#8 with Kamil Haque. How to prepare for a presentation like an actor?!

[Applause] [Music] hey guys today I had the pleasure of sitting down with camel Huck a great friend of mine he runs and owns the Huck Center of acting and creativity and also has a corporate training company called the moment before that uses theatrical techniques to improve performance camel shares his journey as he moved to LA to study under the tutelage of the Lee sturg Institute Lee strawberg is the Godfather of method acting in the US and under his tutelage people like alberino dairo Hoffman Paul Newman came to light camel brought those schools back to Singapore with the goal of helping actors in their Quest and journey to perfect the art most recently however he's been helping Executives and that's where camel and I really became close because I engaged him to help my Salesforce both in Singapore and Hong Kong brilliantly he's recently done a tedex talk and has done some work with Netflix camel's pleasure thank you so much I hope you guys enjoyed the chat as much as I did Cheers Camille yes thanks for coming to see me today my absolute pleasure Paul man you're looking absolutely sharp I want to know about this jacket tell me about it so this was actually a gift from a friend of mine and um it's a local designer okay and it was for the sg50 celebrate Singapore is you know half Centenary and it's got this abstract design of faces but if you look really close it's got hidden words in it um oh yeah equality okay I see that I didn't see that before democracy equality beautiful can I see the inside mate and with the pants I'll tell you you've out done me big time today I love it I will say this and you may not know this about me is every day without fail I always wear something red wow G string don't you want to know show me later we were talking earlier about twin piz I want to touch on that CU I absolutely fell in love with it okay and it's one of those you know when you're younger yeah in your formative years you can remember like the year what was your favorite song and I heard the music first okay so I I was 14 so I I started watching it and it blew me away and I think Dale Cooper who was played by come back to me is one of my favorite characters of all times but have you watched the whole thing to bottom or not the thing is is that you know now we're going back a good 30 years when it first came out right and so I saw it when I was 789 something like that and all I remember is being glued to the TV watching something that had a really bizarre Twisted in twist in your gut sort of impact but I don't know what it was uh and I've never gone back to rewatch it so maybe I should I'll lend you I've got all the DVDs have you online as well but yeah you can it's just it it blew me away because so I don't know maybe when I was about 16 for part of my drama uh studies I kind of did a overview a write up of it and on an organogram I connected all the dots between all the characters right and it was because they were all linked yeah and and and far more so than any other kind of TV show with a very big cast okay and you know like David Lynch as a director he's just out there he's just so unique right and uh yeah it kind of changed my life I I really love that show and then um this will make you laugh so I was 16 and one of the leading actresses who was probably one of my first crushes I saw her in HMV whil in central London oh um and this was at the on the top floor they used to sell VHS tapes and there was a box set of Twin Peaks and I was looking at it and then walked off came back and and uh there she was and she was looking at cuz it just come out and it's quite a new thing right okay for the actual box set and um I went and said hello and uh I I told her I thought she was Absol absolutely stunning yeah so I said look would you like to have lunch with me what and she said I'm married I'm a mom yeah I said no it will be our secret I won't tell anyone and um but I was young I was young she so she laughed I said look my grandfather's restaurant he's passed away now it's just across the street okay you know why don't we have lunch together and we had lunch no and then she sent me uh maybe two or 3 weeks later I got the whole box said yeah I got you know Laura Palmer's diary some outakes of the scripts you know so it was just very sweet of her right what yeah blew me away what are the chances of that happening well but you know what the thing is I realized back then was if you don't say hello and ask yes you know it won't ever happen and for her I was just a young guy right she wasn't that much older than me but it took a little bit of Courage I mean what's that saying you miss 100% of the shots you don't take right Wayne Gretzky 100% there you go so look I want you to give quick introduction who you are tell me a little bit about you sure so uh my name is camil hak as you know uh I am born and raised in Singapore I'm of multi-ethnic descent I am the chief moment officer of three different companies the first is the moment before uh the second is Hu Center of acting and creativity or hcac for short and then the third is Method Productions I'll go through uh each of them please so method Productions is a corporate training company that uses theatrical techniques as well as human design thinking and coaching to help people within the corporate world uh sort of overcome any performance anxiety or help them be better in performance because I believe that everything is a performance and everyone is a performer uh next hcac is Singapore's first acting school and within that uh business my teachers and I we help people from all walks of life be professional actors to people who uh I call Creative double lifers um find the the creative juices or the creative fire that they may have lost or that they've always wanted to fulfill or to stoke but they've never had the opportunity to so we give them the the platform to get the techniques and training that I had the benefit of receiving and then we also give them the opportunity to showcase their techniques in various shows that we then produce through method Productions which is my third company wow um so it's almost like an entire vertical uh where we want to be able to uh make art as accessible to people and demystify a lot of the um the curtain that that people either impose upon it or it imposes on itself yeah okay beautiful now what I want to do today is I want to because a lot of people won't know this but I love acting I grew up watching movies I wanted to be an actor as you know and I want to tell her because we we have deep roots and history really because of our well your your parents my wife's parents your dad was best with withc Bri's dad and I was trying to think when I first came AC you because I think I came across your work i' heard of you okay and what I've I don't know if you've realized this in life there are some people um that don't like strong personalities that are big characters I'm typically drawn to them right and some people find them intimidated and I had to come across some of your work and I thought well that's a man I want to get to know and then I remember I was having a call and I said you know what could you train my guys and I flew my team down from Hong Kong and the Singapore team and we did some training with you and um CU I cuz I feel that for especially for uh people in sales and we'll come back to that a minute and and young children acting 100% is so powerful so how did you get into it so you grew up in Singapore born or raised so how I got into it was um so what happened was my parents at the age of seven they brought me to what was then Orchard Cinema now it's Orchard C Leisure they brought me to watch uh Dead Poet Society is that your first movie not my first movie but uh one of my first few movies what an amazing movie to see and the thing is you don't know how amazing it is at 7 years old you're just going to watch a film right yeah and after the film is done they Buckle me into the back seat and we're driving home and I begin asking them questions about uh events that happen in the film you know like why did this student have to do this why why did the teacher have to I don't want to give away any of the the plot details and I know in hindsight that I was asking questions that were well beyond a seven-year-old and Big Time what happened was in that moment and I'll never forget this my dad jammed the brakes which is very unlike him both my parents turned to the back seat and they both gave me this look like they brought home the wrong child like like like you know like excuse me yeah uh and something in that moment clicked and I just knew something in that film did something to me that got me this so if this is what I want I got to do more of that wow and so for the rest of my life I dedicated it to Performing Arts wow not realizing that it wasn't just the Performing Arts that left an impact on me it was something about Robin Williams Charisma and his ability to activate people that was the thing that really made my heart sing yeah yeah that's such a powerful movie I know how it's actually changed a lot of people's lives so one of my best friends who's a bit older than me very very senior Banker he told me that he was going through a low low point in his life um I think he was either late teens or early 20s and he saw that move and it completely changed his perspective I can see why but but you know there's a story in that because I was telling Kaden right if you go back so obviously those guys won an Oscar y right for the script and then the movie and then I said to Kaden well it starts with west of Stallone when he wrote Rocky right and and and I just said that you should look to do that you know what I mean that's that's the a great entrance I saw a really wonderful interview with Matt Damon and he was talking about um what's the name of the guy in Departed the most famous actor there Jack Nicholson Jack Nicholson I need some more coffee so he said Jack Nicholson said to him um you know being a great writer helps you being a great actor 100% so then you know Matt Damon said yeah I know what do you mean he said well you know in The Departed there's a scene where I'm meant to kill somebody right and it's just as a 30 second scene I just kill somebody I off them in the woods kind of thing so what I did was I went back and I rewrote the screen the scene and um instead of just shooting them it's not a man it's a woman oh I know this yes yes yes yes yes yes so I went back and it's not just the woman but she's on her knees yeah and then she falls and it that's you know it's not good enough so I go back and I rewrite the scene and when she falls it's not just how she falls it's then what I say and I say well she felt funny I think it was a woman and so on and so forth and it and it was just he took this 136 scene and Ray Winston was the other actor and it just it was huge it was brilliant so okay so you grew up in Singapore you went to ACS ACS my whole life did you could you do theater studies there as they didn't have theater studies back in the day yeah exactly so I was I've I'm I'm I'm almost always used to being an outlier and so uh growing up in the ' 80s and early '90s in Singapore where there is no theater I had to find ways to seek it outside of school and then try and fulfill it within school where they were only then learning to embrace theater as an extracurricular activity um and I was really fortunate to benefit from uh the tutelage of Julie Gabriel um who is one of the pioneers of speech and drum for kids uh in s where she since passed on and she was my very first Mentor wow and she she was the first adult in my life who took the trouble to make eye contact with you and remember your name and genuinely ask how are you doing when we'd walk past each other in the hallways how are you doing camil yeah and to have an adult do that to a young child when most just walk past you yeah is is lifechanging it's huge it's huge and I want to come back to your ship later um I think one of one of the things I've realized though with acting is especially at school for boys it it's almost frowned upon because there's a stereotype of the kind of guys that did it and when I was 14 there was a period where I hurt my knee I couldn't do any sports and for about six months so I thought you know what I'll start the drama club and I also did it with the with the understanding that there would be a lot of girls and I would be perhaps the only guy so I had very little competition I see you did there you know what I mean but I didn't I I I did it but not knowing that I would fall in love with it and I and I really did um so you did so I cuz I did drama okay and I acted in quite a few plays at school but so you didn't have that outlet no crazy right uh yeah it it was mainly mostly me spending time on weekends at Julia school and when I say spending time I wasn't just going to classes I was staying there after class and I was staying there the whole day just volunteering around the school observing observing volunteering um I would when when cuz she was just starting out her speech and drama school and I would volunteer in her library and I would watch her and other staff members read out loud to the kids um who would come to the library after their classes and then again there was something of this Robin Williams sort of like red thread like look how Robin Williams activated his kids see how Julia's activating these kids in the reading room something's happening here and making these these these dots connect in my own head yeah I'm like I want more of that I want more of her how do I do more of this what's your favorite scene in in that movie because carpm is obviously the most famous line but I think for me uh I mean it's it's the iconic scene of standing on the desk at the tail end and and and being very clear that um I will not take no for an answer and I think everyone has a voice yeah and everyone needs to have a voice and when life is unfair you need to speak up yeah yeah there's a so many great scenes the bit where the the guys are looking through the glass cabinet of the the past oh and all the sports stars and he's whispering to them you know look look at the boys I such a powerful movie yes yeah yeah so for you to move to LA yeah did you have to convince your parents that this is something you wanted to pursue you know I am very privileged in in a very privileged place to say didn't have to wonderful um isn't that amazing that they were supportive yeah yeah I I think I think my my parents have and and they're of a very rare breed where they have never really imposed many rules on me what did they I know what they did but what tell the audience what did they do grow so my mom spent her entire life pretty much in the world of advertising and then eventually coaching and my dad spent his entire life um as a lawyer and uh they've never really imposed any rules on me other than well my dad had two rules the two rules were don't get in trouble with the police that's a good rule good Rule and don't come home in a wooden box okay I may have broken one of those rules okay um and other than that he basically said whatever you want to do just make sure that you give it your best yeah uh and I made it very clear from a very young age that I wanted to act I wanted to be in the Performing Arts this is what I wanted to dedicate my life to and it's obviously not easy for a parent and now that I'm a new parent you know congratulations by the way beautiful trying to navigate what that means to to present to your parents something that doesn't fit within the normal systems of thinking yeah and for them to go okay this is unusual but if this is what you really want then let's let's go about giving you every opportunity to make sure that you're the best at it yeah amazing so how old were you when you went to the US right after NS uh national service for your listeners so uh I was 22 okay yeah and then tell us about that Journey so I moved there when I was 22 and I went to the Lee Strasburg theater Institute in LA and I went there by accident so if I backtrack a little bit how I got to that Institute was um I had royally messed up my a levels and how how so um I spent most of my a levels partying not going to school organizing parties myself cuz I really wanted to be the popular kid in school what a terrible waste of time but still in that moment you think this is like this is what life is right and um and I royally messed up my a levels and I was now in the Army for two and a half years and during those two and a half years I enrolled myself into night classes to keep my brain fresh and prevent it from um atrophying yeah and for the first time in my life I realized oh crap if I don't actually like buck up I'm never going to achieve my dream of being an actor and being the Performing Art so I actually put my nose to the thing to the grindstone and I started working and I started getting consistent A's for the first time in my life I'm like oh okay so this is what it means to work hard I've got a bunch of A's but I'm still nowhere closer to uh my dream of uh learning how to act and be a real actor what did you do for your A Levels um so I did a combination of lit history econs and like lit history cons and uh again they didn't have theater studies right again I did a level theater studies and it it in my time yeah thought I would have done it you would have done it and um so so here I am with with crappy a levels um some very good like private school grades and I go back to Julia my first mentor and I say Julia I'm really lost I I don't know what to do with my life I know this is what I want to do um and she says uh listen why don't you try going to acting schools in uh in Australia in London in the states and she names me a bunch of schools and uh I'm like oh wow there are options for outside of this this island and in the process of telling me these schools uh she also offers me a job which that's a whole separate conversation I'm so overwhelmed again that she's given me this massive gift and so I go back home and now I'm thinking to myself oh crap I should have written down the names of schools that she had mentioned yeah totally didn't and I'm like oh what were the schools that she mentioned uh oh I know one of them sounds like a football club yeah so I type into Google stasbor acting cuz it sounds like racing St you you didn't know who Le no idea who he was and Google said did you mean Strasburg acting and I went yes Google that's probably what I meant and and then it starts showing me the alumni of Strasburg so Pacino dairo Paul Newman James D in Marilyn Monro I'm like oh I know these guys I like their films I'll go there that's completely by accident how I went to the Strasburg Institute wow so then fast forward to 2005 I'm now in LA and they take me around the school uh for the tour before the semester starts and I walk around and there's something about it that feels like I'm home yeah then they bring me to the administrative office and they say okay here's the list of classes your school uh semester begins next week pick your classes we can get you enrolled I look at the classes and I go huh what were the options like for example like method acting uh voice and speech uh improv uh so interesting that they broke you down like that well because it you know it the training of the actor is a full body training it's it's um like acting is really a combination of two occupations it's human behavior scientist and athlete um and so how do you train the actor to be a lot of people don't get that well because it's it's it's again that there is this weird curtain that we impose as artists but also that audiences go oh that's not for me I can't do that but it's it's it it's a it's not that difficult when you break it down B it really is something that we do on a daily basis we just don't realize we're doing it so but the thing is if they let you choose could can you see like as as a student you can choose one direction that you're headed in so for example that you may want to be an actor you may want to be a director at that point no it was pick some classes and then again it's your first semester so so you're sort of like going in blind a little bit and I was going in blind and then um I look at the the the the schedule of classes and I go oh actually I I I don't want to study here and they're like excuse me what uh yeah I I don't want to study here and then the the the head of administration was like you know you flew 10,000 km and you paid a bunch of money and you did all these uh admission essays you're here and now you're telling me you don't want to study here I'm like yeah I don't want to study here and then she so what are you doing here I'm like oh uh well I want to teach here she like what you teach her I didn't know that uh I'm like yeah I'm I'm going to teach her and I want to teach her I've taught for a whole year in Singapore and thinking I was like you know I knew it all and she's like m okay so camil here's the deal you can't teach her I'm like why I I have experience you know and she's like well you can't teach her because you don't know what we teach I'm like huh okay Fair Point um still I'm not leaving this office until I get to teach here and she's like okay fine fine fine I tell you what if you can complete the two-year program cuz most don't then we can have the conversation about you teaching right now I just need you to pick some classes I'm like fine that's good enough for me let's do it and uh she must she must have left that office thinking what the hell who is this character character um and and uh true enough by my third semester I had found my mentor I uh her name is Hy sonik she just passed recently um and I said please take me under your wing and she was one of the last few surviving teachers to have been taught by Lee Strasberg to teach amazing and uh I said this is something that I really want to do please teach me everything and by the time I graduated from the 2-year program I was already a substitute teacher to the point where um the day after I graduate I go back to the administrative office to pick up my my shirt and uh speak to the lady I say hey so I've completed the program I'm here to teach and she's like huh don't you already teach her yeah I'm like why yes I do great well you start on Monday I'm like okay that's how it is you must have been cuz if you think of what was unique about that Journey is when you started there you're already thinking you're running parallel knowing that this is what I want to do whereas a lot of people you see a lot of teachers go back after but they they're not thinking that at the time the thing about Lee straber I think a lot of people will know him in terms of you know Godfather of method acting um and other people will know the Godfather Part Two himman Roth but they don't know he played they won't necessarily connect the dots and the thing is if you've watched The Godfather too you he's chilling ly scary yes in a in the most understated way but you but and you're trying to work out what is he really up to right and and you you never really know yes he's pulling the trigger behind the scenes yes yes so powerful and that's the best kind of villains where they're not like they are so innocuous or seemingly innocuous yeah uh the other one that comes to mind is um the Jew Hunter from Inglorious Bastards or Hannibal Lector they're almost charming and charismatic and you in a weird way you want them to win yeah which is to me the best kinds of villains well Anthony Hopkins I saw an interview with him once and he said um as he got older he realized uh less is more but it takes time and experience and confidence just in in everything yes right so I mean I I when I look back so when I chose so it's so interesting how your two mentors shape your life I had a great great Drama teacher called rata Nash she actually put me off pursuing acting oh um because so what happened was maybe maybe she felt I wasn't good enough but um she I'll never forget she said this cuz we we did Stan as laski right and I acted in The Seagull the Cherry Orchard various things and I said well this is what I'm considering now at the time she knew my family were poorly off so I was working full-time um studying fulltime then I was pursuing boxing she said look Paul you're short you 6 and a half you're okay looking but you're you're Oriental right this is in England um you can't sing she wasn't wrong about that your dancing's okay you know so what it and then and I said well you know some of my heroes alucino Rober dairo they're not big guys and then she said well she said look I'm just talking about literally speaking if you get to be in the National Theater you'll be earning £40 a week or whatever it was and you'll have to know two or three play off by heart you know a couple of monologues couple of duals so just from that perspective and that really cuz at that point you're you're gung-ho and I just thought it's I was either going to become an actor or a boxer but I thought boxing first and I will go into acting so I can do this forever and she actually put me off it and uh that that was okay maybe I didn't have enough conviction to do it to begin with um but I wanted to ask you about this the best player I've ever seen was called seven streams of the river OT have you ever heard of it no I want you to read it it was so powerful the production so for each stream there was meant to be one act and for each Act it was meant to be an hour long okay so it was done over two nights wow and they had every type of theater production they had puppetry they had film um and it it just blew me away I went to watch it twice um and you you know when you watch amazingly good actors and a wonderful production it's so seamless it's they make it look easy yes but I was blown away like I was captivated and I and and I went back the second time on my own cuz I thought no one's going to go and watch 7 hours do you know what I mean um but did you have any any plays that you got to watch that you that really turned you yes um so the uh once I moved to LA and I started learning what the craft of acting is really about cuz um there's a saying that uh there's a form of acting that's all teeth and tits um which is if you smile big enough and if you got a nice enough body you'll get away with murder uh but it's very superficial and um very uh outside approach versus um if you really understand the CRA of acting it's also a very deeply internal and personal process and the first time that I saw that embodied on stage was in LA and I saw production of fences by August Wilson um which has been played by James old Jones on Broadway and then now Denzel on film with Viola Davis and uh I saw some beautiful character work so some beautiful physical choices but there was something that was moving on a vibrational level internally with each of the actors that uh I had never seen before at least not in Singapore and it uh caused me to begin to follow the production and I saw it maybe about four or five times wow in different venues around Los Angeles different actors different cast or it was always the same cast Okay I love that and and and I just wanted to see if you were so good on a Monday are you going to be as good on a Tuesday are you going to be as good on a Wednesday but now in a different venue um and true enough they were always consistently knocking it out of the park and and that for me became one of my gold standards of of acting yeah you know you know it's funny because every time I go to the UK or New York I'll always go and watch something always I I I don't like musicals you know I love plays I just I can't I don't understand how you feel that much that you break out in song I just can't you can't do it so this time I was dis so I took my two daughters to us for 3 weeks okay and we're only in New York for three nights okay and um my daughter's first crush Talia hopefully you're not embarrassed I'm telling you is Grant gtin from The Flash okay right she that was her first crush and I said he's on and um a friend of mine who worked for C the Sol for years he's a gymnast his close friend did the whole you know choreography and he had you know said Paul this is really interesting so we went to go and watch it and it was brilliant because it was it was about a circus okay so he saw a lot of physical acting um but I was gutted cuz I wanted to watch her play yeah and so the last time before that I was in New York I was um who's the guy that played Ray the New York no no the um not not the movie uh the the uh he was in Wolverine he played he was the brother oh uh uh Le shriber yeah yes I went to go and watch him in in in um l mizab no something something I can't remember it was a French it was it was a French play okay and I sat down on my own and there was an old white guy in New York in his 70s and um I said hey how you doing I said um do you speak French he said no why I said the plays in French mate he goes really I said of course it's a French play oh and um he said are there subtitles I said I don't think so so he was about to get up and leave and I said I'm only joking so so actually we we went for a drink afterwards and um oh my memory is just not working today who was the guy in Transformers the young guy sh yeah so he was meant to acting it and and I think he was going through a hard time okay and I've since seen him in a lot of interviews as he's got older and he he blows me away he's a highly cerebral guy he's had a lot of difficulties growing up a lot of insight but yeah so when you see those guys that you watch in movies or on TV but then you see them in theater it's different especially if they're great actors 100% because what you're doing is you you have the benefit of so the difference the big difference between uh film and and and life theater is um in film you get you only get to see what the director tells you you can see yes right versus on on um on stage you choose what you want to see at all times everything is in a wide angle lens so um even if the light is on that actor but I choose to focus on that actor who hi in the shadows I'll want to watch that actor hiding in the shadows and you and you get your own intimate performance of of the minutia of things versus being told what you can see and that's something very empowering for the audience it's viseral it is even more visceral because now you're seeing actors joust and you can't hide yeah as well yeah yeah you know you know um I used to go and watch um plays at the National Theater every week because you'd get a student discount right and um once I watched Venetian twins okay and you I was asked to be part of the uh assemble where you're having a a dinner a meal Pastor as part of the scene so you're on stage so you can see people coming up and off and it just blew me away right CU because you're there and wow this is amazing um yeah I absolutely love it so when when actually you know what when I was researching Lee strawberg before today's podcast um I didn't realize that he'd also coached an bankra and Dustin Hoffman and I was thinking like how far did their method out to go for for The Graduate you know do you think they have a little bit of a kiss and a cuddle um I mean I wouldn't put it Beyond them uh especially at at that time I mean mind you um we we weren't living in such a an an overly sensitive walk world as well yeah so then that allows you to then feel uh intimacy is not such a touchy subject yeah um so I I I wouldn't have put it Beyond them to some degree I want to know give me you know some of your top actors of all time that you really admire that blow you away I'm curious my favorite actor is one that not many know um he's only been in five films before he passed away his name is John kazal uh he was Fredo in uh Godfather oh yeah yeah yeah um so Godfather one Godfather 2 Dog Day Afternoon uh the conversation and uh the deer hunter those are the only five films he's done before uh he passed away amazing and he's my favorite actor and the reason why he's my favorite actor is because he brings so much pathos to everything that he does yeah um and you can see there there's something happening in the internal mechanisms so um he's one um uh Dustin Hoffman uh growing up he was someone that I I hugely admired for the character work that he did with Tootsie and then Rainman oh man and Kramer versus versus K Amazing by the way Tootsie and Mrs dfire two of my favorite movies just in terms of Comedy right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's it's so Larger than Life and yet grounded in in these heartbreaking tender moments I love that Jessica Lang in Hy she blew she was lovely that was a brilliant movie okay Hoffman uh so Hoffman uh uh John kazal um there is a a french actor uh who I only uh found out uh found him recently maybe in the last 10 years or so his name is tahar Rahim okay um and uh there's a brilliant film it's called un profet uh and it's basically almost like uh MC Beth b in prison or the rise and fall of of this um demigod um in in jail uh and again brilliant and um Daniel de Lewis specifically in There Will Be Blood I think he's good in everything yeah but specifically him in There Will Be Blood uh what I'm really drawn to I think are are really strong characters that almost in some ways carry the film yeah or the film sort of like is uh the film is orbited around them or or the film has this magnetic sort of like pull because of their work but you know I realize there are very few actors like that cuz when I I don't want to name them because you know but there are quite a few actors that I feel only really work well in an assembled cast right it takes an incredibly talented individual you know with to lead the line yeah and where you know you want to watch that it could be nobody around them or random actors so rare right um I have to I the thing is is I think what happens at some point you be I just watched the uh Brat Pack show on Disney is a documentary okay um Andrew McCarthy okay who's one of the uh brat pack and then they're trying to Define who's in The Brat Pack what I shocked me was he said um it completely ruined his life and Emilio Esters he interviewed him said so he hadn't seen a Milo esz after since the premere of St Elmo's Fire okay okay and he said look they got uh branded really as being these lazy guys it was you know off the back of the Rat Pack kind of thing and because of that they were worried that they would never get called to do serious work and I never thought of that because I just thought these guys were the coolest guys kind of growing up but it's interesting to see how they felt about it um and how serious they were about acting in the in your early 20s uh because you get time cast yes yes you know I think what what many um s and even people outside of the um of the industry don't realize is that at the end of the day acting is a business yeah um and it's not just the craft and the talent that you develop uh to put on the performances or to play the characters but also how do you then navigate um the business side of it the marketing side of it the understanding that you might have all the skills in the world to play this character but the world sees you as this character so take me for example uh coming out of school or even while I was in acting school all I got was Middle Eastern terrorist uh it's terrible right it it is and it was uh especially back then because I had just moved to LA in a post 911 world and when you think about it uh yesterday's headlines are going to be tomorrow stories yeah and so everything that was coming out at that time or everything that was being turned out were or every villain was basically uh a middle eastern terrorist of some sort right and so uh on the good side of that was I was working a lot but on the bad side I was basically dying and everything and it was very um one-dimensional performances and I remember this um my very first agent um who kept sending me out for Middle EAS and stuff I I called him up and I was extremely frustrated and I and I remember telling him um I I need you to know some things a I'm not Middle Eastern B I'm not a terrorist C I absolutely hate violence D I'm a trained pardon my French dud actor yeah right um like you've got to give me more than this and then I just railed and railed and railed at him and he was quiet and by the time I had exhausted myself of just going off at him he said to me when you grow up call me back and then he hung up the phone on me jeez and now and I got even more livid cuz like how dare you tell me to you know um and then I didn't work for about 6 months and then I realized that in some ways he was right yeah because I am not who the I'm not the characters that I'm playing I simply who the industry sees me as and in order for me to be able to find my place in the industry I first could to understand that as an entry point I'm going to have to play the Middle Eastern terrorist with a face like this and facial hair like this I'm going to have to play the pedophile the rapist the drug dealer all these unsavory characters in The fringes of society and if I can do that which I eventually embraced then it allowed me to have more doors open to me can break through maybe to break through and play other things yeah it's it is tough it what is your heritage share it with everyone because we're both of mixed descent right uh so I've done a full family tree and I'm a mix of uh nine different ethnic groups that's all that's all just a small little you know so it's Pakistani Dutch German Portuguese Armenian Japanese Chinese Filipino Spanish uh and Norwegian but people just see a brown guy correct correct or uh what part of the Middle East are you from I'm like oh dear it's crazy even Isaac's laughing he heard he heard that but it's it's funny right it's really I mean I I remember I don't know if I told you this so I grew up in Southall in London to the age of about 11 12 and on my street there were 110 houses okay there were only two non- brown families a Jamaican family and my family wow you know and I'm half Chinese half Irish so like I really got it and um you know my dad was Irish so he didn't like the English English don't like the Irish so with quinnn being an Irish sener I got it and then when I was in Ireland U which I always felt like I was going home to Ireland I don't know why just cuz my dad was such a strong seminal figure in my life I really got it cuz English accent look Chinese and um and then so I thought let me see where my mom's from when I came here when I was in my early 20s and um and then I got a different type of Reverse Racism because I don't speak Mandarin so what I realized is you wherever you lay out you got to call home and be yourself be authentic and and find your own little corner and then make sure that you fortify your own corner and then make sure that when you build your Fortress no one can attack you exactly so I want to talk about mentorship so do you remember I told my son Ken last night that I was meeting with you and I said doing a podcast and he said he did an interview with you and I connected you guys and I I know that you're a mentor to his best friend tell us about Daran and how that came about with his mom so uh Daran and his mom came to watch me um in a one man show that I did um in January of this year called White Rabbit Red Rabbit okay and um the premise of the performance is as an actor uh I'm not to know what the script is about and um the the first time that I get to chance upon the script is when I open it up for the first time in front of an audience so for all I know it could be two lines from the act from the writer saying go ahead and entertain them for an hour and that's it who's to know um fortunate it was a nice meaty enough script for me to uh uh dig my um sck my my my jaws into and I was really lucky that Daran was there and and rosi were there and at the end of the the performance they came up to me and um uh they congratula me for the work that I did but specifically uh Daran was looking for someone to sort of um uh give him some insights into the industry so that he can understand how to chart a path um one not just as an actor but also as an actor of minority uh ethnicity within a country that um doesn't necessarily have a lot of work for people off for brown actors so how do you how do you create your own Fortress uh in this in this industry so then um I've since had the opportunity to meet him talk to him and give him uh as best as I can insights that I wish I had when I was his age you know it's just it's I mean Singapore is a small place right but it's a small world because Das and Kaden went to the same primary school so when we moved back from the US um and we found out unfortunately after Caden finished that school that he was probably bullied a little bit we only found out afterwards oh and um I think I mean my wife might correct me but rosini dashan's Mom said to Tara look daran's going to you know acting school and told Tara about it and Tara did a bit about it and I said yeah let's let's throw him into that right because Kaden's an introvert he's very quiet and off the back of that they both ended up in SOA for different things Kate he wants to be a filmmaker script writing Darian Act and um it's it's so interesting right and I think I think you have to follow that journey and what what was interesting they acted in a short movie together oh right and I don't think they wanted to broadcast it they were probably about 11 at the time and they two their best friends yeah and their characters later on become lovers yeah Kaden was in another TV show where the guy that was playing his uh dad M was him when he was older okay as a gay love with the other guy was like was all inextricably linked right and then and then I was just saying to K you've got to get out so recently Kaden got a modeling gig okay and um I just said look son you're a good-look guy you know I think you should try and do some Fitness modeling and it was really weird he was quite hesitant you know he likes being behind the camera um and he therefore he hasn't pursued acting as much as he should I think but someone spotted him and then he was offered something and and I just think think I I think Music Theater and sport is so important for children growing up and I feel in Singapore it's a bit of a shame cuz you're forced to maybe choose one thing and I think when you're younger you need to find a like maybe you like football maybe you like rugby you know maybe like tennis but you got to try a few things yes yes and the other thing I'm I I I always say to my kids is look the reality is very few people will maybe go on to do that one thing for living so just enjoy don't have any worries about you know being expectations that I've got yeah you know and I think that's the thing in Singapore it's it's pretty intense then you have to choose one thing but um you know when people ask me as being a what would you and I unequivocally I say I think acting for children is brilliant because because there team workor and typically you know if you get involved in a play even if you're the lead actor you got to help paint you know paint the set do everything right clear up team it's a team sport you've got You've Really Got and then it's like if we're talking I forget my lines you know you know my lines so you with them to me and then we roll again and it's just this camaraderie which is unlike anything else um but you know what are you going to do with Dominique you know so uh she's so young right so she's she's young I mean she's literally three weeks uh as of this interview uh uh so my wife has got Grand plans for her um is she whispering to her in her sleep like you will become well uh um um I wouldn't even say so much as Whispering as telling her in her face right now this is what you're going to be uh so um my wife uh speaks multiple languages so she speaks um three 3.25 languages that she likes to say so it's English French uh mandrin and then uh smattering with Spanish okay and so she wants uh Dominique to learn as many if not more languages and um I'm effectively monolingual okay um no I I don't think are I think you can speak three languages as well English very well [ __ ] yeah and the language of love uh so then maybe my daughter will speak multiple languages then there you go um so she's already talking to our daughter in in uh mandin and French brilliant uh and my job is to make sure that uh our daughter is extremely profession in English and as far as I'm concerned I would love if my daughter were to pick up the Performing Arts but I don't think I want to impose that on her because then it's um I'm rubbing her of the of her own process of self-discovery absolutely um and and likewise um uh I'm I'm fully aware that she is the daughter of two entrepreneurs yeah and so if she ends up picking some level of um uh entrepreneurship or skills that are derived from being an entrepreneur all the power to her even if she ends up being someone's employee in some m or what have you there is something about owning your own work you have to is it has to be your choice correct it's it's really funny because um we so Talia I think could be a great actress she's 15 okay but we haven't pushed it upon her because she loves sports but she's acting in her first play on Thursday this week so I'm really excited to see that and I think she 100% would be a method out like the way that she climbs into things yeah and um and like with Kaden a few years ago he told Tara that uh he wasn't sure if he wanted to considering boxing and it only just started and um she told me but she said you can't let Kaden know that I told you I said okay so I I sent him a text message and I said look I'd like to invite you out for dinner yeah and Talia his and our 15-year-old was away yeah um so he said no let's bring mommy and baby okay so okay fine but we weren't getting to the meet of the conversation and Avana was very young at the time so they went to the toilet I said look your mom's told me what you Shar um don't be upset with her but I invited you to dinner cuz I wanted to talk about it so I said well why do you think that you may not want to continue boxing and he said well number one um I don't know if I'm good enough I said that's okay right and I said look you you don't actually even have to compete um but you won't know until you give it everything and I'm telling you you're good enough right and if someone else tells you you're not good enough [ __ ] them you pursue it that's what you want to do take it as far as you can go right what's the second reason he said um it's it's hard work and I said I'm not going to let you give up because it's hard work whatever you do um you know like malcol Gladwell Outliers you got to spend 10,000 hours to become world class or something and then um then he said also I think that you might have chosen this for me and I said 100% I put you into this because during covid there were limited options you know you're you're shy um but remember this I open a door you walked into the route it's your choice if you stay in that room open another door and that's how I feel so with the acting it's done but it's led to film and now he wants to make his own movies and he's directed uh my corporate videos okay and um what interested me was the way that he kind of directed and guided you know he was he was working with 40 50 year olds and it was very CLE Eastwood desque in that he was very quiet he was understated he was directing them he had a Clear Vision and I didn't interfere I thought the most important thing was just to let him run with it I I created a storyboard he refined it he told me how he wanted to do it and just let him run and I think that's that's so important you know to empower so that's why I'm so curious about your parents cuz I want to learn and and you know you you knew Uncle Brian he was bigger than life and he was a big man anyway right um but I think one of the key reasons why Tara and I um really got together and stayed together was because of him because after maybe two three months he invited me to spend the night right he cuz you know I I was the bus home to Bima from Bima to to where I lived in on the East Coast was over an hour I didn't I couldn't afford a taxi so he said look you can spend the night but you can't you know you can't stay in Tyra's room you got to stay in the guest bedroom I said no problem of course I snuck it but anyway um as you do but then what was really interesting maybe about four months into our relationship she was away in Hong Kong and he called me up Friday night he said um what are you up to and I said I'm just having a drink with a couple of colleagues and he said look one come out for dinner with me so we had dinner okay went for a few drinks and the UN Brian he took me to you know Cricket Club um your dad was president of the Cricket Club right for a long time and then to all these uh his friend's house houses and then he said well why don't you spend the weekend I'll C you breakfast in the morning and um so I said that that sounds lovely it was a bit unusual I thought yeah anyway and as we were coming in at 1:00 in the morning very drunk he said to me Paul you're you're the son that I never had but always wanted fast for cuz a man of that generation right and he gave me a hard time don't get me wrong he also gave me a hard time but um on our one year anniversary he wrote us a letter yeah and said how you know happy it was for both of us that we'd found each other that we found love he he then went on to say look Paul you've taught an old dog like me a few new tricks and unfortunately he died not that long after so when we got married we set him uh a seat at the head of the table we put a chair there out there and then I read that letter out because you know um it was it was heartbreaking right so it's interesting and I think our parents they have a a a massive influence on us but I also think because I've always felt my mom and dad were too conventional so anything that they told me or if I speak to my wife about business and she gives me advice I'll listen I'll hear it but I'll always do the opposite because that's how we roll right so so you came back to Singapore the Genesis to set up the acting school yes were you scared what was the thought process behind it uh I wasn't scared simply because I had the benefit of ignorance and and sheer um confidence that it would work yeah um and so when I came back um I actually came back a lot earlier than I intended in my head I was going to come back at the age of 45 and setting up the studio would have been my retirement plan then I would die teaching one of my classes yeah uh I came back at the age of 30 to help set up uh Southeast Asia's first asan film Festival in Malaysia uh where we invited delegates from all 10 countries to Kuching Malaysia uh got films from all 10 um film associations uh and basically set this Festival up from the ground up um we managed to to get Michelle yo as our VIP wow uh to attend the festival and um the festival itself had opened up a whole bunch of doors to me that I was not intending at all uh my sole purpose was to get this Festival off the ground um and uh I knew that had I gone back to LA after the festival I I would have found every reason to be comfortable again in my own groove of whatever I was doing in La at the time and something in me basically made the choice to call up my friend Raymond who was housesitting for me at the time and I said hey Raymond I know you've been housesitting for me for a couple of months um I'm not coming back can you ship back my books can you sell my house my car and um and send me some of my clothes that I didn't bring back and he's like excuse me what I'm like what you you heard me I mean if you if you make any money off the things that you sell you can keep it I just need ABC and D because I'm staying here I'm going to open the studio and um we still laugh about this conversation even till um this day and I really appreciate how um he he he um did what I needed him to do but so my question to you did you speak to anyone or seek anyone's counsel or did you just go in I just I just went in that's where you and I have a lot of similarity yeah really and that and that's the ignorance and the confidence it's a it's a this potent combination of this cocktail right powerful it's a powerful cocktail and so um 2 months after that that conversation um I set up the studio and um the beauty about about uh being in Singapore is that um a it's very easy to set up a business B it's at the end of the day a small fishing island yes uh and so everybody knows somebody who knows somebody and uh by virtue of also being involved in that Festival I I I got to know lots of people within the industry so I got the the studio off the ground really really quick and um then it was just full steam ahead and um in the 11 years plus that it's been around I have greatly benefited from the kindness of uh strangers uh from my community from people who have uh who see the value of this um safe space to to be oneself and to explore all facets of The Human Condition without judgment um and it has allowed me to also find my own voice and to then also give voice to other people where they did not have a voice because as you said growing up in Singapore you're told one thing and one thing only whereas there are lots of benefits to saying well who's to say you can't have more than one voice yeah um and who's to say you can't have more than one option and why not have more than one option let's just see where that takes you um you know what you were saying earlier you were talking about people you know having I I guess it's I I liken it to White Collar boxing we have professionals that you know they love acting they want to go back to it but they haven't done it since school are you seeing a lot of that the majority of my community of people like that yeah I just I want I just want to share with the audience the last time I physically saw you so I called you up do you remember this and I said look I I want to act in a play yes me come and meet you and you're so you're so gracious and you said yes and I pitched you what I wanted to do and then and then you said look Paul the thing is um correct me if if your memory is different so you said look the problem is it takes a lot of time you know we're going to you're going to have to audition you're going to have to act with actors that are doing this fulltime you know you're running your own company and I I had a lot of conviction I said I'm not worried about that and then you you kind of said well you should be cuz there's a lot to take on and um and then when you went through the kind of commitment in terms of hours I thought oh that's going to be difficult and then I then we talked about me doing a oneman play and then I remember you must think the balls in this guy because you told me every year you have is it you have half a dozen of your actors go up on stage and do a story yep what is that so it's a it's a show that I regularly do called metaphors be with you metaphors be with you and um it's a true themed storytelling showcase where I put out themes like um scars and Tattoos music childhood memories um uh uh uh food memories um uh parents and uh birth uh death and based on these themes people would then submit true stories that they have experienced themselves I would then help them edit the stories yeah I would coach them on the on the delivery of the stories and on the day of it's not too dissimilar from a setup like this it's a microphone it's a mic stand it's a speaker and then you have the story in your hands you don't have the pressure of needing to memorize it because that adds another layer to it yeah and it seems deliberately simple and almost overly simple but there's something magical that happens in that room because the audience of strangers takes great pleasure and pride and sympatico in seeing the courage and the vulnerability of someone share a life-changing moment that they've experienced with this audience yeah yeah I remember when you told me and I said look I want to do it and you said you'll have to audition for you know I've got a and I said let's do it now [ __ ] and I said I'll tell you a couple of stories get your ears bleeding and we did that did I'm like oh okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but no that was that was really fun um talk to me about the projects now that you're doing because you you going to share with me and I you know I didn't want to hear it until we discussed this on the podcast I want to hear all about what's happening with you right now so um aside from running the studio I have uh I had the great privilege of presenting a a uh tedex talk last year amazing um on um uh how to how to um Ace your next performance uh and it's the power of the moment before which is what are you doing to prepare yourself physically vocally mentally spiritually uh and how do you practice self-care and self- soothing to get yourself in that that ready state to sort of give your best and since then that's spun off into the moment before which is this corporate training arm of my business so I'm spending a lot more time um investigating how I can contextualize what I do really well with method acting and put that in the arena of corporate training uh where uh people on leaders SE sues they understand that it's all a performance so then how are you preparing yourself in these Arenas how are you tuning the strings of your guitar so that you can do uh your very best and you're no different from Daniel de Lewis some M Street on the corporate stage um and through this I have um and you're the first person is hearing this so thank you um major world exclusive here I love it um I have uh recently a couple days ago been uh green lit the opportunity to meld the work that I do um with performance art and the work that I do in corporate training to bring together uh in September the world's first uh immersive interactive web 3 inspired play wow that will debut in Singapore in September it's a one night only performance wow yeah that's so exciting it's a bit scary right because there's so many different moving components I would imagine it it is and and yet so I've done I've done I've done a lot of of immersive interactive Productions uh the biggest one up to date um I directed Netflix's first immersive interactive production I didn't know that yeah um this is for uh their promotional launch of uh have you seen the movie out oh yeah yeah of course yes uh so there was the sequel glass andan and and they needed a an immersive interactive production put on so I directed that so that's my biggest to date and um this um this uh uh web 3 company or this crypto company approached me and said Hey listen how how did they get to know you do you know you know I don't know you should find out I I will eventually I'll I'll ask them because that's curious yeah I I I do want to know how they how they um I guess maybe were in the street I don't know I I'll ask eventually yeah they uh every September in Singapore there's a massive web through crypto conference called token 2049 and um they said uh for the first time uh this September uh because there's always a series of events in and around the conference uh networking type things they wanted to explore what it means to um engage uh artists in or in this case in um the Performing Arts in exploring the topic of uh decentralization M um and is it even essential um through the medium of an interactive immersive performance so um I'm in the middle of conceptualizing that right now and uh uh it it doesn't have a title just yet but it is what's the process we you literally sit down with a piece of paper and start to brainstorm conceptualize it so I I work with um the client um I I can actually share with the client is that the client's hash key Capital um and um what they do is they already had um some ideas of what they envisioned or certain key themes and topics that they wanted mentioned uh within the production and then my job is to distill that down into some of its base Essence and then understand what are some of the moving parts that are already in place for example when it comes to immersive uh interactive theater uh the venue plays a big part because the venue becomes almost a character unto itself yeah because unlike watching traditional uh uh theater where it's a prium stage and it's very passive uh you can do it anywhere as long as the room is dark and you just see the stage lit up right but when it's immersive and interactive you now explore the space now this picture takes on a different meaning this furniture piece takes on a different meaning like why this cup and the fact that it says zil everything begins to tell you a different story about it so then now based on the venue that they had already picked I have to then create a concept around that based on what they've already given me I've got to create a concept around that and then uh when it comes to immersive interactive stuff you're basically creating two shows you're creating the narrative which is what the people will uh unpack on the day of and then you're creating the logistical story and for me a great immersive interactive piece is when you don't see the wheels turning yeah and for the audience it feels like they have the illusion of choice yeah uh when in truth they're being led the entire time so you never see the Invisible Thread that's sort of like the the guide post for them from start middle to end amazing you know thank you for sharing it's so exciting I just think there's so much value right because I I've been in sales for 29 years and interesting thing is I've met so many people that are in sales and we're all in sales one way or the other but very few people have ever read a book on how to sell how to negotiate how to engage with people and um you know I think in order to become world class You' got to do that y so I always say look so for example if you're a lawyer and you become an equity partner you know in a firm and you'll know this through your dad you now have Revenue responsibilities so that that's where I think acting comes in because so for example as an introvert and what do you would you say you're an introvert or an extrovert I'm painfully shy yeah so no one will ever think that about you and me right so how I Define it is an introvert if you spend time with people even if you enjoy it naturally drains your reserves yeah right so you and I I I think we we've learned how to be extroverted in those moments right but again if you're very good at acting and presenting in a certain way no one will ever guess that about you or I yep you know and but um and I think the other thing is is that you have to know what you're good at and not good at so when I came to you with this idea and you said look Paul if I'm going to direct you you know you got to make sure we don't Clash because we're big personalities and I said no no I'll hand over to you and do you remember having that conversation you were cracking up in the ice cream shop together yeah what was your memory of that um it was this man is batshit insane but I love that he is this batshit uh why did you think that cuz I because I mean you know I I I I get these requests uh from time to time but it typically is from someone who has done a workshop with me or several workshops with me or is part of the community or I know um has has had their toes dip in and out fairly recently in the Performing Arts whereas not not not someone who's not done it like you know in like 20 odd years and then out of the blue hey let's meet for a coffee and uh by the way I want to do a show I'm like oh well okay do you know what you're setting yourself up for yeah yeah yeah the the thing I've learned though is I I feel very strongly about this I feel that if you've accomplished a black belt in something you know it could be playing the piano or sports or whatever and if you take that drive and ambition it translates yes 100% right so there's a saying that I love that I I always use is how I do anything is how I do everything yes right so you like all in I'll be I'll be all in I might be a difficult SOB to live with for a while right at home so my wife you know I forgive her in advance um but how that came about for me was I was just looking back on my life yeah as a father and I don't want to have regrets but I realized that I also want to do things now before I'm too old when I've got that zest for life and I also want um to lead my example I want my children to see that I'm prepared to put myself In Harm's Way or do uncomfortable things um and and you know things that scare you I don't know about you but the things that scare me that excite me that's what gets me up in the morning cuz it's like like well you cuz most people walk away from things that are that are difficult and if like you know doing for example a getting up on stage and doing comedy that's got to be one of the most terrifying things right and it's very similar to what you were talking about when you're telling a story so so I I still want to do it but I do but I do remember thinking when I told you that I was looking at your reaction and I just thought if you think I'm crazy you think I'm crazy for even mentioning this then maybe I'm a little bit crazy you know there um there there is there is crazy and then there is insane okay and I always have room for crazy okay because it it you know crazy means that this is something that no one has done before and what you don't see as we're having what you didn't see as we're having this conversation is I'm doing this internal calculation in my head of is this possible does this guy have it what sort of play could he do what sort of character can he play logistically what will we need you know um you know how can we make this potentially successful and is this an opportunity worth uh uh uh uh expanding and and and there was nothing in my mind that suggested that this could not happen especially given what I knew of you and we shared this just before we got on camera today where I love how um as a public Persona you are larger than life you present yourself as the alpha Big Dog but I've also seen you and the posts that you share on social media about your wife and your children and uh the conversations that we've had about Uncle Brian yeah um and um and even in the training session that we had together that there is um this this little boy inside 100% uh and I and I and I I admire that about you that you are not ashamed to wear these many hats yeah and that you Embrace this this little This Little Child inside you versus the the typical the typical male perception is you know men don't have feelings yeah and it cannot be any further from the truth and I love that you embrace your feelings so then that's part of the calculations in my head like am I just going to get a onedimensional brute yeah you know or am I maybe going to get my own version of a Marlon Brando who is the classic case of brute on the outside you know Stanley Kowalski but on the inside is this is this is this little boy yeah you know and how do you speak to the little boy and tell him that he's safe yeah and how do you give this little boy a platform to say Hey listen if you have a story to tell then let's tell it together yeah and that's what I saw in that conversation thank you man you know you know it's interesting cuz uh for the majority of my life I always thought I loved confrontation I'm not scared of anyone um you know anything I'll just lean into it I'll I'll speed into the corner uh and with my journey with my children in particular with Caden who I could see was afraid and timid it made me realize that you know what I've lied to myself my entire life I was always afraid I was afraid to physically fight I was afraid to get on stage I was afraid to lose I was afraid of everything and it it took me up until recently to to recognize that and embrace it and I think that will help with my children's Journey right and um you know my mom passed away last year and I was I was with uh the family in pette and um I think I said oh my mom would love this and I I started crying and and I was you know the kids I think they might have seen me tear up before but I couldn't stop crying and then on Christmas day I went to one of my best friend's houses here and uh his dad's a pastor he's very deeply religious and he was asking about my mom and I'm not religious at all so he said let's hold hands and next thing so this my friend his dad one of his sons and I were holding hands and I start crying and I'd had quite a few drinks so about 1:00 a.m. and I think I was crying for about 5 minutes uncontrollably and I you know I am a macho man at the same time but I just thought you know just let it go and it's I think you have to be in tune with those things I think the the thing with acting that I find it it it Bears part of your soul mhm and you you have to leave into it yes do you know what I mean yes um but was so so I just want to share with you because we hadn't meet met since you you you sent me a play you said Paul I want you to act in what was the name of the play Do You Remember uh it was God of Carnage so Kaden funny enough is reading this now as part of his uh so I just said yeah I've heard of that play and you know you challenged me because you said I want you to read this don't watch it and the natural thing is let me watch it right cuz I'm dyslexic I'm very start reading and I said I'll get back to you in 24 hours and then I thought I've never read anything this much you know in 24 hours and I actually read it twice in 36 hours because I thought this is you know the fact that you came to me was something it overwhelmed me it just was blown away but you must have thought this guy's a dick cuz I said you know what I don't think I want to be in this play and I just want to share with you why because I just and then you sent me another play for for the um it was a oneman play oh yeah yeah yeah before that before that and and the reason why that one was there was an intimation potentially that he was a child molester Y and I just thought cuz I'm not a full-time actor doing a variety of things I can't have people think that right that was the only reason and then the other one and look to your point you said look cuz I said I don't think I I want to blow people away if I'm going to do this once and only once and then you said but you have to trust me I will direct it and I had no doubt about that but I've got in my own romantic kind of mind and and and notion I want to play a kind of character where people look back and thinku that was amazing there's um have you ever seen shinu's list of course so there's um Kevin cner wanted to play that part that Li niss played heed for it hard yeah I just saw that in an interview quite interesting I but I think they they Liam n was brilliant oh yeah I I can't imagine anyone else now yeah 100% yeah um so when when when that movie came out um and this is related to what you just said when when it when it came out uh there's a story of how these teenage boys they they skyed off school to watch it in the afternoon and um while watching it they started laughing at the things that were happening on screen and uh they started laughing almost uncontrollably to the point where other theater goers were upset about this and it was this in like small town America and it um blew up to the point where it made the news of that small town America and that article began to make its rounds and eventually it got to the desk of Steven Spielberg and what happened was at least as how I understand it he then found a way to get in touch with those those young school boys and he said I want you to come to my house and I want to speak to you because I want to understand this film that is deeply personal to me why is it that it has made you laugh yeah and so now he's sat the boys down in front of him and he asked them the question and they said that they were so uncomfortable with what they were seeing that the only way that they knew how to process that was through laughter because if you think about it a lot of the same muscular responses that we have to discomfort which ends up being tears is also the same muscular responses that we have with laughter yeah and and no doubt CU they're a group of young boys together if they on their own probably a little bit different yeah yeah yeah I I still find myself you know crying to movies I just watched Anthony Hopkins um think the father no the one um it's either that life this life where he saves um I think it was over 600 children oh um yes it's the Jewish man and the P he sits in the audience and then they all reveal that he was amazing so I watched that on the plane coming back from Hong Kong and I was in bits I was just crying uncontrollably and it was like but let that en I enjoy that you know what I mean so let's talk a little bit about the the corporate training and Shing that you do cuz I'm I'm fascinated with that and and when I've spoken to quite a few heads of HR um about customer service sales guys um I think there's a lot of training out there but I don't know how real it is and I just think your coaching it gets to the heart of them the soul of the P tell us a little bit about what you do so um as I intimated earlier I I feel that everything is a performance and everyone's a performer it's just the context of how you're performing the stage with which you perform is slightly different but it is no different in how you're prepared to deliver a sales pitch as you would to deliver a monologue or a scene on camera on stage which is how are you preparing yourself physically vocally mentally spiritually and then how are you practicing self-care and self soothing to get yourself into the state of Readiness so that you can do the thing that you do so well 9 to5 can you talk about the self-care self soothing a little bit so what a lot of people don't and maybe only now the last couple of years especially since covid are people now recognizing the need to practice self-care and self sothing so the difference between the two um is to self soothe is something that doesn't require too much time money or energy but it's enough to get you back up to neutral yeah where you can go into the next meeting or you can go into the next day of presenting performing pitching or negotiations versus uh to self-care takes a little bit more time effort money energy in order for you to now not just go back to neutral but to put things in credit or benefit or Reserve so I'll give you an example of self- soothing versus self-care for me so self soothing for me is I literally have a a playlist on Spotify that I listen to uh in between uh or at the bid starter workshops for example or during breaks brilliant uh of my workshops then it just gets me back up to neutral so I can go again for the next half for the next client versus to self-care for me a a very clear one is I just need to get off the island um where I'm away from all of this and and I'm not so wound up and I and I just just go oh wow the moment the plane starts taking off right oh yeah um and and so you can see how one takes a lot more energy time and effort and money in order to to practice that um and what people don't realize is the value of self- soothing and self-care and they don't realize the power of it until they feel stress pain burnout until it goes wrong until it goes wrong right or when you know the [ __ ] hits the fan yeah and they go oh well why didn't I do that and and very often by that point they're ready to quit and go be a bicker or something um that is such an important Point yes because you know so I'm so glad you touched upon that cuz quite often people say to me well you go on quite a few holidays I said absolutely so you know with my team I remember when I first took over as a manager the first thing I said to my boss was I'm going to just change the whole thought process and the the culture of the organization because at the time taking a holiday was considered heard of right yeah it's it's a privilege and I said no you know it's an absolute part of what we're going to do yeah so I said look guys I want everyone to take a holiday you know twice a year where you take major chunks for those of you were parents you know maybe look at the some holidays the end of the year and I want you to plan it 6 12 months in advance like you book book your time now and then what will happen is if you then you the research is the fun part it can be a bit tedious but you say okay I know I'm going to do this in Europe you know six months from now and then you have something to look forward to and then you work your ass off and you get there and you recalibrate and I think people just don't do that yep yep you know it it part of that is also defined by the the need to have the illusion of business yeah and if I'm not busy then I'm not a meaningful contributor to society yeah and what people don't realize is there is being busy and then also having to keep up the illusion of busyness all that's doing is that's drawing down on your physical vocal mental and spiritual capacities to the point where you are in pain stress burnout so on and so forth and um it's not something thing that that um you know kudos to you for having the policy of the six-month 12 month thing but then what are you also doing in in the in between the six meetings that you have the 12 meetings that you have yeah that you are finding ways to recharge you're finding ways to just recalibrate wipe the Slate clean yes um like for example one of the things that I tell my clients is if I have really uh a crappy conversation with you be it by text or call or or in person and then the next thing that I do is I'm go meet Isaac but because I've had such a terrible meeting with you yeah now Isaac has got nothing to do with this terrible conversation but because it's taken up so much of my mind space and if I don't wipe the Slate clean I'm now taking that negative Juju into this conversation and now per Isaac then doesn't benefit from the fact that I'm not fully present with him yeah and then what happens is science is shown it only takes between 7 to 17 seconds for a person to define or understand is a this conversation about me or about you and if it's about you you're giving me opportunity and permission to switch off as well yeah and so then how do I make sure that in between these moments I go okay what can I do in the 5 Seconds it takes me to go from this room to that room or from this Zoom room to another Zoom room to go that that decompression yes you know G back to that Twin Peaks agent Dale Cooper he his uh thing was every day give yourself a gift yes doesn't matter if it's a a cup of coffee cheeky cigarette whatever it is you know um and there's something about that you got to look forward to these small things and I've just found myself cuz you having been in cell for 29 years it's it's it can be draining Y and uh I've outlived you know all of my contemporaries and what I find is is that you've got to find ways to make things new clean and actually go for example go the holiday and life experiences it enables you to connect with people in a different way 100% and then and then actually so when I'm interviewing people candidates so say you have 10 cand that do the same job and actually technically they're all very similar um what differentiates the the human being is them their personality their backstory and and going back to the whole thing with method acting it's if if you're playing a role you're not just this is the thing that I struggled with when I first did drama was okay so you're playing Duke Corino and 12th night and what do these words mean these words are they're foreign to me but if you were to understand his back story what his childhood was like so one of the books I'm reading at the moment is about how to read horses and connect with horses and how that translates to leadership so if you have a horse that's very nervous or aggressive it's because that horse has experienced things you know as a cult for example um and then if you have anxiety or aggression it's going to clash so the the great horse trainers and Whisperers you know they'll pay you as a horse rider with that horse and the personality so the other day like I used to be quite confrontational when I was younger and um I guess I I I still can be right if if you getting the wrong side of me but but I'm always polite and courteous to people that's that's my goal yeah and I was telling Isaac there's a movie called I think it's this time or about time where this fell and his dad can go back in time okay and there's a moment where he can't because uh his child is born okay he goes back in time again that his child would change each time so he goes back and he has a really horrendous day and at the end of the day he finds out that he actually is good news so he goes back and you see him going into a news agent and there's a woman selling you know chocolates and stuff like that and every day people go in there and they just buy things they never engage it Hi how are you they don't know her name and he's been going in there for 10 years on a daily basis so he decides to change that okay and have an impact on that person's life so every time when I'm you know getting a coffee or whatever I ask people you know and guess what one day it's called going to be their birthday and no one's been nice to them no one's ask them how they're doing no one's no one's even thought of buying them a cup of coffee and next thing you completely change the way you see things yes um and going back to that whole thing with method acting I just find that that's so important so when I meet somebody so this this will crack you up um not that long ago this guy was honking The Hornet me and he was very aggressive and I'm a very good driver very calm dri and so I put the window down and he put the window down he was doing this he was screaming at me and I said having a bad day buddy yeah he goes yes I'm having a flipping bad day what's it to you and I said well look I'm having a pretty bad day A bad week about month my mom's just passed away this is happening and you say this car to car yeah I feel you okay and then you you should see have seen his face the shame came over his face so I said look hope you have a better day sorry if I cut you up which I didn't by the way and then he goes thank you brother I said you have a fantastic day and that was it and I completely deescalate things right but that's it's taken me you know I it's funny that the last the second last time I saw my mom I had an argument with my auntie her sister and I de-escalated it and she said I'm proud of you I said it's only taken 45 years mom and ly got to see it once you know what I mean but I think it's so powerful and talk to me a little bit about the future like you know beyond the immedate what are you planning to do with the business so um current trajectory looks like this where I still will maintain the the acting studio but now I'm exploring uh as I mentioned more opportunities within the the corporate space the training space so I've uh since the last time that we worked together I've expanded my offerings within the U within the corporate training side of things so um not only is there storytelling and pitching there's voice and speech uh a big thing that I'm now um emphasizing is simulated roleplay okay um and how do I how can I help uh leaders design scenarios that um replicate what they might go through on a day-to-day basis be it um negotiating difficult conversations uh trying to manage conflict conflict resolution confli resolution um how do you pitch to people right um how do you pitch to clients of different archetypes do like do do I'm just curious do any of your corporate clients have scripts and they want their guys to learn them some of them and it typically boils down to just singular moments of things it's not like large chunks of stuff um simply because uh uh most clients aren't bought by the large chunks of things they're bought by little moments they're bought by the emotion the story The the eye contact and so how do I help people in these similar roleplay scenarios understand that there are means of building connection there are means of helping someone feel seen like that guy in that car in that moment yeah they a means of helping people understand that um can we create these mini spot contracts in our conversation so that we're not making assumptions about each other yeah such that when we walk away there is that you know the old saying of people don't remember what you said they remember what you did but they always remember how you made them feel 100% that when I leave this transaction with you I feel I got so much value out of it that even if we didn't conclude the deal then and there I just want to be around you more I want to refer someone to you I want to meet you again to see how can we expand what we maybe initially discussed um and and with these similar roleplay scenarios uh I'm doing a lot more of it now with um uh SMU Singapore management University I've since become an associate faculty member there wow to congratulations to create more of these scenarios for different people in in these environments you you know the interesting thing is most people I've met I would say at least 95% of the people that do sales when talk about scripts and learning scripts they make a face so I'm going to prove the point so if I say ba bar black sheit it's a script so the thing for me is when you're learning to present something most people when they're talking they're not selling selling is asking questions but most people that don't have an idea of you know that road map where they want to go in the conversation they're so busy thinking what they need to say next they're not listening to the answer to the question they just asked and you know the prospective client will be giving you the answers of what he or she wants to to need you know what are the problems so I always try and explain that and um you know in theory people get it but they're not prepared to put the work in and you know all the years I did martial arts and and you know the Cutters and the the movements that you're taught I I I think they all make sense but it's how do you how do you go from 1 2 3 4 5 or 1 345 135 in in terms of the point of the conversation what do you drop what do you build in but also the other thing is when you it's like it's like if we're doing a play um you can so for example my guys are calling a candidate so this is what they'll say they said good morning C CL I just confirm you're the director you know and then the key thing is then I said well look use your brain listen to them does it sound like they're outside can you hear ambient noise cars are they inside is the baby crying nine times out 10 they're in the office now if they're in a bank on the trading floor they can't talk because their bosses next to them the thing is most cans just want to get off the phone you know anyone that you know call me back tomorrow next month so I teach my guys to to say immediately you know it sounds like you're in the office I appreciate it's probably very difficult for you to talk can you listen go straight into the pitch right and then and then you say well look why you go to a private meeting room most sales people won't do that can't talk when can to call me back and they'll push it back right so when if if I speak to someone I said well you know you know call me back in this evening I said look no problem I've got three kids Happ to call you before after dinner I'll finished dinner about 9:00 how about half night now nine times out of 10 they realize oh this is a real human being it's a person I don't want to mess them around you know what let's speak before dinner I've got kids as well right and then there's that human connection um but I always feel that script learning maybe for me it started with acting yeah but it's it's linked so if someone says to me how do you differentiate yourself we deliver well what happens if you don't well tell me to [ __ ] off we won't work together again right and it's like the you know but it's quick it's and it's it was the same thing with martial arts and boxing you know and you set things up um but then then when you get past all of that then it's just you and I having a conversation I mean what when as you were explaining to me this um how you're training your staff what I'm hearing and because I see everything through the lens of theater and uh uh theatrical techniques what I'm hearing are are two things what you're doing is you're practicing yes and yes um and and and you're also U creating a spot contract in that moment which is in that moment uh I'm like we're not saying no I'm I'm I'm I'm taking what you're giving me and I'm finding a way to build upon it rather than taking the rejection taking the hit and then I'm also giving you an offer saying Hey listen at uh half n does that work for you which is that spot contract of okay In This Moment it's a quick binary yes no yes okay great that's a win um and by by practicing these spot contracts by practicing this yes end mindset then what you're doing is you are allowing people to feel seen feel heard feel like they in that moment of pressure where they can't really talk yeah someone's actually listening when reaching out to people you know like I reached out to you for a cup of coffee and you were gracious enough to say Yes again that's something that people don't do and you know now in in in in the world that we live in text messages uh have replaced phone calls phone calls replaced meetings but I just think one on one time it's so precious and I'm I'm grateful but listen thank you so much for sharing today is there anything else that you want to cover or discuss we've gone through a lot that's a very big question um well actually I have a question for you ask me um which is if you were to take like what do you know now about sales that you wish you knew when you first started and then in relation to that that you can connect to the world of acting one thing read everything I know it sounds very generic right um a lot of people are auditory or visual I find reading you know I'm dyslexic so I struggle with it but reading underlining things and taking things out so so anything that you read if you extract something from it you'll be able to interject it into anything that you're doing today either in that role if you're acting um in that client or candid you're you're speaking with literally we could go to my bookshelf and take anything out and correlate it should we try sure all right I'll go get okay tell me what show uh one down to the left okay stop uh stop tell me what page to stop 18 18 P 18 my favorite number not 69 okay so here it just said is what's the book for everyone bringing out the entrepreneur and you okay okay so I can only have a very lucky day if I had invested in a relationship that allows me to earn the right to every dollar right so I would I would immediately take from that so if I'm if I'm speaking to a client or can we come back to to acting immediately so let's read again I can only have a very lucky day if I had it invested in a relationship that allows me to earn the right to every dollar so if I look at what we do uh I'm really proud of this in the last 17 and a half years just over 96% of the people we've ever placed they're still working in the companies that we place them with and so I'll give an example when my guys speak to a candidate and if they're head hunting them and the candidate put says look I've just got promoted I'm not interested I've just got a new job most Head Hunters think that's the end of the transaction they put the phone down the sales person put the phone down and that's so the first thing I say C congratulations that's fantastic can you tell me where you're going and say bring we ask about it I said well it's been an absolute pleasure maybe you could be kind enough to help me I'm looking for someone just like you right boom boom boom boom and then you start the relationship you send them a WhatsApp and then on the day that they start say congrats man I'm so glad I didn't know you were going to to that organization I've heard great things so and guess what that that comes back I believe in karma right but if you were to take that into a role right so let's just say one of the roles that you were suggesting I was playing it's one they're both fathers of you know children that had an argument and and then one of them was quite obnoxious and so like why may maybe he's had a bad day maybe he's had pressure at work and he's not delivering maybe maybe he grew up and his dad wasn't very nice to him and you connect the dots so that's why I think information and opening your mind to many different things that's a very long answer that that's a great answer that's a great answer I I um what I'm getting out of of uh that phrase you got out of the book is something that I I try and teach people as well which is when you're interested you're interesting yes it just falls down to that like you know if you're interested in your preparation if you're interested in the story that you're telling if you're in truly interested in the person that you're talking to don't worry about being interesting you'll naturally just be interesting yeah and people will just want to be in your orbit well you know it's like when uh someone the other day asked me what's your diet and um so it's not just what you eat right it's it's your sleep yep what you read you know um how much you smile and laugh like I Believe In Balance so I enjoy a good drink I enjoy a cigar you know I enjoy all those things I enjoy Fitness as well um and and unfortunately I'm not I'm not a professional Sportsman so I can I can do a bit of everything yeah um so yeah I I think investing in people is a big one and I'm invested in you and do you think you do you actually think I've got the balls to do a play yes I do what sort of roles do you think would would I do well and reflect well on me and do you think you would be able to direct me and I'm just curious I I think well I'm going to pitch you a a massive curveball uh with a a wild one yeah is why not do a uh localized version of Death of a Salesman wow Talia is reading that right now oh she is yeah why are all your kids reading the plays that I'm suggesting to you maybe because you know what to you know what to read okay yeah because again it's a father when you say localize you mean in a very Singapore environment and setting localize it enough that people well localize it and slightly modernize it for the context of where we live in today for example back then you know uh um you you buy a pancake for a penny you know versus you know now things cost a little bit more let's adjust a couple of those things maybe even put it within the Singapore and context because the American dream is in many ways no different from the Singaporean dream there are four main uh willly there's Linda there's Biff there's happy and there's a couple of Side characters but in this case uh Willie lman wow because he's the consumate salesman uh he is the father um and is he also very sexy he is extremely sexy and bald oh what what what listen I I'll I'll read it I w't get I won't give myself the 24hour pressure I did last time but I'll read it in the next few days thank you I think think that's something you could do you know you know the the thing this sounds silly but I I I also want to grab someone beat them up yeah and throw people around stage and I have this so yes I have this I love One Tree Hill the soft gentle pot but part of me wants to you know be this rugged Beast of a man you know what you could also do and this is another left fi thing especially since you have roots in boxing but there is a tender heart behind it yes is there's a it's a slightly older play and it's called Golden Boy okay um and it was directed by Lee Strasberg back in the day really and it's the story of a champion boxer who doesn't want to box anymore because what he really wants to do is play the violin wow um and he's caught between two worlds and he's caught up with really bad company and um he's also fallen in love with um uh the boss uh uh uh the mafia boss the mafia boss's uh girlfriend okay he's also caught up really bad is there any uh love scenes cuz I don't think my wife will be okay with that you know Tara dead man walkie we changed the movie well we we'll change some scenes we'll change some scenes but uh yeah that sounds interesting Golden Boy is something that you could do okay let me read that that's beautiful thank you man I really appreciate it my pleasure all right [Music]

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