Building A Creative Life With Intention - A Candid Conversation w/ Shanon Wallace

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Calling all my sweeties to the forefront. I'm your host, Christopher and this is to Keep It Positive Sweetish Show. Welcome to the Keep It Positive Sweeties Show, the space where we taught growth, healing, and becoming in real time. Today's guest is actor, filmmaker and create a storyteller Shannon Wallace. Shannon Wallace is someone whose journey has been shaped both in front of and behind the camera, from photography and filmmaking to standout roles on screen. Today's conversation is about how he's building his career with intention, choosing alignment over noise, and staying grounded as momentum continues to grow. Here, Stanley, please give a very warm welcome to the Shannon Wallace's up. Hi. Yeah, you look into don't you start that starting? I know that's how we started the last week. We did bet Media House this summer and after we finished talking it was a brief interview, I was like, we got to get you on, So I'm so excited to have you on. But this episode I wanted people to get to know you a little better. You're kind of like a little mystery. You like that your.

00:01:13
Speaker 2: Business to day. If anybody can get me out of issues.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: Okay, I appreciate that. So first of all from Long Island, New York, I want to know who young Shannon was like, because right now, like you, he's very funny, You're very funny, Yeah, very funny, outgoing, but then also quirky, had introverted So like, who was a little boy?

00:01:35
Speaker 2: Okay, to be honest with you, I think I am the little boy.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: I think I've separated myself from the this thing.

00:01:47
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I as a kid, I didn't.

00:01:51
Speaker 3: I was weird, Like they felt things was wrong with me because I didn't.

00:01:56
Speaker 2: I didn't. I don't know. I guess I was like I was really attacked my aunt.

00:02:01
Speaker 3: So they tell me that whenever my parents would drop me off with them, because my parents were young, so they you know, they were they had a lot to do, so they would drop me off with their older siblings or whatever, and I would just sit by the door in my coat and just not speak. I would not move until my mom came back. And everybody thought, like, there was this is something wrong with this kid.

00:02:23
Speaker 1: He's just probably didn't have the words with like exactly exactly.

00:02:29
Speaker 2: And I wasn't really not that I was nonverbal, but I didn't speak.

00:02:33
Speaker 3: I think it was just I was really shy. So I didn't speak much growing up. I didn't speak much until I really got to college. And then that's kind of when I came out of my shell, I think, and being on my own and meeting people from different places. Because I was really junior high, middle school, high school, it was it was just sports. It wasn't even school. It was just play sports. Go to school so you could play sports, right, Like, So I didn't have I had friends growing up, Yeah, it was. I was a really shy, quiet kid. And then once I got out of college and came back, everybody was like, what just what happened?

00:03:12
Speaker 2: Who is this guy?

00:03:13
Speaker 1: What happened?

00:03:14
Speaker 2: I don't know. I think I don't know. I don't know that it was ever like a confidence thing.

00:03:21
Speaker 3: Maybe I just didn't you know, what happened is I think, Oh my mom, I don't get in trouble for this. We went we lived in a different district than where we went to school.

00:03:33
Speaker 1: People did that all right.

00:03:34
Speaker 2: So yeah, So.

00:03:35
Speaker 3: I grew up in a neighborhood called Golden Heights, which is like one of the first settled black neighborhoods on Long Island and my family's been there for a very long time, so that's where I grew up. The school I went to was like it was like a PWI, right, they just had a better.

00:03:49
Speaker 2: Education, so we so I would.

00:03:52
Speaker 3: I was raised here and I went to school here, so I didn't go to school with these kids, so I didn't know them. And I only went to school with these kids, so after school, I didn't kick it at nobody house, yeah or anything.

00:04:03
Speaker 2: So I was kind of in between. You know, I would go home and not know these kids because I ain't been in school with them for eight hours, and then vice versa. So I didn't really have friends.

00:04:11
Speaker 3: So I think in college I just made like my first real friendships and became social and learned how to.

00:04:17
Speaker 2: Do the thing, and I just bloomed. I guess blossomed from there for sure. It's weird.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: I love that. So sports was something I feel like in most households, even for me. My parents instilled find something that you want to do in sports or whatever the case may be, but you need to have something. So for me it was competition, cheerleading and gymnastics. But like that structure that it builts, so a lot of us. We grow up knowing like all his sports and school or to be the best that you can be in whatever sport it is. At what point did you realize, hey, I actually have an interest in art and photography and acting and modeling.

00:04:55
Speaker 3: I think I always did, and not in the acting, since not in the performing arts I was. I was a cartoonist, I was an illustrator. When I first got to college, I was animation. Cartooning and animation. I used to draw a lot, so growing up I just excelled in that kind of art. Once I got to school and realized how much drawing it took.

00:05:19
Speaker 2: I was like, this is nuts. And this is before this is kind of like at.

00:05:24
Speaker 3: The turn a little bit of the digital, So we really have to draw these things out.

00:05:31
Speaker 2: It's like flip books, you.

00:05:31
Speaker 1: Know, comic books and comics.

00:05:33
Speaker 2: Right. I'm like, this is a little bit too much.

00:05:35
Speaker 3: So I got out of the program and and.

00:05:39
Speaker 2: In eighth grade, everything always is clearer in hindsight. But in eighth grade, I left basketball practice.

00:05:46
Speaker 3: One time I snuck out to the cafeteria to audition for the play they were doing, Peter Pan.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: I don't know why I did it. I wasn't prepared. I didn't even I just went.

00:05:54
Speaker 3: I waited in line, and then I got on the stage and they were like, prepare, what's your song that you prepared?

00:05:58
Speaker 2: And I was like, what you like song? So they're like, sing anything? So I sung happy Birthday.

00:06:04
Speaker 3: I was like in the librarian was the director. So I was like, happy birthday to whoever it may concern, and everybody starts laughing.

00:06:16
Speaker 2: I'm in eighth grade.

00:06:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then I just left and went back to basketball practice and the music class.

00:06:20
Speaker 2: The next day they were like, yeah, you got it. I was like a lost boy. You were like and then yeah. And then I never did it. I never went to I never know why I audition.

00:06:32
Speaker 3: Now, I kind of, you know, I wanted to, a part of me wanted to, and it was just weird.

00:06:38
Speaker 2: But it wasn't until.

00:06:41
Speaker 3: Modeling came to me because I used to be a social work and I wanted I got into early.

00:06:46
Speaker 2: I was twenty two.

00:06:46
Speaker 3: I'm doing social work and it's like a really heart wrenching gig and I didn't know how to balance it.

00:06:52
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to bring it.

00:06:53
Speaker 3: Home or not bring it home right right, like I didn't know how to leave it in the office.

00:06:57
Speaker 2: So I was like, I got to get out of this thing.

00:07:00
Speaker 3: I just didn't like what I saw in there as far as the system structure of everything.

00:07:06
Speaker 2: It wasn't built to change, you know, and that was really disappointing.

00:07:10
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:07:10
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, So I got out, and uh, I was like I just want more. I'm like, I'm tall, people call me handsome. Let me you know. Stop you said so much just now. But I was like, let me you know, I.

00:07:27
Speaker 1: Got that's what the people said.

00:07:29
Speaker 2: They said, I've been hearing it.

00:07:30
Speaker 3: Yeah no, but I had been scouted and I was like, let me try this modeling thing, and then that bled into the acting. I think I always wanted to act, but I needed a way in and I used modeling as that way.

00:07:43
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:07:44
Speaker 1: I love that, so modeling into acting. The first time I saw you was DR from Detroit, and I was like, they had me, actually do We've talked about it.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: I saw it.

00:07:58
Speaker 1: They had me do a video to promote the show because it's a new show on BT, and I was like, man, this girl DR. She knows how to pick of them, Like you got Morris Chestnut. I was like, you got this guy who I didn't know that I was like Shannon, the guy who just went missing. I was like, I was like, oh, the Manda fine, Like this is great, and it's something about you, like the character in that first season. It was like a quick thing, like a couple of episodes, but your presence alone was so dynamic. It was like you couldn't forget you. It's like when is he coming back?

00:08:34
Speaker 3: Yo?

00:08:34
Speaker 1: So what was it like? Because you've been on the other shows City on the Hill, Beauty in Black, Divorce in the Black, but dr from Detroit was the first show that I saw you on and that was I think the show that kind of pushed you out there talking about that.

00:08:52
Speaker 2: That was the thing. I don't know. Up until that point, had always been on.

00:08:56
Speaker 3: Shows that nobody saw, like great critically acclaimed shows like City on a Hill was a great experience, it's our showtime.

00:09:05
Speaker 2: It's yeah, al this is.

00:09:07
Speaker 1: Kevin Bake and me, isn't that crazy?

00:09:12
Speaker 2: Just said, right you think, I'm like, this is the one, this is you know? And that was my third time like this is the one.

00:09:19
Speaker 4: I just had one of those issues like this is gonna be the one you don't know, you don't know to do the job and then I was telling somebody the other day, you do the job and then you have to let that thing.

00:09:30
Speaker 3: Go because you can't be precious to it. You don't know how it's going to be received. Do the thing, and you just you hope it's good and you hope it leads to another job. Maybe it will be the one.

00:09:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, like so there are from Detroit.

00:09:42
Speaker 3: It came and it still had that feeling because I was in it, but I wasn't in it, you know, and that that was.

00:09:49
Speaker 2: That became important to me and my work. It was like, you have to you have to leave the impact, right, this show is basically about you without.

00:09:58
Speaker 3: You being there remembered. So I had that. That became important to me and that became the task, which made it fun because I wasn't. I didn't get to work with everybody, you know, I had Jar was my only scene partner, right, But that made it fun and it did kind of that thing you you saw me on it, you know, people had saw me on it, and that kind of led to the other stuff, you know. Yeah, but putting the work first, that was my goal. I was like, dude, you ain't gonna get noticed on this thing. You ain't even in it, but make sure that the work is significant enough that they remember you when you're gone and.

00:10:36
Speaker 1: Then they bring you back. And I think that's something that people miss A lot of times. They're like, no, I want the big role. I want something that's more prominent in the show, and you're like, no, like this can eat. I think Carry Washington, they talked about her in Django Unchain had a very Carrie Washington had like such a small role, but she said it was not many times that the black woman got the opportunity to be the damsel in distress. So that's why she wanted to play that role. And a lot of times we missed the moment because we're looking for the big part. And that's good because when you take that, you can turn something even me like, you can turn something small into something really big.

00:11:15
Speaker 2: You constantly do that. Your story is nuts, you're annoying, it's fall teach you. Yeah I'm here, I ain't going nowhere.

00:11:29
Speaker 1: But all right, so modeling acting, but you're also a photographer. Where did that come in? I feel like you just kind of like, Okay, today I'm gonna pick up this. I'm gonna do this today.

00:11:39
Speaker 2: That's kind of how it goes. I build skills, I pick up skills.

00:11:42
Speaker 1: I love that.

00:11:43
Speaker 2: But photography came weirdly enough. I think a lot of the slashes that I keep adding, they.

00:11:50
Speaker 3: Start an ego for some reason. Like I think personally I don't have an ego. I think professionally I have. I have one that I have to keep in check. Yeah, you know, don't co sign it that quick?

00:12:03
Speaker 1: That no, but you said you had to keep it in check. I feel like, yeah, I do not think you had. I don't see it, you said personally. Yeah, that's I'm agreeing with you. Personally, you do not have one?

00:12:15
Speaker 2: Yeah I do.

00:12:16
Speaker 3: But photography started because I was modeling, and I would do these campaigns with like three to six month leadings.

00:12:23
Speaker 2: So I'm doing the job and then it doesn't come.

00:12:26
Speaker 3: Out for another six months. So I'm like, nobody knows that I did the job right. So I would uh tarist Love. He's a photographer that scouted me. He was getting a new camera.

00:12:35
Speaker 2: He gave me his, And what I would do was I would reshoot the campaigns on my own. Wow, I had a tripod, I had a remote. I would shoot me in the closed similar and the environment similar put those pictures in my book until the campaign came out, then replace them.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: Wow. So you kind of was building your own portfolio, building my own so that you could chop and get other jobs in between. Your genius, got it.

00:13:00
Speaker 3: Yeah, I had to hustle, but it comes from egos like, man, I did this thing, and nobody knows I did this thing.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: Right, So I need them to know I did this thing, like at least.

00:13:07
Speaker 2: See me in it right right for now? Yeah?

00:13:11
Speaker 3: And then my agency found out that I was I was the one shooting them, and then that's how the photography journey began. Like this is twenty eleven, twenty twelve. I started shooting myself. I didn't know it was just me in a tripod, and then they start sending me models and then from there I was like this is cool. I got representation and start shooting bigger things.

00:13:31
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:13:32
Speaker 1: I love this. So you've done so many things and your life has taken so many turns as you've navigated this space. What have been some lessons that you learned? Are like some down moments where you were like oo, because a lot of times we see you now and it's like he's on this show. He's on this show. He's doing this, he's doing that, he's on keep it yees is, sweetie. I mean I made it. I was, but they don't see like what it took to get there. Yeah, yeah, what are some of those moments you can share with us?

00:14:02
Speaker 2: Man?

00:14:02
Speaker 3: You know, I think I think I had. I really thank modeling for keeping my head in this whole thing. I always had that and I made a good living off of that.

00:14:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know I had that to rely on. But I had said, I had told myself I'm like a really big like researcher. I don't. I'm not like incredibly impulsive.

00:14:29
Speaker 3: I'm a Gemini.

00:14:31
Speaker 2: So it feels like that a lot of time the eye.

00:14:35
Speaker 3: But because the thing has been, it's been there, and I'm a really big research it's about the time you do. Time I act on it, it looks like it's random, it's really not so. In transitioning into from social work to modeling, I had seen Dave Chappelle on The Actors Studio and he was talking about his one of his parents, maybe his min I wanted him to be a teacher and he went into comedy and he tells her, he goes, if I can make a teacher's salary doing comedy, then I've won. Right, So coming from social work, that was that was my only goal, to make a social worker salary. But spare my heart in this thing, right that was that was it and I've kept it that Like, that's the thing. So everything else it's just the bonus. Like I don't a lot of the things I don't do.

00:15:28
Speaker 2: I do the art for me.

00:15:29
Speaker 3: The commerce part of it is for the family. That's for my siblings from my parents. Like the art of it is where I.

00:15:38
Speaker 2: Find the fulfillment.

00:15:40
Speaker 3: Everything else I just just the social worker salary is really.

00:15:44
Speaker 2: Good for me. Good there.

00:15:46
Speaker 3: You know, I keep I keep life pretty simple, keep it pretty clean. So I think with that mindset, like, yeah, there's hardships of course, Like I we got these strikes, and we got the fires in LA and you know all the things that we're kind of just on the opposite side of a phone. We're just waiting on the phone a lot of times to ring. That drives me crazy. Yeah, you know, for sure, there's a lot of downtime. Even if you look at my resume, I work every.

00:16:15
Speaker 2: Two years, Like it's weird.

00:16:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just I have releases every two years, so I have a lot of downtime.

00:16:21
Speaker 2: Yes, don't particularly like it, like that's it, you know, creatively, it drives me crazy sometimes. But I have photography, you know, I have an art that I can control for sure. Take up that camera and I can aim it at anything. We have to shoot, by the way.

00:16:34
Speaker 1: We do have to shoot. Yes, I would love that we're gonna shoot.

00:16:38
Speaker 2: Okay.

00:16:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been wondering why you haven't asked him to do that. I'm like, that's crazy. You shot somebody else.

00:16:45
Speaker 2: Again, I feel like I might have asked, but I let that rocket.

00:16:47
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, we'll make it happen. I'll be in La. I'll be in La soon. So yeah, I'll het you.

00:16:55
Speaker 2: I believe you.

00:16:56
Speaker 1: Okay. Yeah, Well, speaking of is there any roles that you like have set boundaries on, Like, I'm not doing that.

00:17:06
Speaker 2: Man, talk about ego back to me, ego, here he comes. I did. I did. There was a role. You know. I lost my brother in twenty seventeen, so after.

00:17:25
Speaker 3: Gun violence, right, he was shot and he was killed. So after that, I told myself, I'm never playing.

00:17:32
Speaker 2: That.

00:17:32
Speaker 3: I'm not doing like the street thing. I don't want to you know, put that imagery out there. Then two years after he passed City on the Hill comes. But and I had told people that I wasn't like I had done interviews.

00:17:48
Speaker 2: Like you know, people jumped on it. He was like, he says, no the gun violence.

00:17:51
Speaker 3: And I was like, you know, but yeah, put the City on the Hill comes.

00:17:57
Speaker 2: I'm like, I gotta explain this. The reasoning though, was like, my brother lived really, he lived really fast, like he's We're the same person.

00:18:10
Speaker 3: Inside, but outwardly it looks different. He's really emotional, he's really just wears his heart on his sleeve, and in every way I am the complete opposite like that, right, but inside we're the same. We do the same dumb things, you know, It's just he his was outward. So then reading the scripts for City on a Hill, I'm like, this guy's a you know, he's a street guy, but he's.

00:18:36
Speaker 2: Also a big brother and he's a son.

00:18:38
Speaker 3: And that was for the first time that I had seen in a series them actually go home at the end of the night. You do you sell all these drugs, you shoot all these people, but you go home at the end of the night. And you're a older brother and your son, and we saw what that dynamic was and we saw what his motivations were, and to me, it was really important to tell that side of the story.

00:18:58
Speaker 2: It was more important that was that's the reason.

00:19:01
Speaker 3: You don't do these things because you want to grow up like this is where I want to end up. You do them because of the situations and the environment that you're in, and you know all of these factors, and for the first time we had got to explore what those things were.

00:19:15
Speaker 2: So it was a story that I needed to tell, you know, and reading it it was more powerful.

00:19:21
Speaker 3: Telling this story to me was more powerful than me not you know, and I had to be the one to do it, you know.

00:19:26
Speaker 2: What I mean. So yeah, so I did say, you know, I ain't never going to do it, and then I ended up doing But it was presented in a way that even I couldn't have imagined. You know, I stopped saying no to things early on, because you don't know your wants is where that's what gets you.

00:19:45
Speaker 1: That's exactly.

00:19:46
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:19:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, you did open up about losing your brother, and so many people have lost siblings and family members to gun violence. What was that? Where were you in that moment? Like when you got the call.

00:20:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was crazy. Yeah, it was nuts. I'll never forget it. It was.

00:20:04
Speaker 3: It was two twenty five am.

00:20:07
Speaker 2: I lived in Queen's. My family's from Long Island. It was two twenty five am.

00:20:13
Speaker 3: And my stepdad calls me and you know, you get it in the middle of the night.

00:20:17
Speaker 2: You hear that phone, You see who it is. You don't call me right, like, oh man, here we go. And it was, you know, it was gave me the news. And he was very he was very quick with it.

00:20:30
Speaker 3: It was one sentence and got off the phone and then I just chroz and I was like what.

00:20:37
Speaker 2: It took a second to hit me. It was so weird. It was so weird.

00:20:41
Speaker 3: And then my phone started ringing. So now I'm like, okay, I got a I don't know, I.

00:20:48
Speaker 2: Know he's been shot. Yeah, my stepdad called said your brother's been shot. He didn't make it, that's all he said. Gave me. He gave it to me like straight.

00:20:56
Speaker 3: He was in shock, come to find out. Like so, I'm you know, every.

00:21:01
Speaker 2: Scenario is going through my head.

00:21:02
Speaker 3: I'm like what And then my dad calls me and my dad is talking too fast. I'm like what he was at a casino, like he wasn't. That's just what I heard, So I'm confused. I hopped in an.

00:21:14
Speaker 2: Uber and I went out.

00:21:17
Speaker 3: You know, I went out to the island and met everybody. My entire family was there, and we kind of just you know, we dealt with it.

00:21:25
Speaker 2: And then and then I didn't deal with it. You know, it was so weird. I wish I could play back. I'm the oldest of five and I didn't know.

00:21:37
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to handle something like that, like me, my brother, and then have three younger sisters, and I just wanted I wanted to kill somebody like myself. I really had to remove myself, so I wasn't there for my sisters.

00:21:52
Speaker 2: I really had to go away. I took the car and I just left, and I was gone for a long time.

00:21:58
Speaker 3: So I wasn't I wasn't there when they got the news. I wasn't there for them when they got the news. So that is that's that kills me today. You know, it drives me nuts. But I didn't know any other way to handle.

00:22:08
Speaker 2: It, Like, how how do you like?

00:22:11
Speaker 3: I just I wanted to go on a spree, right, But you know, I just needed to find.

00:22:19
Speaker 2: I don't even want to say peace. I didn't find piece. It took it. It took me a very long time to find peace. But I just needed to remove myself from everybody. And then when I came back, it was Okay, what do we do next? How do we know about this? That's playing this thing right? Yeah?

00:22:34
Speaker 1: Did you ever have to go through any therapy to really like deal with the guilt and those thoughts that you had?

00:22:39
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:22:40
Speaker 3: I never pulled the trigger on it. I knew that I should, but I never I never did. I think I don't know. I thought I could man through it. I thought I could, you know, control this thing, because there was a lot of I'll tell you at that At the same time, I'm like, is really good? And then acting took off the next year, and I see it happen to people all the time, where this traumatic thing happens and then they just catapult them to these new heights, and it happened to me. So I'm working and I'm like, I'm good.

00:23:18
Speaker 2: This is cool.

00:23:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:23:19
Speaker 3: The problem with that, though, is specifically in the way that my brother was killed is we didn't know who did it. So now I'm out and about and people are recognizing me and that I can't tell what kind of stare that is. So now and I'm still enraged, right, I still have this thing driving me nuts.

00:23:41
Speaker 2: So I couldn't be in public.

00:23:43
Speaker 3: So then that I had a show called American Soul that came out and it was decently received, and I, you know, it was my first big thing. I couldn't enjoy that because I didn't know. I wasn't comfortable around people. Anybody could have been the one that, you know, and now I got people looking at me from across the.

00:24:03
Speaker 2: Room and look at me. It's a whole different thing.

00:24:07
Speaker 3: I had to I left the business I had. I said, I don't want this thing.

00:24:11
Speaker 2: I can't. I don't know how to deal with that because I'm still you know, I'm still seeing red. Yes, you know, I had to. I left. I left the entire year of twenty nineteen. That's why if you look at my resume, I went every two years. Right, there's gas. That was the reason for that gap.

00:24:29
Speaker 3: But it wasn't until City on a Hill that I was able to work through that thing. Because there was a scene where my character, his younger brother, gets in trouble. He's cornered, they got him, they pull guns, Big Bro pulls up, just start shooting.

00:24:50
Speaker 2: Saves his brother gets there in time.

00:24:53
Speaker 3: Performing that thing, and my body feeling what that felt.

00:24:57
Speaker 2: Like saved me really did, because it did.

00:25:03
Speaker 3: It was it was nuts, but being able to perform that thing, getting my nervous system, putting my nervous system through that thing, yeah, was my therapy.

00:25:14
Speaker 2: I was okay after that.

00:25:15
Speaker 3: I shot it that day, I shot that scene. That day, I went home, I cried, and the next day I'm fine.

00:25:21
Speaker 1: That was your therapy.

00:25:22
Speaker 2: That was my therapy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I do I do recommend. I do recommend grief therapy. That was for me. That was a little over two years later.

00:25:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, I probably could have gotten there a lot sooner, but I just had I don't know, there was so many things that, you know, toxic masculinity. I'm sure.

00:25:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have something to do with it.

00:25:42
Speaker 1: Like you know when you said I can push through this, I can man through it like that. I think that's something that a lot of our black men try to do with a lot of situations in life. Yeah, and then something comes and hits you head on where you're like, I gotta deal with this, I.

00:25:55
Speaker 2: Gotta confront, I gotta in front. And you know what another thing is like I have a lot of.

00:26:01
Speaker 3: I have a lot of women in my life, like I have all aunts, Like I don't have any uncles by birth, marriage, my whole family, and they were even my friendships just solid.

00:26:19
Speaker 2: My foundation is really solid. And I give a lot of it to them because I wasn't easy. I wasn't an easy person to deal with during that time.

00:26:27
Speaker 1: I can imagine I.

00:26:28
Speaker 3: Wasn't and and all of them stuck by me. And you know, we're accessible when I needed them.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: Shout out to the women in Yes, shout out to black women. I love that you are now a writer, a director telling your own stories. You are. We're going to talk about it, but I want to know has your life and how you've seen storytelling told from other people's perspectives, is that what push you to start writing and directing your own?

00:27:01
Speaker 2: Ego goes neck.

00:27:03
Speaker 1: I love how honest you are. He's like, ego, I can do that. Let's talk about it.

00:27:08
Speaker 2: That's okay, Yes, I'll pick that up. Back to acting.

00:27:13
Speaker 3: The reason I chose acting is I lived in Vegas after college and I was living.

00:27:19
Speaker 2: With a boxer. It's an old friend of mine and uh one of his best friends is Lorenz Tate.

00:27:25
Speaker 3: Okay, so we had a memorial date barbecue in the back of the crib.

00:27:29
Speaker 2: I'm, you know, shooting hoops ball. It's like a movie. Ball rolls off the court. I'm following the ball hit somebody's feet. I look up or I look down.

00:27:40
Speaker 1: Look you did not look up.

00:27:42
Speaker 2: Look And it was Lorenz And I'm like, oh, snap, Like whoa buddy? Like because for me, no friends everything. Love Jones of my favorite movies to this day.

00:27:55
Speaker 3: So at the time, this was the This is also the first person I ever met that was on TV. I was like eight, it's like twenty. I turned twenty one in Vegas. So I'm you know, and it was meeting him that oh.

00:28:08
Speaker 2: Wow, and no offense. It's like this is just the guy, Like this is this is the guy, but you're just the guy.

00:28:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:28:18
Speaker 2: That thing in me that I have a really competitive thing. If you can do it, I can do it. Like if you can do it, I can do it.

00:28:26
Speaker 3: That's the thing that sparked me. So I went back to college. I took out all the books on acting, and.

00:28:30
Speaker 1: That's what kind of research got me there.

00:28:33
Speaker 3: So with with writing, it's almost the same thing, except with the acting. Up until well now today, I'm not really I still don't feel like anybody's let me act.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: I never got a chance to act. I do this thing and it's really specific, and they keep hiring me to do the thing.

00:28:55
Speaker 3: But to me, it's like, you know, right, like nobody knows how good of an actor I am.

00:29:03
Speaker 2: Still I know, but nobody knows. I don't get the opportunity. So I wrote.

00:29:10
Speaker 3: What I feel like was an opportunity for myself. So I wrote this this film Channels with I filled it with five characters, five archetypes that I was like, that'll be cool. And then I got colored these characters in ways that I feel they should be colored, you know, like fine, fine strokes instead of the broad strokes, you know, And yeah, yeah.

00:29:35
Speaker 2: That that's what That's what drove me to it.

00:29:39
Speaker 3: And then in writing it, I just figured I had to direct it. Tyler, I'm coming out of like coming out of TPS.

00:29:48
Speaker 1: Like I can do everything project.

00:29:50
Speaker 2: I was like, if you can do it, I can do it. And I told them that the same thing. For sure.

00:29:55
Speaker 3: There's a little toxic in there, but I needed you know, if you can do this thing, I can do this thing.

00:30:01
Speaker 2: The guy really at.

00:30:02
Speaker 1: The end of the day, I can do that.

00:30:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, do that.

00:30:04
Speaker 1: He inspires a lot of people to go bigger than what they thought, you know, get out of the box and do it.

00:30:10
Speaker 2: I told him, I'm gonna catch you. He was like, you can try.

00:30:15
Speaker 1: Try.

00:30:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he.

00:30:17
Speaker 1: Wants you to try, you know, he does, and he pushes you to try. That's what. Yeah.

00:30:22
Speaker 2: So I called him. As soon as I made a decision about directing. I called him. I said, hey, man, give me advice.

00:30:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:30:27
Speaker 2: He was like, own it.

00:30:29
Speaker 1: I love that. You just crazy just called Berry It's nuts and be like, hey, I'm doing this thing. What should I do?

00:30:36
Speaker 2: How do I do it? Yeah, you've done all of the things. How do I do this thing? Yeah? This thing?

00:30:42
Speaker 3: And he didn't give me directing advice because he's like, you don't need that, you need the executive.

00:30:47
Speaker 2: Ad Yep, own it. I love that.

00:30:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:30:51
Speaker 1: We shot that. It was that to three days and two days, two days. Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, you have to. Well, in this season of my life, I'm very intentional about creating with my friends, and I think that we are the future of filmmaking, and it's up to us. Now that we have these seats, what are we doing with it?

00:31:14
Speaker 2: You know?

00:31:14
Speaker 1: So when I heard you were doing I'm like, let's go crazy.

00:31:19
Speaker 2: I did.

00:31:20
Speaker 1: Yes, it was so good. I'm so excited about it.

00:31:22
Speaker 2: I can't wait for I can't either.

00:31:23
Speaker 1: It's gonna be amazing. But you also have a new project, a story about you that is going to be premiering a slam dance. Let's talk about that. I'm excited that you have. You're just doing a lot of things. I thought I didn't know you had something else you were working on too.

00:31:37
Speaker 2: So yeah, working, Yeah, I've been producing for a while. But that's that's like behind the scenes. But are you in this tuies? Yeah? Okay, so yeah I'm in this one. Yeah. This was so Yeah.

00:31:53
Speaker 3: This this film is about It's about a man who, in the course of a week, the five women he's done with all leave him for different reasons.

00:32:03
Speaker 2: So this is it's like a he's a serial dater and he's uh, you know, he's flawed, and they all point out a different flow and he discovers himself through these women, and it's about uh, his journey towards Why are you laughing? Why I took it? Why relate? What's the draw? Yeah? No, I saw me.

00:32:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was nuts when it came, I was I had to Yeah, I had to do it. It was I saw myself on that page, and not not because I juggle people, you know, like I've I've been in many, many, many, many long term relationships, but I don't take time in between, you know.

00:32:58
Speaker 2: And that was that was the thing. It was I.

00:33:00
Speaker 3: Learned something from this relationship, and I carry it and I want to put it into practice on the next one immediately, immediately. And I saw that in this guy, like these women are teaching you. Each one of them is teaching you something about yourself. So I've learned. I've probably learned more about myself the relationship than any other avenue, you know.

00:33:20
Speaker 2: So I needed to tell this guy's story. So yeah, we shot this. It's a it's a Brooklyn love story. It's yeah, it's in New York.

00:33:29
Speaker 4: Ya.

00:33:29
Speaker 1: It all felt like I'm sure like me on this page.

00:33:33
Speaker 2: When I'm reading this guy, it was nuts. He's a writer, you know, he's a he's an artist. He's a writer, he's a he's a Brooklyn dude who's.

00:33:43
Speaker 3: Just love life was in shambles, you know, but he wants to he wants to do it the right way.

00:33:48
Speaker 2: He wants to learn these things, you know, these women.

00:33:52
Speaker 3: It was also an opportunity for me where I saw it as an opportunity to spotlight these whoever these actresses were going to be the majority of the film. The film is told in vignettes, so it's it's through that this this like really romantic language that the writer Denisio lenn she she's incredible. But the way that she had written this dialogue about these these women telling this guy about himself, it was it was wrapped in poetry.

00:34:21
Speaker 2: It was almost like soliloquies. So just providing a space for these women to say the words, you know, and just being on the receiving end, it is something that I just needed personally, but professionally, I was like, let's shine the light on these these actresses, you know, like let's and they all killed it. They all killed it. So yeah, we premiere on slam Dance next month, which that's nuts. We weren't expecting, really we weren't.

00:34:50
Speaker 1: No, I think great that stuff like that happens when you're not expecting it.

00:34:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really came out of nowhere. Yeah.

00:34:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, we had been working on it for three years almost and you know, our first festival run, we just didn't We weren't happy with the product. So we went back into the edit for it to be like, you know, accepted and redeemed in that way.

00:35:13
Speaker 2: It was as a producer that was incredible.

00:35:15
Speaker 1: I love that.

00:35:16
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love that.

00:35:17
Speaker 1: So this is the perfect segue to talk about love. Yeah, let's talk about it, Shannon. Yeah, sir, because I know the ladies want to know. They already speculate that we go together.

00:35:29
Speaker 2: We don't. We don't.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: We don't go together.

00:35:31
Speaker 2: We do not we don't go together. Yeah, stay with me. We don't go to Okay anymore. Know your people are crazy, They're crazy.

00:35:46
Speaker 1: So I know everyone wants to know, like about your love life. You know, you are the heart thrive. They want to know what does Shannon have going on?

00:35:55
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:35:56
Speaker 1: Are you in a relationship? Are you single?

00:35:59
Speaker 4: Are you dating?

00:36:01
Speaker 2: I am yes, I'm taking exclusive?

00:36:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay it yeah, if anybody gonna get exclusive, I appreciate that.

00:36:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I am taking I'm very happy.

00:36:21
Speaker 1: I love that. I'm so happy for you. Friend. That really Okay, So you said the movie a story about you kind of mirrored your old habits. Have what did you learn from that and that you're carrying into this new relationship.

00:36:41
Speaker 2: From the film, Yeah, into.

00:36:43
Speaker 1: Your real life. We're keeping it personal.

00:36:46
Speaker 2: Shut up and listen.

00:36:47
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.

00:36:50
Speaker 3: No, really, though, I I choose people who.

00:36:57
Speaker 2: Are smarter than me, like in many ways, and and I don't know, I don't know if it's a Gemini thing.

00:37:06
Speaker 3: I have, I have gut, and I have I have three I have gut, I have had, I have you know, and they're they're constantly conflicting, like one tries to rationalize the other tries to rationalize the other, and they're always fighting each other. And to me, with me, it presents that presents as mood, like it presents as shift or change when I'm each when I'm in each of one of these, you know. But what I'm learning is that the women that I've been with, the women that I've spent like the most time with, identify that thing before I do. Wow, you know, like they're they're just smarter than me in that way. So I'm learning to listen earlier to that thing where they diagnose it. They see it and they're like, you're doing this thing. I know why you're doing this thing, And now I'm just listening to that instead of just tracking it down and making it make sense for me, right, you know, like that's the most valuable thing that I'm finding.

00:38:23
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it's.

00:38:27
Speaker 3: Weird because I'm still learning and I'm like kind of almost lost the thing because of that, you know, almost lost the person. Yeah, because of that thing and ego yea.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: And women go through the same thing, like, yeah, there are times I have to talk myself out of like a thought because I'm about to miss this thing up. You know. We can get in our heads too, for sure.

00:38:56
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I live up there. I live up there.

00:39:00
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm I'm I'm learning, but I'm really optimistic. Like I've never had a bad relationship.

00:39:07
Speaker 2: I've always had. Every one of my relationships is a success. Like my shortest is three years.

00:39:13
Speaker 3: Well yeah, you said like your long term things three three, six, four, Yeah, it's yeah, I'm learning, but I'm excited. I've learned a lot. I think I got it, you know.

00:39:27
Speaker 1: I.

00:39:30
Speaker 2: Hope so I do. Because there is something about me too, is that I don't date just the date, like.

00:39:36
Speaker 1: Come on and talk about it.

00:39:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good. Don't so you date to stop dating?

00:39:43
Speaker 3: Like take me off the market please, Like I'm talking.

00:39:49
Speaker 2: Like that is that is always my intention going in. It's not get me the streets. I'm trying to like every person that I choose is my person.

00:39:59
Speaker 1: U you know, Oh my god, we were one in the same Shannon, Like literally I knew that. Where have you been? Like I do that?

00:40:09
Speaker 2: Don't do that, don't do that.

00:40:12
Speaker 1: But like seriously, I'm the same way, like you're my person until you are not. Yeah, I get that.

00:40:19
Speaker 2: That's also tricky.

00:40:21
Speaker 3: That's also tricky because it's not a lot of people think like that, and people kind of grow in relationship and I just throw it all at you from the jump because I'm locked in, Yes, this is.

00:40:32
Speaker 2: What it is. Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:35
Speaker 1: Would you classify yourself as a hopeless romantic?

00:40:46
Speaker 2: Why are you laughing?

00:40:47
Speaker 1: Because I am, oh.

00:40:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopeless romantic.

00:40:53
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:40:53
Speaker 3: I crave intimacy. I crave closeness in a physical sense, but also in that in love of sense and that thing. I'm yeah, I'm addicted to it. I can say that like I'm addicted to that hopeless romantic. Nobody's ever called me romantic, so I'm like, can I call myself like it's weird?

00:41:18
Speaker 1: Do you feel like you're so you're not really like? Do you not like you're so romantic? So you don't like? Do you get flowers?

00:41:27
Speaker 2: Things I've learned?

00:41:29
Speaker 1: Smart man, smart Let me tell you.

00:41:33
Speaker 2: I was just having this conversation. Let me explain this to you. The thing.

00:41:37
Speaker 3: Okay, I was in a relationship, like all relationships, and she wants flowers, and I'm okay, okay, you want flowers, right?

00:41:46
Speaker 2: Why do you want flowers?

00:41:47
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter why she wants the.

00:41:49
Speaker 2: Flowers, all all the same. Listen, check this out. Why do you you with me? Why did you want these flowers?

00:41:58
Speaker 3: You don't even know why you want them, but you do. And I think the reason you want them is it's consideration, right, Yeah, So I can give you that consideration in different ways than just these flowers.

00:42:10
Speaker 2: These flowers amative.

00:42:12
Speaker 3: If I'm just doing it because you ask me for it, how about it's not tell me more?

00:42:17
Speaker 1: Okay? For me, I love fresh flowers. It's something about walking into my kitchen or my living room and like seeing a fresh bouquet of flowers even for me, like I'll go to the store and make my own arrangement if I have to. I'd love flowers that much. But the thought of my man like just sending me flowers because he thought of me, or I'm so proud of you. You just accomplish something and I want to let you know that I see you. It is the consideration. But also if there's probably some things that she may not understand that you want done, and she's not going to be like, I'm just doing it because you asked me to do it. I'm doing it because this makes you happy and this makes you feel considered.

00:42:59
Speaker 2: Okay, so get the flowers. Well, at the end of the day, I'm getting the flowers. Just have a hard time with why I'm getting this.

00:43:06
Speaker 1: Right because it makes her heavy bottom line.

00:43:09
Speaker 2: Yes see, but you actually love flowers.

00:43:12
Speaker 1: I do right, like flowers.

00:43:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that tracks. But if you don't love flowers and you love the act of receiving flowers, I think I can I can scratch that. It's in a lot more ways. I'm going to do the flowers.

00:43:23
Speaker 1: But maybe if it's consideration, if that's the root the root of.

00:43:27
Speaker 3: It, consideration, let's let's diversify, so I'm not just doing this thing out of habit Oh for sure.

00:43:33
Speaker 2: No, you know yeah, I like that.

00:43:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. You got like, what's your wife tell me about?

00:43:38
Speaker 2: I understand, I'm getting the flowers. I just got to let you know flowers I'm at I'm at the flowers.

00:43:48
Speaker 1: Shot right, send her flowers today, just because I promised you. It'll be worth it next time you see her. Thank you so much, did an incredible conversation. We are going to support you and everything you have going on. Can you please let our audience know. I mean they already support you there, they troll you every day. Yeah, but how can we really support you?

00:44:12
Speaker 2: Yeah? I got yes, cool man, thank you? Yeah, thank you? I got we have channels.

00:44:17
Speaker 1: Yes, we have channels.

00:44:19
Speaker 2: We have channels. That's a short film that'll be be out. We're any edit. I just saw our locked cut.

00:44:25
Speaker 1: Really, you're incredible, very excited.

00:44:29
Speaker 2: You're going to thank you. It's great. Yeah, that'll be out middle of the year. The story about You is.

00:44:35
Speaker 3: Premier in that slam Dance February twenty first and twenty fourth, wow uh Jahn from Detroit season two hopefully coming this spring. It'll be this year, but we don't know when exactly, hopefully spring.

00:44:48
Speaker 1: We're excited about that, very excited about that. And you're in it? Are you in it?

00:44:54
Speaker 2: A mi inute? Okay?

00:44:55
Speaker 1: Right? Yeah, like you more than like.

00:44:58
Speaker 2: You know, I'll tell you. Like, Actually, I had said earlier that I hadn't really gotten a chance to act. They really threw Uh. They threw the book at me this season. They really trusted me.

00:45:11
Speaker 3: Because they had heard me voicing this thing that I really wasn't given the opportunity, and they let me do something that nobody's ever let me do before.

00:45:19
Speaker 1: Shout out dr K Patrick.

00:45:21
Speaker 2: Shout out d R K Patrick.

00:45:24
Speaker 3: Miles like, yeah, they threw they threw so much at me.

00:45:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I cannot wait to see you.

00:45:32
Speaker 2: It's so good. Yeah, and that is I love it. And then we got we got a shoot coming up, you and I.

00:45:40
Speaker 1: Yes, photo shoot. It's crazy.

00:45:43
Speaker 2: And we're going to do other things together too.

00:45:45
Speaker 1: I can't wait.

00:45:46
Speaker 2: We're gonna make movies and oh yeah, we're going to do things. I need to learn from you. Thank you.

00:45:52
Speaker 1: I'm here and learn from you as well, Shane. I appreciate you.

00:45:56
Speaker 2: You look good.

00:45:56
Speaker 1: Thank you you two free. Yeah, today's conversation as a reminder that growth doesn't always happen all at once. Sometimes it happens while you're still trying to figure it out in real time. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of the Keep It Positive Sweety Show. Be sure to subscribe, share this episode with someone who needs it and is always stay blessed and stay encouraged and keep it Positive, Sweety. I'll see you all next time.