NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
A podcast about acting, filmmaking, and the improv scene in New Orleans.
NOLA Film Scene with Tj & Plaideau
Dean West: Part 1 Acting Without Acting
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Ever notice how the best performances feel unforced, like the camera just wandered into a real moment? That’s the core of our time with actor and coach Dean West, who makes a compelling case that presence beats performance every time. We dig into the gritty, practical habits that keep you human on set—then pair them with simple mindset drills that turn nerves into fuel.
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
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
Oh, my name is Dean West, and I am an actor for way too long. And I think that was at birth. I've been coaching people for a lot longer, I think, mentally, maybe spiritually. And then I do a lot of all kinds of weird stuff in between from here to here, from like consulting business coaches to all kinds of other stuff and marketing. And I'm a dad. Mostly just dad now. And I am fuctubulated to be on NOLA film scene.
unknown:Fuctubulated.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome to NOLA Film Scene with TJ Play-Doh. I'm TJ. And as always, I'm Play-Hoh.
SPEAKER_00:Nice. Sounds good? Factubulated? That's a word. Is that a new one?
SPEAKER_02:I've never heard that one.
SPEAKER_00:I if I had to like decide what it means, I would assume there's something between like, you know those tube slides that you get on at the water parks? Yeah. And maybe having sex on the way down. I don't know if that's did you y'all didn't say if this was PG, did you? We can put the E on the up and then.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, we just had an E. Toggle on the explicit.
SPEAKER_00:I apologize ahead of time for what might come out of my mouth.
SPEAKER_01:I bet you're fun at Scrabble.
SPEAKER_00:Uh people are break the rules.
SPEAKER_01:Is that a word? Yeah, that's a problem. People, I mean, you're not supposed to look stuff. People are Googling, like, he just said, did he say that? Really?
SPEAKER_00:I feel like I have that in scene work sometimes. Dean, don't you know this stuff's pre-written before you got here? Like they told me. They told me I could say whatever from here to here. So I just didn't know.
SPEAKER_02:You're just channeling Sid Caesar with his double talk.
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes that's the problem, is like if you've met me on I've I've ran into people from different movies and like on a brand new movie that I've probably spent months with them on one film, and then I met them again doing whatever this next one is. And we're like two or three weeks in. They're like, are you the same Dean West that was on? Yeah. Wow. You've changed. I'm working. I don't know what to tell you.
SPEAKER_02:I've just let a little more of me out.
SPEAKER_00:And speaking of that, welcome to the podcast, Dean West. Thank you. Pleasure, guys. TJ was asking, he was like, Yeah, you know, I just uh we started working together, and I didn't want to like just ask you if you'd come on the podcast. I didn't want you to think I was coming to work with you for that. And I was like, you know, I'm a little butthurt that it took you so long to even ask me, to be honest.
SPEAKER_02:TJ is a little more reserved than I am. I I am uh definitely word salad, if not word vomit. But to give you an example, uh, I was in Bill and Ted's face of music. TJ, I had to get it out of the way. And I was Dad's photo double, so I wanted to get William Sadler on. He's been very nice on you know social media. And I Facebook messaged him, he said, sure. And then it came out. Okay, we can do this, we can do this, and then we can have you on a heat. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Whoa. Radio silence. And so I messaged TJ. I said, it was like a few days later. I think I did it again.
SPEAKER_01:He sent me the screenshots. Oh.
SPEAKER_02:And I get, and when you type, it's a certain tone, but I could I could feel it. He was like, Well, you know, Brian, you have to calm down. You can't push him with. I said, I know, TJ, I know. And a couple months later, I got a message from William, and he said, he said to call him Bill. It's still hard for me to call him Bill. Oh, I'm sorry, it took me so long, this, this, or this happened. Let's do it. And so I went, okay, cool. And then I screenshot it, said TJ, sent it, and he goes, I'm sorry. I said, I gotta be me.
SPEAKER_00:It's either that or he just took enough time that like work slowed down. He's like, I'm really bored. Oh, I remember this thing. It took him a while to read it. I'll read that later. I mean, you know, sometimes it's the it's the making yourself stop that gives them enough time to go.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know? The talking and listening part.
SPEAKER_02:Holding the tension of a scene. If I could only do that in life and in a scene, I'd be great.
SPEAKER_00:You'd be surprised on like, you know, obviously the the coach and me. Anytime I start with someone new, and this is when I used to have like the full studio build out here in New Orleans. And uh if you came in and knew the class, you know, we'd be doing whatever it was you were in that week, maybe technique or whatever. And uh you'd be your turn and be like, look, come on and come have a seat. I'll just put a chair up on the front. Okay. What do you want to do? Uh do you want you wanna like you wanna do like a monologue? Do you wanna no just just relax for a second? Right, but like do you want me to do you wanna just chill? Take it in. Um take what do you mean what do you mean what do you mean to do though? Like this is weird sitting up here, isn't it? And just letting people sit, like you cannot imagine how uncomfortable people are with themselves. Part of that process, like once you get on the other side of like, oh, I can hear me thinking, and that also gives you the ability to go, that's a dumb thought, don't say it. The same with dialogue, is like you're sitting there for a while and you can listen to someone talking, or your mind goes to my next line, my next line, this is my next line. And then it comes out in this weird fucking way that you didn't plan because you you were trying to run it in your head, like, how should I do that? And the whole time the other person's just talking, in which case you're not listening, and then all of a sudden they say it in a way that you, of course, did not plan, and then you said it the way you planned, and the other person's like, huh. That was an interesting choice.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Because you know, you just blurt out the thing that your mind was rumming through the whole time. So it's always funny to me to watch people when they first start doing this, it's like, just sit with you. Because most entertainers or actors start this thinking, oh, I get to not be me. There's no escaping that man.
SPEAKER_01:See, I already know that's if if I needed to get Brian to confess, that's what I would do. I wouldn't have to torture him. I'd just make him sit. Just sit. Just sit in silence. Yeah. Be with yourself for a minute, and it would just he would just start talking. It would just come out.
SPEAKER_02:Have you heard of that room that is totally silent?
SPEAKER_01:Yep. Deprivation can't chamber. It's uh oh, I just heard uh I had the word just the other day. It's a echoterry chamber or something like that.
SPEAKER_00:Sensory deprivation chamber.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, but it's it's it's a big room, it's got all the sound baffles or whatever it is, yeah, and there's no noise. So yeah. Explain it, but the challenge is if you can spend a night in there, they will give you a million a million dollars.
SPEAKER_01:What? Most people don't last.
SPEAKER_00:You can scream and it doesn't Where do I sign up? That sounds like a vacation.
SPEAKER_02:Nobody's last past an hour. I'm still down. And they hallucinate.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my god, I get pleasure. Go on.
SPEAKER_02:With no input of any sound, your mind starts creating things. And I'm like, let me do it. I'll start talking to myself. Give me that million dollars. But right? Yeah, it would probably drive me crazy or drive me more crazy, which I'm fine with.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I'm I don't know. I've got a five-year-old, so I've you you just explained like the perfect vacation. I love her, but she is me all over again. And I was explaining TJ the other day of like her, do you remember the episode of Family Guy where he hits his knee and it's like ah yeah, like a good five minutes. If you somewhat look like I did something entertaining, oh, we're gonna keep doing it until it's done. And then you're gonna be like, it's we're good. She's the exact same. So Michelle's just like, oh my god. And my my full name is Norman Dean West Jr., so I can hear her in the living room sometime. Norma, stop.
SPEAKER_02:I'm like I'm like that too. Uh once I can make my wife wife laugh, I can't stop. So we're watching one of the Transformers movies with uh oh, I just blanked on his name. Come on. Shiny Boston guy. Shiny LaBeauf? No, no, no. The later. Um Boogie Nights.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, Mm mm. Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm thinking of this is like sexy time when he's gonna be able to get away. Mikey Mike. Marky Marky Mark. Mark Mike, Marky Mark, Mark. Which he'd kill us to say that. We're gonna get there eventually.
SPEAKER_02:But he goes, hey, look, it's a transformer. And I turn and say that to her, and she starts cracking up, and I was like, oh boy, here we go. We're in. Five seconds, transformer. I think he transformed. I had it for a good hour and then it stops. So I'm the same way. I've got it buried into the ground, but that immediate joy, especially with my wife, because mostly I get this. Which you can't see, folks, if you're just listening. Eye roll. My wife has the strongest eyes after listening to all my jokes from all the work out her eyes get.
SPEAKER_00:But after a period of time, it's like, oh, you heard that one?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Dang.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so it's called an anechoic chamber.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, okay. This is yeah, that's a whole nother level.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, anechoic chamber, and it has a rating of negative 20 decibels, and they say it's v it's unsettling and overwhelming to people because uh you hear your own body sounds like your heartbeat, and all of that is amplified because there's nothing else going on, and your mind, I guess, apparently starts playing tricks on you.
SPEAKER_00:I'd still love to give it a shot.
SPEAKER_02:I want to do it too.
SPEAKER_00:Or DJ hasn't made him yet, but uh in what we'll talk about later, but in Tilt we have like the first your Monday, we have a Monday morning mindset, and the first thing have you ever gone, you ever heard of Wim Hof? So Wim Hof is they they've he's termed as the Iceman because he like takes people to like literally just in their shorts, go jog up, you know, mountains when it's freezing. But he does a Wim Hof breathing technique, and anybody that's done class with me knows a where we do these, and most people I tell them just do like five breaths when you're first starting, but you get to kind of work your way to like 20, and it's uh and then when you get to your 20th, blow it all out, and then you hold your breath as long as you can, and then you expand the stomach and hold that as long as you can, and it just shoots tons of oxygen, it just oxidates your body a lot. So you have tons of oxygen going to your brain, and then when you let it go, slow, let it all the breath out, and then you kind of just close your eyes, relax, and let your body find its own heartbeat and just listen to the rhythm. And that's part of our morning kind of wake up is doing that, and you're just listening to eyes closed, listen to heartbeat feels. Because to me, again, back to acting, if I can get you to the present moment, then you don't turn on when someone says action, and all of a sudden you be a an actor weirdo. You stay the human that you are, and all of a sudden we can actually have a real conversation that everyone else is going, Did we say action? Is this part of the lines? And no one knows because you're still a human. And all of a sudden it's like, that was great. What just happened? I'm not really sure. I don't I don't know. Because I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't directing, and I think most actors get stuck in the director mind so quickly. And you know, you think about it, like we have if you go back and watch auditions 15 years ago before we everyone was on self-tapes and all this, we didn't have so many just audition classes that were self-tape awareness. So people weren't sitting there initially going, Oh God, I do that, I do this, oh my god, I do that, I do that, oh my god. And instead of like mentally trying to direct themselves to not you know, do whatever the thing is they do way too many times. This became a a director POV for them. So now they all of a sudden are looking from camera, watching themselves while being in the scene of going, don't blink too much. And then they got weird. Versus back in the day, your awareness happened because you slowly just sunk more and more into just being present with the work, doing scene study, doing whatever. You know, I I was never able to watch myself in classes and and scene study doing stuff. I just knew what the muscle memory was of being present enough that I completely forgot that the class was sitting there, the lights were here, the you know, cameras filming on this side or whatever. I was so honed into me and this other human being being in the present moment together that there was no like you didn't question your brain of going, well, would the character do it that way? I fuck, you're here. What would you do? Do it, do it. Don't ask what you would do, would do just do. And we're gonna see it all of a sudden and be like, wow, that was cool. And then afterwards, someone will go, hey, do you remember blah blah blah? I don't remember anything from that. Good.
unknown:Good.
SPEAKER_00:That's what it's supposed to feel like. But I don't feel like I was entertaining. Good. You are a human. You don't walk around like in the in you know the grocery store, like, watch me pick up this mango. Mango, right?
SPEAKER_02:Like I do that, but that's just me. That's I mean that's normal.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Mango. Now people do it, but it's like while they're doing it, like self to selfie. Mmm, mango. You know, totally different things.
SPEAKER_02:Insta.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I will admit, because I was in grammar school in the 70s. I was doing the Truman show and selfies before we had selfies and the Truman show. I just always knew there was a camera. I mean, I just flash back to that. Just oh yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That's my favorite. I invented selfies, actually. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I used to be a few. I just assume you were there teaching. It's my assumptions. Yeah. Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I, you know, the you remember the little you could buy the instant, not instant, but the Fulleroids. The the camera that you actually turn the camera in and get it developed. Yeah. Disposable cameras. At the end of every role, I would do that. Before there was a name for it, I would I would hold it out and take a picture of it. I've got a ton of them. It's pretty funny.
SPEAKER_00:Over the years. You should get put like a just a big uh mural on the wall of those. Just selfies, yeah. Yeah, you over the years. That'd be great.
SPEAKER_02:I have one from the 80s. It's not a selfie, but it's a bathroom mirror selfie. And I had a full new wave flock of seagulls here. Nice. It's long gone and I miss it. I always went into Mohawk, and I just can't, as people can see if when this comes out on video.
SPEAKER_00:If you dig deep enough, you'll find so I when I first got in the industry, I was doing like modeling and fitness stuff back in the day. And uh then when I moved to LA while while training and all that from the acting stuff, I started uh I had someone sucker me into joining a boy band. Um and it was like we went there.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I was expecting.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So uh Hillary and Haley Duff's manager had convinced me and a friend of mine that he did music and stuff, so we got into the boy band because I was doing hip hop at the time, but you can find photos because I used to rock cornrows back in the day while we were doing hip-hop because my hair was like all kinds of cray, so it was easy to kind of keep it out of the way.
SPEAKER_02:I was gonna say you have the right stuff until the cornrows. No, sorry. Now it's bye, bye, bye. Okay, I did it. I said it.
SPEAKER_01:That was nice. You know, I'm a master researcher. I'm gonna find those pictures. It's probably not too far.
SPEAKER_02:Did did you see the documentary on InSync and the uh New Kids on the Block about their manager? It's on Netflix and it goes through all the the stuff he did. But and I like that music. I didn't buy any albums, so you that in my defense. No, wait. Afterwards, I just kept walking around and again saying to my wife, Dirty Pop.
SPEAKER_00:Like, oh boy, that thing came on, just say bye to Dean. He's gonna be out on the flow. You'd be surprised. That was a hip hop. Fine picture.
SPEAKER_01:Fine Dean Dean Boy band days. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:We will search it and pop it into the video. We're gonna promote the episode with this.
SPEAKER_00:There we go. I just became famous.
SPEAKER_01:What what was the name? What was the name of the band?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. I couldn't tell you. Don't know what you're talking about anymore. Dementia. Early.
SPEAKER_02:You know, when you resist, it makes it that much worse.
SPEAKER_00:You should just go with the I want him to have fun searching. I want him to go down and Google Rabbit. That's kind of fun. I probably should have gave you straight access to it because now you're gonna find I'm there's some I'm an interesting human being. Let's just say that. I've I have lived plenty of lives, my friends. That's funny. Yeah, I moved to Los Angeles when I was um 18 or 19, one or the other. And yeah, I yeah, we did we did all kinds of crazy stuff. Thank God I always look back at like, you know, now times and I'm like, man, I'm glad you weren't around.
SPEAKER_02:That's why I'm nodding my head. Like, yep. Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01:So what what got you going with it in the first place before before the boy band days?
SPEAKER_00:Don't call it that. Um so when I I was probably I mean, I was a kid, and I remember being like five or six, somewhere in there, and we had just got like the VHS kind of tape thing where you could, you know, record that way.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And my sister and I, I would like make her do like commercials and shit with me. And I always remember the one with like a road rate ro uh ro Roach rate spray, and we were like doing like the commercials for that in between. And I mostly remember because I sprayed that shit at one point. That's when my mom was like, nope, we're done, no more of these things. But you know, it was always just entertaining to me then because again, it's the same thing that goes back to I saw someone giggle and I made you smile. You got something from me that made you feel good. Oh, where do I sign up? I want to do that. Like, I want to see people smile all the time. So it was just like an immediate assigning that someone put the hat on, was like, all right, this is what Dean's doing. To the point that I think by my I was maybe 13 or 14 and did like some of those like you know, pro scout kind of things where it's like, oh, model search, acting search. And you know, I had an I had an agent in like LA and New York which did jack shit for a child in Louisiana that wasn't going to LA or New York. And I remember I remember in like middle school that I was like, and this was you know, my girlfriend's family, look, we're um we should probably break up. Cause I moved to Los Angeles and I'm gonna be an actor, you know, and uh, you know, you probably can't come when I moved there. So we should probably just call it now. I didn't move for like another five years or something. But, you know, at the time I was my head was already like I was already creating this future, this manifestation was done for me. So I started like uh I find I ended up finding an agency in Houston that turned out my cousin, or you know, I call him uncle because the age difference, please, my cousin, brought me over there and I did like one class with uh a lady named Karen Karen Gourmet that was doing a lot of casting out of out of Houston at the time. And after we finished, it was kind of like a commercial audition and she messed up. At the end of the audition, she was like, Dean, you are so funny, and I mean you're you're like really talented. This if you've never taken classes, why why aren't you why aren't you acting? People want to hear me talk. Okay. Sure, we can do that. And then that my cousin there got resume set up and helped me out, you know, the headshots, all that kind of stuff, which you can find those too. And started doing, you know, modeling and stuff like that. I was doing some of those like sports modeling stuff. I was on all like the academy gear back in the day. And uh, I think my first commercial was a Chef Boy RD commercial, was also the first time I realized that there is a bucket underneath the table for a reason, and nobody told me.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_00:I haven't touched Chef Boy RD since. It was my favorite at the time. Wow. But man. I just remember like finishing one of the cuts and was like cut, and I was like, okay. I sat back and the sound guy do uh there's a bucket down there if you need to you know spit that out after every take. What? That's what that's for? Have you been eating all of that? Mm-hmm. Oh yeah. He was like, Yeah, just just spit it out now. So I learned early about that. Once was enough. That national commercial, which back in the day, I think, ah god, by the time that thing was done, I think I probably racked up probably 50k on a chef boyardie commercial at the age of like 16 or something. So that is what gave me enough to be like, all right, cool. I'm I'm gonna move to Los Angeles when when it hits time. And I moved out there then. Nice.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. God bless the chef.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Of the boy are Dean.
SPEAKER_02:I haven't had the food thing. I did one night in Miami and I was front row, right in front of the stars. So Malcolm X is right behind me. So I am not gonna move. And they started handing out those paper cigarettes, and I quit in '98. So it wouldn't have been a problem, but I was like, I'm good. Because I knew every take they were gonna get a new one, and people are gonna be inhaling, and by the end of the 14-hour day, they want to be sick as dogs. Yeah. Not me. I did have the secondhand paper smoke, but you know, we won't go into that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's like I mean, it's like the eating thing in a scene. The you can always tell like someone's brand new that's never done a an eating scene before because they go for it and you're like, so so slow down in between, like when you're doing the take, maybe give yourself be like you're just finishing a bite to get yourself rolling, maybe. That way you're not eating every take. Oh no, I'm fine. It's my it's my character. Okay, okay. Character, do it. And then by like, you know, fourth or fifth take, because there was again, you're talking about a table where we had like six people at the table, so we've got close-ups all the way around. Yeah, and we got mediums all the way around. We got two shots, we got wives, we got so much stuff that we're gonna be covering. That I'm like, you're not and I know, you know, once you've done this long enough, you're like, I know what I know what lens we're on. I'm not, I'm if you're in an 85, I'm not in this shot, so I'm forking it, right? And then newer actress, same person I was mentioning, I was like, Don't just wait. If it's especially if it's not, you're not on camera right now. I said, Yeah, but I just want to, just in case. Do it. I'm forking his full mouth. I'm like, he's gonna be so sick. And oh yeah. By the time we took break, he didn't eat lunch. He was just like, I'm gonna skip. I'm gonna ask nope, didn't touch lunch. Just had some coffee.
SPEAKER_02:TJ, he he talks more than me. I don't know, I don't know. What are we gonna do? How do we get him to stop?
SPEAKER_01:I'll just hit stop.
unknown:Cool.
SPEAKER_02:Let's bring him back for part two. What do you think?
SPEAKER_01:Fine.
SPEAKER_02:It's a lot, but I you know, I don't I think he's got more to say. So come and join us next week, folks, for part two.
