie to our listeners and say a little bit crazy because some of them know you.
Speaker 3:Hi, buddy, true. Hey, I think you and I met in Jim's class. I can't remember if it was the premier class or if it was the circle exercise, but I do remember being in class with you at least a couple times at Jim's.
Speaker 1:It was definitely Jim's. I think it was the premier class. That's my memory. Or were you in class with Michael? Yeah, well, that's the premier class. I'm thinking of the works. Yeah, I got the of the works.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I got the names confused, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we definitely had some classes together, mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:We met in the famous circle, yeah, and we did a scene together and I believe I became your dad. You did.
Speaker 1:You did and you were a good shoulder to cry on, because we know what the circle reduces us all to eventually.
Speaker 2:It's an emotional lab, and that's all we're going to say about it. You can go back to the Jim Gleason episode, folks, and find out more and then sign on to his class.
Speaker 1:Right, I know, but we've done some classes together too.
Speaker 2:Yes, we're advanced.
Speaker 1:We are, we're advanced, we're advanced. Yes, we're advanced, we are, we're advanced, we're advanced. Yes, and we've actually done other things together too, just passing, you know, not themed together, but a little professional stuff is what I'm getting.
Speaker 2:And all three of us were in the same 48 we always talk about.
Speaker 1:That was great. We were so great. I'm just going to say I don't care what anyone else said, we were great. Actually, everyone else said we were great, except for the judges.
Speaker 3:Boots, jonathan Sigler, the guy that did the videography. We interviewed him. That was a fun project and I was afraid that it was going to be long and, you know, just drag out. And I didn't know what to expect because that was my first time doing a 48. I thought it was going to be just like stress and we got to hurry up and get it done, but it never felt like that to me. It was fun the whole time.
Speaker 1:It was fun. I think a lot of that was Matt honestly to be, you know, because he was so level headed and he's so driven by his ideas and he's just always calm and he just gets these ideas and rolls with them and he knows how to run a project. It's funny, just when you said you thought it was going to be long, I'm like, well, we know it wasn't going to be more than 48 hours.
Speaker 3:Well, I didn't know what to expect if we were going to have to be on set for 48 hours straight with you know, with no sleep and stuff, and we all got to go home and get sleep at night.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that would not have worked for me very well yeah.
Speaker 3:Janet for me very well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jenna was kind enough to lend us her office for the weekend. There was that and Matt and I were going to go to the coffee shop where they were having a meeting where you pull your two genres randomly. Well, I couldn't find parking so I'm just going to the office. So I walked in, we were talking and Matt messaged us and said we have mockumentary and inspirational. We were in the office. I said we're not going anywhere. Yeah, we're not going to run around town and shoot and stuff. We're going to concentrate. We've got our location.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And it really kind of it kind of lends itself, yeah, but then that is probably where. How much do we want to talk about this? You know, that's that's what I think would stop the judges from it could be. I mean, yeah, you can take this out later if you want, but I think they think we ripped off the office. But I don't think we ripped off the office. I think we ended up with mockumentary and an office to work in and matt carroll had never seen the office before and he was the writer yeah, I had only watched a couple episodes myself I I just had a hard time getting into it.
Speaker 1:I don't know me too, actually me no. I thought our thing was great. We were running in the office a few last years.
Speaker 2:Take that, Steve Carell.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And Sexiest man Alive, Jim Krasinski, if I pronounce it right.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, no, me too. I never really watched it a whole lot either. So whatever Awards don't matter, we did a project and we got real footage and we all think we all did really well. And you two got nominated for best actors or best supporting actors. I'm gonna say that, if y'all don't say it and you should have won, in my opinion, one of you either one they were trying to split us up and make us fight each other I know right, but it was good.
Speaker 1:You know, I bumped into craig Lidecker last week Randomly, so randomly, and you know we were like, we've known each other since kindergarten and he got our, he loved our film. Yeah, I thought we did great.
Speaker 2:So I took that on. We got a lot of good response from people, and that's what matters, yeah, what matters to me. So let's go to our usual question.
Speaker 3:Can I just want to say? I just wanted to say one thing on that. I would rather people enjoyed the film and got something out of it than win an award versus win an award, and most people didn't like it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I agree completely, like on every level. Whether that, whether we're talking about some little film festival that nobody most people out of acting have never heard of, or whether we're talking about the academy awards, I'm not going to be like, no, thank you, you can keep your oscar. However, no, I'd rather do something that reaches people on any day didn't you do this soldier's heart as well? Yeah, that was fun.
Speaker 1:That's how it ends, and this is brian casting man yeah, brian had put out text messages, I guess, saying you know, we're looking for extras here and I don't normally do background work and it's not because I'm trying to be a snot about it. I think all actors kind of on any level can relate to this. It's just that I have so much of an other life. I'm still a lawyer, I have my own little office, I didn't matter. I do personal injury, by the way. I feel like I have to say that, and I'm really good at it. So you know, any actors, I could just be the personal injury attorney to the stars of New Orleans, but I still want to be an actor. I can't get over it.
Speaker 1:I've wanted to do it since I was six. Anyway, was six, anyway, I've got so much to do in my normal life that I just can't go hang out in the background of a set for 70K. Even if I wanted to, it's not really feasible. But it was Brian. So I was like, hey, it's Brian, who knows, let me do it for Brian. Yeah, I texted you. Hey, if you need people, I'm here for you. And then it weirdly went from there because I'm getting ready to head out of the house at absurd am O'clock, whatever it is Right, and that's when the text messages start coming through Actually the night before Right? Because you asked me if I could pick up Julia, who lives way on the other side of town and in the opposite direction of where you're going?
Speaker 2:She's telling me the night before she needed a ride, and it's all the way for those listening, it was on the West Bank.
Speaker 1:No, I think no, she lives uptown Right, but in, that's right.
Speaker 2:Meet Louisiana, I believe, is south of New Orleans on the West Bank, so people listening who don't know the West Bank is west, south and east of New Orleans, depending on where you stand.
Speaker 3:But do you actually refer to the banks in, like the Coast Guard and maritime circles?
Speaker 1:They don't say east or west, they say because the way the river curves, they say left descending bank and right descending bank, that's cool, right, that's, that's cool, that, actually, that almost jives with our way of life in the Crescent City, which is river, like uptown, downtown, whatever we don't say, we don't say north. The only reason I ever know which direction north is is because that's the lake, is there's my finger, north is over there. Like by the time, folks, right, but anyway, back to the story. Yeah, the night over there, like folks, right, but anyway, back to the story. Yeah, the night before you're texting me, can you get Julie? And I'm like yes, yeah, yes, and I learned that somewhere.
Speaker 2:You were playing a councilwoman and you weren't supposed to have lines.
Speaker 1:You're supposed to be there. That was even on the table, yet.
Speaker 2:Was it so you started as the women's health clinic person? I think I started as nothing but an extra, a backup, oh, like filling out the council room for the bleeding. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:And then came the can you pick up, julie? So I didn't even really have a reason to say yes at that point, except I'm just that great of a person you are, which I think you know, know. And then is I'm on the way out of the house, literally like I'm letting the dog, that, which is the last thing we do before we leave the house, right, and I'm getting ready to head to the car. When the next text comes in, that is, actually, I might have a featured extra spot for you as a council person at the table and you're like so, bring a couple outfits. And then I'm heading to the car with a handful of some outfits. When it's like wait, bring more outfits. There's an actual roll with lines that you might get because someone else has potentially just dropped out.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was an independent movie for very little money and we had a director of a women's center. I went to a man who went to a woman. People dropped out, people couldn't do that day. People called that morning. It's craziness when you don't have the budget behind it, you know, and so you ended up being a council person with I was a council person. I was to speak there because I wasn't that day.
Speaker 1:I wasn't there that day I did not speak, but I'm gonna brag for a second because you know, wow, who's an actor that doesn't brag a little in that that moment where the speech was being done? I will say that the main actress that was doing that speech looked at me a lot and I like to think it was because I was giving her something to work off of. You know what I mean, and I was responding because it was important it was. It was very emotive, it was very serious speech there. So, yeah, nobody will see that, but I liked that, that. She looked at me, she looked at me.
Speaker 2:That is the wonderful Eileen Gruba, who was friends with Jim Vess, and one day I'll tell the whole story. But I sat down with Matt and I was going to be the sheriff the sheriff's in his 50s I'm in my 50s but I don't come across as in my 50s and so he said you can't do that. And then I said, well, you know this person, I know this person, I need this role. And I just started making phone calls and we got people like Jeremy London.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:And then Eileen came in, know it killed me. I couldn't be there. I was at a sand quarry finagling our Iraq set for free.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah, I know Things just kept coming together. I mean hard, hard fought. But yeah.
Speaker 1:I got to do that. But there was also this director of the woman's shelter and I had never met Matt before that day either. And I walk in and I get introduced to Matt and you had already told me it was the director of a women's shelter. And I started my conversation with him like, hi, I'm Jana McCaffrey. My first job when I was in law school was helping the attorney as an assistant for the attorney doing divorces for battered women at the Women's Shelter in New Orleans. And he went, you got the job. So that was a great audition, you know, best audition ever. So then it went from there and I had, you know what, like three or four themes with a decent handful of lines and yay you know it's fun to play.
Speaker 2:You get a chance to work and then that goes to your reel. Once you get the footage which, ladies and gentlemen, that's like a headshot, it's just your still of your face. A reel is an example of the acting you can do, and so you show that to casting and to agents and directors. This is me and they go not today or she's the one so you're building your calling card and she Jana did it for free. But you're also making connections, like with Matt, all the people there, and then that led to the 48th. So there's always.
Speaker 1:You're building yes, I truly never expected it at all. I was just happy. I was so happy to be part of it. I think it's a great movie.
Speaker 3:That film led to multiple things for all three of us. I mean the connections and friends. I'm still in contact with people I met on that film.
Speaker 1:Me too. You know I broached Matt with a project that I've had in my head for years and it's really in complete infancy stages. Right now Matt's very, very busy and I keep trying to nail it down. You know, every week I'm like, hey, let's do more on that project, and that, you know, I don't know what's there, but I feel like something's really there and eventually it'll come out. So Matt and I are in regular contact. He's just, he's brilliant, and I love working with him and I think I've got some great ideas. And then he throws some fiction on top of those ideas, because mine come from crazy real life which Brian knows about from the circle exercise. It's way deeper than you think, brother. There's so many rabbit holes, man. We've only got a half an hour or so. I'm really effective on my ideas too.
Speaker 3:Keep them under lock and key.
Speaker 2:And Matt, we're going to expand the Western. We did. But that takes time, energy and money. It may take a while, but it's going to happen. It works.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I like that. We all made friends and friendships. At those kind of things I know I kind of sounded businesslike. Oh it's for the real, oh, we get paid. It's also a lot of fun to make friends.
Speaker 1:It's really both. Yeah Well, but it overlaps for us. So, naturally, I think that none of us being oh, that person is just trying to get something from me, for instance, like when she says you know, I can ride a horse right, right, like you just mentioned, a Western Right, I can be a cowgirl baby.
Speaker 3:We certainly will need people that can ride horses.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I handle guns. That I have done since I was born, thanks to my daddy we all had old Western six-shooters Right For that film. Yes, I have one of those. It's just that it moved from my nightstand into the closet and now the Glock is in the nightstand. Burglars, just so you know.
Speaker 2:That's a first on our podcast, but anyway, jen, I'd like to go back when you first started, when you were inspired to become an actress, whether it was high school or your first job or anything along those thoughts. What was your journey to get here?
Speaker 1:Okay, you want to hear my very first story, literally. I mean, I was six years old and my mom and dad took me to Barnum and Bailey circus at the Superdome and there was a little girl about my age who was in a family that was on the trapeze and the moment I saw a child my age performing, it never left. From that moment I wanted to be on stage in front of a camera, whatever I could do. And it's funny, you know my mom and dad and this is not a knock on my mom and dad, my mom and dad were self-employed people that worked their butts off to put a roof over our head and pay all the bills and everything, but they were not helicopter parents like the ones that you see today that put their kids in everything. Like.
Speaker 1:The reason I went to dancing school for the first time when I was seven was because Missy down the street went to dancing school and I was like I want to go to dancing. Missy goes to dancing, you know, and that's how I started dancing, and you know that. And then you get exposed some more in school as you go through it and then, and when I was about 12, my mother was actually a model in the sixties, when she was younger. My mother was a very beautiful woman and she I feel like I should not say some names, but she was connected to a very famous mile and silent agency in the 60s and even went to New York for a while. So she had a couple of connections and you know I had shots. You should see what headshots when you're 12 in 1984 look like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm having thoughts of glamour shots at the mall it was not, it was.
Speaker 1:They were like real photographers and back then black and white. You remember when everybody's headshots were in black and white. You know, even when I was in college they were still doing that. So I did plays all through high school with a couple. I went to, grew up in new orleans and went to girls catholic school, like a lot of us tend to do, and then I did plays with the boys schools that had theater programs. And then when I went to college, I went to Southern Methodist in Dallas for one year and studied business and it was wonderful and I loved it and I had an amazing time.
Speaker 1:But I had two men in my life, a boyfriend and a dad, who were like we miss you so much and I was like I'm going to come home. And I came home and I went to UNO for one semester and studied veterinary medicine Not well, not like pre-vet. Whatever we were doing with my boyfriend, we had this grand plan to become veterinarians together, which did not work out. After one semester at UNO and no offense to UNO today, because the UNO of today is much different than the UNO of 30 years ago I was like this is not like college life at all. I mean, I left SMU, the dorms, I was in a sorority, you know, and I was like I need the college life and I ran to LSU, just like it's not that far away, but it's also very college-like and I remember it like it was yesterday. Y'all, like you know, you didn't get to sign up online right there, wouldn't? You know? I'm talking about 1992 is what I'm talking about. And there was right. The line was not card tables, the lawn tables like that.
Speaker 1:We eat crawfish on down here you know, picnic tables-ish, right, those tables with people and index cards and actual people standing in line with pens and pencils. And that's how you picked out your classes. And I'm standing in line to sign up to be a business major again and to sign up for some business course. And right next door is the theater major table. And I did it and I couldn't, I just couldn't help it and I ran over there, I signed up there and so I ended up with a Bachelor of Arts in Theater from LSU and then, I guess, when I was 22, I chickened out. I went and worked for Disney for a year after college, which was insanely ridiculous, you know, kind of like being a pretend actor. Sorry, disney people, there's a lot of theater involved in it. Well, I was in the parks and I worked at the Haunted Mansion for a while and then I was promoted sort of promoted. I know I was not, I know it was kind of cool, it was kind of cool.
Speaker 2:I love the Haunted Mansion.
Speaker 1:It is a cool ride, it's a great ride. It's just so different when you work there and you see all the guts of the place. It's very different. And then I got out of that into the actual entertainment area and I was a ship monk for a while and then I just kind of got tired of that. I started like I don't want to do for a living what the rest of the world does for vacation. Call me a snot, I don't mean for it to come across that way.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You know, because God bless all the people that work at Disney. It is quite a job, you know. They really work their butts off. I came running home and I was like what am I going to do with my life? And I was like Dad.
Speaker 1:I think I might go to law school, because I watch Law and Order all the time and they're in courtrooms and that's kind of theatrical. And dad was like that sounds like a cool idea. So I went to law school I guess what I'm getting at, though, like when I said I chickened out, it's something in the back of my head said run out to LA and try to be an actor. That is real personal, but I don't think it would have gone well for me. I know I remember the 22 year old me very well and I was very vulnerable and naive and emotional, as I still am because I'm an actor.
Speaker 1:So I went to law school, I got married, I had a couple kids, I got divorced. My previous husband is deceased, unfortunately. That's kind of a sad story. I found the most wonderful man anybody could ever find that I'm married to now and we've been together for 17 years. So I think it's working. Yeah, and we got married civilly, technically, in the beginning and then and he needed an annulment and we just did our vows in the Catholic church and so when my youngest who is now 20, off to college in Texas, like his mama first did, but he didn't come running home, I said I'm going back to acting class and he couldn't have been more supportive. So that's when we is. When Jana went, I can't stop fighting me the acting bug after all these years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, like you said, being a lawyer, you were still acting, using those skills to relate to people, to connect to the jury.
Speaker 1:In so many ways. But you could like not act, but I guess acting is not really acting, right, it's being true in make-believe circumstances, right, that's a good definition. So I would like, I would never want my clients to think that I'm pretending when I'm concerned about their circumstances, because my favorite part of being a lawyer is taking care of people. I love that. I started my career as an Orleans Parish prosecutor right Like one order, right Like I just heard it.
Speaker 3:I just heard it, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is where I started my career. I'm sorry, right, that's okay.
Speaker 3:You got me.
Speaker 1:CJ's delayed reaction is beautiful. He's pushing a little, yeah. And not long after I started with the DA's office, they realized I had done some domestic violence work through law school and so I started screening domestic violence cases and became the main domestic violence prosecutor at the time. Again, we're going back to 1999, 2000, you know. And for a long time I was in a courtroom every day and it was really amazing. And then I had to make a real paycheck. Unfortunately, they do not pay district attorneys, assistant district attorneys, enough money. The actual DAs make enough money. Well boo. By the way, the actual DA I was under the first time I was there because I made a couple rounds, was Harry Connick Sr. So that name may sound familiar to some people. And that was cool. In 1999, being in the assistant DA role under Harry Connick Sr, it was not even questioned skirts and pantyhose into the courtroom. Remember pantyhose Y'all. Remember this Royal? I think the royals still wear pantyhose when they're out in public. But other than that, yeah.
Speaker 3:I mean, I know some judges have weird rules, but that's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just. I mean, you know, ladies had a. There was just like an unwritten, unspoken code. If you were, a lady how many times I do this. There were no pants on the ladies and there were also pantyhose, but we didn't think about it that much back then. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:Despite rumors, I didn't wear pantyhose. But I remember my mom's eggs for legs and then, once she was done with them, I played with those. They became my spaceships, not the legs, my action figures, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the ball.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I remember being like seven or eight years old and I couldn't wait to get some pantyhose. Like that made you a lady. But this is going so far back. This is like the younger ones of today that are in well, even high school, or maybe middle school, I don't know. I just know I went all the way through law school with a notebook and a pen. I didn't even do computers in law school, which is probably why it took me half an hour to connect to y'all on this podcast.
Speaker 3:You know, when I finished my undergrad degree there in the late 90s, computers, internet was a thing, but when we wrote a paper at that time, you could only use one source from the Internet. Everything else had to be from hard copy in the library. But you could do one source from an online thing. But remote classes online that wasn't even a dream back then. Remote classes online that wasn't even a dream back then. And when I went back to school I guess I started back in 2020 for my grad degree it was completely different. Everything you sign up online classes were online and I remember going and standing and waiting at the table at college when you to sign up for your classes like you were talking about, and it's. It's so different now and I miss being in school so much. I'm taking a digital marketing class at LSU right now.
Speaker 1:That's cool. Look at you, I love it. Yeah, every now and then my husband and I will be sitting around watching something, and he loves watching documentaries. We love all kinds of stuff, quantum physics even. There was a time he wanted to be an archaeologist. I'm like, why don't we just both go back to school and become archaeologists? And I'm like, oh wait, I'm trying to be an actor, I'll do it on screen.
Speaker 3:Not an archaeologist, but I did play one on screen.
Speaker 2:You know, Now you're just digging up all the memories.
Speaker 1:See what you did there. That was a Jim Gleason. I told Jim the other day in class. I was like, thanks to you, I walk around on the regular in my real life going. You see what I did there. You see what I did there Making some ridiculous pun Can't help it.
Speaker 3:For somebody that doesn't have kids. Brian sure does throw out a lot of dad jokes.
Speaker 1:That is really true. I'm looking right at you. Can you tell Kind of I'm looking at you, brian, I'm looking at you Without giving anything away.
Speaker 2:by the time this comes out, it might even be released. But I just played a stepdad and I was dad-joking all over the set and I was driving the teen and I think the boy is 11 or 12, so I was driving them crazy.
Speaker 1:I can't believe that. I can't believe that my 20-year-old still dies half the time that I'm around him, especially because he. I believe that my 20 year old still dies half the time that I'm around him, like, especially as he's my, my mini me. My 23 year old is like. They both look like me, but they don't look that much like each other, which is true. I think that happens with siblings. You get that sometimes. You know what I mean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, mine are like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but and they are nothing like each other for sure. So my 23 year old is not all cringy around me. My 20 year old, who is everybody is, says he's my mini me. He's like I don't see it. So anytime I say anything I don't know, he just doesn't. He's good when we're one-on-one in front of people. He kind of just opens me him. I won't let him know about the podcast.
Speaker 2:Bet you will. I always try to think of interesting questions to ask people. During your journey of learning to act and acting, is there something you discovered about yourself that surprised you?
Speaker 1:Okay, so this might sound. This doesn't sound shallow when I say this, or just say it let's say it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shallow, when I say this or just say it, let's see if we say it, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, see if you see if it's obnoxious enough to trash or not. Acting always came very naturally to me as a younger person. Great, like absurdly natural I I can remember being on stage and I think I was a senior in high school. I was, I was given the lead in Noel Coward's Hayfever, which is the and it's a. Not only is it a huge role, but it it. It was for Rummel High School back in the day and and Mr Guajardo bless his heart he was a great man who really wanted to reach as many students as he could and he would double cast. So the plays would run 10 nights in a row, so there were 10 performances and he would double cast all the roles so that more students got a chance. He always did straight plays as opposed to big musicals. So because less kids can sing and dance than you know, or at least read lines, he was one of my teachers.
Speaker 1:Yes, wasn't he amazing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't do much because I was in the band, but I was in all the way home. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he was an amazing man.
Speaker 3:I saw Brian's eyes change when you said his name.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, he was an amazing man and in fact, I just put this in a comment on a Facebook page recently because someone posted a beautiful picture of him. I think he was in New York. He loved New York City. I went on a trip to New York City. He would take the theater group to New York City every year. We saw like 10 Broadway shows in five days. It was insane. I'm going to go on one tangent because this will actually tell you how great he was. I don't know that he could do this today.
Speaker 1:He also cast me as Aunt Bea in A View from the Bridge and Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, and his daughter was cast as my niece, which is the lead role in that one.
Speaker 1:I can't remember the name in the play, but his daughter was playing my niece and there is a very serious scene and I actually slap her across the face in that scene. And I was being very timid about slapping her because you know I'd never done any kind of theatrical fighting or combat or whatever, and I was trying not to hurt her and he was like what are you doing? This doesn't look real, this doesn't. And I'm like, well, I don't know what to do and he walked up to me and he said this is what you do. And he just slapped me across the face and I mean for real, like I was like stunned and that was it. And then I never had a problem slapping her across the face. I guess I was kind of paying her back, paying him back generationally up the ladder, you know, but but yeah, you would. So a teacher probably wouldn't be able to get away with that today, cause today the kids would probably be like no.
Speaker 3:And people would be there with their cell phones too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, People would be there with their cell phones, it would be taken out of context, moms would be fainting and pearl clutching and who knows what. But it was a lesson taught and a lesson learned efficiently and thoroughly, and that was the end of it. And she never complained when I gave her a good slap on the face. I never did hurt her, of course, but he taught me stop worrying, get the job done, you know, and so that was great Because I've taken a theatrical combat class.
Speaker 2:You'd stage yourself from the audience and you'd slap your own hand to get the noise. And it's got to be timed with a turn and it's got to be timed with a turn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess it was a very tiny theater. I don't know that we were. I think maybe I cupped my hand a little, which helped make the noise. Yeah, I certainly did not hurt her. I never left a mark on her, you know, actually that's a stamp on me that day. But again, again, next babies didn't go whining home about it, so it didn't.
Speaker 3:That was back in the days when they still paddled you at school.
Speaker 1:Technically, I guess. So I don't think my school was doing that, but yeah, I think my husband's was.
Speaker 2:We had a coach there Mine didn't. He had a paddle and I never got hit because I kept my mouth shut. But he drilled four holes in it, yep. So there wouldn't be air resistance, and if he broke that paddle on your ass you had to make a new one.
Speaker 1:Wow, see, now I gotta say I don't approve of that. Like I can't Right, even as a tough Gen Xer, I don't approve of that. Nonsense. I agree, nonsense was the nice word.
Speaker 3:I got paddled my senior year of high school by the football coach. Same thing he had the holes drilled in his and what great sin did you commit.
Speaker 3:Did you fumble? I left my helmet on the field. So on Thursdays, before game day, we didn't have full pad practice, it was just helmets and shorts and we walked through the plays just once up the field. So we'd run 10 plays, so every 10 yards we'd move it and then at the other end of the field he would do a quick pep talk and we would race 100 yards back to the field house and then he gave the big you know the big Uros speech for the next day and I just spaced it and left my helmet sitting on the field, helmet sitting on the field. So Friday I went into the field house during lunch to make sure all my stuff was ready to go, Cause I think we had an out of town game that night. I got to my locker and my helmet was missing and I'm like all right, well, I'm not sure who's about to toe to ass whipping, but I'm gonna find my helmet. And I walked by the coach's office and I saw two helmets sitting on his desk I'm like damn it.
Speaker 3:And I I kind of walked up to the edge of the office and I looked and I saw a sticky note that said do not touch. See, coach. And he gave us not blood, just drain out of your face. I'm sorry, and he was a big, I mean, he was a beefy guy. So the option was get one thwack from the paddle or run bleachers. And I'm like game day, yeah, give me, give me a thwack. I had that's. It was one of the other.
Speaker 1:I feel less sorry for you now actually. I mean, I was picturing it way worse. I mean it was. How serious was the thwack? Let me recalculate.
Speaker 3:So he would, he would rear way back, and I saw the other guy. The other guy went first and he would rear way back and come from like way up north and then he would stop, close and just kind of with the like a ping pong flick of the wrist, but it still stung because I mean, even that little flack, it was Sure, sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he knew how to do it.
Speaker 3:Get the wrist in on it. So that's I mean I had to earn my helmet back with a paddle. Either that or bleachers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Now again, maybe it's because I'm a Gen X baby. That's not the cruelest thing Again. He would never get away with that today. In fact, it is technically today. In fact, it is technically. It's not even a battery really, it's aggravated battery, If you would like to know the legal description.
Speaker 3:Well, so back then, though you had the, the parents had to sign consent. They could. You parents could opt out of it, and if, if you're, if the parents opted out, then there was whatever, whatever other punishment. If my parents well, actually, I don't think they opted in on on this one, but I mean, I was, you know, I was 17 I could make my own decisions, and I chose a paddling one one lick from a paddle versus 20 bleachers I didn't choose that, I don't know.
Speaker 1:That's not.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying it's fair, I'm not saying it's good trust me, the licks that night were much worse than that one little paddle.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, no, but I don't. But, like your real stuff, I can't even remember the movie. But there is a movie it's an older movie when I mean I want to say it was like Philip Seymour Hoffman, guy Rest, his Soul was in it when he was a teenager. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2:They're teenagers at some private school and they get, unless I'm mixing that up with them is that I might be making this for honors with matt damon or no, maybe I don't, and then you know what I might actually be.
Speaker 1:I'm seeing him, wasn't he in the one with al pacino and scent of a woman? Yes, the point is, is that there was a sick ass teacher. I said is that OK? Is that word OK? Fuck, yeah, hey, I'm at the school and he paddled the boys when they stepped out of line in whatever way, and it was tremendously abusive. It was horrible. Like I couldn't watch it and that was a younger person watching. But even today and I may, especially because I am the mother of sons and I knew what he was doing when he gave me boys, I am the mother of sons and dad knew what he was doing when he gave me boys.
Speaker 1:I am such a boy mom, but when I see boys in pain to the point of tears, like emotion, like it, just if you know, every now and then when I'm thinking about I just realized what an insane tangent we went on, cause I never did ask your question about what I learned about myself. I went to Chuck LaHarto and the slap, and then I'm a circle back in a second. Ok, after all this time. But I'm either doing one of two things. When you see me having some extreme emotions in a scene to where it even brings tears to my eyes, I'm either being insanely brilliant actress and I am so in the moment. That's all that is real to me or I'm imagining like a 12-year-old boy having his heart ripped out because it will crack me up every time, like I didn't even see a 12-year-old girl whine all day. Like, get the hell over it, you know.
Speaker 2:But you did find that out about yourself. What are your triggers to use in an acting scene?
Speaker 1:I definitely did. But I've known that a long time. I was preparing for this trip back to acting a long time ago. I saw your dad a long time ago. This is what I learned. This is how Tuck Waharto came back into my heart Not in my heart, but in my mind right now.
Speaker 1:Acting was like at least it felt like falling off a log. Back in the day, a good friend of mine's sister and her boyfriend at the time were like PhD students in acting at LSU and they came and saw me in this play just because the little sister was my friend. You know I don't know why they would waste time, but I remember him saying to me I've never, I've never seen a high school student act on this level. This was a great performance, thank you. This is wonderful, you know. And then I remember how easy it was for me to be in the moment, which is not completely. You know, it's not like I'm with some hugely brilliant child. I mean, children live in the moment, right. Jim, at least in himself, always says never be on stage with a child or a dog because they're always completely in the moment Right. And then you do it. So that thing that I used to be so brilliant. I just remember how it was being on stage or in front of a camera back then, barry.
Speaker 1:What I learned about myself going back especially film acting as an adult was the world has entered and changed me and it is not as easy anymore and it is a whole different ballgame, right being when someone says action or you know the teacher clicks the button and you hear beep and you're ready to be in the moment. It's a whole different ballgame to get in the moment. And that's one thing I learned about myself was it's not as natural anymore and I had to get back to that, not saying I'm, not saying I'm back there. I'm still getting back there every time because we're just you know.
Speaker 1:I mean I'm 52 years old now and like a lot of life has happened and then and nerves happen. That didn't used to happen because I have a whole other set of you know I got to prove myself here. I got to do it. I find on on real movie sets, as opposed to acting class, is actually easier. Even though you got a camera in your face and a boom mic and a sound guy in your face and and other things happening. It's actually easier than in acting class. The nerves are more there in acting class. Do you guys find that?
Speaker 3:I do. Yes, if you've ever done any kind of training program where they do scenarios and you have to like pretend, I kind of equate it to that, those were always a little harder to do than what it would be like in the real world. You know, I don't know, yeah, oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I mean, there is a local acting classes that I actually really, really enjoy, except for the fact that this person starts the classes with a little bit of silly improv. I hate that. I hate it. I'll still go back to the it. I'll still go back to the classes. I'll still pay the money. This person still has a lot to teach and is great at it.
Speaker 2:That technique to loosen people up doesn't loosen you up.
Speaker 1:It does not loosen me up, it makes me. It makes me clench, up to the point that I'm like I'm just going to wait out here. We're going to wait outside, and so you're finished with that.
Speaker 2:Does it make you clinch up because you really want to get everything right?
Speaker 1:No, I just hate it. Okay, no problem. Just personally don't like him. I don't like improv. I took, I don't, I only like. This doesn't make me sound like a total asshole, Dear audience. I'm sorry. A total asshole, Dear audience. I'm sorry if I sound like a total asshole.
Speaker 2:TJ and Marnay and no, I'm not really an asshole. She's not a total. She's not a total asshole.
Speaker 1:I only even like watching improv at the highest levels. I mean, the people that are talented at improv are amazing I can hardly comprehend. Because they're so good, they're just so quick on their feet, they're just so funny. Because they're so good, they're just so quick on their feet, they're just so funny, they're just so funny or dramatic, it's just like, wow, maybe that's just because I'm bad at it, right? So I don't know.
Speaker 1:But I did do a couple of improv classes and the reason I forced myself through the door was because I was having this issue with I got to get back in the moment, and in improv you have no choice but to get in the moment. Nothing exists but the moment in improv, because you're in the moment and you either do something or just give up. And so I took a couple classes and I was like, okay, got it, like I remembered what it was to be like in the moment. And if the person that you know I took the improv classes was like, why did she never come back? It's not because I think I'm an expert now, far far from it.
Speaker 1:I truly admire people that are amazing at improv and and I could never do it, but my, my whole point in the class and doing the class was remembering what it was like to just be in the moment. You know, I mean, I even remember that first time in the class and doing the class was remembering what it was like to just be in the moment. You know, I mean, I even remember that first time in a class with Jim where we did a scene and a tear rolled down my face and then, after we did the playback and he asked me, he was like I really want to know where were you in that moment? And I was like I swear to God the answer is in that moment that was like the best Isn the answer is in that moment that was like the best. Isn't that like one of the best feelings? Yeah, totally. Every week you walk out of class and you're like I did it.
Speaker 3:That was cool and it's hard to explain unless you've explained I mean yeah, it just sounds like a weird narcissistic actor thing.
Speaker 1:If you haven't experienced it, yeah no it sounds like that.
Speaker 2:But like when you first started, when you were younger, it was just you were there. There was no inhibition, there was no things that happened in life that make you want to hold things in, so you were just playing.
Speaker 2:So as you got, back and young, young children just play. They all pretend we're a superhero and it's not. Like, are they going to like me being a superhero? Like no, I'm Superman. I Like, are they going to like me being a super? You're like, no, I'm Superman, I don't care. Yeah, the other part, even in public, yeah, I don't care. Yeah, yeah, and that's the, that's the being in the moment and recapturing that and letting go Audition versus on set. I have not done theatrical so I can't speak to that. I'm assuming it's the same. It's because everything's there. You don't have to imagine it. The person is there.
Speaker 2:Whereas in addition, it's an empty room, you and the camera and the person behind the camera and a reader. It's two different people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the nerves and the nerves Because you feel like it's all on the line, like for the jobs. It's so crazy and that's why it's weird. But everything's there and plus the extras. Right, you've got other people. You've got, like I said earlier, the camera, the sound guy, the boom mic, wherever it's at. You know you might have somebody like this far from your face that the camera can't see, but because the other elements are there, the rest can disappear in a way that doesn't happen when you're in an audition. You You're still like oh, does she like me or does she like me?
Speaker 2:I don't know, audition or class. It's that achievement mentality that we have to, as actors, get past. I want to get a good grade in the class, even if they don't get great, so I have to get a good performance. Am I doing good? And that fights in your head. Instead of being the character In an audition, instead of being you, try, try to be. I'm just the person and living this moment in life. But you're also like am I going to book the job? Is my agent going to like it? What? What does it look like? Another take, etc.
Speaker 1:Etc yeah, it's, oh, it's so hard to get all the noise out of your head, so completely hard and, like jim says, the camera picks up everything. The camera reads it. Although, in my humble defense, I will say this this is one thing I've had to struggle with and Jim and I have had extensive discussion about this Is that I oh you want to know what I really learned about myself. This is a big deal.
Speaker 1:This is a big deal because I'm having kids, because I'm like honey, your kids think I'm so mean Because you know I'm really not that mean and it's this, it's this Because I'm really not that mean and it's this, it's this Because, yeah, well, that's the thing is, what I learned being on camera in class is that my I might want to kill you right now face is the same as I am so concerned about you. You see, do you know this? I mean I'm looking at myself a little. I can't yet, but you know this is not you know the quality. But yeah, I got here, we go. Yeah, that is. I am really serious and very upset, very concerned in a loving way. I have to put a little, I have to pick it up a little. I know like a smile isn't appropriate in that moment, but I have to make sure I'm eating well, that was a big weird thing to learn about myself on camera.
Speaker 2:And we are out of time.
Speaker 1:On that note, we will.
Speaker 3:Janet, do you have any socials that you want to plug? Do you want to plug your law firm? Do you know any of that you want to plug? We can plug it.
Speaker 1:You know Law Office of Janet Leonard McCaffrey. Blood, sweat and tears went into that. I do almost exclusively personal injury. You know your motor vehicle accidents. I've done a good handful of dog bites in my life. They're hard cases and I always, when I hand my cards and bend the people, feel morally and ethically obligated to say I hope you never need me, because if you need me it means your heart, even though that's how I make my living Right. But again, I do love taking care of people. So yeah, I mean, if people need me, I'm there. Jmechlcnet is there, just like it sounds. So that would be my plug. But mostly I really just want to be an actor. And thank you guys, this was fun.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Pod dismissed.
