Kat Q on Following Your Passion
Nicholas And Derek interview actress Kat Q. We ask about her life and how she changed from a STEM major to moving out to LA. Listen in to find out more!
Transcript
This is Film Center.
Speaker:Your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff, all facts.
Speaker:Now, here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:Hey, welcome to Film Center, I'm Derek Johnson II.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And today, Nicholas, we have a very special guest.
Speaker:We have a very special guest.
Speaker:Would you like to introduce yourself?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:My name is Cat Q, or I go by Cat Q.
Speaker:She goes by Cat Q.
Speaker:That's her stage name.
Speaker:It is.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:It was recommended to me by a casting director.
Speaker:What he recommended it?
Speaker:What do you mean?
Speaker:I was an intern at a casting studio with the purpose of
Speaker:Oh, she has the insights then.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Ha.
Speaker:I was just trying to get whatever knowledge I could.
Speaker:And the deal was that if I worked for free for three months, I would get a sit
Speaker:down with the one of the owners, which was a casting director at the time.
Speaker:And she just told me, she's look you have an ethnically ambiguous look.
Speaker:Lean into it when they see your full name on the paper.
Speaker:They don't know how to feel about it They're gonna look at you and
Speaker:then it's gonna be a mixed bag.
Speaker:You're cat cute.
Speaker:You show them what you are inside You know what?
Speaker:There's so much truth to that.
Speaker:I first of all, one of my friends Anatoly Pancheco He was in Infinity
Speaker:he was in the League of Bureaus.
Speaker:It's like in Morocco right now Anyway, so he had a very had the same thing
Speaker:happen to him almost well almost so he worked at a casting company for
Speaker:Four months, three, four months.
Speaker:And then they allowed him to audition for them for something, but yeah, it was
Speaker:pretty cool, but they had the same thing.
Speaker:Cause his name's Anatoly Panchenko.
Speaker:Very obviously Russian Ukrainian sounding.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And me and him, I remember we used to stay up nights and be like, he's okay,
Speaker:what's the American version of Anatoly?
Speaker:I was like, it's Anthony.
Speaker:But I was like, so we were like, A hair away from like changing his name to
Speaker:Anthony Wolfe, but then he was casted So I was like, Oh, now we're good.
Speaker:Now we're good.
Speaker:What before getting to, to, to all the stuff, what made you say Oh, I'm
Speaker:going to, we'll get to that later.
Speaker:So Cat Q, where are you from?
Speaker:I'm Colombian.
Speaker:So I just had the.
Speaker:hesitation of when people ask me where I'm from I've been in,
Speaker:or I grew up in a lot of places.
Speaker:Like I, I was raised in Columbia, South America, in Cali.
Speaker:Very warm in weather and warm environment.
Speaker:Like everyone, the neighbors and the neighbors, son, daughter, mom, always.
Speaker:And then I went back to New Jersey.
Speaker:That was my first, that's where I learned English.
Speaker:And then I went down to South Carolina and by I, I mean my family.
Speaker:And right.
Speaker:How long were you in Columbia?
Speaker:I was there until I was about seven and a half, eight years old.
Speaker:Oh, Hey, those are all the formative kid years.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Those are all the formative kid years.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So what made you, so what made your family come to America?
Speaker:Better life, better quality of life.
Speaker:And before my full family moved over.
Speaker:We had some aunts, my great grandmother had been in America and Puerto
Speaker:Rico, she worked all her life.
Speaker:And they just, yeah, it's just, there was this very specific time
Speaker:in Columbia that was very rough.
Speaker:And a lot of people just started automatically migrating out of there.
Speaker:And what about South Carolina spoke to you guys?
Speaker:She went to New Jersey first.
Speaker:New Jersey, yeah.
Speaker:Hold up.
Speaker:Alright, if we're thinking of all the states in America to
Speaker:learn English from, New Jersey.
Speaker:That's a harsh that's like you didn't dip your toe into the pool.
Speaker:You got thrown into the deep end, New Jersey Man, do you have
Speaker:beef all time with New York?
Speaker:That was that must been interesting It was and it's hilarious because I
Speaker:have a lot of we have a large family So I grew up with just cousins all
Speaker:the time Yeah, and they're also they already had spoken English.
Speaker:They already learned so, they're Jabbing at you, they joke in and poke
Speaker:and I'm like, I need to understand.
Speaker:So it's an emphasis to get to learning faster.
Speaker:I also just really like languages.
Speaker:Oh, that's cool.
Speaker:And I took to it very quickly.
Speaker:And yeah, that was What other languages do you know besides English and Spanish?
Speaker:So I speak Spanish and English fluently.
Speaker:I speak French conversationally.
Speaker:Oh!
Speaker:And I'm learning Russian.
Speaker:She speaks French.
Speaker:Oui, je peu de français.
Speaker:I speak a little French myself, croissant à la mode.
Speaker:Oui.
Speaker:Eiffel Tower, paris.
Speaker:So then so you're coming from Colombia, you move around a
Speaker:little bit in the United States.
Speaker:When did you know that you wanted to start acting?
Speaker:Funnily enough I remember, the earliest memory of ever even thinking about what
Speaker:is acting, that is an actor, or they're pretending is not real, is novelas.
Speaker:I would, my mom would tell me, Tell us, bedtime is at 7 p.
Speaker:m And she closed our bedroom door and you know puts us to bed Yeah,
Speaker:and I would hear the TV come on and I know that starts at 7.
Speaker:She's watching our stories.
Speaker:Yeah, so I would crack the door open and I would just sit there like that
Speaker:and always these ridiculous stories and things like that, but I found it Very
Speaker:Like a way to a place to Put something.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I found it very Unless you escape.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah First saw it and then so when I was growing up I would for some reason tell
Speaker:my mom like I want to be an Actress or I want to be a dancer, but we didn't have
Speaker:money for either one of those things Yeah, so I don't know why where when
Speaker:she would be she's a wonderful mother.
Speaker:She would always be like, yes.
Speaker:Yes, that's Great.
Speaker:Oh, she was supportive.
Speaker:Yeah, she was.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:She never ever told me you're crazy.
Speaker:You're like, that is so wonderful to hear.
Speaker:We have so many stories on the show.
Speaker:We have so many sad stories on the show.
Speaker:That is great to hear.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:So a lot of people who listen to the show, a lot of them are already in the industry,
Speaker:but there's some people who want to get into the industry and guys be listening.
Speaker:See, look, some people do care.
Speaker:Sometimes.
Speaker:Somebody.
Speaker:Some people's families do care and they do want them.
Speaker:And she didn't have any money to back up the fact that she was supporting me
Speaker:emotionally, but she kept telling me yes.
Speaker:Even when we were in New Jersey, she took me a couple of times to like these, those
Speaker:things they do at the malls where they're like, come and be seen by whatever agency.
Speaker:Like a little fake runway thing or whatever.
Speaker:And they, but they tell you that it's that's how you get
Speaker:into any kind of the world.
Speaker:Placed in the right street, but she was just looking for a way to do it
Speaker:without having money So we went to a couple of those that sounds so sweet.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Yeah, she's guys gonna make me cry, but She then just kept doing that and feeling
Speaker:that emotional part for me even though we didn't have money and to the point
Speaker:where When I got to high school I realized if I'm gonna be able to go to college
Speaker:because we don't have money I have to be on top of my game with grades and I
Speaker:was just a nerd like I just buckle down.
Speaker:I got good grades the whole way through and I was gonna I was when I had my pick
Speaker:of colleges I was like now I can actually study what I said I wanted to so I told
Speaker:myself that I would but at the same time they don't give you financial aid when
Speaker:you say I want to be an actor I very much I told the University of South Carolina
Speaker:that I wanted to be a double major in biology and theater and The amount of
Speaker:people that looked at me with these sad little eyes that were like, Oh, you poor
Speaker:thing, you don't know what you're doing.
Speaker:They said it was difficult.
Speaker:It was, nobody does double majors.
Speaker:People get too stressed.
Speaker:When I was in, when I was in undergrad, something that I thought was really great.
Speaker:So my uncle, I love my uncle, but he didn't go to college,
Speaker:but he's like very street smart.
Speaker:This one was going to Florida state.
Speaker:He was like, Because I was playing on double majoring myself.
Speaker:I was going to go to I was thinking about doing politics and Coming to seeing
Speaker:my stem research right a stem degree.
Speaker:So he was like Why don't you just choose the one that makes the most money and then
Speaker:spend all your time doing the other one?
Speaker:Then you won't be in class.
Speaker:You just don't do what you feel like doing it and I was like
Speaker:why didn't I think of this?
Speaker:This is why you gotta talk to your elders sometimes, Yeah, so you were
Speaker:Ella majoring in biology and theater and I'm pretty sure they thought,
Speaker:oh, she wants to teach fist to dance.
Speaker:Of course.
Speaker:This is what Leading to no it actually Because I most of my financial like it was
Speaker:all scholarships or grants And technically it ended up that I was being just paid
Speaker:to go to school at that point But it was solely it was mostly because of the
Speaker:biology portion And so I had to keep up with like lectures everything the grades
Speaker:had to be almost perfect To the point where there was a moment where I got to
Speaker:see somewhere I don't remember what class it was and I almost cried and freaked
Speaker:out because I was like losing my life.
Speaker:Yeah Which is not as healthy I see now but I came to a point where
Speaker:I was so busy Doing like I think it was population science math
Speaker:problems Pages of math problems.
Speaker:Yeah, they're working on them and I enjoyed that work But I was like,
Speaker:this is not what I want for the rest of my life yeah, not and I was at
Speaker:that point I had gone through I was supposed to be the vice president of
Speaker:a sorority Oh, you joined a sorority.
Speaker:I was starting at the first chat where I was like, oh They might not like that.
Speaker:I'm saying I was helping because I came over here.
Speaker:But it was like the first chapter in the university of South
Speaker:Carolina of a Latina sorority.
Speaker:Oh, very interesting.
Speaker:I'm part of her fraternity myself and something that.
Speaker:Like we loved partying with the the Latin fraternities and sororities
Speaker:because they can all dance.
Speaker:No, there's no, no offense to some of the Caucasian fraternities and sororities.
Speaker:But like usually had no idea how to dance and usually there's like
Speaker:a huge discrepancy in the DJ to choose right Usually there's a huge.
Speaker:That's always the first thing.
Speaker:Why are you staring at me?
Speaker:Everything Listen, I have no, I can't dance, but I have no problem making
Speaker:a fool of myself on the dance floor.
Speaker:See, I I've seen Nicholas dance.
Speaker:He can dance.
Speaker:He just, does it in his own way.
Speaker:I'll give him that much.
Speaker:That's being nice to say he can't dance.
Speaker:But so you did all of that at university, and then you're like, okay, you know what?
Speaker:I didn't finish.
Speaker:Oh, you didn't graduate.
Speaker:I actually, I, when I was, going through that, the moment that I
Speaker:realized that the sorority life wasn't quite for me, or at least that one
Speaker:I didn't really like some of the ways that the, what are they called?
Speaker:The bigs were talking to the way that some of them were interacting with each other.
Speaker:I just I don't know.
Speaker:I don't, I didn't like it because the whole idea behind that one sorority was
Speaker:that they were very much emphasizing like the education part of it, being
Speaker:together in that and celebrating we're just learning and things like that
Speaker:wasn't the core of it as I found out, but because of that, I went through
Speaker:the big, this big shift in my life.
Speaker:It was very intense.
Speaker:I had to move out of campus.
Speaker:I was by myself.
Speaker:I was just very isolated and it actually, I thank God that happened
Speaker:because it allowed me to see exactly what I didn't want for my life.
Speaker:And also, then I had to have that moment, which I know I heard in an interview from
Speaker:you of okay, I'm gonna call my mom first.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:. Yeah.
Speaker:And then I'll talk to my dad, . My mom, the mom always feels like
Speaker:the softer blow, doesn't it?
Speaker:Yeah, it always does.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because I'm like, at the very least, even if she's upset she's always gonna do that.
Speaker:She's oh and then, and my dad is a sweetheart too, but I feel like
Speaker:he, his reaction, his immediate reaction when I called him and I was
Speaker:like, Hey, there's, so I found, wow.
Speaker:I'm gonna backtrack a little bit because this is actually quite significant
Speaker:and if he ever hears this, I want him to . There's a guy in my high school.
Speaker:who I saw once in a play.
Speaker:He's this, he was big.
Speaker:He was this big guy.
Speaker:And he was amazing, phenomenal actor, phenomenal singer.
Speaker:I don't know where he gets his voice from.
Speaker:And he just stuck with me.
Speaker:And when I saw him share on Facebook one day, I'm going to these
Speaker:auditions being held in Atlanta.
Speaker:Atlanta was like three hours from my family.
Speaker:And I was like, wait a minute, he's going to move to LA, go become
Speaker:this and do that with his life.
Speaker:And we went to the same high school and we live like same origin story.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I'm like, I, and I'm sitting here.
Speaker:So I immediately went cool, let's see if I can go into these.
Speaker:What is audition?
Speaker:I to do.
Speaker:And then I saw that it just so happens that I think it was a couple of months
Speaker:away from when I was sitting there looking at it, that AMDA conservatory that I
Speaker:went to here they were having auditions in Atlanta and they just required
Speaker:for you to do Typical two monologues.
Speaker:The monologue.
Speaker:The comedy, the drama monologue.
Speaker:But at that time I'd never done a monologue So I'm sitting there
Speaker:like I don't even know what I was looking for I just knew like this
Speaker:is this shift was happening and I'm like, I need to do something.
Speaker:So when I call my dad I'm like, I Think I want to go Try this audition.
Speaker:His immediate response was, I thought you liked animals because
Speaker:my track was to go from biology to veterinary school and stuff like that.
Speaker:The track that you tell to lie to other people.
Speaker:Ah, the lie track.
Speaker:It's so much fun because you get to say that you're going to do anything.
Speaker:Anything.
Speaker:'cause you don't have to, you don't have to don follow through on any of it.
Speaker:You're looking at the other classes they're like, oh yeah, I'm, they're like,
Speaker:oh, so what are you, what you studying?
Speaker:'cause I studied also political science when I was in school and they were
Speaker:like, oh, why did you, when to college?
Speaker:Oh, why are you studying?
Speaker:Oh, I'm gonna be, a mayor one day.
Speaker:I just, my goals is to be a mayor of, Tallahassee.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:, Tallahassee, Florida.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The capital of Florida.
Speaker:That's unappreciated people don't even know what's the capital of Florida.
Speaker:They think it's Orlando or Miami, but it's not.
Speaker:It's this border town next to Georgia.
Speaker:So your your dad's reaction to you wanting to be an actress was.
Speaker:He was a little, I think, nervous because we, they don't have money.
Speaker:You know what I mean?
Speaker:We never had money and I don't say, how are you going to do this?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I didn't, I don't want to say that in a boohoo way.
Speaker:I meant more so like they.
Speaker:just, they were genuinely curious.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And also they're realists, they've been through so much and they had already
Speaker:switched countries and things like that.
Speaker:So he's you gotta do something, you gotta prepare somehow.
Speaker:First.
Speaker:. And so I talked to him a little more and he's the one that ended up taking me to
Speaker:the audition to to audition for amda to.
Speaker:And when I came out the door, he was like a little kid.
Speaker:He was like, how did it go?
Speaker:How did it go?
Speaker:I'm like, I thought you didn't want me here.
Speaker:, . He's tell me everything.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so ever since then, I think he saw how much it meant to me to So you got in?
Speaker:Yeah, I did.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How was how was that?
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:I had never been in an environment where.
Speaker:I was solely focusing on that.
Speaker:Like I was always doing some math problems, some biology
Speaker:lectures, some chemistry thing and doing acting as a hobby.
Speaker:And now it's no, I would go home and study, but instead of
Speaker:studying for my finals, I was over there memorizing 12th night.
Speaker:And it was cause it was my first time reading like this
Speaker:play in this way or whatever.
Speaker:And it was just, it was great.
Speaker:It was great.
Speaker:And it was weird because I had never been in that environment.
Speaker:I got introduced to the tension or the kind of cattiness of,
Speaker:this is a performing arts school.
Speaker:Yeah!
Speaker:And So Nicholas, you have more experience in this area.
Speaker:So what you're saying is that you found out how two faced people could be.
Speaker:No, I didn't say that.
Speaker:You found out.
Speaker:Look, this is our show.
Speaker:We can say what we want.
Speaker:Not necessarily two faced, more so this need to have this
Speaker:front of this is who I am.
Speaker:When in reality, I was walking in I don't know, I've never been to the state.
Speaker:I've never been to the city.
Speaker:I've never been in the school.
Speaker:I've never had theater friends.
Speaker:I've never, I didn't grow up in the theater world.
Speaker:I haven't been doing play since I was 12 and I felt very much, and it might also
Speaker:be just me being self conscious at the time, but it felt very much Oh, like they,
Speaker:everyone here thinks I don't belong here.
Speaker:But then, the way the school set it up, they had this orientation
Speaker:and it just so happens Immediately I glommed on to this one girl.
Speaker:She's from Argentina, Buenos Aires, phenomenal musical theater.
Speaker:She's a singer, but her dad and my mom met at the parents orientation
Speaker:and my, me and her met, and then when we joined up, we're like, oh, great.
Speaker:We're going to be roommates.
Speaker:Oh yeah, done deal.
Speaker:My, I had my mom and another mom, her mom, her daughter.
Speaker:was from Alabama.
Speaker:So they like, globbed on to each other and became real good friends.
Speaker:Oh!
Speaker:To the point where they where the moms tried to conspire together
Speaker:to get us to become a couple.
Speaker:That's hilarious.
Speaker:Did you?
Speaker:No!
Speaker:laughs They didn't conspire well enough.
Speaker:No because I was talking to my mom years later and cause they, they're
Speaker:still friends to this day, right?
Speaker:It's didn't been, years.
Speaker:They found out the moms broke out the blueprint.
Speaker:And all right, they would have legitimate conversations going.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I like you and I like your son.
Speaker:How do we get them together?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:I was not in it in the slightest.
Speaker:Looking back on it, did you think of any moments where like being
Speaker:her, we're in this situation together that we would normally
Speaker:never have been in the same place.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Because I didn't allow it.
Speaker:That's what the issue was.
Speaker:I was not interested in the slightest.
Speaker:But anyway yeah, it's, the thing is, you know this just as well as we do.
Speaker:The industry, the entertainment industry, attracts pretty much
Speaker:the most broken of people.
Speaker:And I think the most common thing that happens is they expect they
Speaker:expect what they want to fulfill them.
Speaker:To fill that hole of whatever it might be.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And so the thing is also sent.
Speaker:I can't let you know that I'm vulnerable.
Speaker:I can't let you know that I need something from this goes against the work, right?
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Because that is what's preventing you from putting out such incredible work.
Speaker:But at the same time, all three of us in this room can think about at least
Speaker:10 times where we've been screwed over.
Speaker:So it's a paradox of, I'd love to be vulnerable, but I can't tell
Speaker:you that I'm vulnerable because then you're going to screw me over.
Speaker:It's very quite interesting.
Speaker:I think that it's a little bit different from my experience.
Speaker:Cause you guys went to acting schools.
Speaker:There was an acting wing in the school that I went to, but with filmmaking,
Speaker:it wasn't like, Oh I would say there's a little vibrato, but it's more
Speaker:like everyone just being Kanye West.
Speaker:Everyone there was like, Oh, I'm a genius.
Speaker:Oh, everything I've made up, it's just genius.
Speaker:Oh, you should look at this.
Speaker:I wish I had that confidence.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Everyone there was just, they all just thought they were geniuses.
Speaker:I did not know.
Speaker:I went there to do like costuming and I ended up doing not that.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:. So you here in la?
Speaker:. And one thing that's really interesting about the current landscape is that
Speaker:there is some complaints from some audiences that are like, okay, we see
Speaker:literally the same actors in every movie.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:There is not a movie out there where like finally we see some new faces
Speaker:unlike like you would've seen, back in the early thousands where it's oh, okay.
Speaker:Like for example an Harry Potter.
Speaker:Not only him, but like the whole cast, you had no idea who these people were.
Speaker:They were kids.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:But at the same time, even the adults were playing some, like some of the roles
Speaker:who had not really seen them before.
Speaker:That comes down to money nowadays.
Speaker:Everything is so risky and the studios are like, we have to make
Speaker:this our, it's our, but right.
Speaker:So in this current landscape, what do you think is your what is your
Speaker:opinion or how do you think that.
Speaker:Studios can possibly more your uncomfortable, opening
Speaker:up to newer cast members.
Speaker:How they can become more comfortable?
Speaker:Yeah, more comfortable.
Speaker:I think they don't need to be comfortable.
Speaker:I think you're supposed to lean into the uncomfortable.
Speaker:I think the point is to make them uncomfortable.
Speaker:I think that the idea that we need, that they need to, yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker:I think the idea that they should be comfortable at all is, I think, ridiculous
Speaker:because we The artists are, like you said, going through pain and actually,
Speaker:it's funnily enough, before I came here, I was listening to an interview by, with
Speaker:Shakira and she goes, artists have this luxury of transforming pain into something
Speaker:else, but People providing the money.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:They're giving that support for us to give the platform to the artists, but
Speaker:they're not the ones digging through that.
Speaker:They're not the ones going through the experience.
Speaker:Very true.
Speaker:They shouldn't.
Speaker:Why are they comfortable?
Speaker:We're not comfortable down here sweating.
Speaker:That's, I think it's silly that we think of the business side of art in that way.
Speaker:Like it should somehow reflect.
Speaker:The art yeah goes to that dogmatic structure of this is how we do
Speaker:business and we must get the money Yeah, it's quite interesting.
Speaker:I like so I used to work in development and some of the We did our packaging.
Speaker:The first thing I always want to say is oh who's in it?
Speaker:They'll say it.
Speaker:No, they'll say is it paid for first?
Speaker:Ironically when we have projects they'll say is it paid for meaning that?
Speaker:Oh, Are you going to need money for this?
Speaker:And then they say, Oh, who's in it?
Speaker:And a lot of times we, I worked at a hot pot productions.
Speaker:And at the time we had like a lot of newer faces and stuff like that.
Speaker:We were trying to put out and they'd always go, okay, you know what?
Speaker:We'll work a deal.
Speaker:We'll say we'll get X amount of new people, but then we need X
Speaker:amount of like famous people.
Speaker:And then, eventually what they always do is Oh, we need less and less
Speaker:like new people until eventually.
Speaker:No one's there's no new people, right?
Speaker:So something that I think is quite interesting especially about what you're
Speaker:saying is that you know They should sweat too and I they I don't really
Speaker:mean that people that Like stuck in the middle There are some like assistants
Speaker:or some people who are like they're like juniors or oh I just have to make
Speaker:sure I do good In fact Nicholas and I talked about this on a previous episode
Speaker:in which some executives just to keep their jobs Give you terrible notes on
Speaker:purpose You What just because yeah, just so they could justify them being there.
Speaker:Yeah, like For example, I yeah, we I've had I've written some scripts
Speaker:and had projects that are made that they were like, oh I just have to
Speaker:give a note because I'm a junior exec.
Speaker:My senior exec boss is here.
Speaker:So I need to make sure that I look like I know what I'm doing.
Speaker:So I'm going to tell you things to purposely mess up what you're doing.
Speaker:No integrity.
Speaker:No integrity.
Speaker:The thing is I haven't spoken in 15 minutes.
Speaker:So I look like I'm stupid.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I look like I'm, I look like I'm idiot or I haven't spoken at all
Speaker:during this meeting because I have no idea what I'm talking about or what I
Speaker:would say, but my boss is right here.
Speaker:And he's not paying attention to the person up there presenting or the
Speaker:creative, he's looking at me like.
Speaker:Do you deserve to be senior?
Speaker:Why do I have you on as my junior executive if you've
Speaker:offered nothing this whole time?
Speaker:And if I have no I'm white, right?
Speaker:If people didn't know already, I'm white.
Speaker:We're doing the project we're currently doing right now.
Speaker:If I were to sit here and try and give you notes on that, just to
Speaker:justify to the upper management, just so it looks like I'm doing my
Speaker:job, but it would be counterintuitive to making the project successful.
Speaker:And a lot of times, there are very rare instances in which
Speaker:they give notes that are good.
Speaker:Not like useful.
Speaker:No, I will say in these specific instances, sometimes executives do give
Speaker:notes that are good, but usually in my experience has always been other artists
Speaker:that give me the best notes because they're the ones actively doing it.
Speaker:But from a more personal place, as opposed to this is what it says in the binder.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And sometimes it's sometimes I give very rarely, they'll have one W where
Speaker:you'll just end up magically working.
Speaker:One of my favorite stories about the magical.
Speaker:Note that actually did work that the executives will ride until the wheels fall
Speaker:off for the next 100 years is one choice.
Speaker:Yeah, it was a Batman.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:In Batman Beyond this guy was like, oh, one executive's oh, Batman's old.
Speaker:We don't like that We need to freshen up Batman and they're
Speaker:like people like Batman man.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:That's a good idea He goes.
Speaker:No, he needs to be a teen.
Speaker:He has to be cool.
Speaker:And also he needs to have a girlfriend and they're like What?
Speaker:And also, Batman, originally, it's just not in it.
Speaker:It's just like he's like a descendant of this person.
Speaker:And they're like, I don't know about that, man.
Speaker:He goes, alright, cool.
Speaker:You know what?
Speaker:I guess you're going to have Batman in it.
Speaker:But just so you know, I like Spider Man.
Speaker:And they're like, what?
Speaker:This is true.
Speaker:It's huh?
Speaker:What do you mean?
Speaker:What does it have to do with anything?
Speaker:And he's make him like Spider Man.
Speaker:And then, yeah, no, that's it.
Speaker:Cool Batman, teen.
Speaker:He needs to have a girlfriend.
Speaker:Though Batman's there, and then future Spider Man.
Speaker:Go ahead, go.
Speaker:And the team of artists are just so good at what they do.
Speaker:It actually ended up working out.
Speaker:They interpret, they interpreted it at its highest level that they could have.
Speaker:So for an actress such as you, such as yourself, you have this
Speaker:hardworking background, right?
Speaker:How does that translate into how you prepare for roles?
Speaker:Just give me like the goosebumps because it's my favorite part.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because it's like I, I was obsessed with science and like the scientific
Speaker:process and the fact that you can break things down, figure out how they work,
Speaker:go back to the cellular molecular, like every, just the essence of everything.
Speaker:And then I also, after Amda I am currently in Playhouse West
Speaker:where they practice Meissner.
Speaker:And it's very much focused on listening and what's in front of you
Speaker:and playing off the other person.
Speaker:Essentially the other actors do your work for you when you really connect to that.
Speaker:Like drawing them out too.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it just makes everything more grounded.
Speaker:But that is, because of that, for example, the last thing I would do, again I'm
Speaker:gonna say this first because I hesitate always to talk about anything about
Speaker:process, because I'm not like, this is the way that you're supposed to do it.
Speaker:No, everybody has their own way.
Speaker:But I'm and I'm still even discovering what I do.
Speaker:But my favorite part is breaking everything down, going from, Initially,
Speaker:what it is whatever resonated with me from when I read it as my boyfriend
Speaker:puts it as like a newspaper, you read the script like a newspaper for facts,
Speaker:what's the story, what is this, does it even connect with something in here?
Speaker:When it does, I go back in, and then I start looking for, okay, what is the
Speaker:author's point of view, where is this person coming from, and why do they care?
Speaker:Which is why when I told you I saw the one.
Speaker:But it's, The last thing I even worry about is memorization.
Speaker:Because for me it's the work, the intention of the human being, the soul.
Speaker:Once you get the core right, the rest of it will fall into place.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that's the same with anything.
Speaker:When you care about the why more than who or me or whatever.
Speaker:Or the superficial stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think it just naturally starts melding together.
Speaker:And also it More specific, more specifically bringing the
Speaker:director's vision to life, I think.
Speaker:You know what's quite interesting just to speak about breaking you down science
Speaker:wise, I'm the only person I know who studies scripts within an Excel sheet.
Speaker:Like, when I read a script, I don't want to break it down.
Speaker:Tell me more.
Speaker:Please.
Speaker:Yeah I so I'll look at a script that I really like, and when I
Speaker:break it down, I really study.
Speaker:And this is a super simplified version because my Excel sheets are pretty
Speaker:large, but I will literally make a column that says for characters,
Speaker:I'll make another column for like intention, I'll make another column
Speaker:for this character intention setting on character, meaning that how is the
Speaker:character using the setting, like the action space and stuff like that, and
Speaker:I'll basically start like numbering them.
Speaker:Okay, this character isn't here.
Speaker:This character isn't this one.
Speaker:Okay and the scene lasted for a page and a half.
Speaker:What happened in this page and a half scene?
Speaker:He started in this emotional state, and then it went into
Speaker:this emotional state at the end.
Speaker:Do you do that as a writer, director, or actor, or just any time with any script?
Speaker:Any script.
Speaker:I do it with all my scripts.
Speaker:With all scripts that I write, or scripts that Because it gives you a more
Speaker:Broad view of what's actually going on.
Speaker:It's almost like you're seeing this the storytelling structure.
Speaker:Yeah Yes, essentially and what makes good seems good.
Speaker:So It's been so great having you on the show.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker:Yeah, so Where can people follow you?
Speaker:I am on Instagram as cat Q or am I the What is it called?
Speaker:The handle, the handling.
Speaker:KQ.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I know so much about Instagram.
Speaker:KQ, U I C E.
Speaker:And then that's pretty much it.
Speaker:Cause you can see me on whatever screens up next.
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:Thank you for coming guys.
Speaker:This has been film center news.
Speaker:My name is Derek Johnson.
Speaker:The second Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And we're here with cat Q and we'll see you next time.
Speaker:See you.
Speaker:This has been Film Center on Comic-Con Radio.
Speaker:Check out our previous episodes@comicconradio.com.
Speaker:You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major social media platforms.
Speaker:Tune in next Wednesday for a fresh update.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been Film Center.
