Jeff Ornstein 0:02

Hi everyone and welcome to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. I am Jeff, and on this show we celebrate people on the cusp of greatness, those building on past successes in some of the curious and inventive and sometimes unexpected ways they have achieved those and stepping into moments that could define their legacy. We'll talk about current projects, lessons learned, and the extraordinary opportunities ahead. So the best is yet to come. Today's guest is Steve Lichtenstein, actor, producer, and writer, and owner of Baby Boo-Boo Productions, who built a decades-long career in both entertainment and project management before stepping into filmmaking later in life. His work includes award-winning projects like Aaron with Two A's, and he continues to create stories centered on underdogs, human connection, and the pursuit of dreams at any age. Welcome, Steve. Thank you. I am delighted to have you because, as I mentioned before we started broadcasting, you personify what Next Act is all about is about taking chances and going out and pursuing a theatrical artistic career. So congratulations, kudos to you. I'm very impressed. Thank you. That's the end of this because you've hit everything. We're going to want to learn a lot more in-depth a little bit about some of the undertakings you've done. So just to give the listeners and viewers a little bit of background, Steve started as a theater actor and performed in Los Angeles stage productions. He transitioned into a long career as a project manager and computer programmer. He worked on the Warner Brothers lot and received a Human Rights Award from Time Warner. And then he took a 16 hiatus to focus on family life. Returning to acting through theater in DC and Baltimore while still working full-time, he then transitioned into on-camera roles in TV and film and later retired to focus fully on creative work. And from my notes here, you've been quite successful at doing that.

Steve Lichtenstein 1:59

Well, thank you. I appreciate it.

Jeff Ornstein 2:02

Tell us a little bit about Aaron with two A's.

Steve Lichtenstein 2:05

Absolutely. Would love to, but you're looking at him. Um, basically, Aaron is loosely based on my life. It's about someone who is starting over at the age of 65 to become an actor. What could go wrong? It's about getting the voices that are in your head out of your life so that you don't before you destroy your relationships and everything else and to attain what you want, your purpose in life.

Jeff Ornstein 2:37

Okay. And I notice here that it says film entered in 60 festivals and won 10 awards. Is that Aaron with two A's?

Steve Lichtenstein 2:46

We were accepted in the 60 and did win 10 awards, yes.

Jeff Ornstein 2:49

That is phenomenal. Phenomenal. Can you prattle off some of those distinctions for us so we can get an idea?

Steve Lichtenstein 2:56

That's a best best drama. Yeah, it's a comedy drama, but it best drama, best actor, best cinematography.

Jeff Ornstein 3:05

So Aaron with two A's, like it seems like it swept some of the awards categories. Can you tell me a little bit about why you think the judges were so captivated by the story in the film? Wow.

Steve Lichtenstein 3:17

The last thing I expected was that m my neurotic nature would resonate with the rest of humankind, but apparently go figure. But basically, I think it's about because it reaches into people's own feelings about wanting to do something they love and don't ever get to it and allow the things in their own mind to stop them from achieving what they want to achieve. And I think that plays really well to, as I found out, to any audience, age, geographics, or anything else.

Jeff Ornstein 3:51

Were you a writer on this project?

Steve Lichtenstein 3:53

Yes. I co-wrote it. I executive kind of produced it, and my director is Michael Goldberg, and he also co-wrote it.

Jeff Ornstein 4:01

So may I ask, is it somewhat autobiographical?

Steve Lichtenstein 4:05

Oh, it is. And yes. And by the way, it's on YouTube on the Ameleto comedy platform. It's still up there. Now, are you portraying Aaron? I am. Oh wow. Back to the point that people, years after they've seen it, somebody the other day saw me and called me Aaron.

Jeff Ornstein 4:24

Well, obviously it made an indelible impression, so that's pretty impressive. This is exactly what Next Act is speaking to. For people have self-doubts, but yearnings and unexpressed passions, and yet they have to take that jump, that leap of faith. And a lot of people talk about the right support systems, the families in place, or they're they feel comfortable with their finances. What voice or what spoke to you that said, I'm gonna make this leap of faith? How'd you find the courage? In which category? Acting? Well, you well, yeah, I think I'd like to hear about the acting.

Steve Lichtenstein 5:03

Okay. Well, it wasn't really a choice, is the way I kind of look at it. Acting is part of your being, acting creative arts. You're a creative person. And when you don't have any knowledge of that or anything else, is like when I was a kid growing up and depressed, and this my father would call me oversensitive and all these things because my mother would always say, Do you want to get inside the TV? Because I was always up like that watching things. But it was like I didn't realize till I was probably 50 or so. Yeah, actually, I did want to get inside of it, but you don't know that. One day I was in high school, and the English teacher somehow got me to go on the stage in a one-act, it's called in Nemdar Hills, and I walked in with a bowler on my head and looking down at the stage, and then of course, at the end, everybody's applauding and whatever, and it was like, wow, this is something I'd never seen before. Yeah, I was sold, it was an identity, it was my identity, and then in high school, the only way that I actually could interact or be known in any way was by doing roles, and so there was that, and that's kind of where that came from. I don't know if it's called bravery or not, some people call it idiocy, but it's like I decided to major in it and then went to LA and that happened.

Jeff Ornstein 6:34

So when you were writing it and you were reflecting on certain moments in your personal history that you felt would be nicely expressed in this work, was it easy or was it hard for you to dig deep when it came time to perform it?

Steve Lichtenstein 6:50

Performing of it wasn't as hard. The writing of it, because I hadn't written anything before, and who knows if anybody thinks I can't, but no, I hadn't written anything before, and I was 64 when I did this. And I collaborated with somebody else first, and I was walking around sort of like Tom Cruise and a few good men with the bat walking around, like and I had a tape recording that we were talking into, and I was just going over my life and trying to get the structure of how that related into something that could be filmed, because it's film has to be done from a personal standpoint. If you're writing something, that's what's best to do, it's what you know. So it was something that I collaborated with. We talked in the microphone, he came up with some sort of structure which I fine-tuned and did whatever, and then a couple other people came on to help polish it and whatever, and Michael and I finished with writing it. And yeah, I mean that was kind of the beginning. I was digging deep. And I I there's one thing I'll share. Most of it, when you're a writer, I knew this, I mean, I know this. This isn't new. It's like, but when you're acting in a play from Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, whatever, you want to get as knowledgeable about the authors as you can so you understand the concepts of what's happening inside of the script. But when you write your own, you know it so well inside out, it's a great lesson for acting. Because when you have that, when you go in and perform it on the film, you already know the bits of you can really let go. That made it easier, but there was one point in the film that was hard because the voices in his head or his parents' voices, many others, but his parents are primary. I heard two actors doing it, and he did it wonderfully, but it felt like they became exaggerated, and it started crossing my mind, is this the way that I want my parents portrayed? And I went to the director and I went to Michael, I said, What are you doing? I was very emotional. And I think it shoot it got to me first of all. But he was like, just trust me. Okay.

Jeff Ornstein 9:24

And I did. That was hard. Well, in acting class where I study at Stella, they always say, Stay in your lane, stay in your lane. You're there to act. Don't tell them how to direct, don't tell them how to write. But the director might be the kingpin and it's in his vision, but the writer, it's his story initially. So there must be a really interesting dynamic when you, as the writer, felt the characters weren't coming across the way you had envisioned it. So it's a it must have been a very healthy dialogue between the two of you, so that the end it came out the way you liked it. Well, not to dispute Stella, but it's a collaboration.

Steve Lichtenstein 10:04

And it is the director's vision and it is his lane, but it's definitely a collaboration of both. And it is a collaboration with the writer. And with my latest film, which is Never Too Late, another short I did, that's out in the festival circuit now. But I had somebody who I didn't know as well as Michael, and I started, and I really wrote that, and I had a certain really heavier vision with that of what it and I had to let go of that. To some degree, I had to let go and go with her colleague Davey Jane, her vision of what I was doing, but we agreed a lot of things. There's just certain things I would have done differently, but you kind of have to surrender to that. And I learned with Aaron, I learned you have to I found a way to be objective, which was really hard at first. Because with Aaron, we we started out with a 35-minute first draft of the film and cut it down to 17, which is really difficult. But I was in the editing room. I was very I got to ham be hands-on in a lot of different ways. I was in the editing room with the editor Michael and whatever, really hashing out how this should be edited and so forth and so on. And it really gave me an understanding when I had to cut, like there was one thing in it I wanted, I loved, I really loved, and we kept getting feedback. No, that doesn't work, blah blah blah. And I had to look at it, and finally, let's take it out and see what happens. Sure enough, we didn't need it. This other never too late, had it was a few minutes, and I needed to find places that suggest a cut. But really learning to take myself as much as I can out of it and do what's best for the film, the story, letting it be the story.

Jeff Ornstein 12:15

Clearly, the film struck a chord, and that means the audience, the viewers found an authenticity in it that they could relate to their own lives. Yet you were acting when you were younger, in high school and perhaps in college, and then you went on and had this successful career as a business person and jumped back in the pond at the young age of 65. Was it easy for you to jump in and be vulnerable on camera and to be transparent?

Steve Lichtenstein 12:42

I jumped in at an earlier age because after my 16-year hiatus, I jumped into on the tail end of my marriage, my first marriage, divorce, acting found me again, or I found acting, I don't know what. And that's was that was around 2002 or something like that. So I had started getting, I was did seven plays in one year. I was work I'd go to work and work from something like 7:30 or 8 o'clock to like 5 or 6, drive up about half an hour, hour and a half, something like that, back to my house, and then go back up to at that time it was Baltimore, but go up another 45 minutes there and then go into rehearsal, whatever, get back home probably 12:30 or 1 and sometimes and then get up again around 5:30. And I did that seven times, which is a lunatic, but that's a side point. So that was the first sort of iteration. I I break it up in parts, I think. The jumping, the vulnerability, and then I started getting commercials and a couple of got my SAG card in 2013 when I got into a uh series. I'd been terribly afraid when I was a kid and regret it a lot of training because I was always waiting for somebody. I have terrible imposter syndrome, and I was waiting for somebody to tell me you suck. And I was afraid to go to class, really when I was in this company with people who were trained at playhouse, neighborhood playhouse, and all these other places could do things up sitting here going, Wow, how did I you know at that point I was anxious but insecure as hell. So so I really stopped myself from getting formal training until I was at the end of my work career, my job career, and going traveling up by bus and going to scene study class and then coming back going to work. I did that for two or three years and getting real scene study stuff. And then finally, and since then been studying with master teachers, Larry Moss at some point, and I studied with some guys out in LA, Alexander Techworks, and they're fent master class people. Any rate all of that training, but it didn't happen till later because I finally re I was able to let go of some things and be able to do that and really frame of mind changed, and that allowed the work to happen. We're going for a film. I had no idea if I could do it. It's vulnerability has never really particularly been that much of a problem for me. It's the thing, it's the biz, it's what you do.

Jeff Ornstein 15:26

Well, I gotta tell you that we talk a lot on this podcast for people who are thinking about it but are nervous about it, and the fear of rejection and how to deal with rejection. And most people say two things. One, go in, do the best you can, and if you don't get it, it has nothing to do with your performance. It's the director's vision, it's the writer's vision, and just move on. Do your audition and then think about the next audition. And another fellow was just on recently said, the people, if you're gonna do this and you're gonna make a commitment to do it, just think is there anything else I'd want to invest my time in that might be less emotionally challenging? Because if there is, you might want to consider that because this is not for the faint of heart. This takes some guts to get out there.

Steve Lichtenstein 16:14

That's why I say it's love. It's but it's also a cursing and a curse and a blessing. And it also is your arms, your limbs, and everything else that you kind of have. It you can't not do it. It's well, that's a double negative. But at any rate, so it's basically eat it up frequently.

Jeff Ornstein 16:30

You just can't get up and not want to do it.

Steve Lichtenstein 16:33

It's like if I go long without even picking up monologues or doing something in between auditions, and I go whatever, there are times I just I'm not a I'm not necessarily a good person to be around sometimes. I get irritable, I get I know, I know when like depressed, whatever. I know when I need to be creative. I'm missing being creative. And that's a theme that goes along with that through my life.

Jeff Ornstein 17:00

Well, tell me this the fears that held you back when you were like, I don't want I don't want someone to tell me I suck. And then once you took the plunge and started having these terrific coaching sessions, I recall almost like, wow, I'm so glad he told me that sucked because I really learned. I mean, I really learned, I really grew from that critique. So then you almost kind of like want to do a scene and say, okay, where's there room for improvement? How could I get better? Where'd you see it? I mean, you can't that enthusiastically, but you that's really you kind of want to hear those critical reviews and analysis.

Steve Lichtenstein 17:35

Well, the great thing is, well, two things that I'm just thinking of this, so non-sequitur, but I think it was Anthony Hopkins, I'm not sure, that I heard on Instagram not too long ago say this. I know it's somebody that was you need to believe in yourself. And if you can't believe in yourself, fake it. I love it. And I I love that because that's basically what you're doing, is faking it, right? It's a kind of industry kind of we are. Where did I get off? What was the what were you actually asking me?

Jeff Ornstein 18:09

Well, I was just talking about like when you make that turn from being fearful of being told you suck, tell me where I suck.

Steve Lichtenstein 18:15

Yeah, it's where can I grow? Like they say, failing is where you learn. What I loved is the guys out in LA, well, Jean-Louis Rodriguez, a major coach to Leonardo DiCodrio and all sorts of stars and stuff. Nicest guys. But it's really when I started getting into my body with them. And the best compliment I got, I think, they asked me basically, you I wanted if you see my growth, whatever, it's like, oh yeah, you know what? When I knew you grew, and it was when I screwed up. It was one time when I was doing a senior workshop and I was doing something from doubt. And uh, if I do anything, my faux pas is generally like putting too much. You're enough is what you have to know, right? Right. So you want to do it's like you you can't do anything, but you want to do something like a lot of action. So it's like all they said was now just talk to her. And I went right down to it, and I just did that, and I knew exactly what he meant. And I went in and did it, and they were like, That's the first time we knew that you what the growth that you really had.

Jeff Ornstein 19:20

Yeah, it's like that's pretty powerful. So I could see it's easy to want to be emphatic.

Steve Lichtenstein 19:27

The subtleness, let the audience determine. I mean, a lot of it's you want to be real, and also you want the audience to be able to read whatever they read into your eyes, or whatever they read in whatever sometimes you don't want to tell them what to think, so there's a lot of that too.

Jeff Ornstein 19:45

So you talk also about your love of storytelling, and also you sort of have a bond with the underdog, and I think a lot of people appreciate that because I think a lot of us see ourselves as underdogs. I mean, which it might be an overly critical evaluation, but it we always strive to be better. Is there an underdog story brewing in your brain right now that you want to tell?

Steve Lichtenstein 20:10

Right now, Michael and I are writing the we just finished the first draft of Aaron the Feature, and everybody's you gotta write the feature. Okay. So we're doing so we're we're doing that, we're in revising that. That's that just takes it even a little further. But is there an underdog story? You know, when you grow up, you're not the popular kid on the block, so you get I'm short involved. It's like you get your books kicked down the hallway and from some bully and stuff like that, and it's you go back and people are like, You did that? It's like I you surprise everybody where you what you've done or where you came from and whatever. That's why the little guy, and I grew up in a household where my father was like for the working guy and the little guy and all that other stuff, and so it that's where I am.

Jeff Ornstein 20:58

It's like I know that there's growth in being the underdog and being the bully and then rising to the occasion and showing it's not so bad necessarily being the underdog, you've got a lot of heart. If someone were to come to you, because you've got had a really successful reinvention at a relatively young age, I will say, since we were the same age, what would you say? You want them if they said it's too late, I'd love to have done it, but it's too late for me. I mean, what would you want them to understand that was a lesson that was so valuable to you and it also drove the message home that it's never too late?

Steve Lichtenstein 21:32

I think it's hilarious when I hear my son is pursuing a producing career now and is working in a fairly very large agency out in LA. And he made the comment to me that he's 32, and he made the comment to me the other day Oh, these kids, these guys are so much younger than and I'm like sitting laughing my head off, right? We look at twenty and thirty somethings as kids these days. Right. And it's like I've read and seen so much about somebody talking about it's too late. Did I get in too late because I'm 35 or I'm 40? Oh my God. And I'm sitting here going, Are you out of your mind? It is never too late. I mean, you know, it it isn't time is something we create or is a perspective that we have. The only reason that is, it's like anything else, when you have a desire or a want of something, some objective to your goal all of a sudden pops up. Money, time. I won't have this, I can't have that. All of that stuff. And it's like, yeah, but you know, if you really have the drive to do it, then you do it.

Jeff Ornstein 22:41

That's what we hear often. You've got to let listen to your passions. And if your passions speak to you loud enough, the obstacles fade into the rearview mirror. As is my nature, and maybe yours too. We've gone grossly over time. No, no, no, no, no. Every one of mine do. Because I'm not, I want you to talk a lot. I don't want to interrupt you, but I don't like people to leave without having an ability to have a final question. I find it's a little bit too abrupt. And they're going to edit it anyway. So now you've had some modicums of success. A A with R2A's is going into a feature rewrite, which is really exciting. What would your version of your life look like for the next five years if you could write the screenplay for that?

Steve Lichtenstein 23:22

Oh my God. Since life is so unexpected, that's really a difficult question, no matter what I think it looks like. I would say that I'm so grateful for my life. I'm so happy to have what I have. And I will just say that wherever you end up is the perfect place you ended up, no matter how you got there, because it's the only place you can end up. And I would say that I'd be very happy if I get close to what reception I got with Aaron with never too late. I would love to the financing, get the financing and the work done for Aaron, the feature, and please anybody out there seeing us donate. No. But to to have that happen and to I don't want to say make it my swan song, but it's like that's the big thing that if I had a legacy to leave, that I would feel that I that was something I was able to leave. And that doesn't mean I don't want to be acting in other things or reach a potential that I feel I've still not reached in acting. And I also want to enjoy life. Balance is everything. I love my wife, and we travel a lot and things like that. I still want to do that. There's just so much of life to do, and it's just going to become more condensed. That's all.

Jeff Ornstein 24:42

Well, I gotta say, you come across as a really positive person. I think that'll be inspirational to a lot of people listening or watching this. I think the fact that you've got out there, you've had some very sizable accomplishments that have been recognized. I'm glad that you were able to plug Aaron with two A's and your other feature, forgive me, my brain is having never too late.

Steve Lichtenstein 25:05

It's short. Yeah, science fiction short.

Jeff Ornstein 25:08

Right. Someone's listening to this and saying, that guy, something about him. I want to learn something about him, and maybe they'll take a trip to the YouTube and see what they can see or find your work on another film festival. And I'm gonna follow you and I'm gonna stay in touch and see how your future develops. Uh oh. Wish you all the best.

Steve Lichtenstein 25:25

Thank you. I really appreciate everything you're doing, and I hope we stay in touch. Yeah, we will.

Jeff Ornstein 25:32

Thanks for tuning in to Next Act with Jeff Orenstein. Follow, subscribe, and stay connected to your favorite socials at www.nextpodcast.com. Keep chasing your next act. The best is yet to come.