E268 – Tom Malloy – How to find, approach & close Investors for your film.

Junaid Ahmed 0:11
Thank you for tuning in to hacks and hobbies with your host Junaid in season two of hacks and hobbies were visited by our amazing guests coming from all walks of life want to learn their story, their struggles and their journey on how they got to where they are today. So stick around.

In this episode, I get to speak with Tom Malloy. He's a actor, writer and producer. And he's been on many, many movies and TV shows. And I had the opportunity to attend his workshop at the VIP film and TV summit here in Northern Virginia. And I learned a lot of amazing things about the movie business, especially from the production side of things. Now, being in so many different hobbies, I had very little experience into what it all takes, and just having produced one short film last month for make Ahmed movie project. This was like right in line to like this was this couldn't have been a better time than meeting and attending something that goes into production. And I had the opportunity to attend the workshop. And I got to talk to Tom and as he knows, like he, I would love to bring you on and talk more about you and how you got into this business. So thank you so much, Tom.

Tom Malloy 1:50
Thank you for having me. Happy to be here. Definitely.

Junaid Ahmed 1:53
Awesome. Awesome. So I'm not sure how aware of tomboy my audience might be. So let's just do a little bit of a rundown of who Tom Morello is and what he's doing on this earth.

Tom Malloy 2:08
Well, I mean, you know, it's, um, I started as an actor. Yeah. That kind of quick story is that, but you know, I always wanted to be since I was it was young. I mean, you know, in fourth grade, I was for the lead male role. And Peter Pan, Peter, man was Earl, I was Captain Hook. So it always is mine. No, no, the first big role was a gotcha independent film was shot on the streets of Brooklyn called Gravesend back in 1998. Yeah, we got to street corner to be a gang of thugs there. And we be like, you guys want to shoot a fight scene? They'd be like, yeah, you know, big fights and breakout. And, you know, but we improvise the whole movie. And when it was done, we got Oliver Stone to put his name on it. And I was the second or third biggest role in the movie. And, you know, as in theaters, I thought, well, I'm never gonna have to work outside of the movie business. I thought I thought I would just go to the mailbox and they're just the scripts there, you know, offers. But it kind of didn't happen that way. I just learned every other aspect of the movie business, I really focused on listening and learning and didn't making a long story short, I just let's see. I've started a bunch of movies. I'm loving dancing. with Amy smart, Betty White, the alphabet killer the life dish Q and carry always Tim Hutton. And I've just produced my 15th film. And yeah, and as far as writing goes, I'm in the Writers Guild. I've written 30 something screenplays and I've option sold or made the movies 24 of those screenplays. So I also own a company that sells movies called glass house distribution. So if I couldn't be more

movie business, if I tried, and let's say, my own catering business or something like that, other than that I've got that covered every aspect of a movie. So yeah,

Junaid Ahmed 3:53
that is really cool. Because So growing up, I didn't have damage, say into, like watching movies, because we grew up back in the Saudis. You know, TV access we had was like from five to 10pm. A lot of TV. And we only had two channels. One was the English one, and the other one was in Arabic language. So we just had access to very limited movies and whatnot. But as coming through the timeline, I got introduced to movies, and I was like, Oh, my God, this is super fascinating. This is so amazing. Let me learn a little bit more. And I never thought to go to film school. Like I was like, I'm just going to figure this all out on my own. Just like stumbling across through different technology, because passion for technology. So that was really cool. Yeah, so what aspect of movie filmmaking and you've covered the whole gamut of it? Or what's something that people can immediately take with them? And start applying and be like, Oh, hey, this is the step by step guide on how to do it. And I think that was your workshop was on?

Tom Malloy 5:09
Yeah, you know, it's like that, that's been kind of into that for a long time just trying to get, you know, help people. If they go, I have no idea what to do. Get a leg up on that, and try to figure out how to do that. Yeah. And, you know, because I think there's a lot it's also maybe false information out there, just you know, wasted time where you're going to read a book, that's not really going to give you the right advice, you know, so that's my one of my missions. And, you know, I've put different you know, bankroll was the book that I wrote the gold standard book on film financing, and seniors basically telling people how to raise money to shoot their own movie. And that applies to actors, writers, directors, producers. And now, you know, as I told you, in the seminar, it's, it's all online, you know, besides the stuff that I teach live, it's all like filmmaking stuff, HQ, com, where we guys, I mean, over the past five years or so, Jason rubric, and I have created like 20 different products, and different areas of movies that are all really helpful movies and TV, by the way. Yeah. So you know, look at I'd say that the key is, there are steps that you can take literally right now, if you wanted to be working and doing something. And I think that if you're really committed, you should start taking those steps. And you know, making your own movie starting to play and things like that. And, you know, sooner or later that you realize, Oh, crap, that's all I'm doing. won't be doing that. And now you're 100% in the movie business. And that's a great feeling beautiful.

Junaid Ahmed 6:35
So going through the step by step process that you have outlined, but some of the things that, that I learned, were, like, totally mind blowing, like one of them should have been the most obvious. That script, having a good script, having a script that walks you through, okay, this is a story that you're trying to tell and film for a movie. Right? That's super important. And it's like the plan, like the pre planning of whatever you're looking to jump into, correct?

Tom Malloy 7:11
Yes. You know, it's, it's really just putting it in the best possible, you know, scenario, as far as stacking the debt goes, in your favor, you know, and I made the comment in the seminar. And I always say this is that it, you know, a great script doesn't guarantee a great movie, but the bad script equals bad movie 100% of the time. So if you go arcing going, well, nobody's read the script, or you know, a couple people read it said it was okay. It's like, already going down a bad path. But, you know, the smartest thing you can do is that if you have a great script to start, and like, Oh, my God, suddenly, bigger talent jumps on, you get involved that you never thought would be involved. And that's a great feeling.

Junaid Ahmed 7:55
Yeah. So scripts, scripts is really good. Because if you're telling a story, and then you have a short film to tell a story, but then you also mentioned something about documentaries, you got to have a great idea.

Tom Malloy 8:07
Yeah, you know, if you're pitching your documentary, and you're telling or even just telling somebody about it, and they're like falling asleep, as you're telling them or they're like, I don't get it. Yeah, we can rework that. It doesn't mean you have to change the subject, you probably change your approach to this subject, you know, and it you know, but but at the opposite again, it's true. you're pitching in documentary, and they go, Oh, my God, I would love to see that. Yeah. Like, you know, you know, you have an audience right there. So that's, that's a good thing. That's why I tell people, they should always be pitching your projects, just to get the feedback. You know, it doesn't doesn't matter. If you feel like oh, that person could do nothing. For me. It's like get back from them and their reactions and what I've learned so much from people's reactions to my pitches over the years, so yeah,

Junaid Ahmed 8:50
nice. Nice. So so the the short film that we shot and I want to get a get a little feedback from you, if you don't mind, is, you know, we, since Mr. Okay, this can be a short film movie in a month. But then the idea was, you know, it's going to be, is it going to be a story where you, you start with a honey jar, and then somebody is putting this honey and then you go back in time, kind of like, kind of like memento? Where's this honey coming from? Like I said, that's, that's more like a short film, where you acting stuff out. But then we ended up going in a totally different direction, because we didn't have a script. But we did have an idea. Okay, we have beekeepers, and you know, these beekeepers are over here. So we ended up making it more of a documentary, we're interviewing the people, the actual beekeepers. So that's what we ended up doing. So like, what how would we? How would how do we make that a little better?

Tom Malloy 9:49
Well, you know, I think that planning is always the key to future success or future, that if you had more of an idea first going in, yeah, maybe it wouldn't have got so it changed up. And then sometimes there's changes that make that are the thing that saves the movie, you know, at the end of the day, if you have a plan, and you change that plan, it'll always be stronger than if you have no cool, you know, no plan, and you just got to kind of make one up on the fly. You know, so and then hope that you step in the right, you know, pile of gold instead of the pile of crap. So, you know, just having an idea to plan before and next time. Yeah, it may not it may deviate from that. But at least they'll know that it's it's somewhat of, you know, mapped out

Junaid Ahmed 10:37
yesterday started with the destination in mind. Yeah, rather than, okay, where we going to go. And that's what actually happened is we attended to tell my colleagues like, Yeah, let's go check out this mega movie. month, and then maybe we'll join a project or maybe, you know, we'll just see what happens. And then my colleague just came up with the idea, you know, the colony, we're talking about beekeeper beekeeping, because I'm a beekeeper myself, and it's about you. Yeah, so I had experienced from a big pig keepers perspective. And I was like, I love filmmaking. Is it perfect cross section of the two. So we ended up making it more of a, like, it all came out of nowhere. And then, and then now, hopefully, we can make more plans and more concrete ideas around, okay, what beekeeping is, and that's what we ended up trying to promote and try to talk about in the short film short film. So let's see what happens. I mean, we were hoping to make it more of a long form documentary, where were we visit other beekeepers all around the DMV area, because there's a ton of them.

Tom Malloy 11:51
Well, look, you know, anything good look at it, there's a way to make that process work. Where is, you know, the limitations, sometimes our time and money, when you're kind of discovering something, is sometimes it can be interesting, you know, where you're going, like, what do we have here, we're going to put together and you kind of see it? So there's no, right, you know, like, we're, this is the only way you have to make art. I just, you know, there's other ways that will probably be less, you know, time consuming and less money out of pocket and a little more focused. But, you know, there could be something where, you know, you look at it you are what do we have, and then you start gathering more beekeeper interviews or whatever the section is, and you go putting it on you go all right now we're starting to make something really cool here. But you know, it's, it's assembling it in a strange in a different way. But possible way

Junaid Ahmed 12:36
doesn't mean No, that took that totally makes sense. Because that's what we ended up thinking about like, okay, let's, let's just grab more and more footage, go to different places that people gather and sell honey or whatever, then we'll we'll start seeing a pattern start seeing the story of, you know, have to be keeping the colony. So that that's, that's really good advice. Thank you so much. Awesome. So the process of filmmaking, right. So the other reasons I wanted to talk to you is being an actor, and I had a knack for, like, for the longest time I was like, RMB stand up comedian. And then like, okay, maybe I want to do some acting. And then I heard from a friend of mine, like, hey, check out backstage, there's acting gigs that you can dump on. And it's like, all right, this is pretty, pretty interesting. And I got introduced to this whole new world, right? And it just blows my mind like how many dedicated platforms there are for the film industry and like you could just go deeper and dig deeper and there's more and more to learn.

Tom Malloy 13:48
Well, yeah, I mean, you know, it's like the there's Yeah, there's a lot of actors out there. And you know, I always try to say to an actor the bait the way to set yourself apart is to make your own stuff you know, and I just waiting for the phone to ring or whatever, you know a lot of times with backstage as much as I support them and whatever that you have tons of people going for the same role you know what I mean? Like it's almost like cattle calls like that's that's like the first stage of acting you got these cattle call audition second stage be you have an agent or manager that's getting you appointment auditions and then stages You know, you're just getting offers people are saying be in my movie, I'll pay you x you know, so those are kind of stages. So you know, you want to graduate in backstage a great start, but you want to graduate to getting an agent manager that's getting you appointments getting you in front of the caster

Junaid Ahmed 14:35
right okay. And to be an actor Do you need to go to school because some of the acting classes that I took or watched through online were through masterclass calm and there's a few classes being taught on acting by I think there's there's one by Kevin Spacey, there's one by Nicole Kidman, I think, but there's there's a ton of information out there there. Yeah. Yeah. What's the proper way to, like, get into that? Oh, do you just jump in front of a camera and start acting?

Tom Malloy 15:07
Well, you know, some people have a knack for it. I'll say that, you know, like training can always help it no matter what if you're great. You know, it's it's just like being a boxer or saying or anything else, you know, you have it in the ring. And actually punch people, you know, you have a knack for it. You may be speedy with your head and your punches or whatever. That's great. You know, it's like, but you still need the training. So there's, there's a lot of schools out there that teach acting and things and you have to be wary. I'm not a big fan of acting school. I'm big fan of private lessons with personal acting coaches, if they're qualified, and they have a resume. Yeah. But at the end of the day, the way to get better at movie acting is just to keep movie acting. It's almost like learning to swim on a chalkboard. You have to, you have to jump in the pool. Swimming on the chalkboard, but you got to get in the water. Yeah, getting in the water is being in a movie, you know,

Junaid Ahmed 15:58
really good analogy, that's, that's so true. You have to be doing something. Like for example, Malcolm Gladwell, or Seth Godin, say, if you don't have enough bad writing, how are you ever gonna have some good writing? Yeah, you gotta get out that get out and do that bad acting?

Tom Malloy 16:16
Totally. I just said that, you know, I just did, there was a Michael Caine book. And I mean, huge fan, by the way, his book acting in film, it's just a, for any of the actors that are out there. It's a great inspirational book, because it kind of takes it from the point of view of, you've already made it, like, want to act on set, here's little tips, here's how you what you want to do in your close up, like all these things, that I still use a lot of these techniques. Yeah. You know, he was saying the key to doing great work is to do a lot of work, you know, what I mean? And eventually, one of them, you know, starts people start to say, Wow, this person is great. So

Junaid Ahmed 16:50
ye ah, yeah. Because then you're training your mind. And, and like I said, you know, any, to get good at anything at all, you got to be doing it. Like, for example, no wonder everybody in the world walks. Right? Because you're not going to tell you a little child of one year old, you're never gonna walk Don't even try

Tom Malloy 17:14
the universe and all over the place.

Junaid Ahmed 17:18
So that's, that's really good. That's really good. Some of the other things that like, totally inspired me, were, like watching a lot of TV show, or being in close proximity of people acting is like, does that do anything? Because sure that that inspires you to do that more

Tom Malloy 17:41
100%. You know, I'll tell you a little story is that years ago, and you're going back, like 15 years or so, this was when I think graves and it already come out. So I'd already done some stuff there. But I wanted to see how the biggest stars and the biggest directors worked in how their process was, and you know, kind of and just to observe that. And so what I did is I started taking extra work, background work in the Union. And then there's even ways to do it without even being in the Union. But you know, so I was in the background, a bunch of big movies. And it's funny you go to these things. Look at all these actors are like, wannabes that just try to get on camera somehow. Yeah, I did not want to get on camera. Like I don't even see me as a background. I want to I'm you know, I'm a lead in a movie, you know? And so, I would say so. But I took the time to watch everybody I remember did analyze that. with Robert De Niro. Yeah, like I was watching. I was two feet away from him, like for pretty much all day. Yeah. He was reacting to me in the scene. And I'm just watching him his performance watching the director watch the other stars. And it was like, Okay, I get this. And so that's what I would say do background work for observation only, you know, when they asked people to volunteer to be on camera, you you know, all these hands go up, and I'd be hiding in the back. Because I'm like, away, I don't want to be seen any. I mean, there's ones where I worked in background or, you know, had one or two lines or something like that, and then ended up working and having bigger roles. I mean, the perfect game, I did a, like a three line role on a TV show called kidnapped. And that was the one of the leads on the entire show. And then basically, you know, 40 some years later, I was he was in my movie outbreak. Your and I had a bigger role than he did. But yeah.

Junaid Ahmed 19:35
Yeah, but that's so beautiful. Um, so one thing that you had mentioned earlier was make your own stuff. Yeah. And so, and one of the things that reminded me of was the story of Kevin Hart, and how, like, he came out of nowhere, right? Yeah. reading his book. And he's like, you know, I was told to be a stand up comedian. Make all these jokes. And he became a stand up comedian after working super hard. And then he got a role in the movie. But then he had to wait for like, six months or eight months for his TV show to pick up. And I was like, I'm not doing this. This is not what I decided that Hollywood for me. So he's went back on the road. And he's like, I'm just gonna do my shows, do my shows, and do my shows. And he, you know, built up his audience, he built up his following so much, that now Hollywood goes after him and like he please be in our movie.

Tom Malloy 20:37
Yeah. Well, he's a perfect example of somebody yet that worked his butt off and branded himself. So by the time he was, you know, getting noticed that he was in movies. Yeah, it was like, he had a brand. You know, Kevin Hart was a brand and he was super popular and super famous. And so I think that that's really smart to do. It's like, you know, what, when you have the key, look at it, at the end of the day, there is obviously a talent component, you know, does Trump it, I think eventually, but talent is, is key. And so, you know, because of Kevin, what I'm saying is, if Kevin Hart wasn't the standard comic talent that he was, he probably would be a Bambi. But you know, so the key is, if you believe your talent, and you're going out there, and you're doing it now, you can also get better. Things like stand up, you get better and better buy more and more experience. Yeah. And then so then sooner or later, yeah, you're building a brand new building a fan base. And now it's like, you know, that's when Hollywood call it because you're bringing them value, you know?

Junaid Ahmed 21:34
So yeah, yes, that's, that's so that's so true, powerful. So covered a little bit about building your own, where to go with acting, from the production side of things, right, and getting funding for your movie, and figuring out those little steps. Like, you've got the filmmaking stuff, issue calm, and there's a ton of awesome stuff that I saw on there. And I can't wait to go through everything and learn everything that I can. And that way, I was able to find a copy of your book on eBay.

Tom Malloy 22:15
Was it the blue one, or the brown one? Like the blue one is the first edition of brown one is the second hopefully,

Junaid Ahmed 22:20
I got the first edition. Because I want to have both of them like, right.

Tom Malloy 22:26
Like change between one and two. And then obviously one now I changed but yeah, yeah.

Junaid Ahmed 22:31
So we should expect a version three, or every does everything online nowadays?

Tom Malloy 22:37
Yeah, everything's online. You know, they asked me the publishers Michael, these publications are great people. Yeah. And he asked me to write a third edition. But the key was, you know, each time he had to write about 30%, new material for new edition. And if things were changing so quick, that I'm like, all right, by the time I'm done with this book out there, it's like, I'm gonna, you know, I want to write a fourth edition. Yeah. That's why, you know, when you mentioned filmmaking stuff, HQ, HQ being for headquarters. It's it that we can always change that we can add stuff we can, you know? Absolutely. And that's, that's so much more dynamic. Yeah, a book, that's a book and, you know, like I said, By the time I wrote, even the second edition, the first edition, there's aspects that are completely obsolete, you know, and, you know, talking about DVD sales and things like, suddenly, you know, by second edition, there was not even a blockbuster anymore. So it's like,

Junaid Ahmed 23:29
things changed. Totally make sense. One thing Seth Godin mentions is that, don't ever go and read commentary on your books, because that book is already published, you're not going to go change it. If somebody says, I don't like good book, or I don't like this. So yeah, that's having how many content online is the perfect place to store it, because you can update it, you can have a an ongoing conversation in communities like the Facebook community that you guys have. Really, really powerful. Cool.

Tom Malloy 24:07
Yes, definitely. No, agreed, and you can watch things over and over again, whereas it may not do that. You know what I mean? There's very few books that I've read over and over again, because I've watched over and over again, tons of times, yeah,

Junaid Ahmed 24:17
yeah. That's really cool. All right, one question that I have, since you've been in the industry for over two decades, how has the mentality change of you know, from starting out, to now change in the industry itself? Like, where the mentality gone from where he was 20 years ago? To now?

Tom Malloy 24:42
Well, I think that it was, there's a couple things, I think that there was a certain aspect that was easier back then a certain aspect, that's easier. Now, that aspect that was easier back then was the bigger paychecks, you know, it's like you used to be able to do one, you know, individually, as far as a producer goes, you can produce one independent film a year, and it to you were you were rocking and rolling. And as an actor, if you did 123 films a year, you were, you know, making money hand over foot. So that was those things were easier, because there was DVDs, and there was a physical product to pack and ship, you know, like, actually, people buy things. Yeah, now, that got gone. It's on the cloud, it's all VOD. So the profits are not there anymore. You know, you have to a lot of you know, people are either out of the industry or doing diversified things like myself, with the distribution company, all the other stuff. But what's cool about it as an from an actor perspective, is that there are so many more places now that you know, you can become Instagram famous, you can become YouTube famous. But there's also, you know, the ion network and crackle and all these other networks now, versus 20 years ago, there weren't that many, you know, and he got going back 30 years, there's maybe five, you know, and now it's like, everywhere, there's a new station, opening up the new, you know, outlet for content. So there's more opportunities today, yeah, out there and get in front of people. But the money is not what it was. But maybe I think that it's the shift of you're going to make less off of more and more things instead of more of a blessed.

Junaid Ahmed 26:18
Very, very true. So talking, going over some of the notes that I took at your workshop, I don't remember, if this was brought up at all, but we were talking about a lot about preparing, right, having making sure you have a good script, ensure that you've prepped it really good. Make sure you're you know, you don't have any insane asks in there. And you know, the liabilities blah, blah, what, what are your thoughts on the, the crowdfunding platforms? Because I've funded? I mean, I've been a backer on several short films, or several feature films, on Kickstarter and Indiegogo, what are your thoughts on that? And how is that helping the movie industry? I think that

Tom Malloy 27:09
it's great for a lot of people that are using it. And I think I applaud you for being a backer on some of the projects. You know, look at i'm not i didn't embrace it, like other people did, because initially, it was like, you had to put all this work in. And you know, you, you did it for 45 days, 60 days, whatever, and you raise $30,000. And that would be a successful raise on a crowdfunding me like, I'd rather spend that time working on an investor for data for double that amount, and pitching them and doing all the things that I normally do. So to me, it wasn't the effort wasn't there. The other thing I disliked about it was, I mean, I get asked to pitch in for movies all the time. We're asking family and friends for money, you know, and it's like, the first thing they're doing is they're reaching out to their aunts, and uncles and all that stuff. And it's like, it's that really not fair. And it kind of puts them on the spot. You know what I mean? Like, imagine being in a wedding and just being like, you know, Hey, I know that, you know, your daughter just got married, but maybe you give me $10 for my thing. And so it's like, there's that aspect of it that I wouldn't want to do. It's like my friends and family. I'm not going to beg them for money. So those two things, I don't really like, what I think that's positive about it. And one of my old producing mentors. I was embracing it. And I thought, Oh, that's strange. And she told me, it's good marketing. She didn't even care about the money. Yeah. Raising from Kickstarter, she was caring about the eyeballs that she got involved in the story of the movie early on. Yes. Go and they can be mouthpieces for her later on with me. So I think that there's an aspect of it like that. That's super helpful. But it's not necessarily my thing. Let's put it that way.

Junaid Ahmed 28:48
No, no, that's a really good point. Because especially after you going through the process of defining like writing a bankroll, book and defining, okay, this is how you get funding, like, yeah, literally, before Kickstarter, even, you know, existed that way, right. Like, it doesn't make sense. Because there's, like you mentioned, there's a lot of effort. And there's a lot of effort that goes into not just the campaign, the 45 days or the 60 days that campaign is live. But then, like, have you prepared anything before you even started a campaign? Right? Yes. So yeah, does those really good points? Because one of the examples that I can think of, of recent, so good friend, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive income, he's a podcaster, and a, and a really great teacher. So they created a product for cameras for the loggers, essentially. And he's like, it took us one year of pre marketing, before we even, like start the Kickstarter project. But what what helped them is that in the first first day, or the first 11 hours, they were able to, like reach their hundred percent goal of $150,000. You know,

Tom Malloy 30:10
that's, that's great. You know, it's like, I think that that's the successful way to do it. There's people that are, you know, they just start their Kickstarter campaign and hope that they put it up, put a goal in 30 days, 4045 days, 60 days later, the money's is there, you know what I mean? And that's not the case, you know, those people for that hundred 50,000, he might have worked way harder than I ever done for raising 5 million bucks. There's absolutely,

Junaid Ahmed 30:35
yeah. But it also comes to comes from a different, like, he's been a marketer for the past 10 years, right. So that experience also plays in just like your experience of going through the process of Okay, this is where you need to do the step by step to make sure that you can, you know, get funding from an investor or from a bank or wherever you're getting funding from. So really, really good points. Awesome. Some cool story you'd like to share that nobody's heard before.

Tom Malloy 31:09
Cool story that nobody's heard before pertaining to the movie business.

Junaid Ahmed 31:12
Yeah. The movie business. Well, guys, anything else? I mean, yeah. This is a podcast on hacks and hobbies. Yeah, yeah.

Tom Malloy 31:23
Well, you know what, maybe I'll do something and one of the hobbies that was

Junaid Ahmed 31:27
with you don't queue for information. Yeah. And the guest today on subscribe to the

Tom Malloy 31:41
amazing lots, and I'm very good. And you know, but the key was, I didn't, it was 2009, I believe. And it was World Poker Tour celebrity Invitational tournament, and so was the two day tournament. And they brought in all these celebrities. I was able to get in that just loving dancing and come out. Yeah, I was in the big key. I mean, Teri Hatcher and Randy Couture, you know, card, the Cameron Manheim You know, a lot of guys from entourage, big, big thing. And so I went in, and I, we get it when I was a kid, five card draw. I had no idea how to play Texas Hold'em. And I was sitting there at the table. And you know, when you meet somebody, and by the way, my table was Laura Prebon, who from that 70 show, and oranges, new black and Matt Lillard from screen, then guy, Bob Guinea, who is I guess, the bachelor at the time, I don't watch reality much. They're all at my table. And I realized, you know what, I'm going to red carpet, I normally talk to somebody 30 seconds all, you know, bring up a mutual friend, you know, so and then blah, blah, blah. Versus these people. I'm sitting there with them for hours talking to each other and getting him in his number. And it's like, we're hanging out, make it jokes and everything. Yeah, I'm pretending to text on my phone. But I'm actually Wikipedia being sold them for 10 bucks. You know? What I'm going oh, my God, I'm right, you know, and all I'm doing is reading how to do it. You know, basically, I am posted on Facebook, somebody helped me out. And people just said fold, you know, as much as you can until you get King King or Ace, Ace.

Unknown Speaker 33:24
That's all I did. Anyway, bottom line is,

Tom Malloy 33:27
I realized, you know, this is the way I kind of do stuff, really, is that I just became a student of the game. I started reading books and PDFs and playing and playing and playing. Yeah. Now that was 2009. It says, and now it's almost 10 years later. And it's like, every tournament I walk into, I'm considered one of the top players one. And it's like, I mean, I won the Reno Poker Tour celebrity Invitational two years ago, that's the one I used to host. And I just played it again. I just I think it came in 13th. But I got a bad beat. But I mean, I came in fifth in it. There's tournament earlier last year. So the bottom line is, I have made so many connections through playing poker. What are the films I did, or the underworld? I would say 90% of the cast were poker buddies. You know? Who was the big guy from the blind side with Sandra Bullock who's the star of the movie with her? He's a poker buddy. And he was in a movie, we did a movie together truly, because I asked him and I said, you know, we just love to do this. And so yeah, all these people think it really became like the new golf in a way. Yeah. And that's what I love about it is that I played a lot, many celebrities, and people respect me now. Because

there it is.

If you would see me at first, but I'm playing and I had no idea what I was doing to now completely different stories.

Junaid Ahmed 34:48
That's, that's so cool. And, and it's really true, right? Like, so many different hobbies. Like once you get into it, you'll find people from different areas of world. They're like, what their profession is, like one of the beekeepers that we interviewed. He'd been working at CNN for 10 years, he created one of the first like, in the nature documentary series, production. And I was like, Wow, that's cool areas of people that you meet. It's really, really amazing. Yeah, you know,

Tom Malloy 35:20
it's you do these hobbies. You're right, you know, and I have several hobbies, that not a ton, but I do. I do Jiu Jitsu for a long time. And, you know, I've met many people, celebrities through there, you know, and I was trading in Beverly Hills at Eagle Machado. It's like, I remember wrestling with Ashton Kutcher. You know, he's, he's over, he can always have celebrities training there, you know, and it's like that that was cool. It's just a hobby. You know, when you're, you're totally right. When you have a hobby that you need to keep it or something like that. You go, you find out Oh, so and so likes to do beekeeping and yes, jitsu or poker. And that that's fun. And you end up having a common ground with that person?

Junaid Ahmed 36:00
Yeah, yeah, really awesome. So, to our questions, what would be the one hobby that we should get into? And I think we talked about it,

Tom Malloy 36:08
I think. I mean, as far as you know, as far as helping your career as an actor, I definitely think it's poker because you go in and you say, Well, you know, maybe you get famous enough to be invited to these tournaments. And go, you know, you go in, you're like, Oh, I don't really know how to play, you get much less respect. Even the celebrities like people want the good players and those ones to get respect. So it It took a while. But once I got good enough to people said, Oh, I you know, don't mess with him. That was that was a much better feeling. And I got a whole new level of respect it

Junaid Ahmed 36:41
really, really cool. Right? So you come from the movie industry in the TV? What would be your favorite movie or TV show?

Tom Malloy 36:49
Well, different for each? I mean, in movies. I have personal favorites. Like, you know, I love a lot of old movies. I love Casablanca I love on the waterfront because I'm a huge Marlon Brando. And actually, his last name is Malloy in that movie. Oh, I love you know, I love all movies. And those I just named to my favorites is different. You know that, of course I love the great shows like the wire and breaking bad, but I really am a huge I was a huge fan for years of The Simpsons, being able to quote any episode and just a high level comedy. Yeah, you know, now it's like my favorite shows are still animation, still high level comedy. And the only comedy that I watch is not animation is It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, but oh my god, yeah, my favorite of the live action but Rick and Morty, you know, I just love Archer and they got a little weird, but mouth is like to me, I say brick and mortar is probably my favorite show currently, but that South Park still brings it every once in a while. So I love animation. Let me animation comedies.

Junaid Ahmed 37:50
Very, very cool. Funny thing about the TV show you mentioned earlier Oh, yes. Allison in South Philadelphia, right. Another was reading their story and how they were like, okay, like for the pilot episode, they had to put something down on how much it cost him. Like, maybe 200 bucks or something like that, right? Yeah, I was just blown away like for guys to pick up a camera. Yep. Shoot a pilot. And now they've been going on strong for what? 1112 years?

Tom Malloy 38:24
I think their 13th season. Yeah, I mean, yeah, Charlie's got cancer was the first episode you can watch on YouTube. Yeah, they had it for $200. Like, you know, they just got it in the right hands of FX. So I'd say that that's a that's a tip for anybody is like make something that's really funny. And hopefully it'll capture the Zeitgeist and gets in front of the right people. And now you're, you know, you're set. So

Junaid Ahmed 38:47
yeah. Beautiful. Next question. Who is your favorite superhero?

Tom Malloy 38:52
Oh, favorite superhero. Okay, I got it. I would say a Green Lantern. I've always and I'll tell you why is that? You know, I'm not. It's not that I'm well versed in his comics. I was a fan of the character itself. I've always wanted to play him in the big budget movie. Movie. Not you know, obviously there's multiple Greenlanders. But how Jordan is what I'm talking about? Yeah, but they screwed him up so bad, and I never want it. It was never a desire of mine to either make the movie right the movie or be in the movie? Yes. I saw the movie that they want so bad. You know, this character that's notoriously has no fear. And that's lost it when he was a kid. They make Ryan Reynolds and he's got he scared the whole damn movie. It's like, what do you tell you? Nicholas, you know, so that would make me go. All right. This has to be done. Right? Yeah. I don't want to do it off of a rebirth. One of their comes to zero. And so anyway, the bottom line is I it's how Jordan Nice Nice.

Junaid Ahmed 39:53
Yeah, he is a you know, a lot of people didn't like the movie. And funny thing, Ryan Reynolds make fun of himself. Oh, yeah. Well, he's like, I'm finally a superhero. With an actual suit. Yeah,

Tom Malloy 40:07
well, it's great. You know it at the end of Deadpool two, he killed himself, you know, to play Green Lantern. That was awesome. Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Yeah,

Junaid Ahmed 40:18
he's really good. Alright, last question. If you were a board game, what would it be? Oh, gosh, that's a great question.

Tom Malloy 40:28
I would say, life would be an interesting one. And now, you know, the problem with that, I it was always kind of a fun game to play. But the problem with the game of life was that if you had to follow certain paths, or else you know, you wouldn't get there you know, you wouldn't you didn't go to college, you never made as much money. You know what I mean? which is not true in real life. But the cool thing about it was that it was a journey, and you never know where it was going to take you. And so I enjoy that I enjoy. I mean, I clearly have life energy, as you saw 100% natural, you know, it's like supplements. And it's, you know, I enjoy living and the adventure of new things every day, you know, and so, I'd say that that's, you know, what I would choose probably your life for game. Nice.

Junaid Ahmed 41:15
That's, that's a really good answer, and a really good game. Personally, I've never played life. Oh, no. I've grown up playing Scrabble, risk and monopoly. And then my recent favorite is Katon.

So did you ever play Stratego? By the way? I might have? Yeah, it was a really

Tom Malloy 41:41
fun game it you know, it was a who got it. I think it was my brother in law is younger than me got it for a Christmas gift. And him and I read the directions and started playing and it was a kind of really fun strategy game. Yeah, if you ever get a chance to play it, you can pick them up. You know? We got that it was you got the classic would inversion thing that I think they put out Warner Brothers, Warner Brothers. I'm Milton brother, Milton Bradley. Put it out. And so yeah, so check it

Junaid Ahmed 42:08
out. If you get a chance. It's a real fun game to play. Awesome. I will definitely check Stratego out Yeah, cool. Well, Tom, this was an excellent conversation. I really loved learning your your life story, your journey and talk about the movies talking about the movie industry being an actor producing and just getting out there and do it like Nike said it best Just do it. Yeah. Just got in your mind go out and make it happen.

Tom Malloy 42:40
Yeah, you know, I'd say jump in the pool man. You know, talk about doing it.

Junaid Ahmed 42:46
That's right. Well, thank you so much Tom. I do look forward to keeping in touch with you and following your journey in the movie industry and learning more about you know what it is to be in the Writers Guild and what it is to be different areas and in you know how to make it and I might have to learn some poker to do that,

Tom Malloy 43:11
so yeah, great.

Great so much. Yeah. Me on the show. And yeah, check it if anybody's listening wants to do more and more you to check out filmmaking stuff. HQ, HQ. com.

Junaid Ahmed 43:23
Yep, that was my last question to where can my audience find you and that's the perfect place and you can also find him. To learn more about him. You can go to IMDb Tom.

Tom Malloy 43:33
Or just Tom Malloy. com

Junaid Ahmed 43:34
Yes, Tom malloy.com. That's a perfect place. Awesome. I will include all those links in the show notes and looking forward to talking to you and then I'll let you know when the podcast goes live. Great. Take care. Cool. Congratulations, you made it to the end of the episode. Thanks so much for listening to our guests on this episode sewed? Please send me an email at Junaid at hats and hobbies. com to tell me what you loved about our guests today. You could find links mentioned in this episode of the hacks and hobbies. com website.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai