Published: March 25, 2009 10:14 PM EST
By: Isaac Davis Jr., MBA (Juniorscave.com)
JC Interview Exclusive:
Steve Kahn
Steve Kahn
Perhaps one of the most amazing actors/authors on the plant Earth Steve Kahn discovered at an early age how to conquer his fears. Today he has written a brilliant novel titled Death Wave that reveals man's deepest fears. Steve also shares a deep love for acting especially theater where he has performed in a variety of plays since he was a kid. In this recent interview with our Webzine, Steve speaks one on one with me in this candid and revealing interview. Enjoy!
Isaac: Hi Steve, I wanted to first thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to complete this interview with our Webzine. You were born and raised in Southern California. Describe a little about how growing up in Southern California help you realize your love for theatre.
Steve: Hi Isaac. Thank you for the privilege to be on Junior's Cave. Great looking site! It's my pleasure.
You've done your research! (smiling) You know as a kid growing up in Los Angeles I never saw the appeal of celebrity or stardom. When you see movies being shot around you everywhere or run into a random star here or there, it takes all of the glamour out of it and you see it as more of a mundane thing.
What made me realize my love for acting was doing a lot community theater which I really fell into as a kid. Kids are natural performers. They love to pretend and play and those are two big ingredients of being an actor. So I guess it was by chance that I fell into the community theatre group when I was about ten.
I still have some great memories of those plays and wish I still had the scripts. I remember one musical show which I loved so mush that I cried when we finally wrapped. Through tears, I would ride my bike on my paper route singing the song over and over again - that's how much I missed it. And, how fun it was. For an actor, there is no place more fun than being on the stage.
So I suppose that was the beginning of my love of storytelling.
Isaac: What has been your greatest achievement for 2008 and why?
Steve: Wow! That seems so long ago! I hate looking back because to me all the joy is in creating the project, whatever it is.
It's funny because when I look back on old projects they don't really interest anymore. I think because they're out of my system. I said whatever I needed to say and in doing so the cathartic experience concluded so now I'm ready to move on. When I look back on a past project it always feels very empty for me.
Sometimes someone will approach me and say they liked this film I did or some other project and while I really appreciate the ego stroke it's hard for me to be as enthusiastic as they are. I can look back and get a chuckle or appreciate this moment or that one but it's never the same as when I was creating.
Ok. I know. My current project (Death Wave) was started in 2008. I always love what I'm working on at the moment.
Isaac: At an early stage of your career, you have tackled writing and filmmaking. What has been the biggest reward from being able to write and make films that you want to produce?
Steve: That is the reward.
Perhaps I'm strange (in fact I'm sure I am) but I have all these things that bug me in life. They really bother me. And, I say that maybe I'm strange because I just can't let them go. Until they're turned into a project, that is.
My current project, Death Wave, centers on the theme of fear. And, for me fear has always been a thing I've had to fight. It's always been an issue in my life. I love my dad dearly but one of the things, one of the quotes he always told us was to "run scared". I mean that was an awful thing to tell a child but that's how he felt. Afraid. So as a kid, that's how I started feeling. Though I'm better now, I still have to fight my own fears all the time.
Throughout my life I'd wake up mornings, every morning, with terrible irrational fears. Stupid ones. But still they would create a negative impact on my day and life. So, one morning when I woke up with my head spinning with a jumble of crazy irrational thoughts running through my head I new this had to become a project.
Death Wave is set as a backdrop during our current economic crisis. There are political and business scandals which have caused people, worldwide, to completely lose confidence in the system. And run scared.
And, a perfect time for the project. People, now, are as scared as I have always been.
So being able to work through my own issues is the greatest reward. Of course the subject has to be universal (or nobody will like it and it's just masturbation). And, though I love entertaining people and making them laugh or cry or feel something ultimately it is ultimately for my own selfish reasons that drives me - my catharsis from telling the story.
Isaac: One of your other accomplishments was when you attended the prestigious Sanford Meisner Center for the Arts where you graduated the two-year acting program with honors. How did that experience helped you prepare for what you are currently doing now?
Steve: You did do your research! Let me tell you true artists are not nice people. They're not. They've got all of this angst and all of these issues with the world. And besides that it really irks them when someone messes (poorly) with their art form. It's like you're killing their baby or something.
That was how it was at the Sanford Meisner Center. And, it was great!
You asked about Southern California earlier. Ever watched Dr. 90210? That's what it's like. Many, many, many plastic people. And, that is really the opposite of any kind of good art. Good art really tries to make some kind of human statement or tries to portray humanity in a truthful way. You can't do that and be a phony. v
So, studying under Martin Barter at the Meisner Center was a breath of fresh air for me. It completely helped me to mature as an artist and I'll be forever grateful to Marty - even though we hate each others guts (joke).
But, if I learned one thing which goes through every aspect of my work it is this: I won't tolerate one moment, one second of anything but the absolute truth. I guess Marty turned me into a real hard ass too - and I'm grateful.
Isaac: What has been the best advice you have actually followed?
Steve: Wow, there's been so much along the way.
Though my mom is usually pretty dead on about most things I can say that I really try to let my intuition guide me through most decisions and using the intuition has been right almost always.
Here's how I do it. If I need some kind of answer I just ask the question and then get quiet. I go to a coffee shop and just stare out. Or I take a drive. Or I even wash the dishes (which my girlfriend Katy likes). Whatever way to get in this quiet meditative state works. Then the answer just comes to me.
You didn't ask here but this is how I work through projects as well. You get all these unanswered questions working on a project and they get very very involved. Like: what should happen now? Or what is this characters particular viewpoint? Or even what am I really trying to say here???
They can be overwhelming questions and they all MUST add up TRUTHFULLY for the project to be good so that everyone can relate. So that it is universal. So that it is human.
And, to be truthful, I can't take credit for inspired ideas because they were just that. Inspired. They came into my head from someplace else. Maybe, from general human consciousness. But wherever, I can't take credit for them. All take credit for is being quiet enough to have listened to them as they passed through.
Isaac: What I find fascinating about you is that you possess many talents. One of those talents includes being an author. Elaborate a little about your novel, "Death Wave", and what the novel is all about.
Steve: Thanks but the most of the great stuff came to me from sitting quietly over coffee. The crap comes when I think too hard and try to make something happen.
As I said, this project really started for me from childhood. This theme of fear was literally hounding me for years until I started writing this novel.
I think that a lot of people have been feeling fearful with all of the economic uncertainty that's been going on in the world. And that's where Death Wave starts. Stewart, the protagonist and a frightened guy himself, is sent on a journey from first battling his own inner demons to ultimately tracking down ills that have pillaged the world on his mission to extinguish the root of all evil that has plagued man for eons, since the beginning of recorded time.
Death Wave is an end of the world story in the vein of "Children of Men" and has a fantasy "Pan's Labyrinth" twist. It also is being adapted into a film and at present is a free e-book and audio book.
Isaac: You have formed alongside Katy Dolle Kahn Artist Filmworks as a production company. What is the vision behind making this production company and what do you hope to achieve with your production company?
Steve: I'm not the business mind at all. Katy is. Most of that stuff goes under her wing and she usually helms that ship but I suppose there are just some legal reasons to have a production company more than visionary ones.
As for visionary ideas… we've been talking about adapting Death Wave into a short film so that's probably next on our docket. There is another short film which is a farcical comedy which I'd like to produce but it just keeps getting sidelined for other more pressing projects. It's called "Her Room" and you can read the script and see the storyboard (if you like those sorts of things)
(http://kafilmworks.com/herroom/herroom5.html)
Isaac: What are the ups and downs of working with Katy who you are dating so closely?
Steve: Wow. That's a tough one. Working with someone you love can be hard and working with women (for me) is really hard. It's not them, though. It's me. I'm not an easy guy to be with when I'm working. I can be very demanding - to a fault. And, that's not good when the person you're working with is someone you love. It's really hard to separate personal from business and much of the time business is taken home or even into the bedroom.
But, on the up side, I love working with Katy. She's a great artistic talent and a great business mind as well. It is the most fun in the world to make a film with friends (and lovers). And, with Katy living with me and a partner as well, we can be working all the time, at odd hours and into the night. We have fun!
It's great because we always do voices and have little games between just the two of us and these little trifles can (and have) turned into project ideas.
Isaac: What are you hoping to gain from being in the entertainment business?
Steve: If I can continue with what I've been doing - telling my stories - I'd be very happy.
I also love to make people laugh. It is a gift to me when I see a smile. Such a great thing.
Artists are very needy people so I continue to want more and more people to see my work as well. This is an unquenchable thirst (and one I know I need to work on… maybe an idea for a new project???)
Isaac: If you had an opportunity to work with one director, who would it be and why?
Steve: Sam Mendes because I'm obsessed with "American Beauty" which he directed and I think he's an amazing actor's director. (Woody Allen is too). He is a true actor's director. (He also comes from the theatre world so this is probably why).
In Hollywood most directors are more concerned with how a shot looks. A lot of the time they come into film after doing a lot of music videos or commercials (where the look is everything).
An actor's director cares more about the truth of the scene between the actors and I think Sam Mendes is first rate.
Isaac: What can fans look forward to from Steve Kahn in 2009?
Steve: Death Wave has been taking my days and nights. As I mentioned, probably a short film inspired by the book and then after the whole book is released on the net there will be a hard cover version in book stores.
I love to meet new people and the great thing is that the book has been attracting folks from around the world. And, it is really cool to connect with them. It is so amazing to me that people from countries such as Mauritius and Kenya and Sri Lanka like the book and have contacted me on the site.
It is wonderful that they connect with the story and that it's meaningful to them.
Isaac: Final words from Steve Kahn...
Something that I always work on - I have been working on for ages - is being truthful to myself. (Maybe, again, another future project theme???)
That seems to be a tough one these days but liking yourself and respecting yourself is a paramount thing and so rarely done. People race to be homogeneous and fit in but in that process lose themselves and their unique gifts.
And when you look at strange people like Prince, or Marlon Brando or even Bill Gates you say thank God Bill didn't try to change himself into being a football star or thank god Prince put all of his crazy, sexy side into his music. One of the reasons these people were great is because they were brave enough to say: 'yes, this is who I am. I'm a freak. Deal with it.'
And, everyone has an amazing set of entirely unique gifts and talents to share with the world. Our world would really be a better place if we all focused on those things than trying to unconsciously cram ourselves into moulds of what we think we should be.
For me, I know I'm terrible at business stuff. I'm awful at promotion and PR work. Whenever I attempt it, I get angry and frustrated. And I'm not even very good at it. These are all signs to me that maybe I should steer away from these kinds of things. I'm not saying that PR stuff is bad. I have a friend named David Seamen who is an absolute genius at PR. In fact, he wrote a great book called "Dirty little secrets of buzz" when he was still in college. That how good he is.
So it's all about doing what you are uniquely genius at and leaving the rest behind. And it's about accepting yourself fully. My acting teacher, Sanford Meisner said: "that which you cannot accept, you cannot use." Very true.
