Pedro Correa, Actor/Filmmaker: Everything you write is going to have some personal
hook to you whether it's like completely fantastical or not doesn't matter it's the motion.
Film Courage: Do you believe everyone has their own artistic voice?
Pedro: Absolutely I feel like everyone has their own artistic voice I don't think everyone
has that outlet to express their artistic voice and if they don't I think they should and I
feel very grateful that I have the a career that I can and a space that I can
and friends that I can with do make movies or paint or play music
the coolest part about making movies is all those things can be in the same thing I hand painted the
the titles to My Dead Dad the intro and the whole end credits oh wow my hand still hurts from it
but yeah I'm fortunate enough to have a million of those and even like my mom
for example she's like a great painter and just drawer and crafter and I admire her for finding
an artistic outlet like that because I know some people I mean it's like everyone knows
someone who's super funny too who's like not doing anything with it whatever it's like oh
you should be a no no what I mean so yeah yeah I've definitely known people like that yeah
so having gone to different countries Qatar being one of them and traveling
seeing that not everyone can express their own voice you think that makes you more grateful
for it I mean most people probably your age haven't had that opportunity and it's yeah
I've never been overseas so yeah pretty cool that you got to see different worlds absolutely if you
feel like you can't voice your opinion well and you're living in a first world country
or the united states I urge you to check out other parts of the world and
feel very grateful for that and but free speech doesn't come easy and it's something
you continually have to keep your guard up for I think I think the world would would take away
would take away his free speech if there was wasn't people out there
sticking their ground in art or otherwise really how does a writer gain confidence in their voice
it's hard to gain confidence in your voice when you're a writer
it's hard to write but let alone gain confidence in it it's impossible
man I think just really get good at taking notes and if you're bad at taking notes just
go get notes like go get as many notes until you don't feel as bad or you just feel bad
you just feel dead inside and you're like well I gotta keep writing and then you'll write and
then you'll start to feel good about yourself again and then you'll listen and you'll you'll
know when sometimes there's no notes on certain aspects of a script that you love if there's no
notes on it sometimes it's like amazing sometimes it's the best part of your movie and at that point
you'll know you finally have confidence where it's like okay I've been taking all these notes
and this part no one said a word about nice that's good I believe it
oh that's interesting so it's not where it would be where no one has an opinion on it it's where
it's like so great leave it alone kind of thing yeah I think so I think so I think when you're
reading a script and it doesn't like ping you or like you get an alert in your mind of like
oh there's something weird with that like that's the best kind of writing where you're like oh I'm
like there or like I've heard this so it's not weird to me just on a dialogue point of view or
there's there's crazy twists in movies or there's pivotal moments for sure that everyone
will be like oh I love that but I think the most relatable moments in a movie can be the quietest
sometimes and even when watching it you could not know it till years later for some movies
what steps did you take to go from being an actor to a screenwriter downloading final draft
I'm not sure hmm? Yeah I think the the cool thing like if you're an actor out there the
coolest thing about it is that you're forced to read scripts or watch movies and if you're
not doing either of those things you probably should there's nothing else you could do but
so you you're familiar with the language of movies or theater or whatever it may be
and you'll just know it I think I think the actor friends I have some multi
talented friends who are actors and producers and writers and I'm not the only one out there but who
their dialogue I can always tell is just like one step above because they've read so much stuff
or they've just they're performing it in their mind and they just it comes natural
and and there are other writers out there that do that who aren't actors and I don't
understand it and I don't like them because that's amazing but yeah the transition to
becoming a screenwriter from an actor I was always doing it at the same time whether it
was just scribbling notes or anything or just like thinking of dialogue or telling stories
I was kind of afraid to make My Dead Dad movie at first and
and Fabio [Fabio Frey, co-writer/director] was a good I guess creative partner in this way to
pull me back in a weird way funny enough Fabio didn't know a lot of the personal
stuff that happened to me in the movie until like halfway through writing it
and on my side of things I didn't want to put so much of my real life into a movie to
where I felt like I was like almost cheating or it was just like a documentary and now
looking back at that I laugh because it's like everything you write is gonna have some personal
hook to you whether it's like completely fantastical or not doesn't matter it's the motion
and and I think this was a great movie for me to do as a first-time filmmaker
I think that stuff if you can just get good at opening your own life and your past experiences
there's going to be people out there who are going to relate to it for sure and
and I feel like to bring acting into that as well having performed so much you can really
be attuned to that easier I know people who don't want to talk about anything about their own life
but just getting so many notes or getting beat down or so many no's as an actor you
you become familiar with it familiar with the struggle for sure did anyone say that to you don't
use your own or loosely based on your own life as your first feature wait on that I think Fabio did
happen he didn't say that but but it was funny it was funny if Fabio and I were talking the other
day we're just walking somewhere and and Fabio is like yeah it's crazy that so many people talk
about like authenticity and like things have to be like directly from your life like there's like
jaws or whatever and like space movies and stuff and we were like kind of going back and forth
on this I was like no it's like the emotion the emotion of a personal connection in whatever world
you're talking about and then and then Fabio told me is like well I mean who has enough
personal stories or instances in their life to make a whole career out of it and I was like well
I’ll let I've got like eight ideas of my own life but yeah I think when in
doubt just like use your own life and then see what happens if you can't if you can't
find anything it'll remind you of something else.
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