Celebrity Interview - Entertainment & Film Industry - Katie Prentiss: From Grief to Film - A Journey of Resilience and 'Wake Up Maggie' Viral Joy Meets Filmmaking

Greg Staffa 0:00

You're listening to the Staffa Corner Podcast, a Staffatarian look at entertainment and life with your host, Greg Staffa. My guest's episode comes with an unusual backstory. I was watching TikTok one day, and I saw this lovely woman, and it was a video of her dancing to this rhythmic beat. There was so much joy and happiness in this little 20-second or so video that I thought, wow, that would be a person I'd love just to talk to, to hear whatever their story was. It was just so full of energy and just fun. It wasn't anything suggestive, it was just lovely. And I thought, wow, having a podcast, I wish she was in the entertainment industry where she was a director or an actress or a writer. And so I checked out her profile, and it turns out she is an award-winning filmmaker and actress. And so I reached out and I'm happy to have Katie Prentiss joining us today. Again, she's an award-winning filmmaker and actress, best known for her role as Beth in Winter Island. Her recurring role is Sadie in two seasons of Going Home and is currently working on promoting her first feature film, Wake Up Maggie. Katie, thank you for joining us today.

Katie Prentiss 1:40

Greg, thank you so much for having me.

Greg Staffa 1:43

I appreciate you coming on. I mean, there's so much crap on TikTok, and you come across something, and this was you dancing in your kitchen, and it was just full of life and energy. And I think if more of us had that, it'd be a much better world. And it was just you not giving a care to the world and just sharing that for everyone else. And it's one of those times where you watch something and then just seeing it, it just brings joy, and you don't know why, but it's just it brightens your day. And so it brightened my day, and to be able to to wish that you were in the entertainment industry turned out to be true. So it worked out great for me, too.

Katie Prentiss 2:22

So I love this, I love this story, and I think it's really sweet, and that is the hope that when I do post my own joy on social media that it is contagious to others. So I love hearing that.

Greg Staffa 2:36

So you were not always involved in acting or filmmaking. You were an English major and a portrait photographer and a mother of

From English Major To Actor

Greg Staffa 2:46

four. What got you started into acting and filmmaking?

Katie Prentiss 2:51

You know, it's funny. I look back in my life and think about all the different seasons and chapters of having kids or studying English in college or my portrait photography business that I've had for over 18 years. And the thing that connects all of it is living in story and wanting to engage with people and wanting to know people's stories. I think back even back in studying English literature, I always wanted to know the author's stories of their personal life and how it affects the stories that they wanted to tell. And now, fast forward, here I am doing that in the film industry. And I would say the irony of what got me into this industry was my loss of my mother over nine years ago, almost 10 years ago. And just processing my grief and her death made me really evaluate how I wanted to live my life. And it led me to where I am today.

Greg Staffa 3:50

One of the things when I've talked to actors and actresses is each of them in their own way do acting because it provides a little bit of an escape. They can become someone that they they aren't in their daily lives, and it gets them away from pain, tragedy, or even just some realities of life. Is that part of it? Because you connected to your mother's, your mother's passing. Was that a part of why you became an actress?

Katie Prentiss 4:20

You know, I think my first thought in taking a leap into this industry was more about living life with abandon and letting go of the worry of what people would think. And so auditioning for the first role, I thought I would be devastated if anyone knew I was doing this because I felt most people would judge and think I was being ridiculous as an adult with a very full life. Why would I be auditioning to try to become an actor? But I remember thinking that life is short

Grief, Risk, And First Auditions

Katie Prentiss 5:00

and it's worth taking risks to live more fully. And I remember thinking I wanted to feel as alive as I possibly could after losing my mom because you just get that brevity of life when you process your grief like that. So it wasn't necessarily to escape my feelings. It was that I wanted to lean into the fullest, richest life I could imagine.

Greg Staffa 5:25

What did your family think of this?

Katie Prentiss 5:28

I think most my family and friends, I would say most people were just shocked that I had booked a role. I booked the first role I auditioned for. So it's kind of an uncanny entrance into this industry. But when I did that, I didn't even know what I was getting into. I didn't know that I would want to choose this as an actual career. But once I was onset, I was hooked. I was obsessed with the whole experience and knew that I wanted to keep trying. And I would say that my family was really proud and felt inspired by the change in career in midlife. And then friends, you know, a lot of friends would be really supportive and encouraging, encouraging, and other friends would perhaps be a little nervous or judgmental. I know they're projecting their own fear onto me, or they would, I got some people that would mock the the choice as well. I think there's always going to be negative and positive when we take big risks.

Greg Staffa 6:36

Did the photographer in you did that help you when it came to not only acting but also directing? Because a photographer has to capture an image, but often that image is telling a story.

Katie Prentiss 6:49

Oh no, my my photography career 100% translates into informing me as an actor and a director. I think first time I was on set, I was highly aware of camera, angles, shots, lighting. I knew instinctively to find my light because of just shooting photography all those years. Then as a director, I think you have the technical side of it as like you're I'm I'm very accustomed to dealing with composition and framing and lighting and all of that in my portrait work. But I think the thing that's probably less discussed is the way portrait photography translates into directing

Photography Skills On Set

Katie Prentiss 7:40

is the people component. I've been working with people for years and years and years from behind the camera, trying to get them to relax, find find ease in their bodies, engage with one another, engage with the environment around them. And as I've directed people on shoots, I would say I think that my skill level is its highest in relating to people. And so as a director, that skill set and that experience of my portrait photography definitely translates and carries over.

Greg Staffa 8:17

As a new actress, how was the reaction from other actors? And was there anyone that helped you out or gave you some advice?

Katie Prentiss 8:24

Yeah, I think that you'll find people who are very encouraging, and you will find people who are more gatekeepers with any industry that you work in. I'd already been a part of a very competitive industry with portrait photography and found the same thing to be true there. There's going to be people who are collaborative and community-oriented, and there's going to be people who are competitive. And I'd already built up just that framework of knowing who I wanted to put in my circle. And I think with acting, I feel like I definitely found like a beautiful community to plug into very quickly. For me, when I booked my first thing, I knew that I immediately wanted to engage in training. And so I was a person, because I have like an entrepreneur background and get pretty determined to make things work for myself. I jumped into acting class and I put a lot of pressure on myself to train harder. I was like, I have a lot of years to catch up on, and I'm going to train as hard as I possibly can. And I would say that's been true of my career the whole time. I take myself seriously and I work as hard as I possibly can at it. So I think you can have people that have been in the industry their whole life, but that doesn't mean that they're engaged in the craft in the same way. And it just can be different depending on someone's dedication.

Greg Staffa 9:54

So now you're making the leap. You're going from acting to working on your first feature film, Wake Up Maggie, your writer, director, executive, producer. Tell us a little bit about what got you to branch out to do that.

Katie Prentiss 10:09

Yeah, I felt in my as I ventured into the acting career,

Building Community And Training

Katie Prentiss 10:15

I heard advice about actors making their own work. And I thought about here I am, uh a woman in midlife, a white woman in midlife, like how many millions and millions of actors out there are exactly like me, you know. I felt that it would be interesting to try to make my own work and it would give me a sense of control over my career where I didn't feel like I was just waiting for someone to give me a role. I knew as a new actor, like the odds of you getting a lead role in anything is just like very, very low. And so I felt like I wanted to see if I could put together my storytelling nature, my experience being behind the camera and create some of my own work. I made my first short film in 2020. It's called Front Porches. And then I made a few other shorts that were collaborative with other folks. And then I made a mini web series called Gamer, which is on YouTube. And just this year, well, I've been working on this for years, but that just this year I filmed my very first feature called Wake U Maggie, like you said. And that process has been absolutely phenomenal. I would say my filmmaking journey moved from an actor trying to make my own work to a woman on a mission to tell good stories that change people's perspective and open up their minds. Wake Up Maggie is a piece that I'm incredibly proud of that will have deep social impact once it's released. And I can't wait for everyone to see it.

Greg Staffa 12:02

Now it's not necessarily a tribute to your mother, but your mother had some dementia problems and she passed. So you're drawing from that. Was your added responsibility that you felt in choosing this? Was it something that was close to your heart that it made it more passionate for you? Or was it just something that you were familiar with that you felt it'd be easier to tie a story to?

Katie Prentiss 12:31

That's a great question. My

Creating Wake Up Maggie

Katie Prentiss 12:33

first film was to highlight the beginning stages of dementia and the confusion that that creates for people around the loved one that it's experiences that is experiencing some cognitive decline. I think watching that film touch a nerve and continuously create interest made me realize I really wanted to give back even more to this community. My mom had a unique, rare, lesser-known type of dementia called frontotemporal dementia. It's what Bruce Willis was diagnosed with. So a lot of people know it through him and the advocacy work that his wife, Emma Willis, is doing. I wanted to make a feature film that would highlight the uniqueness of this type of dementia through the eyes of the caregiver journey. So it is based on my very true lived experience of caring for my mother, but it's not a story about my mother or me. It's it's written in fiction about Maggie and her strange sister Jane and just what happens between the two of them. So it's a piece that's going to have incredible social impact because it's a beautiful toy. It's a beautiful story that's not only drama but has good comedy. It's about family and sister relationships, it's about life hitting called a coming of middle-age film. So I think that's relatable for any of us that are hitting midlife whenever we hit it.

Greg Staffa 14:10

Oh, you said it has an emotional connection to your mother, but it's not a necessarily a tribute or a retelling. But in doing the research for the film, because when you went through it with your mother, you were deep in the heart of it. You were, you know, your mother was fading away. You were in the middle of it all. When now going back and doing research for Wake Up at Maggie and writing it and directing it, was there anything that you perhaps discovered about yourself or helped you better understand the things that your mother was going through that kind of give you closure that weren't necessarily tied to the film, but just you start seeing things that you might have not seen because you're so close to it at the time, where you got a better understanding from?

Katie Prentiss 14:54

Yeah, that's such a great question, Greg. I think for me, so it's been almost 10 years since I lost my mom. It's been over 15 since her diagnosis. And as I was writing the film, I found that definitely my grief would rise up and I would experience moments of grief. But I feel like doing that work, hitting

Frontotemporal Dementia Focus

Katie Prentiss 15:20

our stories and our grief head-on allows us to process it in a deeper way. It's easy to move forward with life. It's easy to just keep going and find ourselves distracted from grief, trauma, crisis that we've been through. But I think when we retell those stories or when we reface them, it's healing. It's a healing process. So I did find that part of the journey was that for me in the writing, in the execution of the film, during production. The other element that came up for me is an element of fear that I didn't expect. My mom, when my mom was diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia, FTD, watching her, she was diagnosed with a type that's primary progressive aphasia, which means she lost her ability to speak. Watching someone lose their ability to speak, lose their personality, lose their emotions is so hard. They become a shell of themselves, or but then you believe that that person is in there. And I think seeing that happen in her definitely created a deep fear that I too would be diagnosed with this disease. Since beginning the work on Wake Up Maggie, my mother's brother, my uncle, became diagnosed with FTD as well. So there's a good chance that there's a genetic component to the type of dementia that they both have, which is more scary for me. And I found myself working on this movie and feeling these fears rise up. And I was, how do I, I was trying to process how do I deal with these fears as I'm trying to do this work, this advocacy work. And I had this moment of clarity where I realized the fear was there, hovering over my shoulder. And I just felt myself turning around and looking at it and thinking, okay, you're there. What are we gonna do? What are we gonna do about you? What if you knew for sure that you had this disease instead of fearing it all the time? If you had this disease for sure, what would you do with your life? And asking myself that question brought the most clarity because my answer was that I would continue living exactly as I was, trying to like live, make healthy choices, be with my friends and family, but I would also 1000% make this movie Wake Up Maggie. And this would be my way of contributing to research and healing and hope for people in this world that know about this disease. So it was this moment of massive clarification for me that not only was I making a movie, but now I was living my mission and responding to a calling.

Greg Staffa 18:34

And it has to be a scary thing because, on one hand, you have to go on living your life. I mean, you could end this interview, go outside and get hit by a car. So in living in fearful of this disease that may or may not pop up, you almost stop living. And so it it's kind of a scary thing to know that there might be a ticking time bomb, but also it may never go off. And so the sacrifices you give being scared about that are things that you are missing out on in life. Has it helped to have someone like Bruce Willis have something like that? Because he's out of the public eye, but every once in a while they share videos, and on the outside, he looks great and fine, and I'm sure your mom did too. And yeah, you've mentioned it before, there's Bruce Willis is in there somewhere, it's just not coming out, and you said the same thing about your mom. Has that helped to kind of have someone with Bruce Willis's star power having that similar thing and being in the news somewhat regularly? I mean, we're getting updates on them, and it's tragic to hear, you know, this big action star. You never would guess that now he just basically doesn't know who he is.

Katie Prentiss 19:47

You know, I think you're you're spot on,

Fear, Genetics, And Clarity

Katie Prentiss 19:50

and our fears and I would add our grief can make our world small if we let them. And our choice or opportunity is to keep living and keep expanding despite it all. And I think that you're right when you say like none of us are really guaranteed our next moment. So allowing fear of some possible diagnosis or anything like that, allowing that to like shorten our living is not a choice that feels worth it to me. And to your point about having a recognizable, really amazing, Bruce Wills is not just like a really profound actor, but he's a very beloved actor. Like he is a very kind person. I think I've just heard so many beautiful stories about the life that he lives and the way that he lives. I think even more than his diagnosis being public, I think the work of his wife, Emma Hemingwillis, has just been a profound inspiration to me. She not only is his primary care partner in his diagnosis, she's also actively losing him and actively grieving him while trying to raise their children. And on top of that, doing this profound work in advocacy, she's just published a book called The Unexpected Journey that has hit the top New York Times book list. And she's constantly being interviewed. Which, you know, it's easy to look at someone with a platform or some type of fame and think, oh, it's so easy. Like they're just out there getting all these interviews and getting all this attention and fame. But this is work. Like she is doing work to change policy in our country and raise awareness, which is helping with research and funding and all the things we need to advocate for this disease. I think she is just a true hero in this, a profound inspiration. And I really truly like send her all the best because I think when the day is done, you know, she has to deal with like one of the hardest journeys that I've ever been on, only it's her partner instead of her mother, which is just really difficult. So I feel so grateful for the work that she's done in advocacy for this disease.

Greg Staffa 22:40

Plus, you said you had 10 years to process things and and learn to cope and deal with it. She goes home after speaking to her husband.

Katie Prentiss 22:51

Yes, exactly.

Greg Staffa 22:52

And so you had time to process it. She's in the middle of it and then stepping out to be able to talk about it and to you know share that story when it's it's hourly dealing with it versus processing it. Have you reached out to her at all? Not to kind of jump on her bandwagon or anything like that, but to kind of collaborate or talk or say, hey, I'm here, I've gone through the same thing to just have a private moment to talk to each other.

Katie Prentiss 23:22

Yeah, you know, I actually got to meet her uh the annual. Um, there's an AFTD organization, an association of frontotemporal dementia, and they have an annual conference every year. And I attended this

Advocacy, Bruce Willis, And AFTD

Katie Prentiss 23:35

past May, and she was there, and she's one of the most present and lovely humans I've had the pleasure of meeting. She's just very genuine and kind, and I'm very appreciative for my conversations with her and so many other people who are doing advocacy work with the AFTD and for this disease. And I think she's definitely been an encouragement to me in this process. And, you know, for me, I feel like all of us are kind of in this club or corner that none of us want to be in. But true thing that I found in that space is that everyone is incredibly compassionate and caring toward one another and supporting each other. So I feel very grateful.

Greg Staffa 24:22

So Wake Up Maggie is finished, it's now making or trying to make the film festival circuit as your first feature of film and relatively new into acting. How are you getting advice from who are you? You know, you're the producer, so you can't really go to yourself about you know experience on that. How are you getting help?

Katie Prentiss 24:42

Yeah, so we're we're a little bit behind where you're saying we are. We're we're in post-production. We just we just wrapped production almost three weeks ago. So this is a very fresh uh filmed movie. And we're moving into post-production and we're hoping to move into distribution, screenings, that kind of thing next year. I try my best to surround myself by the highest level professionals that I can find. I also try to be the highest level professional that I can be. I've had the privilege of working with just the most profoundly talented people, from producers to directors to fellow actors to you name it, in this industry. I've been able to train extensively as an actor with amazing coaches. I've also had the privilege of being a coach to other actors the past two years of my life, which has been profound as well. So, you know, I find I live in I live in Portland, Oregon, and I find that the film industry here is so supportive and collaborative, and it's just been a phenomenal thing to work with individuals here. So I think on one hand, I'm new to feature film and to figuring out how to make things work. On the other hand, I believe that especially with the state of the industry as it is right now, nobody really knows what they're doing. And that actually encourages me a lot, is I am a person who loves to creatively problem solve. I love to think out of the box, I love to figure it out. When someone tells me no, I say, okay, but how can we make that a yes? So for me, filmmaking is all about that. It's I want to tell a beautiful story. I'm going to surround myself with people who will only make it better. And then we're going to figure out how to creatively problem solve constantly along the way and figure out the path for this thing. So I'm not trying to oversimplify it because there's so much that I'll always have

Post-Production And Problem-Solving

Katie Prentiss 27:10

to learn. And that's the other part that I love about this industry is I can do this until I die, and I'll always have more to learn and deeper work to do. But yeah, I just feel I just feel thankful to get to do it. And I feel incredibly proud of who I've got to learn with and from.

Greg Staffa 27:30

And Oregon is a very talented place for a lot. A lot of actors and actresses seem to go there or create homes there. I have a couple of friends that are actors and actresses that are also in the Oregon area. My next question might not be one that's relevant to you yet, uh, but I have covered South by Southwest, I think six or seven times, gone down to there. It's a a fun film festival. It's they their selections are very pro-women. There's a lot of women directors uh promoting their first feature films there, and a lot of young talent. We see these women getting awards for their their films and and film festivals and stuff like that, but then making that leap to like the next level of filmmaking, you know, we have Patty Jenkins and and some of the others, but it it really seems to be a gap between that. Is that something that you're starting to experience? Is there any thought to that? How does that log jam kind of get taken away? And is it just is it just I mean, I guess when I watch a movie, I'm not thinking, oh, a woman directed this, so I'm not gonna like it as much if it was a big production versus I enjoy it as a film festival film. How is that disconnect there?

Katie Prentiss 28:50

Yeah, that's a great question. It's definitely uh I would say I'm very curious to see how Wake Up Maggie will be received. I feel proud of it and I will do everything I can to get it in front of everybody that needs to be in front of. I definitely always am going to think about how to level up, how to make my next move. I also feel that I don't have the expectation that anyone's going to do that for me. I have an experience. I know every I feel it's so easy to want to wait for someone to come knock on your door or roll out the carpet for you to have the success that you imagine. But in my experience, it really does take personal resilience and grit and audacity to go for those things yourself. In in all of my projects, even with Wake Up Maggie, I thought once I get to a certain amount of fundraising, surely people will just want to be a part and want to put their money in. And I did. feel like an incredible amount of generosity the entire way of making

Women Directors And Leveling Up

Katie Prentiss 30:05

this movie but it's never it's never quote unquote easy so I know that I know that the statistics are not in favor of women's success comparatively and I know that men often get offers quickly to level up but I don't think that that's necessarily easy for them or true for most in this industry uh either so so I don't know I I I think that what you're saying and the stats are real it's true but I don't know that I want to spend my energy worrying about that I think I'm I want to do more work and my plan is to level up. I don't know how exactly that will happen but I again feel like I'll find a way so I just live with a lot of optimism I guess.

Greg Staffa 31:07

So this film is getting ready to make the film festival circuit it's at that point it's it's relatively out of your hands there's still a lot of promoting everything like that. While it wasn't a tribute and it wasn't tied to your mother there has to be a lot of emotion connected to it because of your mother do you feel that once it's out and released and kind of out of your hands do you feel like a weight will be lifted that's a great question too I definitely think making Wake Up Maggie provides a release to me but I would shift it a little bit in one way I will say it feels more of a celebration for me I I often say grief doesn't get the final say so wake up Maggie is a beautiful gift I'm trying to give the world and in a way it gives like honor to the whole process.

Katie Prentiss 32:06

It makes grief lighter so it is release in that sense. I imagine often my mom would be so giddy and proud um to see something like this in the world. The second thing I would add to that release is that it's more of a pressure release of my own journey as a caregiver and a way for me to find forgiveness and healing and just even like nurturing that person I was in my caregiving journey to my mom because it was so uh challenging and difficult to go through that journey with her. It's like I don't sometimes I look back and I don't always love everything that I did, the choices I had to make. Things were really really hard and it's easy to look back and judge the way I was a caregiver or judge my grief or judge any part of it. But I know that that's not helpful. And I think that making this movie is a release of that journey of trying to give compassion and humanity to this difficult road that so many of us find ourselves on. And in that way it's a huge release. And I'll add one more thing to me the biggest reward of filmmaking I would love all the festivals. I would love distribution I would love to have screenings across the world. That's what every filmmaker dreams of but even more than that for me it's when someone from the audience comes up to me and says your film reminded me of my experience or someone I love

Release, Healing, And Audience Impact

Katie Prentiss 34:10

and they often say with like tears in their eyes or something and that to me is the reward is every single person that watches it and feels moved or healed or seen in their own story that's my that's my greatest goal.

Greg Staffa 34:29

Have you been to like a film festival to promote anything?

Katie Prentiss 34:32

Yeah I've been to a number of film fests for my short films. I hadn't been to South by Southwest but I would love to go there with Wake Up Maggie but yeah I love festivals and the the energy behind them and the opportunity that they give for filmmakers.

Greg Staffa 34:50

So now you're you're wrapping it up you're now getting on the promotion thing but you still need to to work also going forward are you looking for more acting gigs are you looking for more directing gigs? How is your kind of barometer going as far as what you're looking for next and what do you have next if anything I say yes to all of it.

Katie Prentiss 35:12

I have been so excited to wrap production because postproduction is just different energy and it allows me to have more time as a creative I am excited to continue writing more. I have stories that I had been tooling on for quite a while that I'm excited to get down. I am welcoming any and every audition I can get I love acting so much. I think that will always be my first love and getting to dive into a character especially after being on a production where I'm executive producer, writer, director and lead I'm so excited to move into a production where I can only act it sounds so nice. I would love to get back on stage and do another theatrical performance so I I'm just excited about all the opportunities I'm gonna be telling stories until I die in whatever way I can get my hands on.

Greg Staffa 36:16

So whatever comes my way I welcome and then wrapping things up I just got a couple more questions and again I appreciate you coming on as a director you have to point out other things to the actors that they might not have seen themselves was there anything that you did as a director where you kind of the light went on in your head going oh now I understand what that director was trying to tell me that they wanted out of me as an actress yeah I think that I mean I'm gonna give a general answer to this question but my experience is that everything

What’s Next: Acting, Writing, Stage

Greg Staffa 36:50

I do on set helps me become better.

Katie Prentiss 36:54

So if I get to write if I get to direct if I get to act if I if I'm on a even if I let's say I had an experience that wasn't really great like it wasn't a great production or commercial or something it's like any of that still informs me to know what I want to work with clarity to like know the time of type of team I want to work with etc so all of it informs deeper work in my experience or at least that's my goal is that I'm always going to be growing and deepening. I think anytime I'm on a production as a producer or director it helps me as an actor in so many ways to like lighten the burden of there's this thing with actors in this industry where it's so easy to feel scarcity and to want to compare because there's just most of us want to work more than we do.

Greg Staffa 38:01

And I think when I'm on a production and I see how much we love so many people and want to bring them on but you can't that just helps me even to understand the whole process and like I don't know just loosening the grip of trying to control what's out of my control if that makes sense if Steven Spielberg let's say he goes to South by Southwest sees Wake Up to Maggie loves it and says I want to give you Steven Spielberg type cash to create your next project what kind of project would you choose you have a story that you would love to be able to tell just financially weren't able to yeah oh yeah I have I have a script that I think would need at least a couple million to make and it's more of it's a little more suspenseful type of drama.

Katie Prentiss 38:59

Wake up Mikey is like a drama with comedy and definitely like a family story and heartfelt but the next one I want to tell that Spielberg

Lessons From The Director’s Chair

Katie Prentiss 39:10

could fund to your question is is more of a I don't want to give too much away but it's like more of a a cultural expose and the way we do the way we oh how do I say this without giving the story away it's like the way our culture works in the US with legally and with insurance and the way we can live right next to each other and not really know what's going on behind the walls in each other's lives. It's a film that's going to explore a lot of these topics and the thing that I always love to press upon in what I create is our perceptions of each other and how often we assume we know who someone is but then that those assumptions get shifted in our stories once we get to know each other in a different way. So I love exposing that in stories um confronting our assumptions about one another.

Greg Staffa 40:20

Interesting now TikTok is uh another form of media what got you started on TikTok and social media and there's a little bit of work that goes into what you do is that something that you're kind of using to hone your your directing skills even if it is a much smaller format you know I would say okay so my venture into TikTok became sprung completely from being bored during the pandemic and isolated during the pandemic I think when we were all in that crisis and collective trauma of when COVID first hit I immediately felt how can I encourage people how can I like boost the mood around ever for everyone on online because this is the only way we connect and I remember it's funny that you started this interview with like me dancing in my kitchen because during the pandemic I was like maybe I'll just dance and like that is what makes me feel good.

Katie Prentiss 41:31

Normally I would never post that but I'm trying to not care about what people might think and assume that somebody's gonna think this is like if it boosts if it boosts five people's mood it's worth it to me for 20 people to judge me if that makes sense. So I I just started like trying to care less about um that people pleaser instinct of what will people think and just post things anyway. And because of that mental challenge

The Next Big Story Idea

Katie Prentiss 42:00

for myself I I got on TikTok during this pandemic and I thought this is crazy like I'm gonna make a pool of myself and I don't care and my kids were like please don't get on TikTok and I was like no I don't care. And so I got on there thinking no one would ever find me and then my account blew up during the pandemic. So so I found myself with this platform so to speak and pretty unintentionally and I would say that it doesn't really help me with a direct as a director because I don't necessarily film on TikTok to create like I don't use like directors mind so much on social media but I do use the community building aspect of social media as as much as I possibly can and I really want to spread positivity and joy on all of my platforms that I have. This happens all the time where it's like social media connection becomes real life connection. And I just find that really fascinating and very encouraging which is why I keep going over to the platforms and keep the social media work up only self.

Greg Staffa 43:43

I do have one personal question it can be yes or no or not answered at all but your husband got some attention because of certain proposals that were lackluster and he made up for it a while back with a New York one that's on the internet can be found easily found my question is has that New York experience conveyed into him being more romantic or was that a one off that's a question for him.

Katie Prentiss 44:16

That's funny I he no he Brian and I Brian is an incredible man that I feel very lucky to be married to and he um we joke about him not being a very natural romantic but he is in his own way

TikTok, Community, And Joy

Katie Prentiss 44:35

and I think that being married for as many years as we have you just get into this like beautiful uh it's just this like comfort type of connection and I think the way that Brian is romantic is that he is just very willing to it's like the little things like he makes coffee for me every single night he like sets the coffee and has it ready for me in the morning and um just his willingness to listen and like co-regulate together has been like a really beautiful thing. So I don't he's not a grand gesture type of romance romantic like he was in that New York proposal video. But yeah he he does he does step up and surprise me here and there. He keeps bringing me flowers lately which is like such a sweet thing. So yeah he's doing a good job.

Greg Staffa 45:33

Nice final question and I asked this of all my guests is so much of what you do now is tied to what you do uh you know your kitty you have uh a photographer you are you know in two seasons of going home your winter island we we tie that to your work but when you get up in the morning you go into the bathroom and splash a little water on your face who is it that you see when you look in the mirror oh that's such a good question um you know Greg it's I I this is interesting because I'm working on something my film production company is called Sunshine Soul and on TikTok there was a year or so where I kept talking about Moxie because that was my journey of um unraveling this people pleaser nature that I have instinctively in me and doing things more boldly with risk.

Katie Prentiss 46:40

And I think that journey someone someone in the year after that said called me a sunshine soul and I remember thinking like that's such a that's such a compliment to me and that's such a cute phrase that I ended up attaching to it a bit and naming my film production company that fast forward I've been thinking about that a lot as not only a cute nickname or the name of my production company but really more of a philosophical belief. And here's what it means to me I think about the sun a lot because I live in the Pacific Northwest where it's gray and I love sunshine. I love the way it makes me happier it boosts my mood it makes just feel warm. It's beautiful to see and there's one day where I was flying in the sky and I was taking a flight and the plane was going through the gray clouds of Portland and as it uh peaked the cloud coverage the sun bursts out and I see it out there and it just hit me that the sun is always shining even when we don't see it. It's always above the clouds and the context for that for me is that we might be in a

Love, Marriage, And Small Gestures

Katie Prentiss 48:05

season of crisis. We might be in a season of grief we might be in a season that makes us feel like our life is really small. Maybe we're depressed whatever whatever's happening when we think about those seasons they might feel gray you might feel like you're surrounded by thick clouds but if we can just remember that the sun is always shining then we can feel that there is hope. There's hope above the clouds that the sun will come out again in our lives that the clouds will clear that we'll be able to see um more clearly again and I say that not that every time I wake up in the morning and splash water on my face I think these things but I do think of myself as that I am going to be what I like to refer to as a rebellious optimist. I'm going to choose hope and it does feel rebellious especially in this day of day and age it's very frustrating with all the news there's so much negativity there's so much difficulty there's so much struggle in the world and then we also have our personal struggles and griefs along the way and so I always want to be someone who radiates as a sunshine soul.

Greg Staffa 49:24

Not that I'm always happy but that I believe and hope ultimately all said great way to conclude this kitty thank you so much for coming on again wake up Maggie will soon be uh hopefully showing around in the film festival circuits and we'll be able to see it one day um and again I appreciate coming on I appreciate you connecting with me and wish you all the luck I look forward to seeing where your career takes you and checking out more of your TikTok videos uh I'll link to those uh in this episode and again thank you so much for your time thank you so much Greg I appreciate you having me on