 Welcome to the show. I'm Sarah Gonzalez. I'm here with my guest John O'Keefe. John is well-known in the Sarasota community for his skills as an actor, production designer, and voice actor. Welcome John. Thank you Sarah. Thank you so much for having me on your show or the show. This is a great opportunity although I usually as an actor I usually have a script when I'm on camera. So hopefully this open interview concept I'll say the right thing. Yeah well we'll get started with um describe what sparked your interest in film. Oh film well we all love movies and going to movies and watching television shows and all so I mean I always thought it would be just fun to be a part of making one and being in one and being in front of the camera so I had the opportunity here in Sarasota to actually be a part of a major motion movie that came into town to film a scene at the Ringling Cata Zan mansion a few years ago and that just sparked my interest and that's what really started it. It was kind of the catalyst for me venturing into the whole film industry here in Sarasota. Not really a big industry but I'm telling you these past years I can see the momentum growing. That's great. So what steps did you take to become associated with the Sarasota film community? The motion picture that I'm talking about is Parker that came into town and that starred Jennifer Lopez, Jason Statham and some really Hollywood blockbuster people so I was actually on the set just as an extra. Again I was just getting started that was my first gig being in part. I've done other projects and little plays and stuff and fiddled with video camcorders and stuff when I was a teenager we had those huge camcorder things to go around but I never really took it to the next level. I went off and did a regular career and a regular type of job nine to five type of job so this was new to me but the moment that I stepped foot on the set of Parker I knew that this is what I wanted to do. I just thoroughly enjoyed it and it kind of helped too because Taylor Hackford was the director and I'll note that he is married to Helen Miran so these are some really important people. Of course the stardom kind of goes to your head and that's kind of the allure of filmmaking but I do know deep down that it's a lot of hard work to attain that type of stardom and it doesn't happen that often in our smaller community that major directors and movie stars come into our area so you can tell that I was kind of enamored by all of that. We had it was a fancy party scene we had the gentleman were dressed in tux and the women in fancy gowns and that was just a moment of just a party excitement and it was a kind of a stunt scene too the second day that we shot we didn't really know that we had to do running. I'm kind of rambling on but I'm sure you're finding this kind of interesting. There's a lot of side stories is this show like two hours long because I could probably talk. But anyway that was the start and I'm telling you that was actually it's probably like four years ago and since then with the help of the students here at Suncoast Technical College and Bob Greyer instructor of auditioning me to be in a small student film and Ringling College we have all this in our backyard and it's great to see young people like yourself wanting to be a part of filmmaking and there's just so many creative aspects in the industry. I mean actor of course is what I would like to pursue but through that I'm finding out that there's so many other channels that I can express my creativity. Yeah there really is. It's exciting. Alright so what made you change your career to your career later in life? Actually it really wasn't my choice. It was kind of the downturn of the economy. I had a regular nine to five job well actually I was salary so it was kind of like nine to nine but that's another story too. But I wanted to find something that was again more creative more fun and I had the opportunity where I helped to grow a company and then during the downturn of the economy people were of course being laid off and stuff. I was offered a job within the company but it was almost like my opportunity to go and start a new chapter of my life so that's kind of I took some time to do some soul searching and finding out what I really wanted to pursue and that's when I opened the front page of our Sarasota Herald Tribune and on the front page they were looking for 300 extras for a motion picture and I'm like all right let's email and and that's how really the start of it. Awesome so what advice would you give to future actors? Wow this acting is a step by step well it's a journey really and that's really with any career especially when you when you change career paths kind of like I did I mean I was always kind of a ham in school and joked and kidded around and liked to entertain and sort of the center attention but there was a side of me too that was also very shy so I think I'd never really pursued it seriously and this just gave me the excuse to to venture out to do that so going through that journey when I come across people that ask me hey how do you get started you know what's the first step that I take really some people that I see I'm like hey you should be in front of the camera you should do this you know and like oh I'm kind of camera shy I don't you know this I get nervous and stuff like that and then there's other people like oh yes I want to do this I want to do this so bad and they want to do it so bad that they don't realize that they have to start somewhere and the only place that you can start is start from where you're at so some people use the excuse oh I don't have a headshot I don't have a resume I don't have the experience you know I don't even know anybody I don't even know any filmmakers in the area you know how do I get started well I was that's where I was I had no clue but I was around 300 extras on a Hollywood motion picture and so I just started asking questions and I'm telling you the very next day after the rapt I set out to find out how to do this how can I pursue that and since then I've been involved with it's probably a hundred short films webisodes commercials all kinds of testimonials documentaries wow so getting back to your question of what would I tell an actor to where to start start from where you're at just you have to see everyone thinks that being an actor is you transform yourself into a different character but that's physically impossible you can't transform yourself into that you have to be yourself I mean that's the key you have to know yourself you have to be comfortable in your own skin you have to be comfortable on the set you have to be true to yourself and trust yourself so basically it's get to know yourself first what do you have to offer there's only one of me there's only one of you in this world and we're so individual but I think we get caught up with people judging us or commenting on us and that's you have to let that all go because when you put yourself in front of all these cameras and in front of people you really open yourself up and and that's scary for some people it's actually scary for me right now so I know that you are known to do some voice acting could you give us an example of what you have done voice acting a lot of people think that that's like creating character voices for like cartoons which is really super cool and I haven't done that yet that's kind of on my bucket list of something to do but voice acting is doing voiceovers for commercials documentaries books on tape that type of thing and again I discovered a voice acting coach that moved to Sarasota Florida from Washington DC and settled in our little hometown here and we did a one-on-one he offers a one-on-one course of how to read a script and it's just amazing the number of times that I hear other people reading a script incorrectly because I've been trained to do that so where that was beneficial to me was going to a cold audition a cold reading and that's where you go to an audition somewhere in front of casting directors and you're handed a script and you immediately have to figure out what the character is doing because it's only a portion of the script you have to figure out what the character is kind of doing and how to recite that too so that has really opened up to properly recite and dictate the written word from the screenwriter and bring that character to life and that's really what the actor's job is is is for me to bring that character to life like great now is there anything else you'd like to tell us or share with us I think what's interesting about being an actor and saying how we have to bring that character to life on the screen and for the director and for the storyteller which is interesting but what I found out on the set since that's my job is it what happens is on the set is I become very detailed oriented to figure out what my character should be wearing sometimes that's not supplied especially like for student films and all the people young students don't have access to wardrobe or costumes and that type of thing so but that helps me identify if I happen if I'm playing the part of a doctor most likely I'm gonna wear a lab coat or scrubs or something like that and then from that I find critical props maybe the my doctor has a special gold pen or something that's referred to in the script or a pocket watch or something and that helps me extend and and have something on the set to you know sort of play with and interact with but I take it a little further than that as some of the filmmakers can attest to on one set I actually brought my character's own wallpaper for the wall just because I happen to have something and then that's kind of where and I didn't force it on the production I just happened to throw it in my truck and brought along with me because I thought it would be fitting and sure enough I showed it to the director and he was like you know I was like I have this wallpaper I think it would be kind of neat for my character just behind me and he's like oh yes we're gonna use that and put that up on the wall so that happens and one time another funny story is we were doing a cemetery scene but we lacked a cemetery who would have thought here in Florida that we couldn't get the problem was we couldn't get a permit last minute to film in a cemetery but the scene kind of needed it because I'm actually referring to someone that was buried so I looked around my property and I actually had some garden art yard art out there that I put in my car and and brought for my character to again interact with and we probably should have filmed the director that day when I opened the back of my truck and revealed what I had for them to use as set dressing because she was like quite shocked that I had headstones in my truck don't ask me where I got those from no actually it was granite and marble statues very wringling ass type of things cherubs and stuff that from a distance they look like it looked like we were we're actually filming a cemetery so that's where starting off as an actor not knowing anything and then it evolving into doing commercials and I'm doing full production design for scenes in films which I thoroughly enjoy because it's just I constantly when I read a script your it actor you have to be very imaginative and you have to have a very vivid imagination because sometimes you're sitting like in a studio like this but maybe the scene calls if it's a dramatic narrative we're sitting in a cottage on the edge of a cliff or something and it's zero degrees out or something so we have to imagine that and so that's where my imagination when I read a script when I'm involved with that is I immediately take a pencil as I'm reading the script and if it's referring to the gentleman reached for his letter opener I'm like okay I need a letter opener for my character or he turned and lit a match on a candlestick that type of thing so I'm immediately thinking and visualizing that like wouldn't it be cool to have an old-fashioned candlestick that they would walk from room to room with because they didn't have electricity during those times or something so that's where your imagination you have to have a very vivid imagination so John if a director wants to contact you about working for set design or something how would they go about that sure I have a website it's John O'Keefe actor dot com and that actually it's always an ongoing process to keep updating it so hopefully I'll get that updated with a lot of my before and after pictures from the production design and some of the newer characters that I've played in some of the dramatic films so I'll I'll be getting that but it's John O'Keefe actor dot com and I can get in touch with me but I really appreciate you having me on the show this is yeah I would it was great having you absolutely we'll do it again when I have more interesting projects because you just never know like I said this is a journey and it's just kind of cool the different opportunities that come my way so I appreciate you having me on the show thank you for joining us on the show I'm Sarah Gonzalez and we've had John O'Keefe here with us today join us next time