Bates Motel

Pop culture junkies will recognize actress Jaime Ray Newman from her incredible catalog of on-screen performances that span both film and television, and while she considers herself an actress first, it is her work as a producer that is enabling her to now control her own creative destiny.

“If you want to be a storyteller, you have to take responsibility to tell stories that you feel passionate about also,” she said in an exclusive interview with TrunkSpace.

After taking home the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film in 2019 for Skin, she and her producing partner Guy Nattiv, who is also her husband, have a packed slate of projects in development – 14 by the current count. On camera, Newman can be seen in the recently-released Hulu series Little Fires Everywhere opposite Reese Witherspoon and in the film Valley of the Gods, arriving on VOD August 11.

We recently sat down with Newman to discuss chasing down the producing bug, creating in the time of Covid, and why she loves playing baddies.

TrunkSpace: As a producer, you won the Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film alongside of your producing partner and husband Guy Nattiv. Is that where your journey beyond acting began?
Newman: Well, I’m an actress first, but in a way, especially now, I feel like you can’t just do one thing. You just can’t. It’s too competitive. But even beyond that, you have to take some responsibility. If you want to be a storyteller, you have to take responsibility to tell stories that you feel passionate about also.

TrunkSpace: So it helps you control your own creative destiny?
Newman: Of course. As an actor, you are sitting around, you are auditioning 95 percent of the time. You look at these success stories, they’re like one out of a billion. Careers ebb and flow, and if you want to be busy in the artistic process, you have to be creating your own content. I was lucky that I met Guy 10 years ago. I had always wanted to produce – the first thing I produced was when I was in high school. They let me graduate high school a half a year early, a semester early, because I was producing plays. I used my bat mitzvah money. There was a play that I wanted to do called Keely and Du. Every year they would pick a production to produce and they wouldn’t produce the script because it had to do with abortion, and they thought it was too controversial. So I was like, “Okay…” and I literally took this $3,000 from my bat mitzvah account and rented a theater, turned it Equity and hired adult actors in the adult roles. And my dad actually directed it. (Laughter)

TrunkSpace: Wow. What a commitment, especially at that age.
Newman: It was a life changing experience for me. I loved it. So when I came to LA, I got really swept up. I got on a soap opera right away. I started acting pretty consistently straight out of the gate, but I always had the producing bug. I just didn’t know the material. I had trouble finding the material. So when I met Guy, I loved his work in Israel. And before we even fell in love as two humans, we started working on an American-Israeli collaboration together. And it was through that. The project never happened, but we fell in love. I mean, he’s my muse, and I’m his muse. We’re like mutual muses.

TrunkSpace: So in order to stay in the creative process, how important has it been to have these projects to work on during the pandemic? Has it been more apparent this year just how critical it is to control your own artistic destiny?
Newman: Yes. I wake up every morning thanking the stars, Guy, whoever you want to say. When you’re just an actor, you are completely at the mercy of someone else. And I couldn’t bear that. Guy and I are so fucking busy. I mean, I could show you in our office, we have a board with all of our projects. We have 14 projects. We are in development nonstop. We are the busiest we’ve ever been right now. Would I love to be on set, acting? Would I love to be auditioning for things? Yes, but I do feel creatively satisfied because our projects are heavily in development right now.

TrunkSpace: Would those projects not be as far along in development if you did not have this time of extended lockdown to focus on them?
Newman: That’s a great question. There’s two projects, one that came to us through our agents, and one that Guy and I – it’s a true story – that we were actually going to do as our next short. And because of lockdown, a production company said, “Listen, we will give you the development resources to write this. Just forget the short and go straight into the feature. Guy, write the feature.” And that would not have happened. We wouldn’t have had time. It’s an amazing story. And I think that it’s happening – Guy writing it – because of lockdown.

TrunkSpace: In looking at the projects you have in development, many of them are based on real people and real circumstances. For a producer, is there such a thing as a “producer’s voice” like there is for a writer?
Newman: One hundred percent. These are great questions. Hello, Terry Gross. (Laughter)

I think that our slate is pretty eclectic, but every piece of content that we are developing has some sort of social message – social or political. Just entertainment or escapism, I think is very important, it’s just not the stuff that we’re interested in producing. It takes years – decades – to make a project, and for us to spend that much time, literally for free, working on something, it has to have a deeper, more significant meaning.

We have a project about the first stunt woman in Hollywood called A Stunt Woman. It’s about Julie Ann Johnson. It took us almost two years to get her life rights. She wanted nothing to do with Hollywood anymore because she had been blacklisted for outing all of the bad behavior. And the thing that we love about this project is that it’s fun, wild and it’s set in the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. It’s a period piece, crazy stunt work, all women, bad-ass, like Tarantino-esque, but it has the social underpinnings. The underlying foundation of it is a Norma Rae kind of woman, who couldn’t take it anymore and took the system by storm, and was punished for it, but changed our business forever because of it, for the better.

TrunkSpace: And it’s a story that, in many ways, has kind of been lost to history.
Newman: One hundred percent. She was the first Me Too movement. She was on the cover of TV Guide in 1978, and everyone gave her kudos for two weeks, and then everyone went back to business as usual.

TrunkSpace: One thing that is great about all of the projects that you and Guy are working on, and this includes Skin, is that they feel like the kind of movies we USED to be able to see before everything was a franchise or based on an existing brand. How important are things like VOD and streaming platforms to projects like those that you two have in development?
Newman: I am so grateful for the streamers. I think that independent cinema is going to survive because of the streamers. I really hope that there is still a world for not just Marvel movies in the theaters after we survive this pandemic. There’s an amazing article that our producer wrote – he produced Skin with us, and our next project, Harmonia, is also with him – a guy named Oren Moverman. He just was interviewed by the Hollywood Reporter on the state of independent cinema right now and the streamers. And you should just read it because he’s so intelligent and has such a pulse on what’s happening.

But, Harmonia is our next film. I really want to see it on a big screen. It hasn’t been made yet, but it’s something that I really want to witness on a big screen, just like Roma. We sought out Roma in the theater and went to see it. And I have friends who are like, “I fell asleep watching Roma.” And I’m like, “Did you watch it on your couch at home?”

TrunkSpace: Yeah, that’s true. It’s easy to not be as invested in a film when you are in the comfort of your own home.
Newman: You didn’t have the experience of it. It’s the Ikea theory, that if you build it… if you buy it and put your time and effort into it – tears into it – you’ll appreciate it more. It’s psychological in a way.

But these streamers… I was in Little Fires Everywhere, and it is very cinematic, but at the same time, Hulu paid for a 10-hour movie. No one’s going to go to a movie theater to see a 10-hour movie, but Lynn Shelton was able to make a 10-hour movie. So the streamers are allowing us to do that. Would I love to see A Stunt Woman on a big screen? Yeah, but am I so grateful that we potentially get to make this big, epic saga, but in a televised way, where you have to see it at home? I’ll take that trade off.

TrunkSpace: There are just so many ways for people to find a project today, which of course can be a double-edged sword. Really, all you can do is make the film or project that you want to make and then hope it finds its audience and connects with people.
Newman: That’s it. Because, like I said, you have to do so much work for free, and it takes decades and years, and you dedicate your life to something that you want to go see. And the truth is, the short was only made because we found Byron Widner, who Skin, the feature, is based on, 10 years ago. It was based on a documentary on MSNBC about the tattoo removal process, and it took us years. Guy wrote the script and every producer in town passed on it. We started shopping it in the summer of 2016 and everyone was like, “Hillary Clinton is about to become president. Racism died with Obama. This stuff doesn’t exist anymore.” Guy and I were like, “What are you talking about? We just spent years of research. Of course this shit exists.” And that’s why we made the short as a proof of concept to get the feature made.

TrunkSpace: When you’re acting in a project that you’re also producing, does actress Jaime ever butt heads with producer Jaime in terms of what they both want to achieve?
Newman: I will get back to you in about a year. (Laughter)

With Skin, the short, we paid for it with our retirement funds. I was such a basket case on that set because every one minute of overtime was coming out of our retirement money. I was such a mess on that set for the five-day shoot. There’s no way I could have acted in it. There’s no way. In the feature, there was a moment in time when I was going to play Julie, the female role, but we met Danielle Macdonald on the short and she was so perfect. She was so authentic. She’s so good. Both Guy and I were just like, “This is Julie.” There’s this quality to her that really is the real woman. And I think that it was such a learning experience for me shooting the feature that I’m glad I was just a producer on it.

When I did Little Fires Everywhere, Reese Witherspoon and I spoke mostly about producing, and I watched her juggling – on the phone producing and then she had her quiet space for the work. What I’ve learned is that producing is extremely chaotic. It is just wrangling in the chaos. Acting is very still. It is very focused. Even when you have a chaotic scene… they call it relax-itration, a relaxed concentrated nature, because then creativity can flow. So I have amazing examples of badass producers who’ve done it in the past, and I’ll just figure it out.

TrunkSpace: What is one lesson that you learned in making Skin that you’re going to apply to the next project?
Newman: Don’t invest your own money. (Laughter) I can’t even say that, because we changed our lives. I tell the story all the time. Guy was having so much trouble launching his career in the US. It had been five or six years. He hadn’t made a movie, nothing we were working on was being made, and we went to our financial advisor, sent him the short and we said to him, “We have a short, and we don’t know how to raise money for a short. Do you think that we should put our own money into it?” He was like, “No.” And then we said, “Can you read the script? I know you don’t normally read movie scripts, but it’s 20 pages. Can you read it?” And he called us Monday morning, and he was like, “You have to make this.”

TrunkSpace: You have been in so many great television series over the course of your career. What is one character you wished you had more time to spend with and explore further?
Newman: I played this crazy, werewolf basically, in Grimm. She was like this motorcycle-riding, leather-clad Blutbad. I did a couple episodes of that. I was supposed to do more, but then I think a show that I was on got picked up, and so they had to kill me off. I love playing the bad-asses. I don’t get cast in them that often, but I really like them. Even in Midnight, Texas, I started off as this sort of like Southern genteel, and then you find out that she’s just evil incarnate – this old thousand-year-old she-devil. I like playing the baddies.

Skin, the short, is available now on Amazon Prime Video. Little Fires Everywhere is available on Hulu. Valley of the Gods arrives August 11 on VOD.

There was a time when there were only a small handful of new shows that viewers had to track, mostly in the fall, but thanks to an endless number of cable networks and streaming platforms producing scripted programming, it seems there is a never-ending supply of series premieres to plan for. With life taking a large portion of our time (family, work, sleep, etc.) how do we divvy up the scattered free hours that we have for the most recent pop culture players and newbie debuts.

Well for starters, you could tune-in to anything Aliyah O’Brien is starring in. Guaranteed to capture your attention, the Toronto-based actress is a charismatic  scene stealer, recreating on-screen likability in almost every character she inhabits. But don’t take our word for it. Her new series “Take Two” premieres June 21 on ABC, opening the door for her most recent character, Detective Christine Rollins, to win you over.

We recently sat down with O’Brien to discuss the balance that the show strikes, why she has been cast in a lot of authoritative roles, and how she reacts when she gets on a roller coaster.

TrunkSpace: In an industry where it seems everything is hurry up and wait, how exciting was it to receive a straight to series order for “Take Two?”
O’Brien: Oh my gosh – it’s a gift from the universe, my friend. Yeah, it’s a real treat. I didn’t realize how many pilots get made and then don’t go to series. I had a conversation with a friend about this, and it’s something like 15 percent. I mean, “Huh?” It’s so odd to book a pilot, and then let alone have it get made.

TrunkSpace: The premiere is set for June 21 on ABC. In a day and age where there’s so much content available to people, why is “Take Two” one that they should make time for?
O’Brien: I think people are really going to like it. It’s really fun, and for me anyways, it has that nice balance of the mystery of solving the crime, which is engaging, but also it’s grounded and real. I think you care about the characters enough that you will also want to see their lives unfold as they solve the mysteries. I’m really partial to dramadies that are grounded and real and relatable, but that also have some fun and uplifting elements. I think people will really like it, and I think we got a good cast that’s doing a great job. and our writers are fantastic. I’m hopeful that it does well and we do this for many years.

TrunkSpace: And it seems to have its own distinct voice, which should help it stand out.
O’Brien: Exactly. Our creator/showrunners, Andrew (Marlowe) and Terri (Edda Miller), are veterans in this genre, and I think that what we have is unique, but it’s also backed by tons of experience. What I really like about them is, though we are doing a formulaic procedural type show, they play a lot against stereotypes, and they come up with some interesting concepts and twists where you’re always surprised, which is super fun. I know for myself, with my character, which I can’t really reveal a ton of, but they did some stuff that surprised me even, and played against stereotypes, and I always really appreciate that.

TrunkSpace: Like you said, you can’t give too much away about your character, but what’s interesting about her that you wouldn’t mind exploring for 100 episodes or more?
O’Brien: I think that what’s cool is that she is… I always like playing a boss, someone that’s bad-ass and tough, and but that also has depth and care and sass and humor. I think that Detective Christine Rollins is not only really good at her job, but she also has a little fun. Hopefully down the road you’ll also discover that she’s also a very caring human being, so she’s not just a surfacy sort of emotionally-suppressed woman, which I’ve played a lot of those. (Laughter) That’s not… that is boring.

TrunkSpace: We’ve also noticed that you’ve played a lot of authoritative figures.
O’Brien: Isn’t it interesting? It’s true, I usually play these sort of strong, tough women, and I guess there’s an element of me that is that obviously or I probably wouldn’t get cast as those roles. Then there’s the side of me that’s like this crazy hippy chick who’s really soulful and has a house full of crystals and is kind of a nerd and is freaked out a lot of the time and is constantly working on that. (Laughter) It’s really funny how people perceive you, and how you perceive yourself and how you feel.

TrunkSpace: In the case of auditions, so much of how you’re perceived takes place within the matter of seconds, correct?
O’Brien: Yes, and I think a huge part of it is that I’m a tall brunette woman that has a lower registered voice, and I guess maybe by comparison to a lot of the women I know, I do have some confidence and some gravitas, or at least I can fake it. I’m working on it. I’m working really hard at building that side of myself and really owning it. I guess that maybe it’s showing up.

TrunkSpace: Does acting help with that? Does portraying other people force you to take an outside perspective of yourself at times?
O’Brien: Yeah, totally. It’s sort of like there’s a feedback loop that happens where you get these jobs that freak the shit out of you, and therefore you need to work on yourself so that you can show up and be a great actor and be open and available. Then by proxy you grow, and you grow as a person, and then you get even bigger roles and better roles, and it just kind of constantly gives you more opportunity to work on yourself. I never feel like I’ve arrived and I’m now super confident and “I got this!” There’s always challenge. It’s a great opportunity for me to work on my inner life.

TrunkSpace: Going back to “Take Two,” one of the things that the showrunners are well-known for is creating characters who are great at bantering back and forth. Will that be an element of this series as well, and does that make tackling a character more interesting when you get to own strong dialogue?
O’Brien: Hell yes! Tons of great banter, and very clever, witty scripts. Definitely.

It definitely makes it more fun to do and I think it feels quite natural for me because I am a bit sassy in real life. This character just sort of feels like I stepped into it and it felt like a glove – it wasn’t like I had to do any work. It was like, “This is pretty much me.” I enjoy it very much. 

TrunkSpace: So now that the premiere date is only a few weeks away, is it a nerve-racking wait to see how it will be perceived?
O’Brien: You know what, no. Maybe when we get closer to it it will be nerve-racking, but in my life right now, I’m pretty surrendered to whatever is meant to happen will happen. Obviously I’d love for it to go a lot of years. I have a plan where I’m going to live in Bali part-time and do the show and do some other stuff. I’m going to spend at least a couple of months a year in Bali. That would really help out my plan. (Laughter)  

I go with the flow, and if it didn’t work out, then I would come up with a new plan. I’m sort of one of those people though that does tend to, if I’m going to be nervous, it’s like right before. When we’re down to the wire, then I might be nervous. Otherwise, I don’t get excited about a trip usually until I’m on the plane.

TrunkSpace: So you’re the person who is game to get on the roller coaster, but then when it’s ticking up and ready to go, you start to panic?
O’Brien: Kind of, although usually, because I love crazy shit like that, I’m like, “Oh yeahhhhhhhhhhh!” I scream, but I secretly just love it. (Laughter) I am that person that leaps and then is like, “What the fuck have I done?” But it’s too late, which is good. (Laughter)

Featured image by: Shimon.

Some people just look like movie stars. They have that “it” factor, and we’re not talking about the kind brought to horrifying life by Stephen King. It’s indefinable, but you know it’s there, mostly because you can’t turn away when they’re on screen.

The bartender who served you your pumpkin beer with a cinnamon sugar rim this weekend may have it. The yoga instructor whose downward dog defies human flexibility may have it too. Many people have the look, but not necessarily the talent. In fact, finding the full package is a rarity.

Enter the solar eclipse of actors, Keenan Tracey, whose previous work includes “Bates Motel,” “The Returned,” and a memorable guest spot on “Supernatural.” Not only does he have the look, but he has the acting chops to back up the on-screen presence you can’t look away from. And with the direction his career is heading, you’ll have plenty of opportunities to not look away.

We recently sat down with Tracey to discuss the internal struggles of his “Supernatural” character, his upcoming horror movie “Polaroid,” and why music has so many parallels with acting.

TrunkSpace: You appeared on “Supernatural.” We have an unhealthy obsession with that show. We were hoping we could start there?
Tracey: Sounds good. (Laughter)

TrunkSpace: Your role as Christoph in the episode “The One You’ve Been Waiting For” seemed like it had a lot of meat on the bone. What was it like tackling such an interesting role, which was basically a son torn between his own feelings of what he felt was right and wrong and the beliefs of his father’s, who was working to bring Hitler back from the dead?
Tracey: I thought it was really current and also really personal. He’s dealing with huge issues, basically historically related, but also on more of a personal level he’s dealing with just appeasing his father, which I think most men kind of would relate to, at least on some level. So yeah, on top of it just being a global issue, it was more personal as well. It was like, “Do you go with your father and do what he wants you to do and let him screw over the world, or do you screw over your dad to save the world?”

TrunkSpace: You’ve done a bunch of television over the years, but was it at all intimidating coming into “Supernatural” knowing that it had been on the air for well over a decade and already had an established tone and feeling on set?
Tracey: No, I was encouraged. It was almost more comforting because they ran a tight ship already. That’s the kind of set you go onto and you just figure out how to fit into it because it’s already happening. The tone is already established, it’s already a show with or without you, so it kind of helps to have something that’s had seasons that have aired already and you can plug in. You can delve into the shows, you can do your homework, and you can really pick up on the tone and really know what you’re going to do. You can see how your character’s going to fit into it a lot better.

TrunkSpace: What’s really interesting is that your dad actually appeared on the series as well, the same season no less.
Tracey: Yeah. We were only an episode or two apart. It’s kind of a coincidence I suppose.

TrunkSpace: From a show called “Supernatural” to a movie about the supernatural, you’re set to appear in the upcoming film “Polaroid.” Can you walk us through what we can expect from the film and where your character falls into things?
Tracey: I guess the undertone would be about how vanity corrupts. Anyone taken by the camera, gets taken by it literally.

TrunkSpace: Which in a way, is a bit of an old theme because some cultures used to believe that a photograph would steal your soul.
Tracey: Yeah, and then you’re trapped eternally.

With my character, there’s a couple of scenes in the movie that allude to him being the one that’s skeptical about it, the one who questions the humanity around him and the vanity of the people around him.

TrunkSpace: The film was due out this summer, but recently got bumped to a December release date. As an actor, does it ever get frustrating when you’re anticipating something being released and using it to move your career forward in other areas, only to have the plans change on you in a way that is out of your control?
Tracey: Oh for sure. That being said, that’s a very natural part of the industry. At this point it’s kind of something you’ve come to accept. At a certain point, when you work on a job, you go there, you put the work in, and then you’ve kind of got to just let it go. Luckily the rewards don’t just come from it releasing. There are also rewards that come from shooting it, from getting it in the first place, from meeting the people you work with on set, and for getting the experience there. That’s satisfying enough that by the time you’ve done that, you almost forget that one, you’re getting paid for it, and two, that they’re releasing it and everyone else will get to see it someday.

So, I think working on it, and completing it, and feeling like you put the work in and did the part justice is what makes the job worth it in the first place. The cherry on top is that it gets released eventually.

TrunkSpace: And what is great about the current pop culture climate that we’re living in is, because of all of the various streaming platforms, projects have longer shelf lives once they do get released.
Tracey: The beauty of the internet is it has even further eternalized film, and TV especially. I mean, TV used to be so much more fleeting. You would have to catch it when it was airing, if it was still airing, and the only way to see it after that would be to have recorded it yourself and then play it later. Now everything releases and if you remember the title of it, and you have an internet connection, you can find it whenever you like on some sort of platform. So, I think that’s a really good thing for the entire industry, to be honest.

TrunkSpace: From a performance standpoint, it really adds an extra layer of oomph to guest spots for TV, because an actor’s role, even if it’s for one episode, lives on through the fandom and ongoing streams.
Tracey: I agree. And that’s something I’ve noticed change in the industry, even over the last half a decade. I mean, five years ago you could tell what was airing that you had been in, in what country, at what time based off of your Twitter traffic, or whatever. You could tell where things were happening based off of who was responding or writing what from where, but now it’s kind of all over the place at any time from anywhere really. Anybody can watch anything anywhere, so I’ve definitely found that the feedback online is definitely more diverse when it comes to the project.

TrunkSpace: You have worked on some great television shows like “Bates Motel” and “The Returned.” Does the experience working on a television series differ from something like “Polaroid,” just in terms of how you prepare and what you do day to day performance wise?
Tracey: Typically a film shoot will be considerably longer than one episode of something, so it kind of depends how much of a season you’re in when it comes to TV, or how much of the movie you’re in. A movie will typically take place over four to eight weeks, depending on the project and the budget. You usually have a longer amount of time with the script for film because it will usually have been written farther in advance. Pre-production will start sooner and you’ll just have more time with it, which I always love. I mean, the more time the better. It just gives you that much more to do with it and you get more time to prep it, and I think that’s everything. I think 90 percent of it is the work you put in before. You should craft your performance and figure out 90 percent of the stuff you’re going to do and leave 10 percent for a little surprise on the day, but basically hone in what you’re going to do before you even get to set. So, having that extra time is always nice when it’s a movie.

That being said, sometimes it is also nice to just get a script a week or 10 days before and not have too much time to also overthink it and just sort of go with the flow. Sometimes you’re coming onto a show like “Supernatural” that’s already been going for 12 years, so there’s just an established tone. You don’t want to have to make as many decisions on your character or make as many guesses about how the movie is going to go, or how the show’s going to go and how your character choices are going to fit into it. Or if you’re going to have to alter them on the day, which you’ve always got to be open to doing anyways. When it’s a show and there’s already an established tone, it’s easier to see how your character is going to fit into it without having to guess as much.

TrunkSpace: You’re also a musician. How do you compartmentalize the two creative worlds? Is acting completely separate from your band in terms of the focus?
Tracey: I’m pretty good at dividing the two. They are very parallel and I kind of use them to learn more about the other one because of how parallel they are, especially in steps. I just finished my first studio record, a full LP, and it was interesting to see how parallel the steps were and it really helped me understand the other one. Being my first record, I would constantly compare it to film. I would say, “Oh, this is the part that’s like that step in film.” You go through all the same steps really. You go through pre-production, you go through production, and then post-production and editing, and each minor step along the way would directly relate to something I could at least find a parallel to in film, so that was really interesting.

As for time management, luckily music is the kind of thing I can do at home, alone in my apartment with a guitar, and not have to get hired to do it. You just wake up in the morning and feel like it and do it, and I guess it yields that satisfaction immediately without having to learn lines, drive to a place, read it for somebody, hope they like it, hope they bring me back, do it again, maybe a third time, wait, do the part, and wait for it to get released. I would say music is an easier thing to satisfy yourself with personally when you’re alone, but there’s time for both.

The good thing about film is you’ll work intensely for weeks, or a month, or a couple of months, and then the project is over and then you’ll have time off. I don’t really like wasting time at all. I think it should always be utilized. And I’m not saying to work too hard, but to find work that brings you joy so that it’s also fun and then the work is the play and you can just be doing both of them all of the time and not wasting any of it.

“Polaroid” is set to arrive in theaters December 1.