This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Joe Carroll: So an actor is saying his lines, and then out of nowhere, he just starts singing.

[0:13] Dan Tracy: Welcome to Guys Who Like Musicals.

[0:15] Joe Carroll: My name is Dan Tracy.

[0:16] Joe Carroll: My name is still Joe Carroll.

[0:18] Dan Tracy: His name is still Joe Carroll, and he is still in the cast of Frozen.

[0:21] Joe Carroll: Woo!

[0:22] Dan Tracy: So our friend Bryan Langlitz just left.

[0:24] Joe Carroll: Uh, we're talking to Bryan this week.

[0:26] Dan Tracy: Um, Bryan, uh, we went to—well, he technically you didn't go to college with Bryan.

[0:31] Joe Carroll: No, no.

[0:31] Dan Tracy: He was a senior at Michigan when I was a freshman.

[0:33] Joe Carroll: That's right.

[0:34] Dan Tracy: Uh, and so I feel like I will always look up to Bryan Langlitz as a freshman, as your—you know, freshmen always look up to the seniors.

[0:40] Joe Carroll: Yeah, he was in the cast of Memphis on Broadway, and it's actually when I met him.

[0:46] Dan Tracy: No, I think I was showcasing when he was in that show, and uh, you connected us?

[0:50] Joe Carroll: Yeah, possibly.

[0:52] Dan Tracy: Um, I ended up like hanging out with them backstage. I actually met Todrick Hall that day, which is crazy.

[0:57] Joe Carroll: Oh my god.

[0:57] Dan Tracy: Todrick was in the ensemble of Memphis on Broadway with Bryan.

[1:01] Joe Carroll: Which is crazy, yeah.

[1:02] Dan Tracy: That's crazy.

[1:03] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:04] Dan Tracy: The world is so small and getting smaller forever.

[1:07] Joe Carroll: Um, so this—I knew Bryan, obviously from school, but I mentioned this at the end of the episode that we—he let me live with him when I moved to New York when I showcased.

[1:18] Dan Tracy: I lived in Bryan's apartment for a week on the street that I still live on in New York.

[1:22] Joe Carroll: On the street where you live.

[1:24] Dan Tracy: Let's go with the street where you live.

[1:27] Joe Carroll: The whole interview I was dropping musical theater quotes from songs because Bryan would say something like really heady and artistic about like acting and life, and then I would be like, "That's a quote from Bridges of Madison County."

[1:40] Dan Tracy: Just like so stupid.

[1:42] Joe Carroll: Yes, so I still live on the street where I live, uh, and which was the street that Bryan lived on, and he uh let me live there for a week for free uh when I first moved to New York.

[1:51] Dan Tracy: Uh huh.

[1:52] Joe Carroll: Um, he took me to Schmackery's for the first time.

[1:54] Dan Tracy: Schmackery's had just opened. It is now a Broadway cookie legendary spot on 45th Street.

[2:01] Joe Carroll: You dare send me any Schmackery's cookies.

[2:03] Dan Tracy: Don't send them. Send me Lavaine cookies, or I don't want anything else.

[2:07] Joe Carroll: Okay, okay, okay, great. Schmackery's cookies are so overrated, just saying.

[2:08] Dan Tracy: Stop it.

[2:11] Joe Carroll: They sponsored our episode.

[2:13] Dan Tracy: I didn't know they didn't.

[2:14] Joe Carroll: But we love Schmackery's cookies.

[2:16] Dan Tracy: Now they never will.

[2:16] Joe Carroll: We may have to cut this.

[2:17] Dan Tracy: Well, you have to—you have to, uh, Dan and Joe can disagree about things.

[2:20] Joe Carroll: I love Schmackery's cookies.

[2:22] Dan Tracy: Anyway, Bryan took me there. Um, and if you're in New York, check it out. I think because I love their cookies and their coffee.

[2:27] Joe Carroll: Um, so we talked to Bryan for over an hour. This was like actor therapy.

[2:31] Dan Tracy: Don't you think?

[2:32] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[2:33] Dan Tracy: In a way, like he was so—which might be trademarked, but that title.

[2:37] Joe Carroll: Right.

[2:38] Dan Tracy: Oh no, this is not the company that Lindsay Mendez and Ryan Scott Oliver started.

[2:41] Joe Carroll: But right, right.

[2:42] Dan Tracy: He—Bryan just got—he's so insightful and, uh, we talked to him all about acting and life, and it was a real sort of like, um, heady conversation, you know, about, um, transitioning in the business from stage to screen, from moving from the East Coast to the West Coast.

[3:03] Joe Carroll: Um, and you know, I just would—I really appreciated his insight because he's been in the business, uh, and I've always looked up to him, but he's been in the business for, you know, over ten years and, um, has had a real up and down, side to side, all over the place career so far, and so that's really fun to listen to.

[3:18] Dan Tracy: Like he's a working actor, he's the truest, yeah, working actor, and it was great to talk to.

[3:23] Joe Carroll: And that's the life.

[3:24] Dan Tracy: And you know, I really like bonded with Bryan. He kind of set my whole—the last two years of my life, like we're sitting here today, partly because of him, and I wish I'd said that to him in person, but we sat down and he was like, you know, I'm having trouble with my parents.

[3:38] Joe Carroll: This is before we moved to LA.

[3:39] Dan Tracy: I'm having trouble with my parents because they're not really—like they're not really on board with it.

[3:43] Joe Carroll: And I was like, what does that mean?

[3:44] Dan Tracy: And he's like, they're not on board with like that I'm making it right now.

[3:49] Joe Carroll: Hmm.

[3:50] Dan Tracy: Oh, I see.

[3:51] Joe Carroll: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[3:52] Dan Tracy: Like eight years after his last Broadway show.

[3:54] Joe Carroll: And co-star to co-star.

[3:56] Dan Tracy: Right.

[3:56] Joe Carroll: Hadn't had a reeker, had like doing commercials, like doing it.

[4:00] Dan Tracy: Doing the working actor thing where no one knows who you are, but you're like doing it every single day.

[4:04] Joe Carroll: Yes.

[4:05] Dan Tracy: And you're making it work. And he's like, I've made it, but my parents aren't on board with the fact that I've made it.

[4:11] Joe Carroll: And I was like, that's totally right.

[4:13] Dan Tracy: And it just opened my eyes to this idea that like this life isn't about achieving things.

[4:19] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[4:19] Dan Tracy: This life is about being one percent better every single day.

[4:23] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[4:24] Dan Tracy: Or whatever that is for you. I love that you're doing it every day. Whether it's like, you know, some days you get better, some days you get worse. For me, like there are some days that I feel like, oh, I just—I'm getting worse. But you know, I just think you're absolutely—like he has made it and he feels that he's made it.

[4:40] Joe Carroll: And you know, nobody who's listening to this show, probably unless they're friends of ours, wouldn't necessarily maybe know who he is, but he has strung together a total career of co-stars and guest stars, and he has a Broadway show. He's bartending and working in restaurants and teaching and coaching and like hustling, and that's the life.

[4:58] Dan Tracy: Like the life, you know, nothing against these fancy people that we've interviewed so far, but like the life is not about Netflix series and Broadway shows and credits and stuff, it's about day-to-day.

[5:10] Joe Carroll: And he's the living example that like being an actor looks different on everybody, and he's got such an amazing positive, you know, optimistic outlook on the future.

[5:21] Dan Tracy: And you know, we—I just get to the end, you know, when we asked the question, what's your unreachable star? Because for me, it was so great to hear him be like, "My—it's about tomorrow. It's about this, these tiny things, these tiny steps that like I'm not thinking about, you know, some magical thing that's gonna happen, some Academy Award. I'm thinking about this next thing, which is tomorrow," which I think is so incredibly helpful.

[5:45] Joe Carroll: Yeah, let's get into it.

[5:47] Dan Tracy: Really get into it.

[5:47] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[5:48] Dan Tracy: This is a good one.

[5:49] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[5:49] Dan Tracy: So, uh, take—put take out your notepad and, uh, sit back on your couch in your therapist's office and, uh, listen to Bryan Langlitz talk to you about acting.

[5:56] Joe Carroll: Because that's what we sure did.

[5:59] Dan Tracy: That's what we did.

[6:00] Joe Carroll: Oh, the other me.

[6:11] Dan Tracy: Yeah, that's hilarious.

[6:12] Joe Carroll: We literally just started.

[6:14] Dan Tracy: I mean, yeah, like two minutes ago.

[6:15] Joe Carroll: Three sentences and the bell rang.

[6:17] Dan Tracy: You were Joe's senior buddy, right?

[6:19] Bryan Langlitz: Uh, this—this is to be debated because no, I was not Joe's—no.

[6:24] Joe Carroll: Was Derek?

[6:24] Bryan Langlitz: Yes.

[6:25] Bryan Langlitz: I did. But here's the thing. Every single time I think of Joe, or if I know I'm gonna see Joe, I have to ask myself, was I Joe's senior buddy?

[6:34] Joe Carroll: We were just talking about how every time I see you, I think that maybe you were my—I was your senior buddy.

[6:39] Bryan Langlitz: No, yeah.

[6:39] Joe Carroll: But Derek was, and I was dancing.

[6:41] Bryan Langlitz: Oh no, no. Brant Cox was my senior.

[6:43] Joe Carroll: Yeah, that's hilarious.

[6:44] Bryan Langlitz: Alex and I were talking about this this morning.

[6:46] Joe Carroll: Oh my god.

[6:46] Bryan Langlitz: Oh, that's so cool. You're having your senior buddy on the show.

[6:48] Joe Carroll: And I was like, actually, no.

[6:50] Dan Tracy: Wait, that is so funny that just now the whole point, nobody can remember who was his.

[6:54] Bryan Langlitz: I was dancing. I offered Dan nothing. I was like, uh, come to this party, I guess.

[6:58] Bryan Langlitz: And then I immediately started pretty much ignoring your class.

[7:01] Joe Carroll: Um, which was horrible, except for the fact that we met you, and I was like, but there's this guy, and this guy's awesome.

[7:08] Bryan Langlitz: And I feel deeply connected to this person.

[7:11] Joe Carroll: And then, but we didn't get like any real time together.

[7:14] Bryan Langlitz: Well, I just feel like especially for freshmen, it's just about can any connection. You're just desperate for like connection in any way.

[7:22] Joe Carroll: And so when a senior is like, "Hey, you're my buddy," yeah, and it's like, "Oh great, what does that mean?"

[7:27] Bryan Langlitz: Well, nothing.

[7:29] Bryan Langlitz: You know, we might—here's a bottle of booze. There was like Brant Cox was standing. I took the blindfold off and he was standing there with a bottle of Jack Daniels.

[7:36] Joe Carroll: That's like—that's fully on brand.

[7:39] Bryan Langlitz: That is—that is Brant.

[7:40] Joe Carroll: So that's, yeah, I don't know. I guess if I think about it, the transition, I wonder if it's still the same. Like the transition of leaving your hometown, showing up, and not just like this would be weird in any college experience, but I think for people that get to go to a program that they were excited about going to, there's this added level of like kind of all—at least I felt like I kind of had already won the lottery, like I had already—it hadn't even begun, right?

[8:05] Bryan Langlitz: So like there's—it's exciting to be away from home, it's exciting to be a freshman in college, which is separate from the fact that it's exciting to be in this program amongst these people, but it happens immediately.

[8:18] Dan Tracy: So now that we're six minutes into this, this is Bryan Langlitz.

[8:22] Joe Carroll: Because I never said his name, um, mystery guest, right?

[8:26] Dan Tracy: Who's this guy?

[8:27] Joe Carroll: Well, like, well, we know who his freshman buddy was, so we'll work backwards from—and technically we will introduce you before this starts, so like they will know who you are.

[8:34] Dan Tracy: But um, thank you for being here.

[8:36] Bryan Langlitz: Sounds like us, like which voice is which now?

[8:39] Joe Carroll: Right, sure.

[8:40] Dan Tracy: You guys do—well, there is a warmth to both of you for sure.

[8:43] Joe Carroll: Well, I love that you're—I love that you're here. I'd love you're only—how long are you in New York?

[8:48] Bryan Langlitz: Two and a half days.

[8:50] Dan Tracy: Wow.

[8:50] Bryan Langlitz: Because you live in LA full-time.

[8:52] Bryan Langlitz: I live in Los Angeles now, as of, uh, August 2018.

[8:57] Dan Tracy: So like a year and a half ago.

[9:00] Bryan Langlitz: About a year and a half. After almost ten years.

[9:01] Dan Tracy: Well, no, nine—a full nine years in New York City.

[9:04] Bryan Langlitz: I moved to New York in August 2009.

[9:07] Bryan Langlitz: And then I left in August 2018. I really wanted it to be ten years. I like really wanted an even number.

[9:12] Dan Tracy: It feels good to be like, I did ten years in New York City.

[9:14] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, then you're like a New Yorker, quote on put it like this.

[9:17] Dan Tracy: Exactly.

[9:18] Bryan Langlitz: Uh, but we were pretty burnt on it.

[9:21] Dan Tracy: I mean, we went to LA for a lot of reasons.

[9:22] Bryan Langlitz: Uh, we—as my wife and I, um, but we, uh, we had burnt ourselves out a little bit here, and I was just thinking like I wonder a lot has changed since we moved to Los Angeles, and I always think—or I should—I think now, if those changes could have been made here, hey, could they have been made here?

[9:41] Dan Tracy: Like, was it physically possible to do these things?

[9:44] Bryan Langlitz: And I'm not sure that the answer to that is yes. But if they could have been, would we have stayed? Because we—I love New York. I feel like very deeply connected to the city and I'm from not far from here and, you know, would love it to have maybe—and maybe we'll come back. I don't know.

[10:00] Dan Tracy: Los Angeles is like so weird and so different.

[10:04] Bryan Langlitz: And so, um, to compare the two, even—I mean, we can certainly talk about it, but like there's—if the two cities didn't share an entertainment industry, we would like never think to talk about them in the same sentence.

[10:16] Dan Tracy: They're—yeah, they're just completely different everything, right?

[10:20] Bryan Langlitz: But the world that we hang out in exists in both places, right?

[10:24] Dan Tracy: It's mostly where it's going on, and so there's a lot about my day that, you know, professionally kind of feels the same.

[10:32] Bryan Langlitz: Um, just what it's like to prep an audition, go to an audition, or if God willing, I get to shoot something. But like other than that, it's night and day.

[10:42] Dan Tracy: Totally.

[10:43] Joe Carroll: Um, what was the impetus? You said you were burned out, but was it there just like a—

[10:44] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, well, there was a few things. I mean, we—so I had kind of stopped doing theater.

[10:53] Bryan Langlitz: I had—right. So like the thing that takes you to New York, I think for most people, it's different now, right? But in 2009, nothing shot here, not that TV-wise, right? Like nothing was shooting here.

[11:02] Joe Carroll: Sure.

[11:04] Bryan Langlitz: A few things, right? I think my first on-camera audition was for like Days of Our Lives or one of the soaps or something.

[11:10] Dan Tracy: Right.

[11:10] Bryan Langlitz: And other than that, it was like you had Law and Order.

[11:12] Joe Carroll: Right, exactly.

[11:14] Bryan Langlitz: Um, so also I had this fancy shiny musical theater degree, and I wanted to use it, and that was still very much the dream, like bit like the thing, more than even knowing kind of what type of work I wanted to do.

[11:27] Bryan Langlitz: Um, I had absolutely had like the Broadway stars in my eyes for sure. You know, I wanted specifically to be in a Broadway show. I didn't care which one, I didn't care how. I just wanted to check that box.

[11:39] Dan Tracy: Right.

[11:40] Bryan Langlitz: Right. And so that's a lesson that you—we can continue to talk about kind of how that's, I think, the wrong way to move to New York. It's not wrong, but like I think ultimately it didn't serve me very well.

[11:52] Dan Tracy: That that's what I led with was like, "I want—get me in one."

[11:55] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, get me in one. Point being that is what took me to New York, and was very fortunate to get to do that like pretty early.

[12:03] Bryan Langlitz: And so, you know, that planted me here in the city, but then I stopped eventually doing a lot of theater, and I really kind of stopped doing musicals.

[12:12] Dan Tracy: Um, I feel lucky to have been invited onto this podcast as someone who—I mean, I haven't been in a musical in like ten years.

[12:18] Joe Carroll: Well, we call it like—it's called Guys Who Like Musicals because we are guys who like musicals. Sometimes we have a guy who likes musicals on it, but it really doesn't have anything to do—like the more that we talk to people, it's like entertainment at large, you know, which is like you are a guy who started doing musicals who likes musicals.

[12:36] Bryan Langlitz: So like you're totally qualified to be on this very entry-level, low-level podcast.

[12:41] Dan Tracy: It has been—no, first of all, I think you guys are really doing something awesome here.

[12:46] Bryan Langlitz: But um, yeah, no, there is a certain level of having to constantly check in with, um, like I think as you evolve as a creative person, you have to really be honest with yourself and check in and ask yourself, am I running away from something? Am I scared of something? Is it—is it the resistance that you like read about in War of Art, right?

[13:08] Joe Carroll: Like is this on the reading list?

[13:10] Bryan Langlitz: On the reading list, check it out. That's right. Plugging War of Art here. Um, is this pushback? Is this fear? Is this resistance? Or is this like evolution? Is this me truly having moved on from a thing or feeling like I'm just different now? I like different things, or am I getting more honest with the kind of work I want to be doing, or less honest?

[13:29] Bryan Langlitz: Um, there's always a push-pull there for me of like really having to check in.

[13:35] Bryan Langlitz: So when it comes to thinking about like why did I stop auditioning for musicals, is the question because I was no longer qualified? Is it that I didn't feel qualified? Is it that it didn't interest me? Um, what ended up happening while I was still very much in that scene, 2011, 2012, New York State gets the production tax break that it received, and now all of a sudden these shows start shooting. And not only and now it's what? There's like 45 shows more than shoot here, right? Well, especially because like all the Netflix deals and that stuff, like with the that's even pre-streaming, mega streaming like it is now. But I and well, and I was very fortunate, extremely fortunate, that even though it was um co-stars, which are amazing and at the time were the perfect way to transition into being on camera more because I was in a show eight nights a week or eight shows a week, so I could pretty easily step out.

I mean, that's a like a wonderful thing for the Broadway community to get to go do these like one day guest stars or you know, even co-stars. But what was fortunate about it at the time, I you know, we look, we we look back on it now, and it just sort of seems like, oh, well, the whole industry changed. But I mean, for me, that shift into TV film coincided with like a total revolution, like a totally different way of shooting. And I was lucky in that my first TV jobs ended up being like some of the most like revolutionary TV shows that came through. I mean, the first time I was ever on camera was the pilot of House of Cards. Like that getting for that to that, letting that be what kind of wooed me away a little bit, right?

Like that's very fortunate. I don't know that it would have happened if it um if it had just been a little bit more, you know, by the book, but suddenly a year into getting to audition and and book a couple of these co-stars, now the whole city seemed like it changed. Like the whole in what was available to actors, uh, the the quality of the work um or the of the shows that were being made. Um, like that was a show that they knew what they had. You know, like I remember going down to DC and Baltimore to film that and being like, oh, they know that they're about to change the world. Like they you could feel it on set. Like there was just a sense of like we're about to turn this whole thing upside down.

And that's that was my my the point in all of this is just to say that was my introduction to anything outside of musicals. So it was a big one, right? It was this thing that like swept in and just said like now this.

[16:10] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah. And so as this pertains to like LA, um, over those next couple, you know, five or six years, the only jobs I was booking were these co-stars, these like on camera co-stars, um, and commercial and voiceover work, and I just wasn't booking theater. And so then I thought, well, and New York gets hard. Like New York is it's very truly an insane place to live, and it's magical and wonderful. Just as a human being, not even like, yes, it's hard as an actor, but it's like it's a hustle and a grind for every single person who lives in this city. And that inspires some people, yeah, to push and to to persevere and all of that. But like, yeah, you know, it's a it's a tough place to live. There's also anybody.

A part of me that like very much wants a a quote unquote normal life, right? Like so, and that's just very hard to create here. Yeah. And ultimately, what I think ended up happening was I didn't know what change I needed, but I needed to change. And so, you know, my wife is also an actress and a writer and a creative person. And we were like, well, if we're gonna not stop auditioning, right? We're gonna keep auditioning. We still want to do this thing, and we don't want to do it here. Our options are like the next choice, the obvious choice is LA. You know, there's Atlanta, there's there's other markets you can do this in. Sure. But having not done LA yet, it just felt like, well, let's go do that.

[17:27] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah. It has been a total restructuring. I mean, starting from the beginning. Like it seems very brave to me. That was kind of why I asked the question. When I'm the first actor to leave New York and move to Los Angeles. You're the very you're the very first one. You're the very first one. But like it just, to me, it's a very it's a brave thing to hit almost a reset button or to say, like, I need a change, let's make change, like to kind of grab things, you know, and and shift. So I guess now it's been a little over a year, like what's it going? I I have to say, we'd been going to Los Angeles. You know, I'd been on the road with shows. Friends were our best friends in the world, moved out there five or six years ago.

Um, some of my closest friends from school all live in LA now. So we were going to LA two, some sometimes three times a year. We knew what we were getting ourselves into to a point, right? Like no part of us showed up to Los Angeles with like the way I showed up to New York, right? There were no here, two bucks, one bag, yeah, you know, or whatever. Like, none of that.

[18:35] Dan Tracy: Thank you.

[18:35] Bryan Langlitz: It's guys who likes musicals. Um I think I fucked up. I think that's in our opening. Um Annie.

[18:41] Dan Tracy: It has to be three bucks.

[18:42] Bryan Langlitz: Is it?

[18:44] Dan Tracy: Yeah, three bucks, two bags one me.

[18:45] Bryan Langlitz: She has room for two.

[18:46] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[18:47] Bryan Langlitz: There's a marriage. One of my favorite musical theater jokes ever is the episode. Do you know Sarah Schenken? You ever worked with Sarah Schenken?

[18:53] Dan Tracy: No.

[18:53] Bryan Langlitz: Uh she's a good friend of mine. We uh shot a movie together, and she uh was a co-star in uh 30 Rock, uh, and she steps off the bus in front of Tina Faye and goes three bucks, two bags, one me, and then she turns to Tina Faye and says, Excuse me, do you know where a young prostitute gets her start in this? It's just the best it's perfect.

[19:14] Dan Tracy: It's so very so it was the opposite of that when we went to LA. We went like knowing, okay, this is gonna be you know a grind, and we really went for just like personal life changes. We were like, let's get a much bigger, you know, space to live in, let's get a car, let's be able to drive to a grocery store. So, you know, the finer things in life.

[19:31] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, exactly. So there was that, but I still I didn't think that it would be such a change. I thought that like certain things would come with me, right? I was very proud of the work I had done up to this point, and you know, certainly thought, especially as an actor, was like, I'm proud of myself. And I and I can't done some stuff. Right.

[19:50] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah. Very first meeting, I sit down with this person. It's very kind that that the new old New York team had set it up. They were, you know, trying to like do the introductions. And I sit down and she's looking at my resume, and she's like, uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Okay. Um, I would take the Broadway show off the resume, and I would pretty much delete everything you've done in New York.

[20:11] Dan Tracy: Whoa.

[20:11] Bryan Langlitz: I was like, um, what? She was like, yeah, no, it doesn't mean anything out here. I was like, uh, right, I get it. And now look, she's not entirely. She's neither wrong nor right, right? Like, I've also had meetings where people, the exact opposite has been true. The thing that makes you exciting is that you are, you know, and I do think that that exists in Los Angeles from the industry. I think that there is an appreciation for New York actors. Um, what I don't think that New York actors are better actors. I think that they probably have a little more training, like you know, just like times up at bat, either in an acting class or um, I don't know. I think that I think LA definitely draws more people that have no experience acting that then find their way to it.

[21:00] Dan Tracy: Sure, sure, sure.

[21:00] Bryan Langlitz: By way of New York, you've probably put some work in.

[21:04] Dan Tracy: Right.

[21:05] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah.

[21:05] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[21:05] Bryan Langlitz: So they're so that's valued. That's that's valid. But where she's right is like it truly, like so far, it doesn't, especially my credits, right? Like my credits were first of all, they're older in that like the Broadway show is from 10 years ago, you know, and it was something that like it's not like buzzy. Do you know what I mean? No, nobody people are like, what is that? Oh, I think I remember that show. Like it's and that's not how we feel about it. For me, it changed my life. For me, it's my like one of my crowning, it's like one of your crowning proudest moments, like a true crowning achievement in your life. And some new person is like, no, that's not real. And having to like stomach that.

[21:45] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[21:46] Bryan Langlitz: So that has been, I mean, that's a it's one story, but it's it's a little bit of a metaphor of what LA has been. It's been like re truly starting over, rebuilding. Um because also wonderful, lovely New York team here was like, we're not they're not, they weren't by coastal, working like a not really, you know.

[22:06] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[22:07] Bryan Langlitz: And there was like a great. So I'm moving, I basically I moved to Los Angeles, or I should say, I moved to New York with the benefit of the Michigan degree, the showcase, got an agent right away, in three months was on tour, within eight months was on Broadway. I mean, like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, right. Just learned this business completely unrealistically. Like, it doesn't do that for most people. Now cut 10 years ahead, and I'm in LA, and I'm like having to do it the more common way, right? Which is like moving to LA, no representation, a light resume, according to them, pretty much no reel, which we should talk about because in New York, reels don't seem to hold the way that they hold in Los Angeles. Like everything is footage in LA. They just want to see everything you've ever done.

[22:56] Dan Tracy: Um, and no sense of the city, no casting knows me. I don't even know where to take acting classes, which was like a huge, huge, huge part of my life here, being really, you know, hooked into a training ground here. It was just a full restructuring.

[23:09] Bryan Langlitz: Right. And that to me is the thing I'm like most proud of right now, is that I we did that and I didn't, you know, jump off a building.

[23:19] Dan Tracy: I didn't still there.

[23:21] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah.

[23:22] Dan Tracy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[23:23] Bryan Langlitz: There's times I wish I had in LA the 10 years of structure that I built in New York. Totally. It feels like a like a like a total um career change almost. You know, like we have friends who almost, you know, like one of my best friends got out of the building. Now he's in he's in representation, and you know, it's like that's a that is starting over in a c in a different field that's within our business. You almost sound like you're still doing this, you're still trying to tell stories as an actor on camera, do the whole thing that you're doing in New York, you just moved to LA and it's like, okay, new job.

[23:51] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[23:52] Bryan Langlitz: Well, this is what I mean, Dan and I like part of why I'm lucky to be in this room with you guys right now is just casually. This is my first time back to New York where I've actually had time to like see some people. I'm I've been lucky to come back for some work and I had some family, but this was the first time that I was like kicking around, trying to decide like, oh, I should rush a show, I should see something, I should connect with people I haven't like really been able to circle back to. And so I was, you know, lucky to see him yesterday. And part of the conversation that came up yesterday was not everybody is still like trying in the same way. Essentially, what what you just said. I'm trying to tell stories as an actor, whether it's on stage or on camera.

And to me, sometimes that feels like like we yesterday called it like just like slamming your head against the wall, right? Or a window. And you're trying to get outside, right? You're trying to get outside, and that there are these other ways to get outside, right? You can walk through the side door, you can go around the back of the building, you can carefully dismantle the window. And all of those things in this wacky metaphor is like maybe that's another it's a different type of side job or if it's a different passion or suddenly find yourself making money in a whole new way or being turned on by other things. But for me, I'm like very much still slamming my head against the window. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know.

[25:07] Bryan Langlitz: I have not changed like I still want to get on the other side of that window and I'm just doing it the same way in some ways the same way I was doing it 10 years ago. I'm trying to get auditions and go to those auditions and nail those auditions and then create some momentum based on what books. And it's not we it's not going to happen fully that way. It can't. It the industry doesn't allow that anymore. But I'm still turned on by that. Like that still matters to me a lot. You know, from the second the audition comes through in my email my mentor says like that's when your audition starts when you get the email right because like yeah am I how am I reacting to it immediately? Like does the heart sink?

Am I nervous? Does the buzz come in? What kind of work do I want to put into this? Right. I mean you're in the room for five minutes but you have probably been thinking about those five minutes for anywhere up to you know if it's TV probably 24 hours but if it's like a fancy musical you could I know sometimes these appointments come through night of but like very often you've got 10 days yeah for like some of the really big stuff to sit around and worry about this shit.

[26:17] Dan Tracy: I love that.

[26:17] Bryan Langlitz: You know, like the audition starts when you get the email.

[26:20] Dan Tracy: That's awesome.

[26:21] Bryan Langlitz: It starts when you get the email. Because exactly like what you do in the next 24 hours.

[26:26] Dan Tracy: That's right.

[26:27] Bryan Langlitz: Regardless of when the audition is, it indicates a lot about like how much you care about the thing and also how you're gonna do with the thing.

[26:34] Bryan Langlitz: Well, and I think part of what spooked me about musicals straight up was that that work was terrifying to me. That those 24 hours to 10 days, whatever it was, from the time the email came through to the time I would be in the audition room, just terrified, completely fearful, didn't know how to work, didn't know the right way to work, and wasn't like proud of the work. It was just all now. I'm not saying that that was there was probably a lot of like garbage mental stuff there that needed to be cleared out.

[27:05] Bryan Langlitz: Sure. And I actually really look forward maybe to one day like getting to come back to some of that with like a finer idea of how to do the work.

[27:14] Bryan Langlitz: But I actually don't think that I was all that prepared for what like real professional audition life required. Because I think it's more than people are willing to own.

[27:26] Bryan Langlitz: I think you need to be way healthier and work way harder than most people probably are willing to do. And I wasn't really willing to do it.

[27:33] Joe Carroll: Um that's interesting.

[27:35] Bryan Langlitz: That's really that's really interesting.

[27:36] Joe Carroll: Yeah, you mean healthier mentally, emotionally, everything.

[27:39] Bryan Langlitz: I mean like everything. Everything like it's the work, whether it's self-work or work that you're putting into the audition, which is also it's all the same.

[27:50] Joe Carroll: Do you say it's the same?

[27:51] Bryan Langlitz: I said it's all the same. It's the same. It's the same. It's the same.

[27:54] Bryan Langlitz: It is. It's it's the We were talking about therapy last night, and it's like if you're not working on yourself, you are doing a disservice to your life as an actor.

[28:04] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[28:04] Bryan Langlitz: Founder of the Beverly Hills Playhouse would always say the work on the actor is the work on the self. Like that's all it is. And I wasn't real, especially at 22, 23, really wasn't doing that work.

[28:16] Joe Carroll: No.

[28:17] Bryan Langlitz: And you know, to not to my credit, but to the you know, to let myself off the hook a little bit, like I don't think anybody that I knew really was, right?

[28:26] Joe Carroll: Sure.

[28:27] Bryan Langlitz: And nobody in my situation was that I could see. Like I was surrounded by, we were all just kind of doing the same thing, which was getting pretty fancy auditions and booking them, right?

[28:38] Bryan Langlitz: Like, and getting on those contracts and not saving our money and being like, you know, I'm in this show. So either I'm gonna go out after every show, right?

[28:48] Bryan Langlitz: So like that's money and health, right? There if you're like, you know, screaming in a bar until two o'clock in the morning. Like these things happen, and nobody, nobody really, I didn't, I didn't necessarily have someone to look towards, whether it was a role model or a mentor.

[29:03] Bryan Langlitz: I'm sure they were there, but I wasn't looking for them that was saying, like, hey, maybe like put more work in, put less into the thrill of being in this Broadway show, which is so exciting when it's the only thing you've been gunning for, and you get to do it early.

[29:17] Bryan Langlitz: And nobody was pulling me aside to be like, you need to like get just work smarter about the opportunities that are coming your way. Because something Dan said yesterday is like, you know, from doing Waitress, like suddenly auditions come.

[29:29] Bryan Langlitz: There is a weird, like, welcome to the club now.

[29:32] Joe Carroll: Yeah, you're in the group, and they're like, Oh, wow, yeah, come on. Dan's got a show today, you know, and it's just like everyone just treats you differently, but you were the literally the same actor you were that's right the week prior.

[29:43] Bryan Langlitz: It happens with TV too. I mean, you get you know what it's you agree with that, Joe.

[29:47] Joe Carroll: You know, you have some hesitation.

[29:49] Bryan Langlitz: Uh I'm not saying that like my life changed and that all of a sudden I was like gonna be. There are certain opportunities that I still don't have, but it I felt like when I walk into rooms, there's like this sense that I'm in the club now.

[30:03] Joe Carroll: Those opposite what's your hesitation?

[30:04] Bryan Langlitz: No, I don't know. I honestly I'm just thinking about your now a viral TikTok star, and I'm thinking, well, which is just I think I still think is like I I'm really struggling with like what TikTok is, but sure, just this idea that you're right.

[30:18] Bryan Langlitz: There's this idea that like you know, nothing changed, but everything changed. But I'm actually thinking about back to what you said about this meeting where the person was like, your credits don't mean anything.

[30:27] Bryan Langlitz: I had three Broadway shows on my resume. I hadn't worked for a year. I sat down with my agent and I was like, why can't I I I want to get a job? Like, why why am I not working?

[30:35] Bryan Langlitz: And my agent was like, nobody cares. You were placed as a principal in a Broadway show that closed, you did a play that nobody liked, and you were a swing. What do you think is what do you think the world offers you?

[30:47] Bryan Langlitz: Like it what do you think? And I was like, oh my God. And it was this wonderful, and I and again, like my agent is the same way. I'm like, he is my biggest creative, like, you know, confidant, and and and I love this man.

[30:57] Bryan Langlitz: He without that sort of awakening at 24. That's right. I would not have started working as hard as I think I do now, because I felt like I was owed something, which is so disgusting to even talk about.

[31:09] Bryan Langlitz: But like, you know what I mean? But like, so when you said that, that story, I'm like, no, I totally get it. And then you're like, everything's changed, and I'm like, this is it.

[31:17] Bryan Langlitz: I'm I feel all of it. You know, a boatload to unpack there.

[31:21] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[31:21] Bryan Langlitz: Because so much like both things are true.

[31:23] Joe Carroll: Right.

[31:23] Bryan Langlitz: Like no one cares about my credits.

[31:25] Joe Carroll: Right.

[31:26] Bryan Langlitz: And you're in people care about my credits.

[31:28] Joe Carroll: People care about the credits.

[31:29] Bryan Langlitz: And like, yeah, exactly. Both are true.

[31:32] Joe Carroll: Right, you know, both are true.

[31:33] Bryan Langlitz: But you, but just the mere fact that somebody who was like older and wiser and more experienced was willing to not hurt your feelings and to look you in the eye and just say, like, this is not what you think it is, which is to me the biggest change that I've gone through, even just in the past year and a half, is learning a business that I didn't understand.

[31:55] Bryan Langlitz: I truly knew nothing.

[31:56] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[31:56] Bryan Langlitz: I mean, I knew enough to like get by and do okay here in New York. I did not understand.

[32:01] Bryan Langlitz: Even like at 30, I don't think I really understood the way the system worked, the the business, capital B business, right? The like the structure of how all of this gets done.

[32:15] Bryan Langlitz: I didn't really get it. Um, and so the fact that somebody was willing to sit you down and say, like, hey, that those things you think are the thing, it's not the thing. It's not how this works.

[32:24] Joe Carroll: Right.

[32:24] Bryan Langlitz: There's also like kind of a cool like meta thing happening there.

[32:27] Joe Carroll: Like, just like you have to check in with that ego and be like, we're not, we're all walking around thinking that like, you know, we were the special kids.

[32:36] Bryan Langlitz: We were, right? We it's what got us, you know, so far.

[32:40] Bryan Langlitz: It served you for a really long time in your life to be the special one.

[32:44] Joe Carroll: Right.

[32:45] Bryan Langlitz: But then we hop into this business where we're all the special.

[32:48] Joe Carroll: And I think that that's incredibly relatable, even for kids like like valedictorians or like whatever, like in any capacity, you like were working hard, and then you hit this, but then you never worked as hard as when that break happened.

[33:01] Bryan Langlitz: You know, when like you were in a room with a bunch of other valedictorians, and you're not the smartest one in the room anymore, and you're like, oh my gosh, I have to work harder.

[33:09] Joe Carroll: And there are people who succeed through that and people who don't.

[33:11] Bryan Langlitz: And same in this world where like I sat down with my agent and he was very lovingly like, hey, no one cares. You have to just go in and you have to work twice as hard.

[33:19] Joe Carroll: And it was like, okay, that's now where we're going in this new chapter.

[33:23] Bryan Langlitz: It's that second half though. It's the it's the there's two things there. There's one, which is now you have to work twice as hard.

[33:30] Joe Carroll: So that's great.

[33:30] Bryan Langlitz: That's tangible. We could that's something we can do, right?

[33:32] Joe Carroll: Right.

[33:33] Bryan Langlitz: So we ask ourselves, like, well, what is that? What are those things? Is it class? Is it um like all new materials? Is it you know, what what are those things?

[33:40] Joe Carroll: And then secondly, it's just a disposition that you have to not crumble and quit when told when when given real like criticism or constructive criticism, right?

[33:51] Bryan Langlitz: Right.

[33:51] Joe Carroll: When you get a real note, a real life note.

[33:54] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, hey, buddy, this is what's not working.

[33:56] Joe Carroll: Yeah, do you crumble?

[33:58] Bryan Langlitz: And part of where I had gotten in New York was I was crumbling a lot.

[34:03] Joe Carroll: Yeah, yeah.

[34:03] Bryan Langlitz: I was because I was tired and I was frustrated, and I wasn't receiving those notes very well, the things that I needed to focus on and needed to do.

[34:13] Bryan Langlitz: And I don't know, I don't think it's because I moved to LA. I think that sometimes you just need, like you said, like you just need to shake up any change or some kind of change.

[34:21] Joe Carroll: Totally.

[34:22] Bryan Langlitz: Something else will follow. You know, but I it definitely took stepping outside of this this world that I'd been hanging out in for nine years and to relearn, oh, to kind of see it from above.

[34:33] Bryan Langlitz: You get a bird's eye view, and then I was able to start taking some action.

[34:37] Joe Carroll: It's a really there's a there's just so much here.

[34:40] Bryan Langlitz: It's kind of like it's kind of like you're you're like an actor whisperer, Bryan.

[34:44] Joe Carroll: You're like a you're like a pist, like, you know, I love first of all, I love the therapy stuff, and I highly I'm a big believer in therapy also.

[34:52] Bryan Langlitz: But it's like you're you're talking about you need to write a book. Have you written a book?

[34:55] Bryan Langlitz: I think we're talking about some books, but I think so.

[34:58] Joe Carroll: When I when we sat down yesterday, so Bryan, did you guys run into each other on the street?

[35:01] Bryan Langlitz: No, no, no.

[35:02] Bryan Langlitz: This is what he was saying. Is like, this is the first time he's been able to see anyone, and for whatever reason, he decided to text me, lucky me.

[35:08] Bryan Langlitz: I'll tell you what reason. I'll tell you exactly what reason. I was just in my Broadway brain, right? And I was like, oh, I want to read and catch Dan in a show.

[35:15] Bryan Langlitz: I wonder, oh, let me text Dan. Let me see what's going on with Dan. And then I was about to put you on this text chain.

[35:22] Bryan Langlitz: And I thought to myself, uh, is Joe in something right now?

[35:27] Bryan Langlitz: And I look over and your fucking face is smiling at me from the frozen marquee or from the literally on 45th Street.

[35:35] Bryan Langlitz: I was like, is Joe in something right now? Like, not two seconds later, I looked to my lap and I was like, yes, confirmed Joe is in something right now.

[35:41] Joe Carroll: He is literally right there. There's his face on the side of a building.

[35:46] Bryan Langlitz: Good lord. Seeing each other yesterday, I reached out and I just wanted to re- I wanted, I was so proud of Dan.

[35:51] Joe Carroll: Okay, so I left New York right.

[35:54] Bryan Langlitz: It was before you booked Waitress.

[35:56] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[35:56] Bryan Langlitz: And you were, we were working creatively together in another way.

[36:00] Joe Carroll: We were tea I was teaching, I was coaching.

[36:02] Bryan Langlitz: And which is a which will help us transition into that because I want to talk about that too.

[36:06] Bryan Langlitz: But yeah, you were working as a teacher for a company that I was shooting videos for.

[36:09] Joe Carroll: And you were producing I didn't know you before then.

[36:12] Bryan Langlitz: Right.

[36:12] Bryan Langlitz: And I got to watch him teach your whisper with students.

[36:17] Joe Carroll: With the Broadway program.

[36:18] Bryan Langlitz: Yes.

[36:18] Bryan Langlitz: When yeah, I helped you with it.

[36:20] Joe Carroll: Okay, got it.

[36:20] Bryan Langlitz: Love that.

[36:21] Bryan Langlitz: And I was like, this guy.

[36:24] Joe Carroll: You texted me that.

[36:25] Bryan Langlitz: These guys.

[36:25] Joe Carroll: You didn't text me.

[36:26] Bryan Langlitz: You said Bryan.

[36:27] Joe Carroll: And so then I started working with you.

[36:29] Bryan Langlitz: Uh you started coaching me on some stuff.

[36:32] Joe Carroll: And uh we eventually ended up like getting a beer together.

[36:35] Bryan Langlitz: And then that was like a whole then we just like went off.

[36:39] Joe Carroll: But at that point, let's call it about two years ago.

[36:41] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, I could sense I knew where you were, which was this feeling of like, I'm really good.

[36:47] Bryan Langlitz: I I know my talent level, right? You you have to be honest with yourself about your abilities.

[36:52] Bryan Langlitz: And I think you knew you were getting great callbacks. You were get you were booking some cool stuff, but you had this feeling of like the the secret fancy Broadway door, right?

[37:02] Joe Carroll: Like the secret room, the special place, right?

[37:06] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah.

[37:06] Bryan Langlitz: And you were really frustrated about like really wanting it. If that's okay for me to say, like it felt like you were true.

[37:12] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[37:12] Bryan Langlitz: And I want to talk a little bit about that idea of the special place, right? Because I think it can be so it can have such a big effect on the way we feel about the work we do.

[37:22] Bryan Langlitz: And I don't think it's real, but I but the feeling is real.

[37:26] Joe Carroll: And your feeling at the time was like, I I just think I really need to unlock this thing.

[37:32] Bryan Langlitz: And then hadn't seen him since I moved, and he did, right?

[37:35] Bryan Langlitz: Like he got in the room that he wanted to get into. He he which was really just very exciting.

[37:41] Joe Carroll: So part of me recently just wanted to say word up.

[37:44] Bryan Langlitz: That's awesome.

[37:45] Bryan Langlitz: I I want to go back a couple things.

[37:46] Joe Carroll: One, that's a great room where it happens reference.

[37:49] Bryan Langlitz: You were talking about waving through a window a second ago.

[37:52] Joe Carroll: It's because you wanted you were like giving this metaphor about a window and trying to break in and you know, so that was and I wanted to make that joke about waving through a window, and then there was another joke about you saying it matters to me, which is in dance shows.

[38:03] Bryan Langlitz: So you're just yeah, I I it's it's still in me.

[38:05] Bryan Langlitz: It's still there, and like it was some wonderful jokes.

[38:08] Joe Carroll: And if you don't go, we have this another uh guys for like musicals playlist, maybe just to be like to accompany Bryan's interview.

[38:15] Bryan Langlitz: We're gonna put out these songs that he references without even knowing that he's doing it.

[38:19] Joe Carroll: That's funny.

[38:20] Bryan Langlitz: Maybe we'll score this one.

[38:21] Joe Carroll: It's perfect.

[38:23] Bryan Langlitz: No, that's really funny.

[38:24] Joe Carroll: So, how did you get into to being a coach?

[38:29] Bryan Langlitz: What's the side hustle life been like for you?

[38:31] Joe Carroll: Okay, I think that's super important.

[38:33] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, I I think it's really important that people know that they're because I know that you, you know, you've been in this business for more than 10 years, and you told me now that about two different bars that you work at in LA.

[38:44] Joe Carroll: Yeah, currently.

[38:45] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah.

[38:46] Bryan Langlitz: It's um, so let's start there, actually.

[38:48] Bryan Langlitz: Uh I when, you know, like I said, I I moved to New York and just was lucky to work for essentially, let's call it like three and a half, almost four years, kind of out of the gate.

[39:01] Bryan Langlitz: And then Memphis closed.

[39:04] Bryan Langlitz: And, you know, people think that like you you make a very respectable living on Broadway for sure, right?

[39:13] Bryan Langlitz: But you also live in New York, and you know, this was an ensemble contract. It was like it was livable money, but we weren't like banking a whole lot of it.

[39:23] Bryan Langlitz: Also combined with the fact that like I nobody I didn't know to. I mean, I think I just thought, well, I'll leave this Broadway show and I'll go to the next Broadway show.

[39:31] Joe Carroll: Right.

[39:32] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, which happened to me too, like on a tour in my 20s. Like also, there's a lot of precedent for that.

[39:37] Bryan Langlitz: You look around that's what people are doing. Right.

[39:38] Bryan Langlitz: You know, I was in that show for two and a half years, and probably at some I mean, like at some point the whole cast turned over a couple times because people were leaving one show for the other show.

[39:50] Bryan Langlitz: So I just thought I'll go to my show, right?

[39:52] Joe Carroll: Right.

[39:53] Bryan Langlitz: They gave us the notice. I'll never forget, right? They gave us the notice, and I'm like pacing backstage, like panicking that and they were very kind.

[40:04] Bryan Langlitz: They gave us, I think it was like almost eight weeks' notice, which is lovely because it's like get your get it together, right? Start if you haven't started saving your money, start saving now and uh really try to book the next thing.

[40:15] Bryan Langlitz: But they gave us eight weeks' notice, and I was just pacing, pacing, pacing backstage, asking everybody else if they were okay. Like, like in full panic mode, but checking in with everybody else to make sure, like, is everybody cool, we're okay, we're gonna be fine, right?

[40:28] Bryan Langlitz: We're gonna we're gonna get through this.

[40:29] Bryan Langlitz: And everybody was like, Are you okay? Do you need to sit down? Yeah, you they were like, This is your first closing, isn't it? Um first and only. So Memphis closes, and six weeks later I'm waiting tables. And I had grown up working in restaurants, had always worked in restaurants from the time I was like 14 years old and really liked restaurants a lot, and was not it wasn't the shock of working in restaurants wasn't new to me, but the like shame that I felt surrounding being that like in a restaurant again with like a Broadway credit in my pocket, very common, but it but had no example of it. Like I didn't know that that I just thought that was failure, right? I just thought that was like I blew it.

People aren't going around talking about that, but like that's the common tale. That's it. It's more common to do for that to happen than people just being like, oh, jumping from this show to that show to this show. But that's all we see. Because that's what we want to talk about. And I probably could have gone like a little longer. Like, I you know, like I it wasn't a total, I wasn't like I hadn't spent like any every dollar I had made, but I was looking ahead, being like, well, I might my I'm either gonna spend every dollar or I can start working on it. Listen, I was in the exact the only same boat, same exact story, same story. We all had that same story, yeah. Bartending again after the best Cinderella.

The best well, okay. So the Cinderella connection here is that I at this restaurant. I used to work at the Time Warner Center Landmark. I'm sure most of your listeners have the New York ones. Oh, yeah. Probably served you brunch at some point. It doesn't exist anymore. I know it doesn't exist anymore. It's crazy. That was a real, they had a real good run. But I one of the first things I did in that new job was cater the Cinderella opening night party. So I'm walking around and like five of my Memphis buddies were now in Cinderella and I'm like handing them champagne off of a tray, being like, this is one of this is my new gig, right? That wow that amount of now in this room being able to say like and that's fine.

But at the time the shame spiral surrounding that was horrible. And it wasn't until I started I think a lot of my um I don't do musicals anymore or like I'm focusing on TV film or commercial career, whatever it was, was built on anything that I could point to that felt like creative success.

[43:00] Dan Tracy: Yeah.

[43:00] Bryan Langlitz: Whether it was a voiceover booking, a one day on set for a commercial, six weeks of a regional contract somewhere, anything that I could point to I just gripped for dear life because it was it's all I had to counter what I thought everybody else was seeing, which was Brian works in restaurants now. I thought the New York world was just looking at me as like well he didn't book another show or he can't get into another cast or he's not right like he would he works in restaurants now. I was like Newsflash like we all fucking work in restaurants now. Like that's part of it. So and that's continued and the balance that I've been able to find now I've found a way to like really enjoy to some degree it's a little played out now because I've done it for essentially 10 years, but I found a a way of kind of enjoying restaurants, right?

And like I wouldn't have stuck around in that industry. I would have found another side hustle if I didn't enjoy it and I wasn't good at it. Throughout all of this, I was um still in class, still auditioning a really good amount. Like still felt like I had enough going on that I could, you know, still felt like I was a part of the team.

[44:06] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[44:06] Bryan Langlitz: But I but I upped, I started to up some of the training and I started to get really inspired by teachers. And I've always loved teachers and loved school. I love class. But I when you get the real good ones, you start to see that it's its own art and that it's its own. That's exactly it, right? Because it's not about like there are directors who get to do fancy things, and then there are directors who work magic. And the same is true for teaching. It it something unlocked by working with great teachers, some of whom all different types of teachers too, right? Like working working actors who teach really good on-camera classes in the city, like as their side hustle, from you know, faculty at some fancy MFA programs that teach scene studies in their living room, to just like a coach who basically like is a writer and really like doesn't know much about acting, but he knows a ton about writing, and so he's just making sure that I haven't missed something on the page, right?

Like you understand the story, right? These it it it's all different types of teachers, but the really, really good ones, the ones that really have an effect and unlock something in you started to inspire me as you know, well, I think I might be able to do that. I think so as far as now what I'm doing, which is a ton of coaching and coaching other actors, that just built over time from taking this buffet of what I learned in these classes, right? A little from each of them and these teachers that were inspiring and kind of putting them into my words and how I see it work for me, and then try to trying to translate it so that it works for you so that this concept, whatever it is we're working towards, can be effective in your work.

So just friends coming to me and saying, Can we run lines? Can we work on this? Can you take a look at this? This audition tape. Um, and then slowly realizing, oh uh it might I mean part of it is that I'm hyper verbal, right? That's you can't hardly tell. I can't stop talking. Um it's good for podcasts.

[46:10] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it's good for podcasts.

[46:11] Bryan Langlitz: Uh but and and occasionally the the thought goes away, which we just experienced, but um we don't know who's driving the train. Um, but that that lends itself can lend itself really well to coaching. Um you we should eventually be doing more listening and watching and working with the actor, but there's a lot that can be communicated, right? There's so much we have to talk about. There's so much we have to break down, um, and that that's something that I love doing. What's like number one? Do you have like a number one favorite quote or a favorite like snippet from one of these teachers, like someone that you've worked with recently that you're like like this little well, part of it uh one of them, and we we kind of already mentioned it, but the the work on the actors, the work on the self. That's that's big for me right now.

[46:58] Joe Carroll: I love that one.

[46:59] Bryan Langlitz: Um there's a lot of like little like bag of tricks. Uh you know, one of my mentors just calls them golden rules that are that are you know fun to kind of use when you're actually working on something. It's not big philosophy, it's like little technique, it's things, you know, whether it's an on-camera technique or a breathing exercise, or right it's just something that I can kind of always pull from.

[47:20] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[47:21] Bryan Langlitz: Um my favorite one recently was when we did we took from this guy film uh teacher in New York who who, you know, you you do a bunch of musicals and you do theater your whole life and then you want to be on camera and you want to be uh you know want to work on TV or film and he's like you have not spent your ten thousand hours working on camera. You've been doing musical since you were in the third grade. So you are qualified to do plays and to do musicals. But if you want to transition to the next art form, you haven't you don't deserve it yet. That's you need to take class, you need to get on camera, you need to audition, you need to put your time in, which I love because then that feels tangible.

Then that feels like something you could do as opposed to just, you know, like oh it's the luck of the draw again and so I'm gonna book a big series regular. It's like no you don't deserve that yet because you've been doing one thing forever and now you want to transition to something else. And what I can tell you to truly like from being on these sets is that like you don't know what you're doing.

[48:14] Joe Carroll: Right.

[48:15] Bryan Langlitz: Like it is a it is a real mind fuck when you find yourself looking around being like wait my tricks and my confidences that I have as a you know when I if I'm in a play or if I'm in a musical like they don't work here. It doesn't apply here. I I don't know how any of this works. And that's a that can be a really small feeling. And you know that or it's a big feeling that makes you feel small.

[48:39] Joe Carroll: Right.

[48:39] Bryan Langlitz: And so and that's a horrible way to feel when then you know in your in your firefighter analogy I listen to one of the podcasts where you talk about the the firefighter sense of like and go.

[48:48] Joe Carroll: Yeah suddenly be great.

[48:49] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah. Um that's so in the way. I mean that small feeling is the opposite of where we need you to be in order to turn turn the camera on and have you be real and honest and alive. Um part of it one one of the other like actor isms that I'm digging right now is um this comes out of the improper world, I think, but it's play yourself with a thin veil, like um when you're like for on camera for a lot of on camera work.

[49:14] Joe Carroll: Um it's like we just sort of need to kind of just have you be you in a little tiny, really, really kind of elegant, thin uh wall between uh yeah what between what you're doing and and what I'm seeing.

[49:30] Bryan Langlitz: So that's like that has been really really helpful.

[49:34] Joe Carroll: Yeah, because it can be a trap to uh to talk too much about character.

[49:40] Bryan Langlitz: That's right. And the problem, I think, is that we all see Meryl Streep and Daniel Day Lewis, and we're like, oh, so being a good actor means playing character. Right. Or what those people actually are doing is putting a thin veil over themselves or finding another self inside themselves. So they're still super authentic and spontaneous.

[50:00] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[50:04] Bryan Langlitz: I think the hard what I mean, I think acting is so hard, right? Like it's just so hard. Right, right. And and we're not even talking about the hustle and the business and the getting by, right? Which is maybe twice as hard. But the actual craft of acting just blows my mind. Like the fact that it's ever good is a miracle.

[50:22] Joe Carroll: Because it is a miracle.

[50:26] Bryan Langlitz: It shouldn't be. It is so ridiculous. It is absurd what we're trying to do and to do believably. And the fact that the magic of like when it is as good as what I mean, think of your favorite scenes, think of your favorite actors, right? Think of like the best acting you've ever seen. Like the amount that goes in to that working and you believing is wild. And there's teachers and coaches out there that would say the exact opposite. They'd be like, it's actually quite easy, right?

[50:52] Joe Carroll: We've made it too complicated.

[50:54] Bryan Langlitz: But yeah, make it more simple. Make it more simple. Like maybe that's true, but I also know I'm the one that has to get up there and take these three pages and make you believe that I believe, right? That's another mentor thing that I love.

[51:08] Joe Carroll: That's a that's uh I have to make you believe that I believe that's a good idea.

[51:11] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, that's that's that is not me at all. That is um Killian McHugh. He runs a commercial workshop in Los Angeles, actually, and that's his whole thing is you know, make that your you have a simple job to to you know make them believe that you believe. But how the hell do we do that? What goes into that? Um, and that's the work that I'm interested in, and treating it like an experiment or a recipe that we're willing to mess with, right? Let's find out how what need what needs to go in to this recipe so that Dan is good.

[51:43] Joe Carroll: And to so that I believe that Dan believes.

[51:46] Bryan Langlitz: What does that take? Does he need what kind of work do we need to do? And so when I'm working with a client, the first part of my job is like figuring out what that person needs. Cause you don't need the same thing. Some people literally just need to be told like it's a little big. You know what I mean?

[52:03] Joe Carroll: Right.

[52:04] Bryan Langlitz: And that's all they need. That's not me at all. That's not what I need.

[52:07] Joe Carroll: Right.

[52:09] Bryan Langlitz: Um, right. But this recipe of getting to the good stuff, that's why I can't subscribe to like a theory of acting or a technique or a school. Um, I think there's so much from all of it that works.

[52:24] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I really, I really love that.

[52:26] Bryan Langlitz: Well, and it's it's always changing, it's always different.

[52:28] Joe Carroll: Yeah, it's like what that person needs today in this scene.

[52:31] Bryan Langlitz: That's so good. But you're also talking about like what what they need in their life, you know. What did the what do you watch? Do you go to the gym? What is your day job? What is your what are you doing in your personal like all of that recipe?

[52:40] Joe Carroll: Like it's not a good idea.

[52:41] Bryan Langlitz: I've never been in love. You know, like yeah, or like all of it. Like, did you are you, you know, running to the audition instead of you know walking slowly and sitting at a coffee shop before? I mean, it's just like, how do you make and this is the thing that's changing for it's changing for me right now. I used to have it kind of like, oh, I thought I figured it out a little bit, and now I'm in this phase where I'm like, I have no freaking idea.

[53:00] Joe Carroll: And you may go that's the thing.

[53:01] Bryan Langlitz: And that may also work. Who knows? But it's like Dan said, it's it's gonna change. There's gonna be, you're gonna have a season where you kind of have it figured out. You have a couple a couple bookings in a row where you're like, all right, I think I this is my thing. This is how I work, this is how I prep. And then you change because you're an evolving human, and then those things don't work anymore.

[53:18] Joe Carroll: Right.

[53:19] Bryan Langlitz: So good luck. So good luck to all of our listeners. But again, as this comes back to the beginning of how this conversation started, it's like that I still want to slam my head against the window. Like I hear that, and I think, great, cool. I I'm not willing to stop yet.

[53:33] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[53:34] Bryan Langlitz: Um because it's still the thing that lights the fire in your stomach to get up to do the thing. And like that's what you actually want to spend the next several hours. And it and that always comes in phases too, but like you actually want to slam your head against the window. You know what I mean? Also, here's here's the other fun fact. Everything's hard. Like, you know what I mean?

[53:54] Joe Carroll: Like one of my favorite quotes ever.

[53:57] Bryan Langlitz: Like, I love that. Everything's hard.

[54:00] Bryan Langlitz: This has been a big thing. I mean, and I have come close, not very close to quitting, but I have I think there's I wonder if there are actors out there that the thought like really doesn't cross their mind, right? Of like, maybe I'm done. Maybe I should go into real estate or, you know, work in restaurants or go get my master's in something, right? Like, are there people out there that don't ask themselves that question, right? Maybe. And maybe they've gotten to a point where they can afford not to. But I was always a person who can be wooed very easily by what someone else's life looks like. Which can be like very dangerous for an actor. I'm quitting every week.

[54:39] Joe Carroll: That's right.

[54:40] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And not just quitting, but like you might start thinking about like what it is you would do, right? Like you've done some reasons. The amount of times I have logged in. Joe has applied to law school like four times.

[54:50] Joe Carroll: Oh, yeah.

[54:50] Bryan Langlitz: Yeah. As Bandstand was closing, I had a GRE tutor. Like I was like, I was like in the GRE, and then they were like, Well, actually, you're gonna go to shoot. I went to an orientation, like a day one orientation for like a clinical psych program of like this is how you become a therapist. And I think the next day was opening a play. And like you know what I mean? Like was like had a job and was like, but I also think that's what makes you a good actor, right? There's this interest in people. Point being, it's all friggin' hard. You could decide to not slam your head against this window, and then you're gonna transition into some other industry. Guess what? They're all slamming their heads into windows.

[55:29] Joe Carroll: Yeah, totally exactly. It's just hard.

[55:38] Bryan Langlitz: My best one of my best friends is a filmmaker in LA. We grew up together. Our dads are best friends, and he used to be my dad's best friend was a big-time lawyer at Rockefeller Center for a financial company. And I want to be an actor of musical theater, my buddy wants to be a filmmaker. We are going to college and we're like together for Thanksgiving or some holiday. And my buddy's dad said that he had to fill a position at his law firm at this wealth management company. He had to hire somebody to come in and basically do temp work around a busy time of year. And he had a stack of resumes that he had to go through. Every single one of them had a Yale or Harvard MBA. And the guy was gonna come in and literally just do data entry for like six months for 50,000 bucks a year in New York City, and he showed up and he was like, listen, everything is hard, just do something you like.

[56:29] Joe Carroll: That's right.

[56:30] Bryan Langlitz: Because everything is hard, even working for a wealth management MBA thing like that. Everything's hard. What we perceive as being the I almost want to call it the like, it's because it's not what I see is like getting to take the heavy backpack off, right? It's like, and one day I could take this really uncomfortable backpack off, and I'm no longer an actor, and oh, I can breathe again. It's like that's not it. You'll put on another heavy backpack. You're never gonna be living off friends' residuals and just like sitting by a lake, right? Because, you know, now here's this weird thing. There's this weird thing, this like dichotomy that we have to be aware of, we have to kind of hold on to both.

Because it's both of these things. We've kind of already in this conversation said two different things, right? One of them is like, it's all hard, like stick it out, it's a grind. There, but we've also said like you've gotta, you know, when I think about some of the opportunities that are out there and the ways that this industry can kind of skyrocket you, or like like things are some things will get easier, right? And if you look at your own life, they have right. But you have to be able to recognize those things for what they are and and be comfortable with them and and and not, you know, not look down on any of it. Like it's all shaping you. It's all good and hard. It's all good and hard.

[57:50] Bryan Langlitz: And occasionally, ooh, here's a good one. The day on when you're on set, that's the vacation. The job is auditioning and prepping.

[58:00] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[58:01] Bryan Langlitz: The day on set is the vacation. Totally. That's Andrew Stewart Jones, who's my mentor in New York. I mean, he's one of those teachers for me that cracked my brain open and made me just understand acting, particularly like very specifically, auditioning for on-camera work, which is not acting, right? Like that, I mean it is, but it's really dialed in. It's crap, right? It's its own thing. His whole thing was exact is exactly that is like when you get on set, someone is going to literally hold your hand and walk you around places. Some of them are places where they'll feed you, and some of them are places where they'll do your hair and makeup for you. Like turn it off when you're on set. Like just praise the Lord that you're there. But but the work, and I just think we have it backwards. We think that like we move through life, and it's, you know, if we can just get the job, then we can like do the work. It's just completely in that's so valuable.

[59:00] Joe Carroll: I totally agree.

[59:01] Bryan Langlitz: What would you tell 15-year-old Brian?

[59:03] Bryan Langlitz: Um, I would tell 15-year-old Brian that so I mean the first thing, then I wouldn't have said this. I wouldn't have said this before I started going to therapy, but like I never doubted that I was on the right track. I had the mindset of special kid, right? It's gonna do gonna do the thing when I was young, when I was when I was 15. Um But then I think you can judge that. You can um I think there was a period recently where I thought I was wrong about those things, right? Not wrong that you're special. Um that you are oh it's real cheesy, guys, but it's the you are enough thing, right? It's the like it's already there. All the goodness, all the magic, all the special sauce. It's already there.

Um so the first thing I'd want to say is like you're you know, it's it's already there. We we the thing it's we need to like build you up and uh get you to believe that. Right, right. But it's already there, it's not outside of yourself, it's already inside of yourself. We need to uncover it. Need to like chip away until we get at it, but the magic, the special thing, it's already there.

[1:00:24] Joe Carroll: Um I really like that.

[1:00:27] Bryan Langlitz: Find that sculpture inside yourself and like just could be the title of the episode. That's why I always like finding the title of the episode in the end. That's really good. That's really good. It should be Brian Lang.

[1:00:36] Joe Carroll: That's he'll never forget.

[1:00:39] Bryan Langlitz: He'll never forget all the things he's forgotten.

[1:00:42] Joe Carroll: All the things he's forgotten.

[1:00:43] Bryan Langlitz: That's good. That's like the that's the title of a bad like album.

[1:00:46] Joe Carroll: And Brian Langwits, I you know, yeah, yeah.

[1:00:49] Bryan Langlitz: And then my my question, my my like sort of uh what is the what's Brian's uh you know, thing on the horizon? You're uh what I call it your unreachable star. Like the thing that's like like what you're what you're shooting at now. Like what's the thing at the end of the tunnel?

[1:01:06] Bryan Langlitz: Light some sort of thing in Jason now. Especially, I think it's interesting because Memphis happened so quickly, like and like Broadway, yeah. So now it's like what do you And that feels like another life, right? Not just because it was a long time ago, but again, where that one producer, that meeting where she was, right, is that in a lot of ways, like that's not a part that journey was its own North Star, right? That was its own another life from Bridges of Madison County. You're doing it again. You don't even know that you're doing it.

[1:01:28] Joe Carroll: Okay, but like, okay.

[1:01:32] Bryan Langlitz: Uh it was it's oh my god, am I that predictable? Um it uh like those, yeah, like those boxes got to be checked, and so then you kind of have to say, what is the new goal? What's the new? I mean, sometimes it changes right now. Very practically, I want to be able to uh I want to work with as many actors as possible. I mean, I really want to like from a coaching perspective, I would like um, you know, like some real, like a really great roster of recurring clients that I can help, you know, them with their momentum and and and watch them like break, you know, their barriers. That would be really exciting if that if that was you know more of an everyday thing as an actor though. Um, you know, like very practically speaking, like I'm I need a lot more footage and I'm working on that.

So like really good footage of me exactly kind of it they you know in the in the pocket of my casting wherever I can find that. So I'm lucky you know in January I'm gonna go down to New Orleans and Baton Rouge and film a I'm gonna do a feature down there, which will be the the longest all uh it'll be you know a month on set as opposed to a day on set. And so any what I'm looking for um very practically are these opportunities of experience, right? And to learn, I don't know, do I like being on set for a month? I don't know if I even like that. Right. Because it's very easy for me to say I want to be serious regular. Right. If you were to really break down what it is to be number one on the call sheet, like I don't know that I want that actually. Maybe I do. Not sure. I don't mind the paycheck, but like you want to I'd take number eight.

[1:03:06] Joe Carroll: Oh yeah, yeah.

[1:03:07] Bryan Langlitz: Oh man, number eight is amazing. Jake Johnson from New Girl always says he's like, I would love to be number three for the couple of years.

[1:03:12] Joe Carroll: Oh my god, yeah.

[1:03:13] Bryan Langlitz: Number one on the call sheet is 18 hour days, six days a week for three months, right? Like, I don't know. Can I do that? 14 pages of dialogue every day. So figuring out, but but with that, it's it's figuring out, okay, what are these what are these experiences I I want to have. I need to rack up. I need to go find out. Do I like shooting in Baton Rouge for a month? I'm thinking I probably will. I'm very excited about the project. Let's find out. And then and then yielding, hopefully, like more and more really good footage so I can start kind of cobbling together this 'cause like I said, I feel like I'm starting from scratch. I feel like I'm starting over. And part of starting over is figuring out like what we're selling now.

Who's Brian now? As the actor, as the coach, as the um and then yeah, I mean to put like a a finer point on it, like yeah, I've I would love I would love to test this year. I would love to recur, uh, to get a cool little recur. I mean, in the cur in, you know, like my current setup, like my very short term practical goal for the next year is like a guest star. Like, let me do a guest star. And that feels really attainable, you know. I feel really well positioned to do that. But if I was gonna label it like that, you know, that and some clients, I'm getting to hang out with you guys. I'd love it.

[1:04:32] Joe Carroll: Cool.

[1:04:32] Bryan Langlitz: And we we should talk more about how I can help you find more clients too. That there is more of a conversation to be had there.

[1:04:40] Joe Carroll: Well, for how we can help you, like very open to it.

[1:04:42] Bryan Langlitz: And I'm gonna open up.

[1:04:44] Joe Carroll: Yeah, I'm lucky to get it for you.

[1:04:46] Bryan Langlitz: I've been very lucky too to, you know, I work in person is obviously I my favorite. Right.

[1:04:51] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:04:51] Bryan Langlitz: But I have a couple clients right now that I that you know, the joys of Skype and and FaceTime are, especially for on camera, it is actually really sometimes it's nice just to have someone kind of to actually have to work with a camera and a screen, right?

[1:05:05] Joe Carroll: Right.

[1:05:05] Bryan Langlitz: Even with a little bit of the delay just to have the, you know.

[1:05:08] Joe Carroll: Yeah.

[1:05:09] Bryan Langlitz: You're already kind of practicing in the medium. Um even if it is like a webcam setup. Yeah. Um that can be really effective. So yeah.

[1:05:17] Joe Carroll: That's you know for reach out.

[1:05:19] Bryan Langlitz: Hell yeah.

[1:05:19] Joe Carroll: You know that I still live on 117th Street.

[1:05:21] Bryan Langlitz: Unbelievable.

[1:05:22] Joe Carroll: The greatest block of all time.

[1:05:26] Bryan Langlitz: That I stayed at for a week when I first moved to New York State.

[1:05:29] Joe Carroll: That's right.

[1:05:29] Bryan Langlitz: Um the run I remember my one of my first auditions ever. I told you I'm gonna go for a run, and you said you should go out, go down Frederick Douglass, and run around the reservoir and come back. It's exactly four miles, and I do that same run like four times.

[1:05:42] Joe Carroll: That's unbelievable.

[1:05:43] Bryan Langlitz: It's my favorite. Sally and I look back at that time in our life as being like pure, pure magic when we lived in like the shittiest apartment. I mean, but it was magic because it was ours and it was the first place we got really together in some ways, and like nobody not like it was it felt like this secret little corner of Harlem that had people had been in Washington Heights, like other actors, right? We're like living in Astoria. Now so many actors live right on that block, like right in that building. Even but it kind of felt like we were there early in a lot of ways, and it just felt like this secret space.

[1:06:18] Joe Carroll: I love it.

[1:06:19] Bryan Langlitz: I'm gonna go up there later if I if I can.

[1:06:21] Joe Carroll: Yeah, go get a go get a cookie.

[1:06:23] Bryan Langlitz: So good. You're the best, man. Thank you.

[1:06:24] Joe Carroll: Thank you for being here.

[1:06:26] Bryan Langlitz: Thanks.

[1:06:27] Joe Carroll: Thanks for listening to Guys Who Like Musicals. I'm Dan Tracy. That's at Dan underscore Tracy on Instagram and Twitter.

[1:06:33] Bryan Langlitz: And I'm Joe Carroll. That's Joe underscore Carroll. M-I-C-H, because I'm from the state of Michigan, and I went to Michigan on Instagram and Twitter.

[1:06:43] Dan Tracy: You can reach us at musical guys on Twitter or at Guys Who Like Musicals on Instagram.

[1:06:50] Joe Carroll: And for the first time, we now have a phone number.

[1:06:54] Dan Tracy: You guys can text the Guys Who Like Musicals personally. Our number is 203-900-7990.

[1:07:05] Joe Carroll: We will eventually make a bad song that has those numbers in it.

[1:07:12] Dan Tracy: But for now, if you have any questions or if you want to be uh involved in the interview process, maybe we'll make an option for you guys to ask questions to our guests as we're interviewing them.

[1:07:24] Joe Carroll: We shall see. Be part of our text community and shoot us a text now.

[1:07:28] Dan Tracy: Thanks for listening.