The Artist's Work Ethic
The Artist's Work Ethic
Episode 86 - Actor Terry Walters
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Terry Walters is an actor who has starred in films such as Crimes and Misdemeanors, La La Land, and Babylon. Her television credits include Euphoria, All Rise, Undone, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Desperate Housewives, and Santa Clarita Diet. Terry has also appeared in national commercials and stars in Facetiming with Mommy with Olivia Hamilton. She recently completed filming a recurring role on American Classic for MGM+/Amazon Prime, acting alongside Kevin Kline, Laura Linney, and Jon Tenney.
But I would run from didn't bother me to just get my equity card and do that and then run and scoop ice cream at uh on on Thompson Street or Temp. So I just felt like it was part of my life and who I was and really just pursued anything I could.
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the Artist Work Ethics Podcast. I'm Mike Bielak. I'm an actor, screenwriter, and filmmaker. And in this podcast, I talk to people from across the art. So pursuing a career in acting or any of the arts takes a lot of talent, you know, a little bit of delusion. And a lot of perseverance and drive. Where have you found your drive that has taken you from, you know, a career starting in the theater in Queens or in the city up through, you know, TV and film that you're doing today?
SPEAKER_00I haven't found it. I think it found me. I literally was born with wanting to perform and sing. I used to sing more than just do anything, honestly. Um had to be in the kindergarten talent show to sing Puff the Magic Dragon. And it just felt like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. And of course, as I got older, I just kept pursuing it more and more in camp. I even, you know, from kindergarten on, I I just would needed to do Lola and Damn Yankees. And we had this Darth, I got to be Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz in a New York elementary school production where I just thought I'd made it by then. I mean, when the New York Post and the Daily News came to interview me, I responded as a fifth grader saying, Yes, I've always wanted to be an actress. Even when I told the Tin Man we would get him some courage and messed it up. It didn't matter to me. I just loved being on stage. I learned improv really young. I just one time I remember the the um I literally said to the tin man, and we'll take you to the wizard to get you uh some courage. And the scarecrow went, You're you're getting me a brain and him a heart. I went, yeah, you know what? Forget it. We'll get you a heart. We'll get the lion some courage. I was born with this desire and passion. I loved entertaining, making people laugh, smile, cry, whatever, just feeling like I was reaching people as I was at a very young age. And then I moved to New York. Everybody in my family tried to encourage me to go to an acting college, and I was just like, no, no, no, I want to go to New York and pound the pavement. I think my very first job was in Greenwich Village. Uh, Angela and the Christmas Mouse. I was the only human in the play, and I remember when the set fell on my head, the flag just went. Um, but I would run from didn't bother me to just get my equity card and do that, and then run and scoop ice cream at uh on on Thompson Street or Temp. So I just felt like it was part of my life and who I was, and really just pursued anything I could and did a lot of theater, loved doing theater at West Bank Cafe and Alice's Fourth Floor, which I don't even think is there anymore. I did this play with Olympia Dukakis as my mom, and it was an original play called Better Living, and Rob Morrow played my boyfriend, and then I did his first film, which went to Sundance called The Silent Alarm. But all along the way, I just did what I had to do. I would run from a soap opera loving to host a single-night in a restaurant in Upper West Side. And I never thought anything different, like this wasn't gonna happen. I I didn't know, I had no aspirations to be like, oh my god, I have to do this film or that film. I just knew that I wanted to do good work. And then I got married very young and had a child right away. And that kind of changed a lot for me. And not if it was conscious, but you know, the kind of love that I felt being a mom was a huge surprise to me. Um, and so I would travel on subways and take my firstborn to commercial lodges, which I then found. I remember the first commercial agent that I went to said, You're not PG enough. And I'm like, what is that? And then somebody did take me on, and I would go with my son to commercial auditions and hold him and be like, Can you hold him while I go in? And one time the casting director said, You know what? We're we're still it was a Chase credit card commercial, we're still looking for a newborn. What why don't you come in with him? And we both booked it, so that was great. Um, and I realized that commercials were, oh, I can do this with my child because I'm not working at night to do a play, and I can make extra money, and this is great. And then I had a lot of friends migrate to LA and I went to visit, and I thought, oh, maybe I should do television and film and give that a shot because I won't need to be doing eight shows a week at night and not be with my son. So I did that. I moved across the country. And at first I was back and forth, and that was very difficult with a toddler and my husband at the time, and then I became a single mom. You know, I just found that I did a lot of guest star stuff, which was great. It was a couple of days of work, and I really liked set being on set and learning and in person. Oh, did this? I missed them so much. But I never, I never, I mean, I had aspirations, of course, to do more than a guest star would be like, oh wow, this would be so fun to be on a show on a regular basis and build a character and you know, that kind of thing. But it wasn't in the cards for me at that time because I felt as though I don't know, it just things happened. And I would fall asleep with sides on my face and go in for a pilot audition the next day and not be as prepared as the women in the room who were. And it it it it definitely shook me like whoa. I I I I can't I remember specifically walking into a room that was so in my favor, and I had like 11 pages of sides, and they all fell on the floor and were out of order, and I just fell apart, and I was like, darn, that was not good. And then guest stars seemed easier to me, like, oh, just learn for just do it for a couple days and be out. Um, but that was never satisfying artistically. But then again, I had my family. Long story short, I fell in love with somebody, and we had another child, just as things were starting to take off from me again. But I felt like the it's it's okay, I can handle it. And you know what? I can handle it, but uh I get split a lot of that, you know, took precedence in my life, and not in the moment, but in retrospect looking back, I go, oh well, you really wanted to go to a baseball game, and you just didn't want to go to that audition because you had to go see one son in a play and another son pitching in uh an um MVP situation. So that sort of happened.
SPEAKER_01I I I've sort of had a little bit of that similar thing where I had mentioned to you I love to act. I had uh gone to LA 20 plus years ago, was there for a while, um came back, sort of career shifted, had two boys, and uh as much as I love them, when they're super small, uh it's difficult to you you get to spread too thin between all these different things. And and uh now that they're a little bit older, they're still pretty young, but they're a little bit older to where they're not so all-encompassing. And I've been able to bring acting back into my life again and have been auditioning, booked something that shot last week, and it's been it's it's been wonderful. Um, so I I understand, you know, what you're saying about yeah, you know, you you kind of get in and out a little bit.
SPEAKER_00And and not all people are like that. I have female friends who did it and they're fantastic, and they've had beautiful careers, and their kids are awesome. For me, I you know, it it just it just changed things up a bit. And uh I never kept my foot out of the door. I mean, I've always I've worked along the way, whether it was, you know, a mo a a little independent movie or something that I could actually handle, or come ton of national commercials at one point in my life, which I thank God for because it kept me in my insurance and a day here, a day there. And that that was just a wonderful that's when commercials were like helpful financially in a way that I was like, oh, thank you. Um, from children's Tylenol to every the craft macaroni and cheese. Anyway, that was an awesome, awesome time, and guest starring roles were just uh life-saving for me. So it kept me feeling like I did keep my toe in the door, plus I would always be in a class, and then I had to ask myself, you know, because the desire never went away. It just was like you have to make a choice, you can do this or this. I for some reason I couldn't give both uh as much as I wanted. And I chose my family in uh unconsciously, don't tell them that. Um they drew me uh towards them, and then and then, but I would do plays and readings and you know, constantly acting classes and but one day I did ask myself, you know, you keep saying you want to do the business of that movie. What is it that you want to say? Why is it so powerful? So I started writing, and I have two projects. One is a a movie that um is gonna be produced by Pollock Films that there's um uh I'll be storing in, and I co-wrote it with with uh a wonderful writer director. I was in his movie Adam, which was at Sundance, and um he won awards for that. So that and then along the way, like you had asked me earlier about did I ever think um that there was a moment that, oh, this is it, the domino film. And yeah, before I had my son, I my first son, I did a Woody Allen film, and we shot for six months uh that is on some cutting room floor or maybe already recycled of a character that was in a different storyline, um, where Mia Farrow's character was in a nursing home as a nurse instead of a TV producer, and then they called me back for the to come do the same thing. I I I played Woody Allen's Sound Girl as he's documenting um in Crimes and Misdemeanors. And then we had so much fun and so much stuff, but that was all gone. And then they came back in the spring and rewrote the film and her character. And I thought, oh, this is this is gonna be helpful for me. At the time, I I don't even think I had an agent. I barely had a credit on the film. And then I was pregnant with my first child. But I'm very an in-the moment person, so as much as I think about what I would love ideally for myself, I really am very, very present in the moment, so that kind of goes away.
SPEAKER_01After something like Lala Land, did your did your career how did you did anything change in your career? Did it get neutral or better? Or, you know, did how did that how did that affect you?
SPEAKER_00Okay, so here's the trajectory. And this is very personal, but I I shall reveal it. When I got La Land, I was so ecstatic because Damien Chiselle is probably the most wonderful, humble, grateful, genius, writer, director. God, I I I got to work with some amazing directors, Sam Levinson, Anyuphoria, terrific, and that Cassande's just and but Damien, and then I met his now wife, who we created a whole FaceTiming with mommy with. So we did FaceTiming with mommy before La La Land came out. We met on the set. Olivia created this genius back and forth mommy thing way ahead of her time. We did, I want to say 40-something episodes, and we would do them in my living room and her living room. Anyway, long story short. While we were shooting that, I found out I had breast cancer. And so we worked that into the FaceTiming storyline. Now, all our fans who were a ton on FaceTime were like, oh no, is this for real? And I didn't ever want to reveal that it was real. Then La La Land came out, and Damien was aware, and I was undergoing major like chemotherapy, like a ton of stuff. And yes, a lot of calls came in while I was doing La La Land. When it came out, and I was unable to do that because I was undergoing treatment, which I pretty much kept quiet. Then, as I was finally coming back, and my kids were older, one was even empty-nested. This is 10 years ago, then almost 10 years ago, because it came out in 2016. Um, by the way, Damien was amazing, and I just couldn't, I couldn't network, I couldn't go to any of the premiere, I couldn't do anything for that, which was so sad and hard. But thank God I'm okay. Uh then what happened was my I I was recovered and I did, what was it? Uh oh my god, I did it really, I did euphoria and then I did another really good TV. All Rise, thank you. Nice guest role on get all rise, and I started to get back in, and then COVID. And so COVID happened for four years. Now, during COVID, I was lucky enough to do Babylon, and then I did um this movie called Goldmine, which is now out. I did a movie called My Dead Dad. So I I actually worked during COVID and I did a I did a commercial of Kiskali on ironically enough, which is about uh it's a cancer medication, that that really just I started working a lot. Even during COVID, I did undone during COVID. After COVID came the strike. So it's been it's been a rough one. It's been a bunch of years of like, wait, what's happening? And then no in the room auditions, which I get it. I so understand self-tapes, but I'm I'm way better in person if if you can connect and tell me what you need or want, because that's where I feel my one of my gifts is being able to be a chameleon and give you what you need. And you know, theater's my training, so so that's where everything was. And now then I last year I got American Classic, which I am beyond, beyond, beyond grateful for. You must watch it. That was took me from March because of going into New York and meeting everybody and reading and figuring out what role, and because they had me in mind for two, and doing that, which was just heaven, heaven. Oh my god, what a cast. What a crew, what writers. It was a dre it I was a pig in shit, let's put it that way. And I have a a great little role. It I'll be in episode six, seven, and eight. I was originally in episode one, um, at the very end of it, and it it got cut, it got changed, which is I completely understand. I'm really proud of being a part of this. And um, I'm I I think it it's so needed. I'm so I'm so exhausted from trauma TV and feel like this is a nice gem of a thing that we saw I heard in your hometown.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. And and you you had mentioned that you like going to the movies in the movie theaters. I don't know if you remember seeing the the old Maplewood movie theater that's right downtown there. And uh they just announced just recently that someone bought it, uh, a company bought it and they're going to renovate it and reopen it. So we'll have fantastic. We'll have you know that kind of small town movie theater opening again, which I'm very excited about.
SPEAKER_00Have you you have got to watch American Classic then? Because I think, I mean, we used the facade of that movie theater, and then I think we used the chairs, but I don't want to give away the secret um the the things if you haven't seen it, but it it'll just put a smile on your face. And I gotta say, I have gotten to I as as much as you know, you we're talking about fits and starts and whatever. Anytime I'm on a set, uh I've been lucky enough to be with phenomenal people, like Emma Stone. Hello, she's just terrific, and Ryan Gosling and Damien, like I said, and Olivia and Euphoria. What a beautiful cast of young people. And Sam Levinson was so super cool. The same thing with Woody Allen when I was working with him. This was before all everything I knew happened, happened. But that Alan Aldo was amazing, and it it I just feel like American Classic. I I can't even the cast, I think you know what it who it is. It's Kevin Klein, Laura Linney, yeah, Jessica, Jessica Heck, Tony Salu, Marklin Baker, just it goes Aaron to Vet, Stephen Spinella, Ajay, and and Lynn Carrew. It's like hello. You're just it my heart is just so happy when I'm getting to play with these people.
SPEAKER_01Hall of Famers, I would say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I I really just hope, you know, with all the streaming services and so much, it's really hard to find something. But if you can watch this gem, I know you have to join MGM Plus, but just think you'd spend eight dollars on two cappuccinos, and if you were actually going to the movies, you'd spend way more and it's way worth your while. Uh yes, I I cut you off about going to the movies. I actually go to the movies to see the movies because that have come out all year. I mean, I've seen Um in the movie theaters because there's nothing like a a shared audience reaction. And that's why I love theater so much. Because in the moment it's it's so alive and giving and energizing in ways I think we really, really need to get back to.
SPEAKER_01I agree. I agree. What's what's a goal that you still want to accomplish in your career?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I can tell you right that. I know that. I want to be a pioneer for older women to never to never ever give up and know that in whatever field you're in, once you've raised your family, and if you've given up your career goals for your family, you can reignite them. Or if you've never had a family and you spent your life doing your career, then you can and you want to stop your career and go out and do the world. It's never too late for any of that, especially to spread the the women sensibility of I don't know, I was brought up and you can have your you can bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan. I I could not do that. That was my mantra that I heard as a kid growing up. That was really hard for me. So if you're one of those women who try, you know, didn't do both, well, you can always do that. I'm not saying you can have children after a certain age and don't, because it's exhausting. No, um, I'm a grandma now and tell me trust me. I'm like, okay, wow, now I get why you're told to do this when you're young. Um, but I just feel like women need to live, we need to lift each other up and know that uh our worth comes with age and and and energy and practice. And because I don't know, I think we have so much to offer that gets squashed or put down, or we get thrown away because we have wrinkles, or we get like, oh, whatever. And I want to be an example for younger women to look forward to something and and men too, to support that. But I'm obviously a female, so that's where I feel like I can be a good help. So I'm writing a TV series about that. That's great. And I'm writing I the movie that I wrote is that's gonna be produced focuses on sisters who learn something as they're way older, but it actually helps move and change them. So wherever that falls, if it's I I I think it's gonna be through my art.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Um so we talked about American Classic a little bit, but anything else that you want to plug or talk about before we go?
SPEAKER_00Yes, my movie that I'm wrote called The In Between, that's gonna be produced by Pollock Films. Sometime this we're getting ready to get into pre-production for that. This TV series I wrote that I might have to do independently because I my partner and I who wrote it, she she's an actress friend of mine who we met in prenatal yoga. And for years we've been saying, Oh, we should write about being on a mom with the newborn. And every year we were at stages of writing, oh, we should write about the teenage years. Oh, we should write, and finally, we've had we had we both at the time our kids are the same age, one of them, the the my my younger one, and we're like, okay, we can we can really write now. And we did, and we wrote this I think terrific pilot that we have to get out there to do. And I'm I know that everything's so changing, and uh there it's difficult, but I believe we'll break through somehow. And um American Classic. You have to watch it, it's like 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, and it just it's hard to get people to check into a new streamer. So, but I recommend doing it so that MGM picks it up for another season and another season because it's good stuff.
SPEAKER_01And I do think that the first episode is available on Amazon Prime without needing an MGM subscription, so you can you can kind of dip into it too to start with.
SPEAKER_00That's true. So definitely do that, and then go the distance because this TV show takes turns and and deepens and gets better and better and better as it goes along. And I just think it's what the world needs now. Oh, they wrote a song called That Right. It's just it's just worth seeing these people and what they're going through. And to me, it's literally a microcosm of what's happening in our world right now. I don't want to give it away, but what the town is going through versus what this specific family is going through, uh it's putting something good out into the world, which I think we could all use right now.
SPEAKER_01I agree. Well, Terry, thank you for talking with me today.
SPEAKER_00My pleasure. So my pleasure. Mike, great to meet you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe if you aren't already. Or come give me a like on Instagram at the artist at workethic podcast.