Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: The.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: The Bible always.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:00:13] Speaker B: You know, that's been a. I read. I've read that every day for the most part. You know, I miss a day here and there, but I read that every day since I was. Since I got saved at 12. And then really, I guess I should say 16 was when I really started reading it for myself and not because dad thinks I should. Right. And so the. Always the Bible, but then some. A friend said, hey, you should read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. And so I'm in the Army. I am in. I think I'm in National Training center out in Fort Irwin, California. Just hot, miserable. You know, you're just training. You're getting ready to go to Iraq, and life is just not very fun in a lot of ways. And so this book, I was kind of like, okay, whatever. I'll try anything.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: It's not the most military of all books.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: It's not very military.
And I absolutely fell in love with it because one, there's the structure of it was to get married and start a family. That was like, the point of a lot of these interactions. It was an honorable book in that way. Guys like one character, Mr. Wickham, he's just looking for a good time, and he'll tell a girl anything she wants. He is considered a scoundrel by everybody.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: Hey, guys. I'm Zach, and on this edition of Code Red, I am excited to introduce you to my friend, Jake Phillips. Jake Phillips is a believer in Jesus Christ. He's a voice actor, and he's got an amazing story to tell. So I can't wait to share his content and his story with you today on Code Red.
Amen.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Jake Phillips, welcome to the Code Red Studio.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: I'm not sure when we first connected. It's been several years that I've followed your content, and I'll tell you how it happened, and you can.
We can figure out because there's things that you've influenced. You're the definition of an influencer that you're not aware of.
But, yeah, I'll carry the bag that I carry. It's because I saw something cool that you posted one day, and I said, oh, I got to get one of those. That's kind of neat, you know, and the thing was, I could tell when I heard you for the first time, you were probably from a similar area in the south that I was from.
And you are also reading the classics, which is not really something that redneck guys in the south, you know, are known for.
So I said, I've got to lean in. Got to learn a little more about this guy. Where is he from? How was he educated?
[00:03:16] Speaker B: What.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Why is he reading the classics?
And so for all these years, we've kind of corresponded back and forth. Finally got in the same room together. And I want to just unpack your journey with you today.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: That sounds like fun. This is a great honor. Thank you.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: Well, welcome. And so. So you're a Mississippi guy, is that right?
[00:03:36] Speaker B: That's right.
Born and raised outside of. Kind of in a swamp outside of Starkville. So, you know, it's a sec town. Mississippi State is right there.
[00:03:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Tuscaloosa's a little over an hour away, so just heavy, you know. Sec.
Yeah. Redneck. Redneck. Old South.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Have you ever heard the Starkville City Jail from Johnny Cash?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Oh, yes. Oh, yes.
[00:04:00] Speaker A: It's kind of this famous song in that area. Right.
[00:04:03] Speaker B: There's a mural on one of the buildings that commemorates that. There's a little plaque. You know, you can go by and see where he was, you know. You know, apprehended, I guess.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. For those that don't know, he was. He was picking daisies or something late one night and was put in jail in Starkville for. For picking flowers.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Right.
[00:04:23] Speaker A: Great song. I think it was on one of the prison albums. I'm not sure. He did it live on one of. One of his prison albums.
[00:04:28] Speaker B: Johnny Cash claims it was for picking flowers, but it was for public intoxication.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Oh, well, yeah, that can. That reads a little different. I can understand that better song, though, probably the way he does it.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: So. So you. You grew up in that area and went into the military after high school.
[00:04:47] Speaker B: That's right. Yeah. 9 11, you know, that was.
We're talking about COVID earlier. I think in my generation, 911 and Covid were, you know, two kind of big events that a lot of things.
You remember the way things were, and then the way things happened after. How things changed. 911 was the day I decided I'm going to join the army.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Where were you when that happened? Do you remember?
[00:05:13] Speaker B: I was.
I grew up homeschooled, so I was at home, but I was.
I was driving, and my mom called me. I was going to meet a friend for a. Actually, a Chinese guy for a Bible study, because he was not. Or I should say one of the saved Chinese guys had started this little program where he would get his friends, if you want to learn English with an American, you know, sign up for my little club. And then he just Told us, hey, guys, use the Bible. Yeah. Like, you know, it was.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: So it was English second language type thing, right?
[00:05:50] Speaker B: From a saved Chinese man that wanted his friends to hear about the Lord. And so I was meeting with this lost guy who ended up getting saved later.
But I was headed to meet him. My mom called me.
I don't even. I don't even know if she called me. I say, I caught some kind of way. My mom said, hey, this plane ran into one of the towers in New York. And, you know, that was. That's kind of weird. You should, you know, pray about it or something.
And I had.
I'm a little history nerd. And I was like, well, you know, a little bomber, a B25, ran into a plane in the fog one time, and that's probably all it was. And it did. On one, some big building, there was a, you know, a lost plane, like, hit the top of a building. And, you know, a few people lost their lives, but it was not catastrophic to, you know, like, 9. 11 was. Right. Anyway, yeah, I was just. I was in high school. And then later on that day, I went and talked to my dad, and we kind of had a talk. And I said, dad, I really want to. I think I want to join the Army. I'd been discussing it. And I said, today I've made my decision. And he said, all right, son.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Did you have a background, family background in military?
[00:07:07] Speaker B: My grandfather was career Air Force.
My dad missed the draft.
He was a. He was right on the edge of getting drafted, and by then they weren't drafting people.
And so he got a scholarship to play football.
So he, you know, he would have enlisted, but he got into football and then got into coaching later. So he. My dad wasn't. But in a way, you could say, you know, we're a military family. Right.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: What year did you graduate high school?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: 2003.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Okay, so 911 takes place. You're watching that at that point. I'm curious. You were homeschooled at that season.
That wasn't as common in the south during that time. What led your parents to homeschool you and did that expose you to classics and that sort of thing?
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Yes, yes, and yes. My parents were. My dad was in school administration.
He was in. Well, after college, kind of strength and conditioning was his thing. And then obviously, you're a teacher at the high school level if you're in strength and conditioning. So he did a little both. And he just saw the public school system in Mississippi, and even in the early 80s, you know, it Was bad.
And, you know, which.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Usually your football coaches were your favorite coaches. A lot of times, you know, I remember my history teacher was one of the associate football coaches at Lawrence County High School. And for whatever reason, he cared about it because a lot of the coaches didn't. You know, a lot of the coaches, they had to get a, you know, do some teaching along the way, right? So this. This one particular teacher would get in there, he would write his lectures out, and he would read the lecture, and it. You know, everybody's joking. I mean, it was just a. A big joke of a class.
However, I remember to this day some of the things that he taught me in there, and I.
It was almost embarrassing. My whole life has been a little bit like that.
I remember I would hear TV preachers in high school, and it was, you know, you could. You could get like, three channels back in the 90s where I lived at, and it would come across a TV preacher.
And I didn't want anybody to hear me listening to it because it was embarrassing to me. So I would turn it down as low as I could, and then mom would knock on my door, and it was like I was up something horrible in there. Run. Turning the television off. What do you want, Mom? You know, so actually listening to a TV preacher, but that. That would ruin my reputation, you know, But I would sit in. I would sit in Mr. Montgomery's classroom and dial in, and it's like, you know, Civil War battles, things like that were just intriguing to me.
And I remember those type stories about whether it's generals from the Civil War battles that were fought within a stone's throw of where I lived at, that made an impact on guys in the south, the way that people outside the south may not understand completely. And I wonder where that came from with you.
And it must have been the influence of your parents, at least to some degree.
[00:10:23] Speaker B: Absolutely. I think that, you know, I've grown up in a very pro America, patriotic, patriotic family. And so, you know, from a child, my dad, if we were passing someone with a World War II veteran hat, he would say, boys, hey, come here. Hey. Sir, we just want to tell you thank you, boys, Shake his hand. Look him in the eye. And so from a child that was ingrained in me to not only be thankful for what we had, but be thankful for the people that made it happen.
And so that obviously leads to, you know, where there's Civil War battles and Revolutionary War battles. You talk about World War II, that kind of thing. I think there's an interest in that where if you.
My dad, you know, if we met a Battle of the Bulge veteran when we got home, he would say, oh, here's where they were. Show us. You know, on the map. He was. He was from Caledonia, and he ended up jumping in with 101st over there in Normandy, right here and then Market Garden, and then he went all the way.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: So it makes your heroes real.
[00:11:34] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:11:35] Speaker A: You know, I'm curious, and I'm thinking about authors. I'm trying to think of where he was born, but guys like Shelby Foote, people like that. Mississippi authors.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Right. Greenville, Mississippi, over on the river.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: I think that's where he's from. And John Grisham, by the way, lives here now.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: Amelia Island.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: He's here on Amelia Island. I can show you his house after we're done. But there's so many authors and people who've had an impact on culture that came out of Mississippi. Musicians, we mentioned Cash, Elvis, you name it.
Why do you think that is? Where does that come from?
[00:12:09] Speaker B: I don't really know. I've wondered that. There's, you know, writers like Eudora Welty, Tennessee Williams, William Faulkner, Jim Henson with the Muppets, you know, I didn't know he was. Yeah, he's from the Delta. Wow. A lot of actors. Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones.
I think, you know, the arts are kind of.
I don't. I don't know what it is. I don't have an answer for that.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: I've always.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: It is interesting.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: The best explanation I've heard from, it was from Shelby Foote, and he said that, you know, if you tell a joke in the north, the joke is just set up punchline.
In the south, it's a long story.
It takes 10 minutes to tell a joke in the South. And it's not just because we talk slow. You know, we set the characters up right.
And from an early age, you kind of learn storytelling, and it's just part of what we do as a culture. And the Israelites were a lot the same way. The best movie makers are Jewish many times, but they were taught storytelling from a very early age.
Did your parents read to you? Did they require you to read? What caused you to have a love for it?
[00:13:23] Speaker B: Well, when we were young, we had usually two read aloud sessions per day. One during the day, mom would read to us while we could.
We could draw, we could color, or we could like, you know, do anything productive with your hands where you can listen.
She would read Lauren Goes Wilder. I remember that series.
She read others, but I remember that she worked through the whole series early on.
Then in the evening, dad would read from a book before we read the Bible as a family. And Pilgrim's Progress was one that I remember. Ben Hur was another one. And there were so classic literature was always, or at least old literature.
Society may not consider some of those classics, but they were, you know, God honoring type of literature.
That was always normal to me.
Like the 200 year old writing is not lame. That's probably better than anything you could get your hands on if you've got the attention span to engage with it. And so that was pretty normal in my house.
And then, yeah, I think I sort of, maybe as an act of rebellion against, you know, my peers who said it's lame, I'm like, no, I don't think it's lame. So I started reading them on my own, just, you know, because everyone said they weren't good. Like the Scarlet Pimpernel. Yeah, you know. Oh, that's, that's, you know, it's a dumb book. Well, I got to reading it and turns out it isn't. It's a fantastic book.
[00:14:54] Speaker A: How did you find community with that?
Well, or was it kind of just a lonely time in life or what?
[00:15:01] Speaker B: With regard to literature, I think it was. That was just on my own. We had really good homeschool network of families in our area. So we had a flag football team and we had functions. We'd come together and, you know, like my dad said, the only other place where you're training to be around a bunch of peers wearing the same thing is in prison.
So homeschooling, I think helped me to engage with people that were not just my age, you know, so of course we would always get told, well, how are you going to socialize? And it makes you where you have to be able to talk to an old veteran.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:15:47] Speaker B: And ask him a question or, you know, maybe a man from another country.
[00:15:51] Speaker A: And you'll find that many times with homeschoolers. We homeschooled up through 10th grade, our children, and it may be difficult for them to talk to kids their own age at times, but they hit it right off with a senior adult.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Right.
[00:16:05] Speaker A: You know, they can hold their own in those conversations and sometimes they're more comfortable in those conversations.
And so you're going through. Were you active in sports?
[00:16:14] Speaker B: I was. I played, what do you call it, flag football in our little League and then I started running, so I was doing track and cross country and I would do that in an unattached status. I would just call the coach and like, I'm homeschooled. Can I just run in the meet? And then they would say, yes or no?
[00:16:34] Speaker A: This is Thibault country. So that was big here, right? You know, you go to the. Go to the Army.
What books did you carry with you? Or by that time, were they in digital form when you went through the service?
What did you lean on during that time?
[00:16:54] Speaker B: The.
The Bible, always, you know, that's been a.
I've read that every day, for the most part. You know, I miss a day here and there, but I read that every day since I was. Got saved at 12. And then really, I guess I should say 16 was when I really started reading it for myself. And not because dad thinks I should.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:15] Speaker B: And so always the Bible. But then a friend said, hey, you should read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. And so I'm in the Army. I am in. I think I'm in National Training center out in Fort Irwin, California. Just hot, miserable. You know, you're just training, you're getting ready to go to Iraq, and life is just not very fun in a lot of ways. And so this book, I was kind of like, okay, whatever.
I'll try anything.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: It's not the most military of all books.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: It's not very military.
And I absolutely fell in love with it because, one, there's the structure of it was to get married and start a family. That was like the point of a lot of these interactions. It was an honorable book in that way. Guys, like one character, Mr. Wickham, he's just looking for a good time, and he'll tell a girl anything she wants. He is considered a scoundrel by everybody. And so there's a real sense of Victorian prudishness about it, which I think is kind of scriptural.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Well, you see. You see the influence of biblical principles on a culture during that time.
[00:18:34] Speaker B: Have you.
[00:18:35] Speaker A: Have you come across any of the Canon plus material, are you familiar with?
[00:18:38] Speaker B: I am, yes.
[00:18:39] Speaker A: So they've. They've gone deep into some of those. They. They went into Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and. And it's interesting, they draw that out effectively, the things that you're saying. Nobody else is saying this except, like, you and those guys. But it's fascinating to help people. And sometimes I think men or women will be drawn to a type of literature and feel at home there and not really understand why.
But it's many times because of those religious influences on the culture that we've.
It's weakened or we've lost it one or the other.
And it's interesting that you see that.
What other kind of books do you find that in and do you find. I've heard it say from authors, you're probably the third or fourth not author, but you are an author, but also just people who are deep into literature that they can sometimes feel more at home in a book but in that culture than they do their own. Did you find that to be true?
[00:19:42] Speaker B: I believe so.
For that being one reason. There just, there's a decency about it. You know, I was raised, you know, my dad was lost growing up from unsaved not in church parents, so he could do whatever he wanted. You know, it was like if you, you know, get off into sin with, you know, some good looking girl, dad has given you an attaboy, rather than saying, son, you are living in sin.
We need to talk about this, that kind of thing. So he came out of that and when he got saved, he said, that's not how I'm going to raise my boys. We're going to try to hear what the Lord says and do that. And so in a society, and even though Jane Austen is not, I think she was a saved lady, but it's not in the books. It's not, it's not a Christian book per se. Right. But it, the kind of what that sort of decency is all through it, you know, we go to this party to do a little, you know, a waltz so that we can find a husband, so we can get married and have some kids. And you know, that, that was, that was the goal in a lot of these social circles. And then the characters in it are, are just so well described that turns out, Even though it's 200 years later, we know people like that.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: You know, it's like, oh, wait, that's Mr. Collins, you know, this awkward guy, whatever. Like I maybe, maybe I'm him or maybe, maybe I know him. This other area.
Yeah, I just, I love the way that the writing makes you see, because in the Twitter age, it's like we've lost the ability to unpack a thought to its conclusion on anything or even tolerate it when someone else is.
So it's like if I don't see it at a glance and sort of understand, or think I understand this concept, you know, you move on, you keep scrolling.
Whereas in some of these books, you'd have a conversation might be 20 pages long, where they're arguing about something and using large vocabulary to do it.
And I just think that's Good for your mind and your social skills and helps you appreciate other cultures.
[00:22:08] Speaker A: And it's in every person. I think sometimes it's so not valued and it's not marketable as well. But we'll see 20 somethings or teenagers in our church today that they've got this very short attention span, it seems they're swiping constantly. But then they'll, they'll go three hours into a podcast, right? You know, in this long form audio, where two guys are just talking through something.
It's still there, that muscle's still there. It's atrophied some. They can't control it like people once could, but the muscle's still there.
And it's interesting, you see almost a turning back to that in young people today. We see it somewhat in churches that have been built that are very seeker friendly, seeker sensitive, showy. And for whatever reason, everybody's doing that now. That's the norm.
And so young people sort of like you are rebelling by saying, who's got more to say, who's rooted in a deeper tradition.
And they're leaning back into sometimes a more liturgical approach to church.
And it's an ancient consciousness. There's something there that yearns for that, it seems. But when it's not valued in a culture, and many times in the south, it hasn't been.
And so it's fascinating to me when someone is raised up that has strengthened those values.
So you go to the army, you're reading scripture, Jane Austen, doing your duty.
At what point did you think, I want my adult life, my career, to involve these things to some degree?
[00:23:59] Speaker B: It wasn't for several years after that. So this was. I was in the army, went to Iraq 2009 and 10. I came back, got out in 2011, newly married.
So at this point, well, I have to start a job, a new career, because marksmanship is not very marketable of a scale.
And so, so I get into going to business with my brother at these little gyms.
[00:24:36] Speaker A: And back in Mississippi.
[00:24:37] Speaker B: Back in Mississippi. And then I'm not a businessman, so we couldn't grow it that well. And I was like, okay, well, I'm gonna, I got skills. I'll go get another job. You can provide for your family with this. So I left, went into contracting the Mercedes Benz plant there off of I20. Right.
The. I worked there as a contractor for a little while.
But basically I thought, I never had a thought of doing any kind of voice work or acting professionally.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Had anybody ever told you that, that your voice sounds Nice.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: It would work in that area from time to time. I remember, like, working at camp just in college, a couple people that were not from the south said that. But I always attributed it to the accent.
[00:25:30] Speaker A: It's novelty.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Right. It's like the. Oh, you have a Southern accent.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: The strange thing if you. If you listen to, like, a Billy Graham.
Billy Graham was articulate, but he didn't lose his accent.
[00:25:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:43] Speaker A: And if you can maintain the accent and use proper grammar, that's. That's very unusual.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: And so that's interesting that people recognize that. So continue.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: So I really should back up to about 2008. I first got to my unit and I was a platoon leader in a Cav Scout platoon.
We went on an exercise. You know, we're talking on the radio, all this stuff. And then my.
Now, mind you, I had a thick Southern accent back then. I have dialed it way back, so especially when I travel.
But my platoon sergeant said, he, like, pulled me back behind a truck one day and said, sir, nobody can understand you.
You're going to get us killed when we get over there if you're doing that on the radio. And I was like, what? Like, are you serious? That's, you know, it hurt my feelings a little bit, but I thought, man. And, you know, there's that verse in the Bible about, you know, if the trumpet give an uncertain sound on the day of battle. I don't remember the rest. But that's a bad thing.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: When communication breaks down for any reason, you have to address that.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: Right.
[00:26:53] Speaker B: And I thought, you know, I might. I never even thought.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: We understand what people are saying.
[00:27:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So when we're in the South, I had a friend here from the same part of Alabama, and he had lived here for like 15, 20 years. And when he goes back, he says, I can't understand what any of them are saying.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:14] Speaker A: That's all I'm hearing.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:27:16] Speaker A: And it's like, really, like, I understand perfectly what they said, you know, but it's. But yeah, it's just a strange thing with, you know, accents.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Accents fascinate me. And.
But because of that, I started learning to enunciate.
And being in Fort Riley, Kansas, which is. I think the. That's like the geographic center of the lower 48 is that area.
So it's my opinion from there that is the best American there is. Everybody else has an accent. The further you get from about Topeka, Kansas.
And so I was in a good spot to learn good English, which I didn't know this later that's radio and tv. English too.
Is. That's what you're trying to sound like is you're from the Midwest. If you're on NBC Nightly News, you don't know where the guy's from. You don't know where she's from. Because they've learned that mid regional diction that a guy from South Florida and the Pacific Northwest can understand and relate to without being distracted by.
Well, he don't know what he's talking about because he's Southern.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Clearly the thing. And this will be news for many of our viewers, but in the south, you learn to talk like the MAN ON THE 6:00-CLOCK NEWS if you want to be successful. Was it Don Gibson? Somebody sang a song about that.
Country boys like me, what do you do with good old boys like me?
And he was explaining in that song that the way out is you don't do meth like the kid down the street. You learn to talk like the guy on the six o' clock news. And you find opportunities through that, you know, and we do that. And it's difficult, I think, for preachers especially that are from where I'm from, to study voice acting, to study accents, to learn that it can serve you. If someone hears a Southern accent, there's a measure of trust that can come along with that, that they don't presume that you're trying to sell them something necessarily.
But it can also harm you in that the most, the least educated character in a show has the strongest accent many times. So you do have to learn to dial it in some if you're going to be effective as a communicator.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Right.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: So again, thoughts are just bubbling up as you're talking, but he gives you that little reproof and you start to work on it.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: I don't even think he expected me to do anything about it. He was just exasperated and was like, man, we're all gonna get killed over there. It was that kind of thing. And he was from Montana, I think, but we had guys from New Hampshire to Fresno and everywhere in between. It's good advice.
It doesn't, you know. So I started working on it. And then the second thing that happened, so that was. I consider that my origin story of becoming a voice actor. That was the first thing. That's a great story. Yeah. That I ever realized in my head, wait, I can talk different if I want to.
I thought that was for actors, you know, the professional people like, oh, Benedict Cumberbatch using an American accent. Wow, what a great actor. He is a great actor, but you can do that, too. Like, you just learn to talk different.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: How did you do that?
[00:30:47] Speaker B: Listening to the people around me, especially if they were local to that area, I quickly, you know, identified. Like when I walk in a gas station here, this. Assuming this is the strongest accent you're going to find, like you would down south.
This person sounds like, I just turned on the tv. Like, it's perfect English. I came into town the first night when I was getting there, you know, filled my car up, went into, you know, paid, and the girl said, well, you know, nice seeing you. Come again, you know. And it was not.
She was really nice. And then she was not.
I could understand her.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:28] Speaker B: And it was like, I thought, man, I need to do that. And then about that time, I heard Kenneth Barana, a British actor who does a lot of Shakespeare movies, and he's an amazing actor. He read the Magician's Nephew by C.S. lewis, and I remember thinking, wow, that's amazing. Not only his storytelling, but when he got to a scene where there's all these people chiming in, he was hitting all these different London accents, you know, so he had, you know, a cab driver and you could hear. I later found out those are. Those are English accent variations from the London area. And then he's using them in this scene.
And it was amazing. And I remember thinking, that would be cool to do.
I didn't think, like, okay, what would. Should I get a mic? Or nothing like that. I just remember thinking that would be cool to do that.
And so those two things are happening, and I don't know. And I don't even realize that those are happening.
So then I would have to go forward.
I don't know.
[00:32:42] Speaker A: Did you do accents at that point?
[00:32:45] Speaker B: Goofing around? You know, working at summer camp for, you know, there's a Christian summer camp out near Branson called Kanakuk Camps that I worked at during my college summers. And so for, you know, to entertain the kids, you'll make funny voices and things. But beyond. I'd never recorded anything. And beyond goofing around, I had never, you know, worked from a script or anything like that. It was just messing around. So then 2013, my dad got cancer where his cancer came back and he passed away real quick.
And he. He missed our first daughter's birth by maybe a month. Wow. So that was. That was tough, right?
And I had one recording of him from my. My younger brother had made a movie for a little film festival where it's the story of David and Goliath But I love how he did it. He did a flashback.
So David comes up to Goliath and then it flashes back to him sitting by a fire, and he can hear his dad's voice. Who is my dad? Read the verse reading from Joshua 1 about, you know, no man should be able to stand before thee all the days of thy life. That somewhere in there.
So I have this recording from my dad and. And I thought, man, that's a valuable recording to me.
And then my next thought was, well, why couldn't I do that? Because YouTube wasn't around back then, and I didn't even start using it until 2013. 14.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: Did you do audiobooks at all at that point?
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Listen to them.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Listen to them.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: Yes.
Really? The Chronicles of Narnia.
I had listened to that whole series and those are best. That's best of the best. Like, that's top tier voice acting.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: I would. I'm slightly dyslexic, so I've always found it easier to listen than read. And so if they're. If it's a very good voice actor, you don't realize.
You don't think about it, you don't process, oh, wow, he just did a lady's voice. It's just. He does a great job with it and it blends together. You're just immersed in the story. If they're not great. I'm listening to one right now. I don't want to call the name. It's not great, and it's so obvious and it's difficult to listen to. And I'm trying to help him out. He'll do a blink and then it's like, I've read about his voice. It does not sound like you're. You're reading that, you know, and it is an art. I mean, yeah, you've got a level A spectrum of skills when it comes to voice acting that we take for granted.
I think most of us don't even consider it.
But when you hear great and you hear horrible, it's very obvious.
[00:35:44] Speaker B: Right.
A bad narrator tends to enunciate every single word at the same speed.
A great narrator is varying everything all the time, constantly. It's as if he or she is thinking of and saying those words for the very first time. That's what it sounds like when a good narrator is reading.
Because we do that, like, we constantly vary our speech, the speed that we move through a sentence, the speed that we may slow down to stress a point, that kind of thing. In natural speech, unconsciously, I'm trying To.
[00:36:22] Speaker A: Think who I heard this week, Brando.
Sometimes I've wondered why Brando was a great actor in his early career. I watched a video recently that explained it a little bit, and it was the fact that he would capture those little nuances that are there in real life if you get caught off guard, if you're. If you're processing something.
The guy that I was listening to, he said he was playing a role of a drunk man. And so he tries to act drunk. And. And the director said, no, the drunk people don't try to act drunk. They try to act sober. And he said, that's what you need to. And he would point to Brando. Brando does that.
[00:37:00] Speaker B: Great.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: You know, and it's fascinating to me because when I began to learn from you and listen and think about. Okay, well, I think you read Psalm 23:1 day, and I was listening to it.
And I've read Psalm 23 at funeral so many times that I quit really reading it intentionally. I would just read the words, lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. And I thought, how much more powerful would it be if I could learn how to read it? Well, and I try very hard. I'm not as good as you, but I try very hard. If I'm reading the text on Sunday or at a graveside, I think about it, what it is. I'm saying, which words to emphasize.
[00:37:48] Speaker B: And.
[00:37:48] Speaker A: I change it up some, but it makes all the difference in the world to the person listening and how they process the text.
[00:37:55] Speaker B: Right.
So.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: How did you discover that you could get paid to do this?
[00:38:04] Speaker B: I started.
Well, first, a point to piggyback off of what you just said.
Who's a great Sir? Lawrence Olivier, another great British actor. He has some readings on YouTube. You can find them of him reading from the Bible, accompanied by the London Philharmonic.
The story of David and Goliath is unbelievable. He reads the King James Bible, and it's just like.
I mean, it's amazing how he can grab you with his inflections and his pauses and all that. And one of the first times that I heard or noticed what you just mentioned about, like, I've read this a thousand times.
Why did all of a sudden I felt it in a way maybe I haven't before.
He read, you know, as we all have, if you grew up, God said, let there be light, and there was light.
Great. You know, great truth. Heard that a million times in his reading. He said, and God said, let there be light, and there was light.
And when he inflects, was there. It he did it in a way I hadn't heard before. And it makes you think, like, yeah, there. There was.
[00:39:23] Speaker A: He's saying more than he's saying.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: He's interpreting the text in many ways.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:39:28] Speaker A: You know, and you're progressing in it. At what point you had to hear this? At some point, we had to listen to it in high school.
Dandy Griffith.
What it was was football.
Yeah. And Hamlet and all those things.
Were you exposed to that sort of thing?
[00:39:47] Speaker B: I was never to do it myself. I was always just entertained by them. Like, that's great. That's funny.
I loved that. But I never.
I do not ever remember thinking I could do that until, like I said, after the. The army, some things started happening.
And then later on, the same guy, the platoon sergeant that told me, learn to speak English, turns out that he was an artistic. Sort of a closet artistic himself.
And he had tickets to the, like, season tickets to the Lyceum series at Kansas State, who had a great theater program.
So one time his wife was out of town on business, and he was like, hey, don't take this the wrong way, but, you know, you want to. Want to come on a mandate to whatever play was at the theater. I was like, yeah, let's do it. So we actually go to this.
I mean, it was a little date. We went to eat, and then we went to the theater.
[00:40:46] Speaker A: Did you know, you may know this, I just discovered it this week. During the Civil War, when they would have a lull in the fighting and they're in a city, they're in Vicksburg or wherever they're camped at, they would put on plays and the officers would play the different roles.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Did you know that in the Civil War. I don't know if I knew that.
[00:41:06] Speaker A: This was in Chernow's book on Grant.
[00:41:09] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: And he was talking about Grant because they had to play male and female roles. Grant had to play the female role. And it was like he was just. He sucked at it. So they were like, okay, he can't play that role anymore. Somebody's got to be at least convincing. And he was not convincing at all.
[00:41:24] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:41:25] Speaker A: Isn't that fascinating?
[00:41:26] Speaker B: That is very.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: I don't know how you would think they would include that somewhere in the storybooks, but I've never heard that until this week.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: Interesting. I've heard that at other armies and times right later on, like World War I, but I didn't know that about Grant. Yeah. And he. His presidential library is in Starkville, Mississippi.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: Really?
[00:41:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:41:44] Speaker A: Why?
[00:41:45] Speaker B: Because he was so good to the people of the south as president and when he was general, when Vicksburg fell, General Flynn was talking about how important of an event the fall of Vicksburg was. That was huge.
How he treated the south when he could have done anything he wanted, been as cruel as he wanted. He was so good beyond. I mean, it's war, it's going to be terrible, but he could have. He held back a lot in his administration of his duties.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: That was his character. He was married to a Southern girl, Julia was a Southern lady.
And that was an interesting thing about his childhood, is that he was always.
He never exploited his enemy.
And I think to this day in Southern men, there's still some processing of all those things that is taking place.
One of the things I've admired about your content is you identify people. You mentioned Morgan Freeman earlier, but you identify people of different races and genders that are doing the same thing and, and turn the spotlight onto them from time to time. We need to see that. That's really helpful.
You go to the Kansas City event.
How was that experience for you? What was that when you go with the officer?
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Oh, right. Well, he was my platoon sergeant. I was the officer, he was the platoon sergeant. So we went as a little command team to the theater at Kansas State, which is in Manhattan, Kansas.
And it was great. And it was another one of those moments where it was like, that looks, I'm so entertained.
I wonder if I could do that. I remember thinking that like maybe I could do that. Because I tend to be naturally.
I call myself like a functioning introvert. Like if I don't sort of get my mind right, then I will end up in the corner, won't talk to anybody, I'll read or something.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Most public speakers are. That's found.
[00:44:02] Speaker B: Right. That's interesting.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: They're more comfortable when people are not talking back.
So I came to Christ under the ministry of Charles Stanley in Atlanta and Dr. Stanley could speak for hours, but across the table he couldn't carry a conversation off. So I don't know why that is, but we do well when it's a one way conversation.
[00:44:24] Speaker B: Right. Okay. And I know myself, I'm like, I love this kind of thing. But if, if it were a 20 person roundtable, I might not like that.
[00:44:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:33] Speaker B: You know, where it's like, I like small interactions, not same, not politician, like glad handing people.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: I like that. And I'm comfortable. If I'm remotely educated on the subject, I'm more comfortable.
I'm not, I'm not a big sports Guy. So. So when the conversation turns to sports, I'm out. I know nothing about it. Yeah, you know, I know who I'm for beyond that, you know, but.
So you had that first concept. Did you ever try stage acting?
[00:45:02] Speaker B: Well, I did later when I think I sort of decided to be a voice actor.
And this was, you know, we're fast forwarding a little bit, but I think right around that time I said, well, if I want to be good at voice acting, and I usually go, I usually go whole hog, full bore. If I'm going to do something, if I decide to do something, then I'll do everything to get good at that thing.
And so I thought, well, if I'm going to be a voice actor, I need practice reps. Community theater is one of the best places to get practice reps. And any great voice actor is.
Got a theater background.
Just about everyone that I know of and a lot of big, big name movie actors, when they're not in a movie, they're doing something on Broadway or going over to the Vic or something.
I think, I mean, obviously they're making a living, but I think there's more to it than that. I think there is a practice repetition. They're getting better at acting. Like Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal.
This past summer did Othello really up in New York.
[00:46:20] Speaker A: That would be so cool to see.
[00:46:21] Speaker B: Right. And it's. You think of these guys, they're really good. They probably don't need the money and they probably don't need the training. And yet they're actors and they want to get better.
[00:46:33] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:46:34] Speaker B: And I haven't heard either one of them say that, but I just, I think that's what actors do is they get on the stage. That really helps. And in my. I coach voice actors. I tell them, get on your local theater if you can. And it's a show your conscience can allow because theater can, can be, you know, pretty awful at times.
It's so good for, for training in all kind of ways.
So, yes, I did.
I've been in some shows just in local theater, and it's great.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: Why did you pick one over the other?
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Well, one voice acting is an introvert's dream. You can sit by yourself in a room, record. If you don't like it, you edit it out and no one ever knows. And then when you give it to somebody, it's, it's, you know, perfect. It's, it's no mistakes and it's good. You don't have to say, oh, excuse me, I said it wrong, or whatever.
And also being a family man, if you're on stage or on a movie set, you're going to be traveling, right? Most of the time.
So I haven't pursued beyond local community theater. I haven't done too much pursuing. I've been on a few, like, extras and stuff.
I've done a few short films and things. And I like it. It's fun, it's good training. But voice acting is where it's at because I can do 90% of it out of my. In my backyard studio.
[00:48:03] Speaker A: How did you. How did you learn the tech side of it if you didn't have that to begin with? Or were you a techie? Did you?
I played with cameras my whole life, so this, this stuff is just natural to me. But I often wonder what the learning curve is for someone who's just starting out to understand. You can waste a lot of money learning.
And how did. Were there YouTube channels?
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Or in my case, YouTube was a big part of that.
Because I'm not techie, I take a long time. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around technological concepts.
So in my case, I go to YouTube and just, you know, figure out, okay, step by step, what mic do I need, what program do I use, how do I edit?
[00:48:50] Speaker A: So were you working, Were you a working actor at that point?
At what point did you get your first gig?
[00:48:58] Speaker B: I think 2013. I'm working in a factory, then I move jobs.
I think.
I guess it was 2013. 2013 is when I started. I said, I need to start a YouTube channel just for readings, just narrations, not even really acting, just narrations.
And they're all still on my YouTube, but they're all in private because they're terrible.
But I guess in the passage of time, I upgraded a mic because I was just doing the internal. Just talking at my laptop. So it's just bad quality. Well, then I got a mic and then I made some. I'm moving to the closet and that kind of thing.
After a few readings of that, I just started getting messages from people like, hey, what would you charge to read this thing?
And I'm like, I don't know, you know, 20 bucks.
And so I think the first, really, the first gig that I ever had was a guy that I knew that was in.
He was the director of photography on a film that was shooting, shooting in Mississippi.
And they needed a voiceover for this part.
And he just called me up and said, hey, you've got a good Voice, you know, give you 100 bucks if you read this script.
So I read the script and it was very short. It was, you know, maybe 30 seconds and then said, great. And PayPal made a hundred bucks. I said, what?
Let's do that again.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: It is when you get paid to do something you really enjoy, that money's better.
[00:50:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:50] Speaker A: You know, you can go get paid to do something that you really don't want to do, pay 10 times more, but when you get paid a little bit to do something you really enjoy. Right. Like when I, when we sell a book, the book, the profit might be eight bucks on a hardcover book or something.
But I'm happier about that $8 than the other. It's just, it's just fun for me. It is the market telling you it's rewarding you for a gift, you know, and your ability. It's just a really cool thing.
[00:51:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: So you're.
Do you have your studio built out at that point?
[00:51:23] Speaker B: I am in a closet. So just kind of a walk in closet. No.
No sound treatment other than the hanging clothes. Because that's why I'm in there.
[00:51:34] Speaker A: And in my research of what you've done, I've discovered when you think about it, every commercial's got a voice actor.
You're watching a documentary, there's a voice actor. You watch Ken Burns, there's a voice actor.
Everybody's got a voice actor somewhere. They're much more common than I realize. I always thought it was just reading books.
[00:51:56] Speaker B: Right.
[00:51:57] Speaker A: But. But there's a lot of work there. And especially if you have a unique accent, if you can do unique accents.
So. So did you, did you kind of find a niche in that field as a guy who did Southern accents or how did it work?
[00:52:10] Speaker B: Well, it's interesting.
90% of the work that I do is in mid regional. Like they don't want an accent. They'll even make sure do not use an accent unless interestingly enough, Texas companies, they want to hear themselves, which is funny, do a little bit of Texas accent.
But everybody else wants just no accent.
So it's almost like the Southern accent is part of, you know, home, my identity.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: And there's not a Southern accent. Really. There's.
What is your breadth of that? Like where can you walk around the map and show me a little different intonation?
[00:52:51] Speaker B: Not necessarily. I think we're at this point we've probably moved around too much, all of us.
[00:52:56] Speaker A: That's probably true.
[00:52:57] Speaker B: But I think back during the.
I think there are some generalities and maybe I may not Be able to do them.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: But.
[00:53:05] Speaker B: But if I heard it, I could say that's Appalachian.
[00:53:08] Speaker A: Have you heard the gal that can go, like, she'll just in real time be reading, and she'll go from South Georgia.
[00:53:16] Speaker B: I think I've heard something.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: And then deep Appalachian. You know, it's really fascinating. She's really good at it. But I'm in the Appalachian foothills.
[00:53:24] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:53:25] Speaker A: So what I would hear as a Southern accent was something like Ernest T. Bass.
[00:53:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:53:32] Speaker A: And when I moved here, when they think Southern accent, it's antebellum. It's. It's the. The. The. They don't pronounce the R. You know, it's. And it's interesting. I've done a couple of. Of deep dives into how Scotch Irish transitioned over here in the States.
And when we would go back, I took 40, 50 people to England recently, and it was interesting. Like you said, in different parts of London, you'll hear.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:54:01] Speaker A: Different accents.
And as we move down to Scotland, some of it was more familiar because there were more. The way that they pronounce words was more similar to how I remember certain words growing up.
[00:54:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:54:15] Speaker A: You know, and just how they use the English language. But so how did you. What did you market yourself? When did you become the cultured bumpkin?
[00:54:24] Speaker B: Well, that was. Let's see, that was 2018.
I started a podcast, the Culture Bumping, which I still. I still do.
And that was sort of a nod to, I love the classics. That's what you'll be getting on here. But it might not always be packaged in the most polished way, because that. I'm just not a super polished guy. So it's a little bit of both.
And also, I think in the past, I have maybe hid my interest in some things because, well, these guys are gonna rag me to death if they know I went to a play last night. You know, that kind of thing. So it's sort of.
This was maybe the first time where it's like, hey, I like the classics, and I'm old enough and mature enough to admit it openly, and I don't really care what anybody thinks, but. But I'm from the south, and some of them will be rough.
Maybe I'll put Southern accents to some of them.
But, yeah, so that was about 2018, and at that point, I was just getting into audio books and some other.
Just getting into commercials. And that was right before I went full time.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Somewhere along the way, I was looking at your repertoire. You've done some really big events. I mean, you've had some great, great brands to hire you.
I'm not sure how they do that. Like I, when we do an audio book, we get on ASX or whatever it is, acx and you've got, you know, a number of guys you can pick from. And my assistant normally just finds one that she can tolerate listening to for a little while.
But how is that done by the big brands? How do they choose one actor over another?
[00:56:18] Speaker B: There's a lot of stuff to do with marketing.
So you have a whole team. Like if you have a 30 second commercial, you're gonna have a team of writers.
Then you'll have marketing people that have to say, well, you have to mention the whatever. And so there's marketing aspect. Well then there's legal aspect. Lawyers gotta look at it to make sure you're in compliance with Lord knows what. And then finally once you have the script, then you have the, you know, the casting people. And depending on how big the company is, will depend on who's doing it. It's some companies, if they're a little smaller, it'll be like, well, the CEO wants you to sound more excited but he likes your voice. That kind of thing.
[00:57:02] Speaker A: It's amazing that people have time to think through all that.
[00:57:05] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly.
[00:57:06] Speaker A: I don't have time to think through all that.
[00:57:07] Speaker B: Right know, you know, but when you think about it, okay, this piece of content is about to represent everything about.
[00:57:14] Speaker A: My company and they're going to spend a lot of money, right?
[00:57:17] Speaker B: We're going to spend a lot of money and it's going to draw people in or turn people off possibly, or bore them and they'll turn, turn the channel, the la, the latter of which we can't have. So we got to get it right. And so, yeah, I don't know, I think there's probably 100 different ways that could happen. Just, you know, it could be on Fiverr, it could be on acx. You know, I'm on those places with me.
I think sort of the onset of AI has made me say, well, I need to not just be, you know, middle aged adult male baritone. It needs to be Jake or the cultured bumpkin. Yeah. And so I've been getting a lot of stuff because of my social media where I'll have people message me, hey, I like your stuff and I want you to do it. Like I could go on Fiverr, I could go on acx, but I like you, I like your content. Could you do that?
I just recently, I guess it was over the weekend, submitted a book.
There's a. It's called the Green Ember series. There's a Christian guy from West Virginia, and they're just real good young reader books that talk about, you know, being noble and brave and good things that kids aren't getting from books these days.
So he had followed me on Instagram and just reached out like, hey, you know, would you be interested in this?
So that's another way, you know, social.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Media casting, you might say, have you ever gotten something? And you. And just go, I'm assuming you must have. When you just think this is horrible, not morally or ethically, but just, this is poorly written.
Do you have any creative control of that, or do you just have to go with what they give you and make it happen?
[00:59:10] Speaker B: Usually that's very rare. If it's a big company, from a, let's say, moral standpoint, I turn down stuff that I find objectionable morally all the time.
If it's just badly written, I will. Usually it's usually somebody off of Fiverr and they're giving me what I would be asking for it. But usually I'll send them a message and be like, hey, how. How tied are you to this script? I'll try to be diplomatic, and then I'll say, you know, I think we could tighten it down a little bit.
You know, basically, here's what the big boys are doing. I'll try to help them sort of tighten the script, cut some fat.
[00:59:54] Speaker A: Well, as a creator, I would rather have that correction from another creative.
[01:00:00] Speaker B: Oh, right. You know, it's like they care about the whole project.
[01:00:02] Speaker A: They do, they do. And their voice is on it. So it matters.
Let's move into. As a Christian, raised in a Christian household, came to Christ, read the Bible regularly.
My son is an artist. My son is moving to Nashville on the 28th.
He's going into the country music industry. We've got a background in that industry.
And developing a framework for him to know, here's what song to sing or not to sing.
Those are.
They're easier for me because I've thought about it a lot, but I've found that when people come to Christ, they struggle in the arts to come up with a theology of what's okay to. Because let me explain myself this way. There are things like David and Bathsheba.
That's a sin. It was obviously a sin. It was represented as a sin. It was a horrible sin.
And it's written down by God forever and forever and forever.
So it's captured.
It's in black and white.
So if you were let's say, chosen to play the part of David, how do you process?
And I'll tell you what I've worked with, with him, and I'm wondering how you would modify or if yours is more elaborate or what.
What I've told him is if you're going to represent life, you're going to have to include sin, nature and its effects in doing that.
Just be honest with it. So, for example, if you're talking about. If you're singing about a guy going out and getting stoned, getting drunk, and you make that look like the answer to everything, and it's just fixed all of his problems, suddenly he's got a job and everything's coming together, that's just not honest, that's dishonest. If you're singing about it and showing the real life effects of it and how he's going to be paying for that a lot longer than he intends to, I'm more okay with him taking that kind of part. He's a grown man. It's his choice either way. But I've tried to help him develop a framework that honors truth and honesty.
How have you processed those sort of roles?
[01:02:28] Speaker B: Well, I think, like, to your point, is it glorying in sin?
Because to never mention sin and you sort of have this Pollyanna Mayberry type of thing. That's cool. I mean, that really is. That would be nice. But also, it's not a real.
[01:02:48] Speaker A: It's not reality and it's not even scriptural.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: Right.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: You know, scripture is not a sanitized story.
[01:02:53] Speaker B: Right.
[01:02:54] Speaker A: You know, at times it's very gory. At times it's very lascivious.
And I remember reading it, the Puritans would take out like the Song of Solomon before they would give it to a young kid because they knew what it meant.
It was an explicit book at times.
So to be biblical and honest.
[01:03:18] Speaker B: Is.
[01:03:18] Speaker A: There a good framework or have you found resources that have helped you process that sort of thing?
[01:03:24] Speaker B: Well, I mean, I think a couple of things.
When Daniel and the boys were taken into Babylon, it said that Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank.
Therefore, he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. So before he even really got into the lion's den, literally, he had already thought about what he was going to do, made some boundaries, and then took steps with that, you know, the unsaved party.
[01:04:01] Speaker A: All creative alternatives.
[01:04:02] Speaker B: Right.
So an example in My case, and this is just community theater. But, you know, I'm married, love my wife. And to me, kissing another woman is not art, even if that's part of the story. I'm just not going to do that. I don't think it's necessarily a sin, but I'm just not doing that. And I was in this play where my character has to. Or his girlfriend or concubine, you might say, comes in and kisses him. Well, I.
I said, hey, you can recast me. I ain't doing that. It's not like I'm getting paid. What are you going to do? And I was polite about it. And he was like, what? Okay, no, that makes sense. He was totally cool about it. I went to him, he requested of the Prince of the Eunuchs. I went to the director, who's an atheist, and said, hey, this is just kind of my thing.
Is it cool if, like, I really don't mind if she comes up and gives me a peck on the cheek or something, but mouth to mouth, that's. There's only one woman that I do that with. And he was like, no, no, I respect that, man. That's cool. And so in this, we. I turned it from him being.
I kind of made his character. He didn't really like to be touched. One of those guys. And so when his girlfriend basically comes in late and she. She tries to give him a kiss to sort of. Oh, don't imagine I'm not late, you know, because he's a bad worker.
[01:05:29] Speaker A: Right.
[01:05:29] Speaker B: He owns the store. He's kind of like.
[01:05:32] Speaker A: And that's a creative alternative.
[01:05:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And it. And every night. It went on for two weeks. Every night. That gag got a laugh.
[01:05:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: Where. It's like most guys would. Would be distracted by that, but this guy's, you know, such a crank. He. He was, like, annoyed by that. And it was funny.
[01:05:48] Speaker A: It makes sense. We had. Our daughter is one of the most natural actors, actresses I've ever known. And she would run into the same things, and it was normally with taking the name the Lord in vain and omg and everything that they were. Whatever this particular play was.
And I remember her going, coming to me and saying, dad, what do I do?
This is in the script.
It's this place where three of us are saying the same thing.
You know, I'm not okay with this. And it was just like, well, here's your opportunity to decide who you're going to be, you know? And she goes to the director, shares her heart with the director, and they're like, oh, yeah, that's fine, that's fine. You don't have to be a part of that.
However, I think even with that, there was a framework to say, there are parts of this play that are objectionable to her conscience.
She doesn't have to participate, but she was willing to be in the play.
And those are complicated life decisions that adults have to make every single day and where they're going to draw the line. And you can take an extremely puritanical approach to just say, I don't want to be even in a theater because those things happen.
Or you can come up with a framework, a philosophy or theology that says, you know, this is how you decide about that.
Keller up in New York did a good job because he had so many people that were on Broadway as a part of Redeemer. That was one thing I always felt like he did well at. If people are processing those things, he produced some materials that helped actors, directors, to think through and process, you know, what would be pleasing to the Lord, what may be too far. And then there's a measure of it. This is left up to personal conscience that you've just got to develop on your own as you move forward. What does the trajectory of this career path look like? Like, is there someone that you say, when I grow up, I want to be like him, or how does that work?
[01:08:01] Speaker B: Well, you know, the Lord's been very good to me, and I feel like I have exceeded my dream, which. Because my. My dream has nothing to do with, like, fame or fortune. It's just if I can provide for my family in a creative way and then have the flexibility to do something like this. If I was in a factory, this wouldn't be happening. Yeah, right. You know, to be able to say, yeah, we'll leave on a Friday. Come up there.
I love that. And I kind of.
I don't know that that's where I want to be and. And maybe that's where I want to stay. But I talk to the Lord a lot. Just like, lord, I love where you have me. If you ever want to start moving the cloud or the pillar of fire by night, just tell me and I'll follow you.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: That's awesome.
I know you've been very open about your faith.
Some of the readings that you do are scriptural readings.
And the little town I'm from in Alabama was Lucas Black's hometown.
Lucas was in Sling Blade.
And so in the south, we only have a few guys we look up to as great actors. And Billy Bob Thornton was up There, Right. And so Lucas Black from Moulton, Alabama, his career did great. He kept getting tapped for these parts that his accent was just perfect for and had a glorious conversion, came to Christ.
[01:09:30] Speaker B: And.
[01:09:32] Speaker A: It'S been challenging for him because he's not playing.
He's all in for Jesus, and he's had to quickly learn some of those principles and make some of those decisions. And he's extremely bold in his faith. And again, not everybody's John the Baptist.
So how theater's not always the most morally straight line that the creative world attracts a lot of different types of people. How has that fleshed itself out in your life?
[01:10:09] Speaker B: To me, you know, I want to use anything that the Lord has given me for his glory. And I think that he's given me a voice to use. He's given me acting skills, you know, that I've. And I think that what he gives you, you should be developing. You know, I think the Lord rarely gives someone a perfect, you know, a holy ab. I don't think God zapped him. And then he became a great artist and made the tabernacle. I bet you he was a great artist and had been a faithful, meticulous artist for many years. And God ramped that up a little bit.
[01:10:48] Speaker A: Apparently, we will say to young men, especially young women, if you're a two and work your tail off, you might be a four. But if you're a six in a particular area and you work hard, you might be a 10 one day. And so identify those areas where your natural inclination and gifting all aligns. And so with that, you've obviously done that.
How do you deal with it if you're speaking to someone and they're from a totally different worldview?
[01:11:23] Speaker B: I mean, I asked God to give me wisdom about some if it's certainly a one on one interaction because, you know, Jesus said, follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.
There's a lot of ways to catch fish. And one thing that I try to do, anytime I see somebody fishing and I have the time, I ask them, how are you trying to. What are you fishing for? And how are you trying to be successful at it? And it's amazing. Man eyes light up. A guy usually in a thick accent from somewhere, explains to you, well, I'm going to wait until I. With this net. I did it in Swansboro, North Carolina, right up the coast.
You know, when I see that sun at this time of day glint off this school at this distance, I'm going to throw it as fast as I Can. And those fish are going to hit it.
Well, then another guy might have a pole there and say, well, you stand real still and don't move and just throw it.
Anyway, people are like that. Jesus compared people to fish.
And so I try to say, lord, whatever this guy is going through, help me to hit the buttons. That would be effective in him thinking about you, considering what you have for him in his life.
But with classic literature, I think it's a real and sincere interest. I love classic literature, but how could I use that for the glory of God?
Well, a lot of the time I'll have.
I might have A Christmas Carol in Southern, where Scrooge is a cranky old Southern banker and people are coming to listen to the novelty of that and how well English writing works with Southern.
You know, the similarities. Like, man, it sounds like he's making it up, but he's not. I'm reading along with it.
And then on that same playlist, there's the Gospel of John.
And I've had a lot of people, you know, I can think of an atheist guy that I was in the army with messaged me one time and said, hey, sir, I was listening to some Shakespeare thing that you did, and it was great. And then, I mean, you know, I'm not a. I'm not religious, but I listened to some John and I was. That was strangely moving to me.
[01:13:44] Speaker A: That's cool.
[01:13:44] Speaker B: And to me, that's like, thank you, Lord. That is the goal of. I mean, I'm having fun. I like classic literature, but I don't. It's not the word of God. And if I can. If Jane Austen could be the entry point into the word that came down from heaven, that would be something.
[01:14:05] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[01:14:05] Speaker B: The devil is trying to get my kids.
I want to get some of his kids.
[01:14:09] Speaker A: And he'll use whatever tactics he can. Yeah. And I think about some people.
I was going into a secular field, came to Christ, was led far from that and into a very explicit. I mean, a pastor is about as explicitly Christian as you're going to get.
But we don't need everyone to follow that. You know, God calls people to that.
We need people in every field, every.
The arts, in business, in technology, who are doing good work as a Christian that aren't necessarily doing always Christian work.
And so thank you for that example.
How can people, if they say, I want to listen to some of his work, I want to kind of lean into it, maybe connect with you on social. Where can they find you?
[01:15:03] Speaker B: The cultured bumpkin on YouTube, cultured bumpkin podcast, Cultured Bumpkin or the Cultured Bumpkin on Instagram or TikTok. Usually those are my four that I'm kind of active on.
[01:15:17] Speaker A: I think I started on Instagram and then transitioned at some point over to TikTok. Got most of the content on TikTok. But I'd strongly encourage people to check you out and to follow the work. I know we've got a lot of people in this community and other communities where we have listeners that would love to learn more. You do offer lessons, is that right?
[01:15:35] Speaker B: I do. I have a voiceover kind of group that I do. I just was talking to a bunch of Northern students about how to do a Southern accent earlier this week.
[01:15:47] Speaker A: Awesome. Well, thank you for joining us today.
[01:15:50] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
