11. Olivia Stambouliah
Creator's Cafe Episode 11. Olivia Stambouliah: Born to do This with host Jessica Payne of Kika Labs
Olivia Stambouliah and I discuss working with Michael Bay, Jane Campion, and on the Walking Dead, and how she brings her full spirit to her all her roles from blockbuster to sketch to art film.
Show Notes:
Follow: Olivia on IG @oliviastambouliah | Olivia on IMDB
Dita von Teese: You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches.
Olivia: We're all creative in some way and it doesn't have to have a monetized outcome.
Olivia: Art should be uncomfortable, but it should be safe.
Creator's Challenge: Practice Cold Reading
Pick up any piece of text and read it out loud! The act of cold reading is a different muscle than internal reading that needs to be exercised
Bio & Intro
Olivia Stambouliah is an actor, producer, director, and educator. You may know her from AMC’s the Walking Dead. Or from Michael Bay’s blockbuster movie Ambulance, where she closed down LA and chased Jake Gyllenhaal from a helicopter! But she got her on screen start back in Australia, where she was in the movie The Silence and then starred as a core ensemble member in an SNL-style show: Ben Elton’s Live from Planet Earth. She’s played everything from a cavewoman to Madea, from Amy Winehouse to an arm-wrestling champion.
Mentioned
Ambulance
Michael Bay
Abby Bluestone
My Sister and I
Jane Campion
Paola Morabito
The Walking Dead
Eve Gordon
Kevin Carrol
Danai Gurira
Creator's Cafe with Jessica Payne of Kika Labs
Host Jessica Payne of Kika Labs breaks down the subtle and the sublime of the creative process with inspiring artists at the Creator's Cafe.
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Transcript:
Jessica
Welcome to Creators Cafe. I'm your host, Jessica Payne. I'm a performer, performance coach and multi-hyphenate creator. I'm going to be bringing you conversations with some of my favorite creators where we talk about the sublime and the specifics of the creative journey. So grab a drink, get cozy. Let's go.
My guest, Olivia Stambouliah is an actor, producer, director and educator. You may know her from AMC's The Walking Dead, or probably from Michael Bay's blockbuster movie Ambulance, where she closed down L.A. and chased Jake Gyllenhaal from a helicopter. But she got her onscreen start back in Australia, where she's from, where she was in the movie The Silence, and then starred as a core ensemble member in an SNL style show Ben Elton's Live from Planet Earth. Olivia has played everything from a cave woman to Madea, from Amy Winehouse to an arm wrestling champion. Her directing is vibrant and crisp. Her students rave about her. Olivia is smart and funny and a badass and even has the black belt to back it up. Please enjoy my conversation with the fabulous Olivia Stambouliah. Welcome to Creators Cafe.
Olivia
Cheers.
Jessica
So this is my guest. Welcome. Olivia Stambouliah. My dear friend. I know.
Olivia
So I kind of just want to sit and gasbag about everything I know.
Jessica
Yeah. We've been chatting for a while. I was like, we have to actually press record. It'll be good. So it's so great to see you.
Olivia
Thank you for having me.
Jessica
What are you drinking today?
Olivia
I am drinking a latte with oat milk.
Jessica
From our friends and dialog.
Olivia
Absolutely.
Jessica
And I've got an iced latte today.
Olivia
Oh, iced. I get hot. I like hot coffee.
Jessica
It's like the the shoulder season here in L.A., too. So it's just warm enough that I can still get away with iced. And I'm not freezing on.
Olivia
I get it. I only just started having iced coffee, taking it to work because it would last. Kind of. I could feel.
Jessica
Like it because it lasts a little longer.
Olivia
But I'm a bit of a greedy corpse with hot coffee.
Jessica
I've never heard that before. It. I love it. Greedy gets. Love it. Adorable. Okay, so how do you think of yourself as a creator? What are some of the titles that you think of for yourself?
Olivia
I would say first and foremost actor, because that's what I've studied intentionally. And from that I would definitely say producer because I've produced my own work both on stage and screen and now director, Which has been wonderful. That's an arm that I feel really thankful that I've I've grown and educator for sure.
Jessica
Absolutely.
Olivia
Yeah.
Jessica
Yeah. And I can attest to having shared students with you how much they ravenously adore you and get so much out of yours. That's just an education.
Olivia
So humbling and so mind blowing because I never, ever saw myself in the education space.
Jessica
So we're going to definitely talk about you as an actor a lot. So let's actually swing to director first, because what I love about your directing style is how intense and passionate and focused you get. People that I know that is not their home base. They're good. They're good actors, but they don't have that kind of turbo mode that the stakes are high.
Jessica
They're focused, they are fast, they're sharp. How do you get that? Because it's great.
Olivia
Thank you, Jess. I really appreciate that. I probably get that because I got a whooping when I was in Australia working on a very particular production of arms. And the man, the George Bernard Shaw and the director was his name is Richard Cottrell, and he worked a lot in England and with, you know, very accomplished classical artists. And he was very old school and, you know, whilst it was a baptism of fire in some way because it was very challenging, he the way he looked at performance text, timing, breath, I've just taken all of that and run with it because it really did change the way I looked at performing and, and yeah, I think
Olivia
it really is about timing because we're telling a story. Yeah. And so it's how you do that. And also to highlight each individual performance strengths. Yeah, it's important.
Jessica
Yeah. And you're so good at that and I really appreciate it. I come from a doing musicals background and being a trained musician, and I find that it's rare to see someone who's doing a straight text that is not in a musical that has such precision and clarity, speed and rhythm. So I just love that you bring that into classical work that I've seen, but also just contemporary work.
Jessica
It's really cool.
Olivia
Oh, that's so good to hear. I love knowing that my love of timing, I think with a martial arts background and also I love music as well. Yeah, I just learn by it. Thank you.
Jessica
I don't forget what I heard, Jolene.
Olivia
Oh, I do love that song.
Jessica
Oh, you're so good. Oh, dark and yummy.
Olivia
Oh, thank you. I will definitely, definitely take that to bed. I appreciate that very much. Yeah. I'm not classically trained at all in singing, but I just love it. So I think music I've always, you know, my mom plays the piano, but I everything was by ear. So I think the rhythms inside me and I think I try to elicit that in a performance and from people, not just myself, I'm pretty hard on myself as well.
Olivia
But I think it's important because you want to you want to be I always say you want to be ahead of the audience. Yes, constantly.
Jessica
And I'm never bored, which I really appreciate. As someone who listens to podcasts at two X and videos at two X, I love going to a performance of yours because it feels like the speed of my brain and the speed of life as opposed to this slow meandering take. So I appreciate it. Whoo!
Jessica
So you mentioned kickboxing. Anything fun there? Any fun stories? So that's something you started as a child.
Olivia
Yeah, I did. You know, And, you know, it actually came out of film. I, I went to the movies with my older sister and my parents to watch The Karate Kid. And that evening I said, I want to do that. And so that week I was enrolled in the little karate school down down the road, and I did that three times a week.
Olivia
And fell in love with it, you know, worked right up to Black Belt and then moved into kickboxing. And I loved it. But I was extremely precious about getting hit. And I actually didn't like hitting people at all. I just loved the skill of it. And it's very akin to acting. You have to listen. Yeah, it's all about listening and responding.
Olivia
Yeah, it's it's not being prepared. So when you when you sort of partner up and you're sparring, it's a scene.
Jessica
Yeah. And I a dance.
Olivia
It is. And I love it. I really love I miss it here in LA actually. Yeah, yeah.
Jessica
Yeah. I've done a little kickboxing and I love it.
Olivia
It's great.
Jessica
And a lot of stage combat and things like that. Yes, it's fun how that all translates to that movement on stage, being crisp and clear.
Olivia
Yeah. Yeah. It's something I'm really passionate about. Is. Is being inside your body.
Jessica
Yeah, absolutely. Something I love kind of doing my research on you, which is so fun, has been seeing the variety of roles that you excel in because a lot of people will find their lane and be really good at one style. And you know, getting to watch you in a michael Bay thriller ambulance and then going to classical works and then doing sketch comedy in Australia and then doing Walking Dead, just the variety in the scope of what you're excellent at.
Jessica
It's so exciting to me because it feels very fresh every time. But I love that you clearly have a physicality and choices for yourself as an actor for all of those characters. One of them that stands out is the Amy Winehouse character that you created. Can you tell us kind of how that came about? And, you know, your I think your interpretation of her is so fun and it's obviously not a direct mimic, but you've captured something really sweet about her essence, too.
Jessica
So, yeah. Can you tell us about that?
Olivia
I, I sure can, because it was one it was one job that I absolutely adored. I remember auditioning for Ben Elton's sketch comedy series that was going to be happening in Australia. Lives sketch comedy. So like SNL here. And I went along to the audition and we were told or asked to prepare for up to 5 minutes of characters we could do.
Olivia
So I put the characters together, I wrote it and performed it, and I remember being in the boardroom at Channel Nine and he was there, Ben, Elton and the rest of the producers and I started and then I finished and then Elton stood up and he goes, That's the best fucking live show reel I've ever fucking seen in my life.
Olivia
Yes. And I was so, so touched and red faced and and sweaty, etc.. And he said, Now, do you know Amy Winehouse? And I said, I think so. I really, really didn't. I knew of her, but I didn't know much. And he goes, all just just go and you just go and research her. So I did. And then I didn't hear for three months.
Olivia
Jess And then I get the role, I get the job. So I was cast as one of the core core cast in, in the sketch series. And then I was cast as Amy. And so he said he'd written young ones and Blackadder and like those series in Britain, which were really iconic. And he said, I really want you to try and get that get that tone down.
Olivia
But in all my research, Jess, I found all of this beautiful footage prior to her really having a breakout success, and she was just this sweet, loving, innocent young girl who was obsessed with her grandma, which was me. So I just related to that, and I kept seeing that innocence, and I really wanted to keep bringing the sweetness.
Olivia
Yeah. So in rehearsal he kept saying, not too sweet, like keep bringing, you know, I want this very particular energy. And so it was it was really hard for me. It was challenging and I was very nervous. But we had the the first show and we went live at 9 p.m.. And right at the end he came out and goes, Lives.
Olivia
We got it right. Half of you, half of me. And it worked. And I was like, Great, because something in me said to just keep a little bit of that because for me it was just, I don't know, it was that thread as an artist that I think I needed to hold onto to create a character like that as iconic as her.
Olivia
Yeah. And how do you, how do you believably bring that to life? So that was the thing that I held on to.
Jessica
Yeah. And so you found that way to, like, take the direction, but also keep true to the core of what you knew was there. Yeah. Oh, I love it. I got chills.
Olivia
Oh, she was so fun. Yeah, so fun to play. And I was. I was really sad that we got axed after three episodes. I think. I think Australia has a difficult time with sketch comedy and I think past the we had a really successful few decades with it in the eighties and nineties and then we kind of fell off that wagon and I think it was just not our time.
Olivia
And then she passed away a few months later, which was really sad. But I kind of sort of got to fall in love with her for, you know, six months, which was really, really amazing. And I think she's an incredible artist that will absolutely live on. But a character that I was able to sort of show a skill that I have that not every actor does, which is being able to inhabit a character and satirize them.
Jessica
Absolutely. That was really great. I'm just thinking of your character creation process. Some of the things I've seen are the cave woman who you're so with your body and really okay. I mean, I would say across a lot of your work, something that I appreciate is how aggressively sexual you are because it's something that's not celebrated for women and it's something that you always have this smirk and twinkle in your eye and power in your body.
Jessica
And there's just like that that is just turned on. Is part of your work no matter what you're working on. And I think it's so powerful and effective and it makes me so excited to watch your work all the time. And I saw it as a cave woman and as you know, as the this all of the characters that I'm seeing, there's some element that comes out there.
Jessica
Does that bring anything up for you?
Olivia
I tell you, tell little or teenage Olivia that that would be a statement synonymous with her name and she would never have thought that I can tell you. Yeah, I don't know. I guess that's it's not something I consciously think about at all. Yeah. So that's really interesting for me to hear.
Jessica
I think it's more that I find when my work is good, I have that element and whenever it's not, I've turned it off to be safe. And so I think, yeah, when I see your work, it feels so free and powerful and grounded and coming from this raw kind of place. And I really like that.
Olivia
I certainly feel I say to students and I, and I wouldn't have articulated it if I wasn't a teacher right now, but it's I call it spirit. You know, it's just when you're in that zone of creativity where you're not thinking, you're just being. Yeah, that, that must that must be it. That must.
Jessica
Yeah, I heard that teacher. There was a mentor that called it Zal that just the energy and I think probably the mix of kickboxing and loving music and just all of that all combined, bringing that fully into your art, it's coming out that way. So I think I think that's along with your technique, that's what makes you so powerful to watch as an actor for me.
Olivia
So thanks, Jess. And I guess not everybody's going to love that. No one can. I guess not everybody can love you or like you in that way. But I very much appreciate that, that it's palatable to you and you're drawn to it. Yeah. You know what.
Jessica
Did Yvonne T says you might be the subject. This is a misquote, but you might be the juiciest peach in the world. But not everybody is going to love peaches. Yeah.
Olivia
Yes, Yes, T.J., that's actually very true.
Jessica
So in your wide variety of all of these different kinds of roles, what is something that, you know, you love to bring to your process when you're creating a role as an actor, you can use the role as an example. Or just like when you start to take something on, how do you like to go about it?
Olivia
I, I very much I very much like to research and in part of my research is just dreaming, dreaming up. I really like to find out facts and things that will allow me to dream with purpose, if that makes sense. Yeah. So yeah, if I'm going for a walk or if I'm training or if I'm cooking or if I'm working, it's still marinating within me.
Olivia
I'm not. The work doesn't sort of just happen at the table with your highlighter and pencil. It sort of, Yeah, I kind of, I really do use my imagination a lot. Yeah. And of course, through acting training, if things align with experiences or things that resonate within you, they just they're that easy. You don't think about it, but research very much so.
Olivia
So I understand the world. So it allows me to be free. And I very much I'm a very emotional person. Yeah. So I do go to the emotions. I know a lot of directors have said to me, Stand away, step away from the emotion. Don't lean on the emotion. And you know what now is it now? As a director, I really understand that I didn't back then.
Olivia
I was like, Oh, but I feel. What do you mean? Isn't feeling it really important?
Jessica
Yeah. Okay.
Olivia
But now stepping on the other side, I actually understand that sometimes you don't need that. Just just being there and. And using the story and the words is enough. Yeah. And the audience can feel it all. Yeah, But yeah, I'm a very emotional, emotional person.
Jessica
I think it's interesting because, I mean, as an acting teacher, one thing that we lean on a lot is don't play the emotion, play the action verb of, Yes, I'm threatening you, I'm seducing you, I'm whatever. But sometimes that gets so heady that it's disconnected from me. Yeah, emotion. And so we lose that. So it's interesting to hear that you're kind of coming from the other side and finding your way to the middle.
Jessica
That way.
Olivia
Yeah. And, and really realizing that really understanding. I mean, you kind of hear it when you're training, but really, really as you get older and if you're lucky enough to keep working in something, then then it just gets sharper and sharper. And I I'm really understanding that an emotion as a result of an action is a result of doing something.
Jessica
You're not aiming for the emotion. Yeah, yeah. You're just letting it bubble as it as it will.
Olivia
As it does. Yeah. Yeah. And I and I very much like to approach it characters with a full life and a different and an internal world. Mm hmm. Yeah.
Jessica
Nice. So what is a project that you've worked on in the past that was just delightful or surprising or made you kind of step up or step into yourself in a new way?
Olivia
That is such a great question. I would actually say the I did a short film that was part of the Australian film, Television and Radio School's graduate, the director's graduate program, and the director was Paolo Morabito and the film was called My Sister and I, and I think I was a few years out from graduate, I had finished drama school and I'd been out working and it was the first lead I'd popped up in, you know, guest roles right around and on quite a bit of stage playing Medea and, you know, a bunch of other things, which was amazing.
Olivia
Amazing. I'd love to revisit her, actually.
Jessica
Oh yeah.
Olivia
So this role, it was a lead. And unbeknownst to me, Jane Campion was on that project and I found out that she was watching my auditions and said to Paola, She's your Sam. She can tell a story without words. Oh, and that film and that experience changed me as an artist, changed me as a person, but changed me as an artist.
Olivia
I'll never forget it because I was allowed to. I didn't have to be funny. I didn't have to be more than I was. And I was allowed to to bring that sensitivity and sensibility to to to the character, to the screen. And it was a character exploring sexuality in a in a in a strict sort of Italian household and being an older sibling and the younger sibling is is sort of, you know, potentially going to find their themselves or lose their virginity before her.
Olivia
And how do you sit with those those things as a young person? But as an artist, it really changed me. And I went, okay, so I started to take myself without sounding like an idiot a little bit more seriously in the sense that I went, Oh, people will see that I'm not just I'm not just funny, if that makes sense.
Jessica
Yeah, of course. Oh, that's beautiful. And what a way to kind of trust yourself having someone that's such an icon, trusting you.
Olivia
It was. I'll never.
Jessica
Did you find that out before or after?
Olivia
After we were at the races.
Jessica
You kind of had that experience for yourself. And then. Yes. Cherry on top.
Olivia
Yes. And I and I was so blown away. And when I when I met Jane and she sort of spoke to me and we and we, you know, were at the big screening, etc., I was truly blown away. And the, you know, the praise and the lovely, lovely things she'd said to me because I'd always been a fan of her work and just to know that she really backed up my style and thought that my style was worthy or I felt worthy.
Olivia
You know, we're always searching for that. But it just was a really beautiful recognition for me as an artist and as an artist who has never been cookie cutter, has never been, you know, in the lane of of extremely commercial marketable in that way traditionally, You know, it was very it was a very important moment for me. Yeah.
Jessica
Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that's something that so many of us as artists have to deal with is when we don't fit the type or when we're not traditionally commercially easy. Mm hmm. What's has helped you there to own yourself? Because I think of you as someone who is so confident and fully alive and full themself that like that inspires me.
Jessica
You inspire me. And so, yeah. How did you get there?
Olivia
Honestly, it's something inside me that just will not take no for an answer.
Jessica
Yeah, I love art.
Olivia
I remember being in art school and, you know, one of the teachers said, You'll never play a lead. Okay? And then you need to change your last name. STEM Ballet is too ethnic and it's too long and it's too difficult. So, you know, I wrestled with these things, but something inside me just kept saying, I'll show it. No way.
Olivia
So I don't know if it was defiance or that thing that I was talking about before. Spirit. It's I think it just is. It's something that I feel I genuinely feel I'm I'm born to do this time around. And I, I, you know, I can't not do it. It's really, really hard. It's very hard living a life where you're not.
Olivia
And I moved here. I moved here in 2017. I'd gotten at applied for my green card. It took like three and a half years to come through. I was doing work in Australia and it came through and then I had to move. So my green card came through and I went, okay, I'm moving. So I. April of 2017, I moved to Los Angeles and I got here and I was, you know, expecting to have some meetings with people to have representation.
Olivia
And and I was really disheartened to hear my Australian management at the time who knew I was moving for years said, You're too old for Hollywood, Olivia, come home. I can't get any meetings. And I was 35 at the time and I was devastated.
Jessica
Yeah.
Olivia
But I was like, going home? No, I just packed up my whole life and moved here, so I started again. Ground Zero. Yeah, Ground zero. And it. It really. It really changed me yet again. Another metamorphosis I had to release. It humbled me. It was for the first time I was back to earning 1050 an hour at the Arclight as an usher, you know, and nannying and, you know, working as a hiking tour guide instructor to the Hollywood sign.
Olivia
So just doing all of these things that I really did take for granted the body of work that I had created in Australia, I might have gone maybe a few months without work as an actor. And if if that was the case, then I created it, you know, had a theater company. I do, I produce. I'd always working.
Olivia
I would do fight choreography because I was in stage combat. So there was always something creative. But when I moved here, it was gone. So I had to start again. And so cutting to ambulance, getting that the Michael Bay film and shooting that during the pandemic and then walking that red carpet four days before my 40th birthday dress, it was such a personal win.
Olivia
It was such a personal win. Like I literally I'd broken up with my girlfriend, all my family and best friends were not in town, so I was by myself having the biggest hi and biggest win of my career thus far. Walking that carpet and, you know, having my my new agent at the time as my date. She's amazing.
Olivia
Abby Blue Star and I adore her. And she was just, you know, letting me know all the different things, the protocols. And and I just I was looking out there into this sea of cameras and just going, Oh, holy shit. I remember being told at 35 I was too old. What if I went home?
Jessica
What if you went home? Oh.
Olivia
So it just. It was such a personal moment for me. Yeah. And, you know, I just it felt. It felt really great. And then I went home and I had to ask the driver to unzip me because I couldn't get out of my dress at 3 a.m. by myself in my studio. So that was hilarious. I definitely gave you a big tip, but yeah, like, that's Hollywood for you, right?
Olivia
That's the industry.
Jessica
Oh, that's incredible. Okay, so something I want to talk about is your experience on the ambulance with Michael Bay. And I just told you this, but I have to share this story that I had talk to you about a year ago when we were still working together. And you were really sweet and asking about my mom, who wasn't doing great.
Jessica
And the very next day I got a call that she was dying in the hospital. And so I was on the plane flying to her deathbed where I was able to say goodbye. And I'm so grateful for but I'm on the plane in this kind of surreal moment of my life. And I'm just alone in the air flying towards Pennsylvania.
Jessica
And the person in the row in front of me turned on an ambulance and I got to see a dear friend so bawling my eyes out.
Olivia
Just.
Jessica
Sitting there watching you, who had just filmed this incredible blockbuster who had just been so sweet to me the day before, and just having a friend in that moment was something I will treasure forever. And who knew, you know, just the ways that things work out. It was it was such an incredible moment and so kind of funny.
Olivia
Is it because I was really thinking about you? Oh, I was so, you know, with you, I genuinely was sorry. That that's how that's how that all works with it. It's crazy because I can't imagine what you were going through. And I dread the day that I will, as we all will. Yeah. So, yeah, there you go. I popped up and I'm Michael.
Olivia
Bloody brave.
Jessica
And to you, that is the thing that would bring me comfort in my darkest hour.
Olivia
Oh, my God. You know what? I'm actually going to text in that picture with you. You would love that love.
Jessica
I will. And now, having gotten to see the movie with the sound on when it wasn't the worst day of my life, you're fantastic.
Olivia
Thank you.
Jessica
And what I love so much is your the just dry wit sarcasm of your character is so great. How did you develop that character? Where did that come from and how did this whole thing happen? Because that's not normal. People don't just book a lead in a michael Bay film. A couple of years after they moved to L.A. this doesn't happen.
Jessica
What did you do?
Olivia
Well, it wasn't a lead. It was a support. But I'll take that. I'll take. I'll take it all. Take it.
Jessica
Just you're on screen a lot. I can tell you.
Olivia
You know what? I never dreamed that I would be in a michael Bay film. I can tell you that much. So it certainly was a pinch me moment. Yeah, when I got the phone call. So I. I had I was still auditioning during 2020, during lockdown. I was doing self types. That's when it all really sort of shifted And I remember having for that week and that the ambulance was one of them.
Olivia
So I had I think four or six scenes to prepare and I had my housemate at the time read with me and I just looked at the character and I had it's a role being somebody in in that in the kind of police force I would say I had done quite a bit of that in Australia, but it was different, obviously living here and it was it was very pointed being LAPD, especially at the time at the height of BLM.
Olivia
So I was a little nervous, but I just looked at the character and I gave I just I don't know, I just gave my take on it and I didn't hear for three months yet again, it's like the magic number. Yeah. And here I was nannying, teaching little kids school. So we were packing up at 3:00, ring the bell in their house with masks on.
Olivia
You know, the whole COVID thing. That's how I was making some money. And my manager called and they were on speaker and they said, You're on speaker live. We just want to let you know your Michael Bay's number one choice for detectives like Lieutenant Sager. I said, What? And I just burst into tears. And Hilary, the poor mother, she thought something had gone wrong.
Olivia
And I hung up the phone and she's an actress as well. So when I said, Oh my God, I just got cast in a michael Bay film, she jumped up and we all we kind of cried and jumped. And I drove home in an absolute daze and called my parents and just went, Oh my God, my family, and went, Holy, holy moly.
Olivia
I just booked a michael Bay film. What? And then all the phone calls from work and the whole like protocol of how to deal with because this was pre vaccines. It was a whole thing that all happened. So how did I prepare for her? I just gave her my star. I don't know. I just. I just gave what I thought would fit that kind of human being in such a boys club.
Jessica
Yeah.
Olivia
I thought, Well, she's not a wallflower. She's not pushover. I think to have a position as a mobile command unit. I did a lot of research into what the hell that was. Somebody that was tech. And to understand that world and be the eyes and ears of an operation, you have to be pretty smart and switched on. So I just.
Olivia
Yeah, I gave that. But I must say Michael Bay really pushed he really pushed the the dry sarcasm to like he loved it and it pushed me even more, you know, more and more. So that was cool.
Jessica
That's so cool. What was the process of filming like?
Olivia
Well, you know, he's nicknames by him.
Jessica
I didn't I mean, yes, completion.
Olivia
I know he got that for a reason. And I actually read made a cam. He's on camera the Komodo and he calls it the bay him. Look, he is he is he's a remarkable remarkable filmmaker. Yeah he knows what he wants. He sees shots, he sees things. He works on the fly. What he does, what I learned is he.
Olivia
You can't say to yourself as an actor when you're hired by Michael Bay, what do I do? He's hired you because he he sees that you're an artist that says, Here I am.
Jessica
This is what I do.
Olivia
This is what I do. Yeah. So that was very that became very clear to me very quickly. Yeah. And that's the one thing you can hold on to in amongst the mayhem, him in amongst the chaos. All of it was a really challenging shoot in 38 days. It was very, very hard with COVID. So many things we had to change.
Olivia
It was crazy. But, you know, at the same time, just so thrilling to be on set with with these incredible artists behind camera and on screen. Everybody was amazing. And I really I really I just still sometimes can't believe it. What? I just never I always saw myself in the more Jane Campion sort of, you know, really sensitive almost French film style work.
Olivia
So to have found a nice little place and a blockbuster, I kind of went, Yeah, this is nice, this feels good.
Jessica
That's so fun. In a helicopter.
Olivia
In a helicopter, which I threw up in by, by the way.
Jessica
I was so sad that that didn't make it. It made you I heard you talking about that in another interview, as I would. I mean, I'm I'm actually grateful because I'm a sympathetic Puga. So I went I have no desire to see that. But more than just.
Olivia
Mortified.
Jessica
I can't imagine just your experience of like, that's a day of work in the life is I'm going to just go in I go a helicopter.
Olivia
I know will be it was the best. I remember getting a phone call prior to the shoot when they were doing pre prep and they just said, Hey, pre-production, sorry. And they said, Michael Bay wants to know if you can, if you want to go up in a helicopter. And I said, Yeah, of course I do. Are you crazy?
Olivia
So that was so every day he'd say to me, You want to go in the helicopter every day? And it literally just got pushed and pushed and pushed till it was the last day. Last day on a micro shoot that we did.
Jessica
Wow.
Olivia
Yeah. Because we were pretty much staying really, you know, COVID free, etc., until right at the end we got a little plagued and so we had to shift things around and there was just a tiny micro shoot with some of us that was the last the last thing to shoot is was pretty amazing that I've never been to that Burbank Airport either.
Olivia
And you know, going at the private jet area and, you know, Fred being the most incredible pilot like I did not realize the caliber of pilot he is, is super famous and does every single stunt stunt flying around the world. He's amazing and he cleaned up my vomit.
Jessica
Thank you, Fred.
Olivia
At the premiere, I looked through them and I just I just said, I'm so sorry. And he's French. He's sorry. He was laughing. Don't worry about it.
Jessica
But it wasn't the first of the last.
Olivia
Yeah, it wasn't. But he was very kind. I just felt very embarrassed. Very embarrassed.
Jessica
That's so funny. So another fun shoot that you. I imagine it was fun. Was The Walking Dead. Oh, Which you got to do with our friend Eve? Yes, Gordon, I did.
Olivia
It was the first job I booked. Yes.
Jessica
How did that happen and what was it like?
Olivia
It was amazing. I. I basically was working my three jobs. I was at a kid's karate school. I was on the reception desk in Beverly Hills, and I had this audition to go in for The Walking Dead, and I prepared it. I walked into the audition and two days later got a phone call and said, You're flying, too.
Olivia
You're flying to Atlanta, Georgia. And they had the town car pick me up at 4:30 a.m. and take me. I, I was so relieved because. Yes, I was so burnt out. It was two years and two months to the day that I hadn't worked as an actor. I'd landed and I just hadn't worked at all. And so I was literally talk about it.
Olivia
I was folding kids karate t shirts and kind of talking to my grandmas spirit in my head and just going, Is this what I moved here for? And I was really emotional. And then that audition came along and I booked it. It was the best three weeks of my life. It was I was on cloud nine. You could not take the smile off my face.
Olivia
I was just so happy to be creative again. I was finally in the lane that I think I'm meant to be in, and I got to meet someone and work with someone like Eve Gordon. Yeah, who was incredible, who cut to now, you know, got me a job and you know, I work at and with her, but it was just the most incredible, incredible times, very fast paced.
Olivia
It really it really taught me how fast the shoots are here. Very quick. You just got to know your stuff. And it was so much fun. We had the best time. Yeah, I loved it and worked with Deny. She's so professional, Incredible, incredible. Kevin Carroll And yeah, it was really, really great. And Tyler.
Jessica
So cool. That's incredible. Yeah. Oh, so something that you've worked on recently is a short film that just went to Soho. Yes, yes, yes. Did. So what was that film like?
Olivia
That film was really a sort of diamond in the rough. I couldn't believe the response that it's had. We we've gone into three festivals so far. We premiered at Dances with films here at the Chinese Government Theater, which was amazing. And then we went to Outfest and then Soho International Film Festival. So I just went to New York not long ago.
Olivia
The film is so sweet, so sweet. Brush is it's such a, I think, a very beautiful film because it tells the story of a relationship from its inception to its, I guess, expulsion, shall we say, from the vantage point of a bathroom mirror.
Jessica
Yeah. That's so creative. It's such a neat yes.
Olivia
Almost on it. I wrote it and directed it and I'm sorry. Summer. Summer Svenson and Christine Gutowski and myself are in it, and we we got to experience this beautiful relationship of meeting and going through the motions of what it's like to have a relationship and see where it goes from there. But through that one vantage point. So it was a it was just such an interesting project to work on.
Olivia
And I, I hadn't filmed anything since ambulance. So it was such a it was such a delight to be able to work on that and vastly different. No dialog, extremely internal, Very, very. It was all improv, really. She had written scenes, but we had to sort of come up with what our relationship was from each moment, and so it was really fun.
Jessica
What was the audition for that like?
Olivia
I guess it was ambulance. Oh, okay.
Jessica
So this was an offer? Yes. Okay.
Olivia
Yes.
Jessica
I was just going to say, what do you do for self tape when there's no dialog and when it's just improv relationship with someone? Yeah. That's so good that your work is speaking for itself. That's such an incredible place to be in. That's it feels right.
Olivia
It's really.
Jessica
Nice.
Olivia
And.
Jessica
It's your work that is getting you work.
Olivia
Yeah. And it doesn't happen all the time. No guarantee or it doesn't. You know, I didn't realize the challenge of having done something like ambulance instead of the auditions that I'd leveled up to, and it's challenging to crack it in that, you know, because you're you're auditioning with huge, huge and big names with lots of, you know, fire behind them.
Olivia
So that's been challenging. But I'm super happy to be in that company. But it's like trying to get trying to get, I guess, more freedom within. That would be lovely. Yeah.
Jessica
And were the types of roles are just like you have you're the new kid in that club.
Olivia
I think I'm the new kid. Yeah, but the types of roles have been so much more varied. Oh, good. Which has been really, really amazing. So hopefully, hopefully because it's 20, 23, almost 2024, we can continue moving in that way. Yeah, and I hope it's not as pointed as it has had to be.
Jessica
Is there anything like that that you'd love to see Hollywood moving towards? Yes. What comes to mind?
Olivia
I recently saw bottoms. I don't know if you saw that yet.
Jessica
I've heard such great things that I.
Olivia
Was so pleasantly surprised. It was such an enjoyable film that the leads and the whole story is based around Sapphic, Sapphic, Women or Sapphic humans. And I just but it wasn't really mentioned. It just was. And it was so delightful and so funny and so universal and yet so niche. And I got, I felt like just like Bobby felt like a notch ton it bottoms definitely feels like a notch turn in the right direction And I'm really excited by that because, yes, I look, I, I, I think it's wonderful that we've opened up all our diversity, but and also I'm sick of being a diversity hire.
Jessica
Yeah.
Olivia
It shouldn't be any you know.
Jessica
You're an excellent actor. You should be hired because you're an excellent at it.
Olivia
And that a thank you I that's kind of how I've always seen myself in every not as an excellent mantra, but it's just that I don't I've never looked at myself as a product in that way as as you know, something that needs to be ticked off. So it's very it's it's been very challenging. It's been wonderful in a lot of ways, but also really challenging.
Olivia
And others. And I say that in the whole spectrum, you know, in terms of sex, sexuality, preference, all of that cultural background, I think I think I enjoy it. I really think inclusivity is very important to me. But and also I'm an artist and I like to to have a bit of a blank canvas to I want to be able to be seen in lots of different lights.
Jessica
Right?
Olivia
I know it's unrealistic to be seen in all of them. Not everybody can do everything. Yeah, but it would just be nice to to keep a little bit of mystery.
Jessica
Well, and I think we've talked about, you know, how important inclusivity is and how we need to move there. But also we we just want to be great storytellers telling stories about the human existence. And so it's, it's more that when pieces of the human existence or people are excluded, that's a problem. Absolutely. But it doesn't need to be about that one facet always.
Jessica
It needs to be about the humans. Yeah, community as well. And yeah, so just finding that path forward is where it's exciting. It's starting to happen.
Olivia
It is. And that's why watching something like Bottoms made me really excited. Watching Balfe made me really excited. Everything everywhere, all at once, that really exciting favorite movie. So I was I just loved it so much. Yeah, Yeah. There are things that are very exciting in our storytelling and they're happening and it's and it's, it's, it's a really I think it's a golden age, but we are also what's the word?
Olivia
I think we can be become slave to it too, which is a little dangerous. I know the pendulum has had to swing as, as hard as it has, and I'm very thankful for that. But it's it's also important that we find some equilibrium in it, too. I think. I think just seeing so many casting briefs, you know, run across the table or emails or social media when it's like, you know, East Asian man, you know, casting for blood.
Olivia
And it just feels I don't know why. It just feels like a bit of a meat market.
Jessica
Mhm. Yeah. Well and you've talked about the moment where you realize your heritage was different than you thought and all of a sudden you felt othered.
Olivia
Absolutely.
Jessica
And just imagining for me that kind of self-identity shifting in your life and having to see yourself through this weird frame that wasn't there before and then everything after that is all of a sudden framed.
Olivia
Yes. I'll never forget that moment. I never forget, we're told in second grade, I think I was seven. So like, where where do we come from? Ask your parents. So I went home and. I was like, Dad, where do we come from? And he said, Oh, we're Sudanese. So what? He said, We're Sudanese, dad and all I heard was Naze.
Olivia
It's like the whole world just sort of started to turn. And, and I, I immediately thought knees, oh, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, which we have a huge population, beautiful population in Australia and all I thought of was them being othered and bullied. And I went, oh my God, I'm in that. I'm different. I didn't know it just I just was a seven year old, right?
Olivia
I had no idea that it was other.
Jessica
Which would be great, right, if we all just were seven year olds.
Olivia
And I think that's what I'm yearning for, is that is to go back to that place of of purity and innocence, of not ever thinking or knowing. Yeah, that there isn't a sense of other.
Jessica
Yeah.
Olivia
But I guess there is also the superhero cape feeling other too.
Jessica
Yeah. And, and it's interesting because you come from a place of not knowing or identifying with that in a strong way, whereas someone else might be coming from a place of like having a strong cultural heritage that was pushed down or being bullied for it or something.
Olivia
So absolutely.
Jessica
I don't know. I think it's important to have the conversations about it. But what I'm glad we're starting to make art and starting to.
Olivia
Well, this is this is.
Jessica
What's ended up.
Olivia
Jess, you're so right. And this is why it it sits in a funny place with me because because of that otherness, I was not allowed into the room. And so now it's only because of my otherness that they're trying to open the door that they're asking you to come in. So it feels something feels dirty about it.
Jessica
Yeah. When you're there because you're meant to be there because your spirit says, I belong here.
Olivia
Yeah, yeah. So it's just it's a it's a it's an interesting place.
Jessica
Yeah. Well, I'm glad you're in the room.
Olivia
Thanks, Jess. I am too.
Jessica
So from that, what challenge do you have for my audience as a creator's challenge?
Olivia
As a creator's challenge?
Jessica
Something that they could do with whatever they've got at home in 10 minutes or less. What could they do?
Olivia
Okay.
Jessica
That.
Olivia
I believe it or not, was really she shy in school to read, which was very ironic. My mum was an English teacher before she had five children with my dad and I was very shy to read out loud. And I remember coming to my acting school, my drama school audition, and that was the final, final gantlet. We just had to pick up this big book that was on the desk, open any page and read out loud.
Olivia
I opened it and I was abysmal. I was so bad. And they said, Okay, here's the thing. We want to offer you a place, but you got to get your cold reading out. They said, It's just like a muscle, so just open any piece of text. It could be magazine if you like, whatever it is. And when magazines were in Vogue, PA noted, Yeah, and just read it aloud to yourself.
Olivia
And I swear, yes, I've done that. I did that. And I got so confident. I got to the point where I was called in to step in for some an actor that that had to have micro-sized carry on their finger. And I called her at a matinee performance.
Jessica
Wow.
Olivia
I had not seen the show. Wow. I could confidently do that. So it's so different to read internally as we do so as a skill just to pick up a piece of text and read it out loud to yourself. Hearing it.
Jessica
Yeah.
Olivia
And hearing your interpretation is is I think a really beautiful thing to do.
Jessica
I think that's so great. So the creative challenge is to cold read something, pick it up, read it out loud. Yeah.
Olivia
Anything. Something. You've never attacked any piece of writing you've never seen before.
Jessica
I love it. Great. Where can people find you?
Olivia
People can find me at a coffee shop, probably.
Jessica
I mean, we. Let's be real and I'll have it in the show notes too. But if there, like, one thing that I.
Olivia
Really have Instagram, that's it. That's what I do. I'm not on tech talk. I'm not on I'm I do a Facebook, but it's pretty much just really only there just for Marketplace and some other thing. It's terrible. But yeah, I'm on Instagram. Olivia Standardly.
Jessica
Okay, perfect. And anything else, any asks for my audience or anything that you didn't think to say that you'd like to touch on.
Olivia
Oh, I think we're all creative in some way and it doesn't have to have a monetized outcome. And I think every day that is a that is a big challenge. And I grapple with that, you know, especially through this strike. And it's been such a moment of pause to go, Oh, so as an artist, what am I? Who am I?
Olivia
But we're all create. We can create. I mean, if you're if you're somebody that actually has kept plants alive, you're creative. You're taking a second to to care for something and in a creative way and watch it's bloom. It's blossom. So I think taking the stress of the monetization is good. And and I said this to my students yesterday actually might they're about to graduate.
Olivia
I said to them that art ought should be uncomfortable but should be safe.
Jessica
Oh, that's so great. That's exactly where it needs to lie.
Olivia
I'm comfortable and safe.
Jessica
Kind of like lifting heavy, which we both like to do.
Olivia
Absolutely. That's exactly right.
Jessica
You're not going to if you're going to deadlift. Yeah.
Olivia
If you are going to.
Jessica
Be comfy.
Olivia
It.
Jessica
Shouldn't. It has to be safe.
Olivia
Has to be safe. And I really feel like that's kind of that's kind of me.
Jessica
I love it. Oh, well, thank you so much. You're the best to talk to. Cheers.
Olivia
Oh, you are. You're so warm and so inviting. Thank you. Thank you.
Jessica
Join the community and share your creative challenges on Instagram and Facebook at Creators Cafe by Kika Labs. And also check out my website www.kikalabs.com to sign up for the mailing list. So you always know when a new podcast is released and to check out my coaching and digital courses to help you be a more confident and joyful creator.
