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Local Threads is a Boston-based bimonthly podcast spotlighting the artists, designers, and ethical small businesses stitching together a creative, conscious future, right in your backyard.
Welcome to this week's episode of Local Threads. I'm Molly, your host. And this week, I'm sitting down with Glamour Possum, otherwise known as Lauren Carter Reilly. She's an actress, a writer, a content creator, a stylist, and all around creative powerhouse. We talk about breaking into acting, her move to Salem, and not taking no for an answer because she's been down the road of being someone who's classically trained as an actress and having difficulty breaking into that world.
Molly - Host:I hope you like this week's episode. If you want to check out Lauren's work, go to glamourpossum.com. Everything will be linked in the show notes. Check out her new book in this fair chase, as well as her other books, the wonderful lady b, the better world trailer is out now on YouTube as well as Instagram. Thank you so much again for tuning in week after week.
Molly - Host:This is something that is really important to me and I meet so many cool people on a day to day basis. And I think we need to talk to people more that we encounter. I have a challenge for you. If you meet someone in your life and you wanna get to know them, give it a shot. I can't wait for you to listen to this episode.
Molly - Host:Lauren is a blast. Let's get into it. Thank you for coming all the way from Salem.
Lauren - Guest:Thank you for having me.
Molly - Host:How long did it take you by the way?
Lauren - Guest:I don't know. Shockingly, not as long, and it was still, like, a while because public transit. But I left at, like, I left at, like, eleven. Okay. And then everything
Molly - Host:mean, basically, the same as driving.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. But I don't I don't have a car.
Molly - Host:So Which is goals. I wish
Molly - Host:I didn't have a car.
Lauren - Guest:It's honestly, like, I should. And my my boyfriend laughs me all the time because I don't have one, and he has to drive me around everywhere. But, also, car payments are expensive.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Cars are are way overpriced.
Lauren - Guest:This chair
Molly - Host:is also Yeah. Rude. So how did you get to Salem?
Lauren - Guest:I got to Salem we talked about how this has been a theme before, but I got to Salem because of COVID. Basically, 2019 was the year that I was like, I'm gonna start taking this acting thing seriously, and I'm gonna move to New York. And, like If I moved to New York, I meant, like, move to Staten Island because the long lost borough where all of my friends I had friends who lived there. My friends were starting a production company and it was like kind of getting a little steam behind it. So I thought I'll be there and I'll be a part of this so that way when it takes off, you know, I'll be right there.
Lauren - Guest:I got an apartment. I got an internship in the city. I was maybe gonna go back to school. I was gonna do all this stuff. And I remember when the ball dropped like and it was like, happy 2020.
Lauren - Guest:I was like, this is the year it all comes together for me. COVID happened, and I was actually on a road trip with my mom going to Georgia because that's where her family is originally from. And this was before masks, this was before shutdowns, this was just when everybody was like, hey, there's this thing going around, just wash your hands and take your vitamins essentially. And as we're driving, things were getting bad. They shut down Savannah the night after we got there.
Lauren - Guest:We went to Charleston the next day, somebody ran into the restaurant we ran and yelled that there was a government shutdown. They couldn't continue to serve us. We had to leave. Wow. It was it was really scary.
Molly - Host:And Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:I came home and I was living in Philadelphia. My parents lived in Chester County and my mom was hey, if this is gonna get bad, maybe you finish out your lease in Philly because I hadn't renewed and maybe you just come home for two weeks. We'll put your stuff in a pod Yeah. In the yard, you know. It's not ideal, but it sounds like it's gonna get really bad, but everybody was two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, just you know, flatten the curve.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And she's like, it sucks, you're gonna have to live at home with your dad and me, but maybe this is better for everyone's safety. Six months later, my whole life fell apart and I was living in my childhood bedroom again. I had just turned 26 and I was like, my life is over because the whole goal, my whole life had been pre college theater programs, go to college for theater, learn how to do film and TV Yeah. Be in theater, move to New York, you know, where if everybody it used to be, you know, if you didn't live in New York or LA, what are you doing?
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And, I was gonna do it. And, suddenly there was nothing to do. Yeah. And, my mom came to me and she's like, okay, so New York's not gonna happen. Like, you you cannot move there.
Lauren - Guest:Because, the moment that I moved literally put my bag on the floor of my parents' house and I went, okay, so when this is done, I'm gonna start looking at places in Queens and Brooklyn and you know, maybe Harlem or maybe I'll find another place in Staten Island. And my mom was like, no. You you cannot move to New York. You don't know no one can leave their house.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:If something happens to me or your dad, you can't come home. Or if something happens to you, we can't go get you. All of your friends have left the city. The ones that are still there can't go outside. Like, this is this is crazy.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah.
Molly - Host:Like, this is It's wild. Did you say thanks, mom?
Lauren - Guest:I well, I Well, also she was watching me like Unravel. Unravel because also my entire life had been about being an actor. I had not pursued other things that funny enough I'm doing now. But, like, all of that other stuff, I was like, this is a distraction from my goal. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:I have to be an actor, and this is the only thing I'm good at. And this is the only thing I've ever really gotten, like, positive reinforcement from other people in. Yeah. Even though it was also actively destroying me the entire time because the industry's toxic. But I was like, no, you don't understand.
Lauren - Guest:I I can't do anything else at 26. I'm like, this is my I'm I'm committed to the gig and my mom is like, okay, well, the gig's not happening. Like Yeah. So what are we gonna do? And with my family, the thing that I love is it's always what are we gonna do?
Lauren - Guest:Not like, what are you gonna do about it? Yeah. It's like, what are we gonna do? And so my mom goes, so where in the country do you want to move? Because eventually you're gonna have to move out and like start your life again.
Lauren - Guest:And I had family in Boston and my mom was like, where's the last place that you felt happy? Like calm. And I had gone to Salem on like a girls trip in like a year before. And I just remember it was right after Halloween, so all the tourists had left. And it was just very like it was in November and the air was changing, and it was quiet, and I just remember like I could breathe for the first time.
Lauren - Guest:I wasn't it wasn't it's not a major city. Yeah. And I was like, I think it was Salem. And immediately after that, I got the apartment that I live in now, and my landlord was like, if you can move up here in a week, the place is yours. I'm like, okay.
Lauren - Guest:That's awesome. I door knocked. I've had so many retail jobs in Salem. I've worked at a wand shop. I've done content creation now.
Lauren - Guest:I work at Nocturne. And I just was on my own a lot and spent a lot of time by myself. And I didn't know anybody in Salem. And there was no going out to a bar making friends or like Yeah. Going and taking classes and making friends.
Molly - Host:So you moved there it was still 2020 or was it like 2021? I moved
Lauren - Guest:I moved the 2020 late summer, so July. Oh, wow. So I just had my fifth year in the apartment that I've been in since. And I had like no furniture and it was really scary because I think anybody that's ever been in entertainment or acting specifically since they were a child, you're used to that like you're always on edge a little bit and there's always something to do, there's an audition to go to, there's a job that you want, there's a project that you have to travel to. And I was like, I can't I can't go anywhere.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. I can't do anything. Nobody's telling me what to do, like what do I do? So I started going through stuff that my mom had she gave me this big folder of stuff that I'd done in high school. And she was like, just look through this.
Lauren - Guest:And it was all the stuff that I'd written. Oh, that's cool. I'd always been a writer, but again it was, oh, is silly. It's not like it's any good. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And, you know, I'm I'm a terrible person and I I just write stuff about how I feel and it was all like, you know, teenage girl stuff. Mhmm. And I was like, this is not the work of a serious artist. Yeah. I am savant.
Lauren - Guest:And I read through it and I was looking at like all of these things that I'd been putting out. I'm like, there's stuff here.
Molly - Host:Isn't it interesting when you go back and read something, you're like, I can write.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And it was like a light bulb went off, and I was like, oh, I've been doing this since I was a child. Yeah. Like, before I could actually write sentences, I realized what I was doing was I was storyboarding, where it's like you you draft out scenes from movies, and I was doing that before I could coherently, like, write and structure actual story stories. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And then it was like, oh, wait. I I I have been doing this the whole time, and there's nothing else to do. And the other thing was that TikTok was, like, the only way that you could really see other people. Yeah. And because we were all stuck in stuck inside.
Molly - Host:What a time. The 2020 early
Lauren - Guest:twenty twenty TikTok is, like Prime. Will be studied one day. Yeah. And, like, our like, my kids will come home and be mom, I have to do a report on, like, 2020 TikTok. Like, were you there?
Lauren - Guest:And I'm gonna be like,
Molly - Host:let me tell you, kid. And I'll be like
Lauren - Guest:It was so good. But we were all kind of just using it to stay connected to each other. Yeah. And it was in a way really really toxic, but it was also comforting because other people were taking their rooms apart and other people
Molly - Host:were anymore.
Lauren - Guest:No. Nothing. It's it's all Is
Molly - Host:it me or is it the content?
Molly - Host:I don't
Molly - Host:know. You know what I mean?
Lauren - Guest:I think the problem is that it reminds me a lot of like when YouTube first became a thing. And we were just putting up stuff for the hell of it. Like, you go back to like 2008 YouTube, and it's it's the wild west. There were dogs on skateboards. There were, you know, people were just making skits and, like, joking around with their friends.
Lauren - Guest:And then I think anytime that social media is like, can we make money off of these people? Then you get that thing of like, hey. We wanna give you money to do this Yeah. Which is also great. But then you start start subconsciously being like, I have to appeal to people now, or I have to make it outrageous and gross and like
Molly - Host:Spend a million dollars on a video, which people are doing now, which is insane.
Lauren - Guest:I know. And then like people who don't like, especially in today's economy, people will be like, I just spent $10,000 on a back to school haul. Yeah. That's wild. So you're gonna put yourself in the pit before you've even begun your real adult life.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. But people will click on that. Mhmm. And I think also a lot of people don't realize how social media pays.
Molly - Host:Or Bama Rush.
Lauren - Guest:Or Bama listen. I love I
Molly - Host:love Bama watching it too, but my god.
Lauren - Guest:As as somebody who, like, at one point, you know, had I my mom is from the South, and so, like, kind of understands that culture. She's repulsed by it. And I I sit there, and I'm like, oh my god. My favorite thing now is also Arizona State bam like, university rush because they're so opposite from the southern girls. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Because Arizona's a party school. Yeah. So you get these girls that are like
Molly - Host:and all of that.
Lauren - Guest:Oh, they're in, like, little leather miniskirts and, like, stuff the Bama girls would never wear, and they've got, like, these rock star tank tops on and, like
Molly - Host:Oh, that's back again?
Lauren - Guest:Like, the big the big boots. Yeah. But, yeah, it's so opposite, and it's like it's like an anthropological study of college. Yeah. I went to a liberal arts college in Philly, and we were known as the clown college.
Lauren - Guest:So that was a very different experience. So Yeah. But no, you get people who are like, oh, if I post like one video, it could change my life. Yeah. And I posted a lot of videos and it changed my life.
Lauren - Guest:But I have never hit the numbers of some of these other people, And I don't want to. No. Because I think also the scope of social media is slanted because if you do a video so like I I have a very popular character on TikTok called Sunday O'Rourdan. Mhmm. And if I do a video and it gets 6,000 likes and it's viewed 22,000 times, that's the equivalent of like a pretty decent opening weekend for an indie film.
Lauren - Guest:Really? An average sized theater, like a movie theater, is a 150 seats.
Molly - Host:Dang.
Lauren - Guest:So if you do the math Yeah. I'm I'm reaching an audience that's like a pretty good opening weekend. And then if you do the math and you think, so 22,000 people watched it, 22,000 people would pay what is it for a ticket now to go see a movie?
Molly - Host:Like $20.
Lauren - Guest:$20. We don't go to movies anymore. But yeah, let's say you pay $20 to go see a movie, that generates revenue. And I'd I'd think that like people are so used to like a 100,000 likes, a million likes, like those are obviously like astronomically big numbers. But for content that took me three hours from getting ready to you know, do hair and makeup, film, edit, post.
Lauren - Guest:That's a huge reach for somebody that has no representation. I do all of my own stuff. I'm not selling something Yeah. Either, which, you know, I obviously sell stuff in this fair chase, you know, available for digital download as well on my website at www.glamourpossum.com. But also, like, I'm selling an experience is the thing.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And as an actor, like, that's always what I wanted to do. I wanna, like, embody different characters and do different stuff. And I wanna go on a journey as much as I wanna take an audience on a journey.
Molly - Host:I love skit videos. Like, I watch yours. I watch I can't remember the other person, but he's like the rich girl with the Birkin. Yes. I don't remember this.
Molly - Host:But they're really entertaining. There's I know it takes so much time and, like, the camera angles and the, like, it's just It's a whole production.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And most of the time, it's people doing it in their bedroom. Yeah. And I do mine in the hallway of my apartment. And now everybody's like, oh, it's a hallway video.
Lauren - Guest:Like, which character is it gonna be? But I think that the success that you see from people on TikTok specifically is people that are marketable. Yeah. And they're selling you the experience of like what their lives are like, but they also have a lot of branded content. And a lot of it is also still not disclosed, which is illegal.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah.
Molly - Host:Gross, honestly.
Lauren - Guest:And, you know, people but those are the people that are really, like, making money, and then they try to put them into mainstream media. And these people like, obviously, it is a different form of labor, and it's really hard work. But you put a lot of these people who are not trained to be in front of a camera, be a personality, they're a brand Mhmm. Or they try to put them in mainstream movies or television and they can't act. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And, they can't talk and they can't like, they can't connect with people.
Molly - Host:Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:Whereas, I just did a movie where it Excited was about this. It's you know, but but this is like what I really want people to know is that I I didn't get paid for this. I did get we got, like, credits for flight and But I got to go to Spain for six days and I lived in a tenth century castle. And in six days, we made a thirty to fifty minute short film. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And, it was all self financed and it was all either women or people with queer identities. And, it was all just because we decided like we're going. Yeah. And my director, Sel, who I'm good friends with and is also the screenwriter and one of the actors said, hey, I have an idea. Is anybody crazy enough to do this?
Lauren - Guest:And we all went, no, we're we're crazy. We'll do it. Yeah. But I think like like we made a movie. And I think also working in production now, it seems impossible because movies are products.
Lauren - Guest:It's not I like think a lot about the seventies and like the late sixties where you had movies that were not like the big budget movies anymore. You were doing stuff that was more gritty and interesting and that's where you got things like Bonnie and Clyde. You got things like Chinatown. You got things that were a little bit more kind of raw. Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:But people were doing these things with smaller productions. Like Jaws was a small Yeah. Production. And it was not backed by any of the bigger, you know, production houses. Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:But then, those are some of the best movies of all time
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And they're taught in classes. And now, it's Well, is it gonna market? How much is the How much for this budget? Like, what are we gonna do? It's the thirty seventh Marvel movie, but it's gonna do well in China, so we have to do it because then maybe we'll make our our budget back.
Lauren - Guest:And it's it's not fun for kids, I think, that are going into those businesses because they're like, how am I ever gonna compete with that?
Molly - Host:Yeah. We'll go back to Okay. The con like, what the actual film is about because people are gonna
Lauren - Guest:Yeah.
Molly - Host:Go crazy. Right. It's the Sarah J Maas series.
Lauren - Guest:It's continuation of it's it's a continuation of Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas, and it takes place ten years after the events of the last book. I don't remember what the last book is because they're all really long, and there's, like, seven of them. Yeah. And I had to reread all of them before we did it. And then we also have a podcast coming out where we talk about the final book.
Lauren - Guest:Oh, what's it gonna be called? I think it's also called The Better World.
Molly - Host:Okay.
Lauren - Guest:I think it it's gonna be we're gonna do that soon because the movie comes out in December 6. Our trailer I think comes out September 6. Oh, so But it deals a lot with the aftermath because it's ten years after the events of the last book. And, Aelin and Rowan have a kid now. The whole plot is around their daughters turning eight, I think.
Lauren - Guest:And so everybody kinda comes back and it's also to do a royal address about the memorializing the war that happened ten years ago and meet you all of these individual characters and you see how they've dealt with things, some of them better than others, how their lives have changed and how people are differently affected by trauma and like when is it a good time to move on from trauma? Are you ever really truly moved on? Guilt of like am I allowed to be happy? Am I allowed to have all this nice stuff? Because I think that, like, again, going through seven books with her when I first started reading Throne of Glass, hated Alien and I had to play her because she's 16 Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:In the first book. I actually had
Molly - Host:I haven't read the series because of that. Yeah. I was struggling.
Lauren - Guest:But she's you know, I I think that, like, when I first read it, it was so it's so easy to be like, oh my god. She's 16. She's great at everything. Like, yada yada yada. Like, it's another she's sort of a Mary Sue.
Lauren - Guest:And then you keep reading and you're like, okay, there's more. Yeah. And also she goes through a lot. Yeah. And, you know, she's she's my age in the movie that we just did.
Lauren - Guest:And I started thinking about where I was at at 16. And
Molly - Host:I can do anything.
Lauren - Guest:But also, like, I I think that, you know, 16 is that age where you you are starting to become an adult. Yeah. And, yeah, everything does seem easy and perfect until maybe up till then. Yeah. And then you get hit with Life.
Lauren - Guest:You get hit with the shit kind of. Yeah. You know? And she does go through a lot of terrible stuff and she does lose a lot of people. And then I was sitting there thinking like, I've I've also been through some like really awful things.
Lauren - Guest:And the questions that Sel had asked of me in the script and like the lines I was having to say, I'm thinking like, I've said these things to myself in private. Yeah. But I think like I've never said them out loud before and even though I'm on set and I'm reading them from a script, these are questions I think a lot of people Mhmm. I think especially the last 10 like, am I allowed to move on? When when am I happy?
Lauren - Guest:Like when is it appropriate to be happy? Or why is this still affecting me? Like, shouldn't I be over this by now because I'm grown up and I have adult responsibilities and a life and a partner and a job and like all this stuff that makes me happy.
Molly - Host:But Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:I think that you know, we we love big action movies with big battle scenes and like war and stuff, but we don't like to think about what happens after. Yeah. And this was like it was a it's also a really cute movie, I think. And I it's it deals a lot with mother daughter relationships and it made me think about my own relationship with my mom.
Molly - Host:Yeah. It seems like a great one. She saved the Saved you from New York.
Lauren - Guest:But also, like, it's the other thing too of our parents are people before they're our parents. Which I think I'm watching my friends now get like, two of my friends are are expecting. And I'm like, I can't wait to tell you stories about your mom Yeah. Yeah. When that baby's old enough.
Lauren - Guest:But, you know, especially women, like, were people before we're mothers. But once you become a mom, I think that people try to pigeonhole you into that. Mhmm. And people tried to do that with my mom too, and she was always like, don't lose yourself. Like Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:You wanna have kids? Don't lose yourself. Like, you're always gonna be Lauren who does stuff
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And you're a mom.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Exactly. Oh, I'm excited. So where where are you guys gonna release that film?
Lauren - Guest:We're having a premiere in Baltimore on the sixth. Oh. So we got a movie theater. That's awesome. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:We got a movie theater and it's gonna be free on YouTube, I think the same day as the premiere. I'm trying to I gotta email CinemaSalem. I've been really bad about this. But I'm gonna try to email them about Yeah. Like 2026 maybe having, like, a screening, so people can come and watch it.
Lauren - Guest:And it's also just an excuse for me to ask everybody who worked in The Better World to come visit me in Salem. Yeah. So I'm gonna basically say like, hey, you can stay at my house and like, maybe we could have a q and a session and talk about like what it's like making movie when you have no idea what you're doing.
Molly - Host:Yeah. It's really it's really awesome. It's not easy to do. I mean, jeez, doing a ten second or twenty second Instagram reel is a pain in the ass. But like, so
Lauren - Guest:It's the truth.
Molly - Host:So spending six days working and like being in character and then having to edit that down and still making sure you got the story that's not the faint for the faint of heart.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. It's it's brutal.
Molly - Host:And also paying for everything.
Lauren - Guest:Right? That was the other thing is, you know, this was not this was not cheap. This was I mean, I posted about it a lot. I was like, I'm having my European summer, but then you come home and the credit card bill arrives. Yeah.
Molly - Host:Oh my god.
Lauren - Guest:But that's the other thing. You know, it it's you you spend the money knowing you're not gonna get it back. Yeah. And that's not always great for people.
Molly - Host:No. But it's definitely an investment, especially if it's the goal you want. Yeah. All too often these creative jobs have
Molly - Host:a lot of nepotism in them
Molly - Host:and roadblocks, especially for women. And, it's like, know, just taking the control of it and doing it yourself is like, I think, really what we're gonna get back to in the creative spaces because I just think people are sick of it.
Lauren - Guest:I hope so because Yeah. I think that I think anytime you get oversaturated with something, the initial response is to go to the opposite Mhmm. Which I think can be great. But also, I think sometimes you go to the other way a little too severely. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:So, you know, we've built this industry over the last couple years on all of this stuff. You know, a lot of nepotism and a lot of quick easy to do. And it would be great if we got more small artists and, you know, more small film. Mhmm. But how long is that gonna take to get a setup and a system for that?
Molly - Host:I feel like there's so many tools available that makes it a lot easier for people to make a film Oh, yeah. Themselves and not have to continue to like, people get told no so much.
Molly - Host:It's
Molly - Host:like, at what point do you just say fuck it?
Lauren - Guest:I think a lot more people are saying fuck it. And like that's really it's really refreshing.
Molly - Host:It is.
Lauren - Guest:And I think that, you know, the next generation's coming up behind us and they're gonna be like, oh, wait. That's an option? Yeah. Because before it wasn't really an
Molly - Host:never. Never. Yeah. You had to do the thing. You had to pick a thing and do the thing and stay doing the thing for twenty years.
Lauren - Guest:My hope is also that there's less of a split between, like, people who are doing smaller stuff and on their own and people who are doing mainstream stuff. Because I think the split is still very much there where it's like, oh, that's nice, honey. But, know, the real professionals are doing it this way.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And I think that, you know, I got bit by the acting bug again doing In The Better World. And That's good. I wanna do more projects. Like Yeah. I I was trying to explain this to somebody I was trying to explain it to my boyfriend because he works in a lab and he's got a very practical by the numbers job.
Lauren - Guest:And I was telling him how I wanna start looking for more opportunities because I've also in New York and Boston and basically all over the world, I've applied for probably over 200 agencies And I never get, you know, I've never been represented, so I have to do this on my own. And I was telling him how I've like I like being on set again, and I liked that like chaos, and I like the high of it. Yeah. I kinda like the waiting around while everybody gets mic'd and lit and you know then the sun moves and you to do it all over again. Like I love the the chaotic energy that comes from creating something.
Lauren - Guest:He's like, but you were so sad like doing all the auditions and people were so cruel to you and like you you had a really bad time. Why would you go back to that? And I was like
Molly - Host:I don't know. Yeah. I couldn't do it. I yeah. I mean, even doing when I started doing this podcast, I was like, just having a camera on me, I was like It's stressful.
Molly - Host:Yeah. It's like people looking at you, but they're not right now.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And so weird. Yeah. It's so weird. It's it's really stressful, but also I I love it.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And I think that it takes a certain type of person to do it. Yeah. And it's not something that you come out knowing. And a lot of people like my experience training was, you know, still even like, it's so funny.
Lauren - Guest:I was watching a documentary where they were talking about this even in the fifties where I was like, oh, television and film are for pretty people. You don't you don't wanna be a pretty person. You just you wanna be a serious artiste and, like, eat cigarettes and be miserable all the time. I'm like, I wanna be a pretty girl, though. And I think there still is a little bit of that even though theater is dying in this country.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. We have very little respect for live theater. And I I talk as someone who lived in England and saw like, you can have a livable wage as a theater actor and like actually do stuff over there that is
Molly - Host:I'll admit, I've never been to a play.
Molly - Host:Really? No. Wait. I did see cats when I was like in sixth grade.
Molly - Host:We went to the strand where I'm from and I saw cats and I was like, this is bizarre. Well, it's
Lauren - Guest:that amazing. That, like, cats is the greatest country ever.
Molly - Host:But it's the only one. It was like a field trip.
Lauren - Guest:Did you like movie?
Molly - Host:No. Okay. I was like, this looks even worse than I remember. That was I for completely forgot they remade that. Was that during the pandemic, or was it right before?
Lauren - Guest:I don't know. Everything's blurry. Oh, man. I've seen cats in the theater and also, in in in the movie theater as well. And I saw it with a group of friends of mine who we all were like, you know, we can't go see this normally.
Lauren - Guest:So we all popped an edible and we're like, we're gonna go see worst idea ever. Yeah. It's just it's I can't even describe it. And the thing that pops in my mind immediately is that all of these people look like cats, like the color of cats. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Like, there's one that's a bangle that looks like your cat, but Idris Elba is just the color of Idris Elba. Oh, I
Molly - Host:thought she's in the movie.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. I know. And it's really sad because I love Idris Elba. And I'm like, I wish you did any other musical, but he's just the color of his skin. And then my friend, while high
Molly - Host:like stripes on them?
Lauren - Guest:Or No. So, like, everybody else everybody else looks like a cat. Like, they have cat colors that you have seen on a cat. Yeah. And then there's Idris Elba.
Lauren - Guest:And my friend in the car
Molly - Host:black cat?
Lauren - Guest:Is like, does that mean that there's that like, Idris Elvis just there's a cat that's just the color of human skin. Like, is that, like, a thing that's possible in this universe? Yeah. And all like, he wasn't even, a black cat. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Like, I have seen a black cat.
Molly - Host:I have seen Chocolate cats are very rare.
Lauren - Guest:Cats are rare, but they exist. Like, I've seen a black bangle. I've seen a black Siamese. That was just in Druzelva. And it was that's all I can think about right now.
Lauren - Guest:Wild. And but also, again, going back to, like, the original discussion, that took such a big budget to do. Yeah. I know. And so much money went into it.
Lauren - Guest:And all those people got paid. And I can't knock the hustle because I'm like, you know what? If I'm Taylor Swift and someone asks me to be on set for four days and I make like $5,000,000, I must tell this story. Yeah. I joke about it all the time.
Lauren - Guest:I'm like, listen, if anybody wants to put me in a Marvel movie, I make fun of them all the time. I think superhero movies can be dog shit, but if somebody's like, do you wanna be in one? I'm like, I've been waiting to tell this story as a storyteller. Yeah. Like, must be involved in this soiree.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And that's the hard part about being an actor. I mean, that's the hard part about being an artist is that all of us, I think, to some degree, if offered the opportunity would immediately sell out.
Molly - Host:Yeah. And,
Lauren - Guest:like, I'm comfortable saying that. That's something that, you know, if anybody's like, hey. Do you wanna be on, the Real Housewives of Boston? I'm like, I'm there. I don't even live in Boston.
Lauren - Guest:I'm there. Hey. Get my boyfriend to sign a waiver.
Molly - Host:They're getting there.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. His family love that. But, yeah, like, I'll you know, it's one of those things where,
Molly - Host:honestly there I I keep saying this, but there needs to be a reality show that's just centered around Nocturne.
Lauren - Guest:I would watch it. I want there to be like A YouTube, I don't care what Listen. It You come to Salem several times. You had the Real Housewives come and they broke a bunch of dishes. Please for the love of God, come back to Salem, Massachusetts and just spend a day there.
Lauren - Guest:You will have so much content. You it'll be coming out of your eyeballs. Like, it's it's a town full of what I think people like Andy Cohen and like reality TV people love, which is it's a bunch of eccentric neurotic women and gay people all crammed into a small colonial sized town where there's one street in and one street out, and every year the entire place goes insane. Yeah.
Molly - Host:That's a show. Honestly, I don't care about anyone else. Just Nocturne and people that work at Nocturne. Honestly.
Lauren - Guest:Not to brag, but we do have some of the most interesting people because, like
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:That we'd all be we're all good TV. Yeah. We're all very entertaining. Yeah.
Molly - Host:And you all are doing something incredibly cool. That's out of this epic.
Lauren - Guest:We've got writers. We've got DIY people. We've just Kim is just a show on her own. Yeah. Because Kim just keeps doing stuff and, like, all these people have now started coming into Nocturne that are so were like, I'm a fan of your store.
Lauren - Guest:She's got something that is a unspoken truth, think, also about anybody that's doing social media, acting, art, music, dance. If you're born with it
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And Kim's born with it.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:For sure. She's got a vision. She knows how to execute it. Like, I remember still like, our library is one of the best known libraries. We have so many books.
Lauren - Guest:And that used to be an office, and one day I came in and Kim's got this, like, look on her face. And she's like, I turned my office into the library. And I'm like, did you sleep? No. But it's the library now, so we gotta start ordering books.
Lauren - Guest:And, yeah, she just decided to do that on spur of the moment.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Well, it's great. And the book club and then you and Cody both are writers there. And you when did you write?
Lauren - Guest:My first book?
Molly - Host:Wonderful Lady b.
Lauren - Guest:Wonderful Lady b. So, the first one came out. The first one, I actually didn't intend I never intended to write a book. I just did the series on TikTok Mhmm. And it blew up.
Lauren - Guest:And I had all of these comments being like, if this was a book, would buy it. And I'm like, what's not a book? I don't have a publisher. I don't have a I don't have a literary agent. I don't have any of this.
Lauren - Guest:So I wrote the first book and I was like, I'm only gonna give this to friends as a gift. And then my dad was like, why not self publish it? Like, I don't know how to do any of that. And he goes, well, what are the steps that you need to have a book? You need to have a printer and you need to have a place to sell it and you need to copyright it.
Lauren - Guest:And he's like, I think I know people that can help you with all of that.
Molly - Host:Oh, good.
Lauren - Guest:So he I mean, he's got a friend. I have I have the two Michaels, Michael my printer and Michael my copyright attorney, who were friends of my dad. And my dad used Anrow as his printer for his small business. And he was like, hey, Michael, like you and Lauren, talk about this, figure something out, you know, how many copies? And I I was like, hey, it's probably only gonna be like, give me a 100 copies.
Lauren - Guest:Like, no one's gonna buy this thing. My website crashed in the first day.
Molly - Host:That's amazing.
Lauren - Guest:And then the first day, was like looking at the numbers of people that had ordered the first book and I'm like, oh, okay. This is like a thing. Now I gotta reprint. And then I did the second book and more people were buying it. I'm working on the third.
Lauren - Guest:I was actually scripting out the third on the train coming here. I'm excited. Yeah. It's been nuts. I just needed to take a break from writing horror is Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Especially writing like historical fiction and horror, it's incredibly taxing. Yeah. Because The research and everything. The also like history is the most horrifying thing. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And I wrote the second book and realized immediately that the third book was gonna have to take place during World War one, which is the hardest war to write about because it's the messiest and also the most complicated. So I was like, I need to take a break. So then I wrote In This Fair Chase and that's been really popular as well. And I also just got my
Molly - Host:It's a good time.
Lauren - Guest:I like I I needed to do something fun. Yeah. Think that, you know, you gotta stay whimsical and also I had all these experiences in the industry. And obviously, it's fiction, but I've I've ended up in some very strange places with famous people just by being around. Oh.
Lauren - Guest:And I never use names just because I'm always like but so there was actually an instance where one of the characters in in this fair chase is implied to be dyslexic or he has problems reading. And I got a call from a friend one day and she was like, hey, I gave your name to somebody that's looking to do a chemistry read for a potential project. They're interested. Can you get to New York? So go to New York.
Lauren - Guest:And they're like, hey, you're gonna chemistry read with somebody who is an Internet personality and they're trying to give him a film career. Spoiler alert, didn't work out. But, you know, he's gonna come in and you're gonna read, and it was a scene where it was like a frat comedy. And I was like his older sister. But like easy easy to do, you know, physical comedy for somebody that like that's what they do.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And I was like, okay.
Molly - Host:This is
Lauren - Guest:a star it's a star vehicle.
Molly - Host:Yeah. You
Lauren - Guest:know? It's obviously to be like, hey, this guy acts. Yeah. And it was a scene where I was like his older sister and it was like, you have to like grow up and be more serious and like, you know, the the Charlie Brown voice essentially. And that was the only part of the script I ever got.
Lauren - Guest:I don't know if she it was probably where he she's probably right. Yeah. But so he comes in with like five other people and they're all like whooping and loud and being like middle school boys. And then the first part of the chemistry read, normally they'll just have you like talk to each other and see if you can talk to each other and if you like each other and if you read well together, like on film if you look decent. Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:And I was like trying to talk to him and I'm like, where are you from? And he tells me where he's from and I'm
Molly - Host:like, oh, I'm from Pennsylvania.
Lauren - Guest:And we started talking about football and like the Eagles and things like that. And so I had looked at the script before. I assumed that he had gotten a copy of the script before. But then the the guy who was running the tape, like the chemistry read goes, okay, so we're just gonna like do the first scene, just gonna read it, don't have to like have any big emotions about it, just just go through it. And immediately he's like this.
Molly - Host:Oh no.
Lauren - Guest:And he starts reading, and I'm like he doesn't know the lines. And immediately I heard a couple lines, I'm like, oh this kid can't read. And he's in his twenties. And, I'm like, oh my God. And, everything I thought about him before, because I knew who he was, but immediately I was like, oh no.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. Because, I have friends that have difficulty reading.
Molly - Host:Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:And it's a huge insecurity because it's something we have to do every day. And as someone for me who, like, loves books, loves media, loves audiobooks, loves words, It was really heartbreaking. Yeah. And also, he's in a room of people.
Molly - Host:Watching him not be
Lauren - Guest:And probably some of these people also know Yeah. That he has a learning disability. And nobody has like Yeah. He has he's on an island and nobody's prepped him.
Molly - Host:That sucks.
Lauren - Guest:And it did and that was something that I realized where I'm like, oh, even if you make it, they don't really give a shit about you. Yeah. And he was just like, you know, he's like a dancing puppet.
Molly - Host:That sucks.
Lauren - Guest:And I was like, it was one and I again, like I've I've also seen people like I've gone it's always in the bathroom where you see people fall apart. Yeah. Because I used to go out in New York and I lived in London for a while and I would go to these places in London and I would go out with a group of people and we had my one friend who was like runway model tall and like really gorgeous and we'd like shove her to the front and she'd be like,
Molly - Host:let's see.
Lauren - Guest:I wanna come in but like I have social anxiety so can all of my friends come in with me? And then we'd be like, hey, you gotta listen now. But I'd end up in clubs or like I'd end up at events and you see people just like having fucking breakdowns. Mhmm. And you're like, but you're so beautiful and famous and you were on a magazine cover and you're dating somebody and you were in a movie and like, your album just came out.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And like, I'm sitting in the VIP section with you talking about death. Did happen one time. And I'm like, oh, wait. But but you're but you made it.
Lauren - Guest:But you're happy. This is what everybody wants. And, you know, I'm I'm I'm like now as an adult Yeah. To the like older, not with the horse blinders on. I'm like, this is so sad.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. Like this is what we're all like this is a sign that we made it. Mhmm. And you're on the bathroom floor of a London nightclub, like, screaming at your friend because this guy won't call you back. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Or you're potentially, like, running around on a substance.
Molly - Host:Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:And because whatever is happening in your life, you need to cope.
Molly - Host:Yeah. That industry is very fickle for sure. Yeah. It'll eat you alive. No.
Lauren - Guest:And it's like, I had been wanting that since I was a child. Yeah. And, I think another thing I talk about in this Fair Chase is like how it's a very predatory industry. Think especially for I'm not even gonna say young women because I've known a lot of guys that have been taken advantage of where you get trained to be like good and you want to be easy. Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:And I think that especially it's bad for young women because we're already taught that if we do what we're told and we're good and we're quiet and we do things a certain way, then we're good. Yeah. And we're we're nice girls and we're easy to work with. But then Yep. You get people who are older that maybe don't have the best intentions for you.
Lauren - Guest:And you know, maybe they suggest something in a scene or they try to change something and you go, oh, I'm not comfortable with that. Or like, oh, like that wasn't what we talked about or I don't think my character would do that. Are you being difficult?
Molly - Host:See, I would never make it because I'd be real fucking difficult.
Lauren - Guest:Well, now the problem is, you know, I Oh. Went to an agency casting, which was just an open casting for acting and and modeling and basically anything. And, the moment they figure out you're not gonna do what they tell you, they lose interest. Because I was talking to the guy that ran the agency, and we were having like a good conversation. And we were talking about where I wanted my career to go and like what do you think you could get out of a of an agent and like you know, how long have you been in Boston or like where are you in Massachusetts.
Lauren - Guest:And, I just I said something like, well now that I'm 28, I really think that I've got a good idea of what I want and I know where I wanna go and what projects I wanna focus on. And, I'm just ready and I'm really I'm really clear headed and I think I think that that would be really good. Know? I think I've got a lot of good ideas. I've been in the industry a while and I'm I'm just I'm very I'm I'm ready.
Lauren - Guest:You know? I'm ready to work. And he just was like, alright. I'm gonna have you talk to my assistant. Oh.
Lauren - Guest:She's God bless her. I hope she's doing great now. But she's like, I got this little 19 year old in like a crotch hugging, totally inappropriate dress for a business. I'm all for wearing what you want, but like she's in a crotch hugging cocktail dress and I can Oh. Like she's like sitting like like this.
Lauren - Guest:And I mean like, again, God bless her. I hope she's fine now. But she sits there and she's like, so what do you think that you can bring to this industry?
Molly - Host:Oh, no.
Lauren - Guest:What qualification what experiences have you had that you feel will help you in this industry? What was your most challenging experience as a performer? I'm like Oh my Honey. Robot. Like, but also she's trying to impress this man that she works for and I'm like, run.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. Get out of the house. Like, the call is coming from inside the house. Like Yeah. You're an I've adventure been you.
Lauren - Guest:I've been in a room of 20 of you. Yeah. And, like, you're not gonna impress him. He's using you because you're easy and you will do what he wants. And like, all these other people are in this room and they're You feel like they're trying to impress you.
Lauren - Guest:They think that you look stupid. Yeah. And you're not. You're probably not. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:But, at that moment I was like, you know what? I got I gotta go. I have to leave. I have to And, I I like walked outside and I've never been more grateful to be on Newbury Street where I was just like,
Molly - Host:oh my god. Like
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. It's it's it's scary.
Molly - Host:It must have been such a relief to work with, What's the production company?
Lauren - Guest:For one better world? Or better world? We don't have a production company. It's just It was well, I mean, like just to work on the just being on the set. The nice thing about working with mostly women and, you know, gender nonconforming people is that the schedule is not gonna change, and you're also not adherent to the whims of somebody that could at any point just decide to have a meltdown.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And, we all like it was all okay. We're all gonna get up at seven or okay. So, we have to wake up at five. Like, someone's gonna go in the kitchen.
Lauren - Guest:Who's going in the kitchen? Who's doing lunch? When are we doing this scene? Okay. There's yellow jackets in the room.
Lauren - Guest:So, we have to wait for the guy that owns the castle to come spray the room. Oh, we're gonna do this. Like, can somebody get the lighting rig? Oh, the sound guy's having problems. Can somebody bring him a cookie?
Lauren - Guest:And it was just really communal Yeah. Because we were all like, we all have a goal of getting this done, and it needs to get done and nobody is too good to do a job. So
Molly - Host:That's a huge that's a big deal.
Lauren - Guest:That's you know what? If you're gonna work in a small production, get used to being like, okay
Molly - Host:Everything.
Lauren - Guest:Okay. Someone's gotta hold the boom mic? I gotta hold the boom mic. Like, okay. Does somebody need to be making lunch or cleaning the kitchen or, you know, helping out while somebody else is on set?
Lauren - Guest:Alright. Got it. Like, oh, can you run and get me that thing that I left over there? Like, just do it. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Like, if it's not taking advantage of you or you don't feel exploited, like, if somebody has to do it, just do it. Yeah. And
Molly - Host:That doesn't have to be explained too.
Lauren - Guest:It it doesn't have to be explained and it doesn't have to be It you don't It's so easy. Yeah. It it's it's a lot of complicated technical stuff going on around you, but it's so easy. Yeah. And I wanna work with that person if I know that like, hey, things might get a little hectic, but I can ask for a favor.
Lauren - Guest:And somebody will be like, oh, I got that. No problem. Or, oh, you're having a hard time, like, do you need a glass of water? Do you need a sandwich? Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:When was the last time you ate? Like, do we need to take a break? Do you need to like take a minute to get into the emotion of the scene? And nobody's yelling at you that you're wasting their time.
Molly - Host:Yeah. And And you can play the parts that you want. Right? When you're working with a team that understands like your interest and your passion for a particular topic, there's not like a bunch of people telling you no or that you don't look the part or
Lauren - Guest:No. Or like well, was the other thing is, you know, I don't think I look like Aelin Galathinius the way that she's described in the book.
Molly - Host:I haven't read it.
Lauren - Guest:So But, well, she's very like, there's a lot of emphasis. She's an assassin. Yeah. And so there's an emphasis on her having like a gymnast body, which makes sense because she's like scaling walls and doing back flips off of people and like sword fighting and a lot.
Molly - Host:Well, I'm gonna watch your movie. And so when I read it, you're gonna be
Lauren - Guest:But just, like, the thing that I haven't thought about, I'm like, if people haven't read this series before, they're gonna, like, maybe have me be their first introduction to Alen, which is exciting. And also, it's exciting that, like, we're in the intro we're in all of us are introductions to different characters. And the really fun thing is that we have multiple we have multiple women playing men in this one too.
Molly - Host:That's nice.
Lauren - Guest:Because I think, yeah, we had no male, no cisgender male actors Mhmm. Which was something that I was like interested to do. Yeah. And my the like Rowan who is her husband at the time is played by Rebecca who's incredibly talented. And it was really fun because we did none of us like felt intimidated by each other and we were all really communicative and like not that you have to be intimidated by all male actors.
Lauren - Guest:Like Yeah. They're ones that actually know how to do their job and be like professional and open Mhmm. And helpful. I wish there were more of them. But, yeah, it was it was just easy and all of us wanted to be there and all of us believed in the script and, like, what the actual thing is of.
Lauren - Guest:And, you know, Sel said they were like, hey. I know this is really stressful, but if we did this again next year, does everybody wanna come back? And everybody unanimously was like, yes. Where are we going? There's a lot of adaptations, that are getting, like, bought up and done, which cracks me up because Hulu actually bought the rights to Sarah J Maas' other series.
Molly - Host:Oh, really? They'll ruin it.
Lauren - Guest:Hulu. They've already fumbled because now they're trying to, like so it was a big thing that somebody was like, ACOTAR got picked up by Hulu. Mhmm. Where are we going with this? And I think the problem is when you have a series that's that big, you're always gonna disappoint a large percentage of your fan base.
Molly - Host:Like Hulu isn't really the place for that kind of content. No. Not to make it good.
Lauren - Guest:But, like, I think also maybe Hulu was like, oh, we don't have to take it that seriously. We just have to make it. And then you realize how opinionated Yeah. And, like, ballpoint precision based. Like the
Molly - Host:Star Wars of book talk. Right? Or was, anyway.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And I I have I have issues with Sarah J Maas as an author, and, like, I prefer Throne of Glass to Akhtar. But I think that's just because I've been in, like, in webbed in it for, you know, a good part of the year. But I think that, like, Throne of Glass has so many better characters. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:That's what
Molly - Host:I hear a lot of and
Lauren - Guest:I Better just written female characters and there's like witches and dragons and shapeshifters and assassins and pirates. And I think that, like, ACOTAR is sort of an easier read, which I think is why it's more popular. Yeah. Because there's seven books in Throne of Glass.
Molly - Host:They're far too big.
Lauren - Guest:It's a lot of reading. And ACOTAR is, like, sometimes it's like ice cream. You know?
Molly - Host:Yeah. I that one that's, like, really short, the Christmas Hallmark special, I was like, what the fuck is this?
Lauren - Guest:Is that the one where they bang in the sky? Know there's one where they have sex in the sky. Probably. Like Oh, yeah. That sounds right.
Molly - Host:Winter and, like Yeah. Nothing's really happening. I'm like, why did I why is this even a thing? This should have been like, oh, that pissed me off. And then I kinda just didn't read anymore.
Lauren - Guest:I think they there's a new one coming.
Molly - Host:Oh, really?
Lauren - Guest:Buckle up. Yeah. There's there's gonna be a new one dropping. But, yeah, I think it's really interesting, like, having being on BookTok and, like, seeing people get, like, wildly successful from books that get picked up on one app. Being on that app and like being plugged into it because I'm trying to sell my own books Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And seeing the bullshit behavior of grown women.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:It's wild. No. There's you can go down several rabbit holes about why book talk is the worst. Yeah. But it's something that you're like, I have to be a part of the system.
Lauren - Guest:But it's also just it's so easy to not pick a fight with people and it's really easy to not like it's not easy to write something that isn't bad. But it's easy to not pick fights
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:On the Internet. I just I
Molly - Host:love watching people tell me about the books that they would normally not tell anyone they're reading. Like Yes.
Lauren - Guest:We all have them.
Molly - Host:Haunting Like Adeline or the ice what is it? Ice hockey barbarians or something. Never read it.
Molly - Host:But like
Lauren - Guest:new genre, though. Like, you just combine two very popular genres, which is hockey romance and I the the blue barbarian people. Yes. Yeah. Oh my god.
Lauren - Guest:Oh, no. Like, honestly, you just just put that into chat, GPT, and you'll have a bestseller by next summer.
Molly - Host:What's there's this this guy that writes these wild books that's like I can't even say the names of them because they're so crazy.
Lauren - Guest:Is it Oh, wait. Hold on. I can't remember his name, but it it's it's like the the ghetto alien ones.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Oh, I can't remember his name. Oh, my God. This is awful. But I love him.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Because It's hilarious. It's like he's a parody of book book talk.
Lauren - Guest:But, like, that's what I love Yeah. Is that we've now reached a point where it's so silly that this man has made a living. And then there's also oh, I can't say the other names. It's the ghetto alien one and then, like, pounded by the planet Mars.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Oh, Chuck Tingle.
Molly - Host:That's it.
Lauren - Guest:Chuck Tingle. He There's another guy too who does, like, specifically, like he's he's a black author and he writes, like, my baby mama's a a giant moth or things like that. And I'm like, every time that Quan Mills. Yes. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Quan anytime Quan Mills drops a title, I'm like, I'm so excited. For this man.
Molly - Host:I just saw one about the what's his last name? Tingle? Chuck Tingle? Yeah. Something like I've got fives I fucked my five star review or so.
Lauren - Guest:It's like, there's one of my there's one my friend has that's all dinosaur themed from him. There's one that is Elon Musk and the planet Mars fan fiction. So every every time one of us has a birthday and we have a party, somebody will dramatically read a Truck Tingle one.
Molly - Host:Oh my god.
Lauren - Guest:And my friend Ellen had her birthday and I dramatically read the one that was ravished by
Molly - Host:this, like, the country of Canada. I'm gonna start giving people Chuck Tingle books for Christmas. They're
Lauren - Guest:really funny. And, like, the other thing is that he also writes I think Camp Damascus was the serious novel that he's written. It's actually like, it's about a conversion therapy camp. It's actually really good. But as an author, sometimes you have to write bullshit Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:To clear, like, a path to the actual stuff that you wanna say. And that's why I just had somebody message me and be like, I'm 20 years old and I really wanna be a writer, but I don't know where to start. And I'm like, what you do is you get a notebook. Yeah. Like a private notebook.
Lauren - Guest:You don't tell anybody that you have it. Like never put it on the internet. Like, I'll get into fan fiction in a minute. But like, you get a notebook and you put in the most like uncomfortable shit that goes through your brain, like
Molly - Host:stuff that
Lauren - Guest:you don't tell anybody else and it's gonna take you to places that you don't like. It's gonna make you question your opinion about yourself and about things. Mhmm. But you just have to like you just have to get it out. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:I have stuff from like I wrote in eighth grade that makes me really uncomfortable, but I'm also like there's some treasure in there. Yeah. And you just you just saying some of that stuff makes people uncomfortable. Yeah. But the moment that you can say, like, I can write down something really disturbing and really weird.
Lauren - Guest:And also, like, again, you just said haunting Adeline, like, people write this stuff down very confidently are like, this is my novel. Yeah. Publish it.
Molly - Host:Such a cool plot.
Lauren - Guest:Putting it on it. Oh god. I mean, we could get into the philosophical ramifications of dark romance, but that's a whole different podcast.
Molly - Host:Did you go to Sinners and Stardust?
Lauren - Guest:No. And I'm really glad I didn't.
Molly - Host:Yeah. What a shit show.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. Conventions make me, like, really uncomfortable, and we almost went to another one that went really wrong as a cast of The Better World. Oh. And Sel was like, you know what? Things are not lining up.
Lauren - Guest:And this was months ago where they were like, you know what? We're not doing this.
Molly - Host:And you
Lauren - Guest:can go on your own, but we're not going as a cast. And it people who were running the thing weren't paid and didn't get rooms comped and like had to spend their own money. And I was like, every time I see a BookCon happen Yeah. Something goes horribly wrong. And I would love to go to one, like sell my books, meet people, like meet other authors, like go to panels.
Lauren - Guest:But I am also so aware that these kind of places bring in a certain type of person
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:That maybe is not like emotionally Ready for that. Yeah. Because it's a lot of energy and, like, Sinners and Stardust was specifically geared to dark romance. Yeah. And some of those people shouldn't be allowed out of the house.
Molly - Host:No. Like They took it way too far. But it looks like the the organizers of the event have, like, put some things in place now.
Lauren - Guest:Okay. Which I mean, they were very quick to act. But, like Which
Molly - Host:is good.
Molly - Host:Never really expect that kinda shit
Lauren - Guest:to happen. Well, no. Like, the you know, it is one of those things where, again, it's being on book talk too, and you're like, oh, this didn't really happen. Like, somebody this is a game of telephone. Like, somebody said something and now it's built into this big thing, and then you kinda do some digging and you're like, oh, no.
Lauren - Guest:This Yeah. This happened. This is we're dealing with
Molly - Host:this now. Reached Instagram pretty quick. That's when you know
Lauren - Guest:it was like When it jumps over, that's when you're like, oh, this is real.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And it's just I've I have watched it women. I it's mainly women. The thing about book talk is, like, you know, it's it's almost all women behave deplorably. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Towards each other and towards other people and like the books that come out and the stuff that gets written. And listen, anyone can write a book. Yeah. Really anyone. Not everybody should.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. Or sometimes the thing that I'm really obsessed with right now is, I think it's called age of Scorpius or Scorpio, where this girl was writing a book with that title, and it was gonna be all based on the zodiac and, like, they're all different cultures or tribes. And I was like, that's cool. And she sold copies of this thing and it was bad. It wasn't finished.
Lauren - Guest:That sucks. It wasn't done. And instead of, like, saying, hey, I'm realizing that this was my first publication and this was maybe not great and I need to go back and do some serious edits on this. She's like, oh, no. You guys just got a bad copy of it.
Lauren - Guest:I didn't read The real one is out there, and boy, it's good. Oh my gosh. And then because some like, not everybody, you know, it's it's it's got like If you're
Molly - Host:do some stuff like that, just put it on for free on Amazon.
Lauren - Guest:Just do on just go on a o three like a grown up.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:You know? Just write fan fiction.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Which is Did you ever do Wattpad?
Lauren - Guest:No. But the thing that cracks me up is like, there's this thing in writing that is called filing off the serial numbers, and it's when you take a fan fiction And you change the names, and you change the places, and it's not fan fiction anymore. It's original fiction. Oh,
Molly - Host:yeah. Okay.
Lauren - Guest:And then you publish it. And I have a friend that works in publishing, and she's like, Lauren, you know, now it's a game of which fandom was the writer in because you can tell. And Mhmm. There was one time where she's like, I need you to know that I'm crying at work right now. I got my fourth obvious BTS fan fiction in as original fiction, and I have to read it because that's her job.
Lauren - Guest:That sucks. And she's like, I don't know if I can take
Molly - Host:any more of this.
Molly - Host:Well, I know that Watt Pad was like really popular at one point and then
Lauren - Guest:Anna Todd was on Watt Pad. She wrote Harry Styles fan fiction and it got published and turned into a bunch of movies.
Molly - Host:Oh, God. Oh, yeah. So creative.
Lauren - Guest:I I but listen, at the same time, part of me is like good for her.
Molly - Host:Well, I
Molly - Host:know that Netflix and all these companies do steal ideas from
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. Their Well, now it's becoming also it's becoming on TikTok where people make they're called verticals Yeah. Where it's bad like, you know romantasy, but it's filmed so you can watch it on your phone.
Molly - Host:Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:And my I know somebody who does them and you know they pay her and she's good in them.
Molly - Host:I mean, that's I mean, the short form content, whatever.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. But But no. Netflix definitely, like Netflix definitely has always it's always got its finger on the pulse of BookTok.
Molly - Host:Or just any any content that they can take the IP from. Well, any company. Yeah. Not gonna single out Netflix, I guess. But
Lauren - Guest:Not gonna single out Netflix, but also, you know, one of the biggest romance series that was on BookTok. Now, I think Anna Huang just signed, like, a huge deal with Netflix, and she started out as self publishing. And honestly, like, it's been really inspiring seeing somebody who was like, yeah, I started writing started writing during COVID and banged out, like, four books in, like, two years.
Molly - Host:Dang. Because I know you you you write for a magazine as well. Mhmm. And you do styling, and you do modeling, and you write books, and you act, and you work at Nocturne, which is like a cast of characters in itself to What else do you do? I Tell me if
Molly - Host:they something somebody doesn't know about you. Secret.
Lauren - Guest:What's your secret, like, guilty pleasure? The big thing that, like, my I guess a secret was that, like, I I used to sing a lot, and that's something that I feel like has fallen by the wayside, and I've been I loved it. Okay. I was in choir, I was in every musical, I was in show choir. And I I wanted to do musical theater, but it was the program for musical theater at my college was so big that anybody was discouraged from kind of doing outside courses Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:Because they were all overloaded. Yeah. At least that's the the answer that I got. And so I miss singing a lot. The only problem is with me is the reason I haven't pursued it is because I have a really hard time reading sheet music.
Molly - Host:It looks like aliens.
Lauren - Guest:My brain is not wired for it. Yeah. So the way that I learn is auditorily. So I I have like this is something that not people a lot of people know. I have a photographic memory.
Lauren - Guest:Oh, cool. Which I think has really helped with, like, learning scripts and doing stuff. But so it also means that I know a lot of, like, strange facts just
Molly - Host:Yeah. Out of
Lauren - Guest:Well, because also just facts because I saw it once and I'm like, who did you know? I'm that person.
Molly - Host:But I remember literally every Snapple fun fact.
Lauren - Guest:I don't even think there were that many fun facts. I think at some point, they just started repeating them.
Molly - Host:Yeah. And a bee makes honey or, like, some dumb shit.
Lauren - Guest:No. I know like, I'm like, hey, do you know that, like, there's eight ghosts in the Tower Of London? And, like, one of them is
Molly - Host:a polar bear? I didn't know that.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. So photographic memory, because I saw this one time on a placard, is that Henry the eighth used to have, like, a menagerie in the Tower Of London. Oh, I remember that. Yeah. Used to be a royal residence.
Lauren - Guest:And so people would give him animals from all these different places and they had a polar bear and they didn't know how to take care of it and it died there.
Molly - Host:Oh my god.
Lauren - Guest:That's And now, it haunts
Molly - Host:the grounds. Was a menagerie. It was literally there not that long ago. I mean, 2019 2018. Sorry.
Molly - Host:Okay. That was a long
Lauren - Guest:never mind. But, we don't know time doesn't exist at this Like, we're in a different timeline. We don't know how quickly or slowly things are coming. No. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:My big thing that I'm I my big secret is that like, I miss singing a lot and I stopped because I couldn't read sheet music. Mhmm. And I didn't have a I had a couple professors who kind of worked with me on it and were understanding and patient. And the last time I sang publicly was I did I did the Miss Philadelphia pageant in 2013,
Molly - Host:and it was for a contestant?
Lauren - Guest:Oh, yeah. Oh. Oh, I
Molly - Host:remember you did pageants.
Lauren - Guest:I did one. And it was for the state?
Molly - Host:Yeah. Oh, that's a big one.
Lauren - Guest:No. Well
Molly - Host:You just like went, okay. I'm not gonna do like I'm just gonna go full on.
Lauren - Guest:Freshman year of college. High school, I mean, I I didn't know who I was in high school like I think a lot of people do. Yeah. And I was like, I felt akin to Rachel Berry a little bit. I was very protective of my theater program.
Lauren - Guest:Mhmm. And, I was like always looking at other people who got roles over me. And, I cried a lot and everybody was always like, oh, she's crying because she like thought she was gonna be the lead. And, I was crying because I would try out for the lead all the time and then I wouldn't get it. And I'd like, I knew I was a terrible, horrible, ugly person and I don't deserve love.
Lauren - Guest:And so then I go to college and I'm like, I'm gonna try to be like popular. Don't try to be popular in your college theater program. It will be hell.
Molly - Host:Yeah. But I don't even know how to be popular in general. I don't know.
Lauren - Guest:I it's it's an it's a made up concept. Yeah. I do. That's why you shouldn't try to do it because it's impossible. But I saw an ad for it and I was like, this will be who I am.
Lauren - Guest:I'm gonna be this person. Yeah. Walked in to the union club, spoke in front of everybody, did an audition, sang acapella, walked out, felt like an asshole. Got a call from the woman who ran it and she said, hey, we're gonna have you as a contestant and screamed. And then I I did the pageant, walked away with nothing, but learned a lot.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And I also competed under the so miss America went through like an overhaul a couple years ago. So I competed under the old pageant system, and now they've revamped a couple things. And they're like, we're yes, girl boss. Like, it's still it's a scholarship competition.
Lauren - Guest:Okay. It was never it was a beauty pageant.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Like, it started as a beauty pageant and then it became a scholarship system. Like, I remember looking around at all of these women and being like, holy shit, they're all like really qualified and like do important things. And like, there was one girl that was like one girl worked in the Finance District for like this huge company, like a fortune 500 company. One girl was like a pre med student and she wanted to go into like pediatric oncology. Like, these were not like bimbo pageant girls.
Lauren - Guest:Like, I had my Sandra Bullock moment Yeah. Of miss congeniality where I was like, oh my god. Like, this is these women are all so smart, and they're good, and you have to have a platform too. Like, you have to do charity. And mine was arts education in underfunded cities.
Lauren - Guest:But a couple other people worked with like Saint Jude's and like animal care and like eating disorder awareness. And I was like, oh my god. Like, the contestants are not the problem. The people who are running it are evil.
Molly - Host:Yeah. And also, why isn't there a mister America? Good question. Oh, that's right. Because men get to do whatever they want.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. It's like why yeah. Women don't men don't have to be like talented and pretty and smart and like there was this famous clip.
Molly - Host:Not
Lauren - Guest:nice. Right. Nice. Not nice. But my favorite thing was like a couple years ago, you also have a one minute question where you have your on stage question, where they ask you, they can ask you anything.
Lauren - Guest:And I got asked about like what my travel experiences brought to my understanding of the world, so that was an easy one. There was a Miss America contestant that basically got asked to solve ISIS.
Molly - Host:Oh, yeah. I remember that.
Lauren - Guest:And she did a really good job. She did a better job than like some people that are in positions of power today. Yeah. Gave like a really clear concise answer in under a minute at the last second. And and I just remember thinking like, what are we doing?
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. And then there were little little things about like, you know, make sure that you guys are eating Oh, protein. Yeah. You know, are you guys eating enough protein? Cause it's gonna be busy days.
Lauren - Guest:You gotta eat protein. And then basically, it was like, hey, don't get fat. Yeah. Or like, you know, if you're gonna be fat, then it's like, how do you feel? Like, with your body positive approach to life Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Exactly. You can't just be big. There were a couple girls that, like, I've I mean, like, that were a little bit bigger than me, and everything was about, like, living life to your fullest as a full bodied woman. And I'm like, don't you wanna ask her about, like, the cancer research thing? Or, like,
Molly - Host:how she teaches she's probably a size six.
Lauren - Guest:She yeah. But there was it was like I remember her platform was like music for people music therapy for kids that were victims of gang violence or something like that.
Molly - Host:And I
Lauren - Guest:was like, ask her about that.
Molly - Host:Like Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:That's important.
Molly - Host:Like, do that. It's like pitting everybody against each other.
Lauren - Guest:Each other. And then there was one night where they all took us out, and they got one piece of cake for thirteen minutes. Stop. It was in an Italian restaurant, which they always took us to, like, restaurants that had carbs and calorie dense food. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And you'd knowing that everybody is like trying to look their physical best because the thought of being in on you have to be on stage in a bathing suit. Yeah. And it's like a thing. And, you know, there are some girls that don't give a shit and could eat whatever they want or like didn't really care, but there are other girls that like, this is something that is a competition to them. Honestly, I'd watch a parody pageant.
Molly - Host:It would be hilarious. Miss Salem. I would be in that.
Lauren - Guest:I don't know. There probably is a Miss Salem. So, I mean, yeah. But I just remember they put down one it was actually, was two pieces of cake, but it was like one chocolate piece of cake. And I'm like, you think that 13 women are gonna share one piece of chocolate lava cake?
Lauren - Guest:That's so fucked. And then we did the whole show, and what did they give us backstage? Pizza. Wow. And I mean, people brought their own food though.
Lauren - Guest:But I got up there and I did it and I did my own makeup.
Molly - Host:But that's what we tell ourselves. Right? All the time, it's our as women I
Molly - Host:was not gonna speak to women. Yeah. But like, you're fat. You need a face lift. You need Botox.
Molly - Host:You need a you know, all this bullshit. And it's like
Lauren - Guest:But now, like, all of this stuff has also become so it used to be like a dirty little secret. Yeah. Like, you would never tell anybody. And then everybody be like, has she had something done? Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:Did you go somewhere? And now, think transparency can be good Yeah. Because you're telling people where you went to go get things and you're going to reputable doctors and you're talking about, you know, it's more in the open, so you're not going to like some back back alley person and like Yeah. Potentially having something harmful done to you. But I also think like it appears accessible, it's not.
Lauren - Guest:No. It appears easy, it's not. And like it appears safe, it's not.
Molly - Host:Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And, you know, I'm also gonna put this out there, getting old is a privilege that not everyone gets.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Exactly.
Lauren - Guest:Like, I've I'm only 31 and I have had several friends pass away.
Molly - Host:Same.
Lauren - Guest:And, I think like, oh my god, I get to like we I there's a character in In This Fair Chase that is based on a friend of mine that passed away. And, I was writing it and I realized I'm
Molly - Host:like Which one?
Lauren - Guest:Have you met Dee yet? Dee Howell? Not yet. Yeah. So, there's a character named Dee Howell that is based on oh, I'll try not to get emotional.
Lauren - Guest:But a friend of mine passed away in 2020 and So soon. It was like the it was one of the worst days because it was in Philly and it was right after the riots. And I was at home with my dad, and my friend called my other friend called me and was like, hey. She passed. We can't all meet up because it's COVID.
Lauren - Guest:And I like I my my legs gave way and my dad had to sit with me and like we talked about her and I was like, oh my god. Like, I've never I moved to Salem and I've done all this stuff and like I still think about her. And so I wrote the this character, and I was like because sometimes as a writer, characters just pop up. Yeah. Yeah.
Lauren - Guest:And she's this like fabulous older woman, and she was a producer, and she's had this life, and she lives in Tribeca in a beautiful loft with, like, two rag doll cats. And I was like, oh my god. This is who she would have been if she got to be old. Yeah. Well,
Molly - Host:that's the beauty of being a creative.
Lauren - Guest:Right? As a writer, like, there's a lot of, you know, you get to bring people back and you get to give people, like, justice sometimes Yeah. And people happy endings, and you get to, like, about stuff that other people are going through. And I've experienced there's been two instances as an author that I I've like hit me really hard.
Molly - Host:Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:I had a reading, like a book party for the first wonderful lady b, and there is a character that is one of the love interests who's a wheelchair user. He loses the ability to walk, but he's still like Barbara who's the main character falls in love with him because he's smart and he's nice to her and he's a good person. And this girl came up to me and she walked with a cane And she was like, thank you for writing him like a full person. Yeah. Like as somebody who has a visible handicap, it's really hard to feel like romanticized or like good about myself or like that somebody would love me.
Lauren - Guest:And I I got really like I I I wanted to tell her like, no, no, There's there's other stuff out there. Like, you'll there's gotta be other books out there with like, you know, disabled representation or like, there's gotta be other stuff out there. And then I stopped for minute and I was like
Molly - Host:I've never read one until
Lauren - Guest:I don't think there is. Yeah. No. But I'm sure that listen. If, you know, if there isn't somebody write it.
Lauren - Guest:Somebody write it. But, like, that was something that
Molly - Host:was gonna I can't remember his name. I was gonna say Pringle. Tingle? Chuck Tingle. He's probably written about it.
Lauren - Guest:Chuck Tingle. Chuck Tingle. You've been summoned. But, yeah, I just I thought for a moment, I'm like, maybe she's gone her whole life and she hasn't found something that, like, she connects with in that way. And that made her feel good about herself, and that was not even my intention, but I did it.
Lauren - Guest:And then the second one, the second wonderful lady b volume two. So the Wonderful Lady b starts off in the second one in 1911. And in 1911, the the nation of Korea was officially created, and then it was occupied by Japan not long after.
Molly - Host:Mhmm.
Lauren - Guest:So that's sort of the world that they're functioning in, and one of the characters is from there and is dealing with kind of having sending money back to his family, like making sure they're good with the Japanese occupying government and, like, maintaining because he promised his wife because he's immortal. Like, five hundred years ago, he'd take care of their family, but some of the family had become really shitty and he had to leave and like it's a whole thing. And this girl came up to me and she was a follower of mine for a really long time and she was so sweet and she was like, my parents are Korean and we don't ever talk about what life was like before they came over here. Because a lot of people came over in the eighties and sixties and you know, there's a whole whole system of that. And she was like, I wanna write about my own culture.
Lauren - Guest:That's right. And she talked about how her grandpa like blew all this money on exotic birds. And like, it was this whole thing and like he didn't treat her grandma well, but he loved these birds. I'm like, that's a story. Like, I read that.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. Like, and I think that, obviously, Korean stuff is really popular right now, but I would encourage anybody, like, especially k pop demon hunters is like a big popular thing now.
Molly - Host:I love it.
Lauren - Guest:I love that movie. But also, like, go do more. Like, go find more stuff. Yeah. Go look at art.
Lauren - Guest:Go read books. Go you know, k dramas are not the only But the glory? Oh my god. Thank you.
Molly - Host:The glory is probably the best series I've seen in a really long time.
Lauren - Guest:It's so good.
Molly - Host:No one does revenge like
Lauren - Guest:a Korean show. Korean women are beautiful and terrifying Yeah. And so smart. Yeah. And they all look so good.
Lauren - Guest:And, oh my yeah. I
Molly - Host:I had this whole idea that I was gonna learn how to play Go, and I was
Lauren - Guest:like, oh, I should also be a competitive Go player because that's so easy to do. I should play this game that I've never heard of has, like, no hold in the culture that I live in, but I need to learn how to play it.
Molly - Host:I'll be a badass
Lauren - Guest:if I learn how to play good. This has been a good one. We've we've covered a lot of lot of different topics. Was chaotic, but it was so fun. But I've, you know, I I think that we sort of both thrive on chaos and do really well there.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. So I I think we've come full circle.
Molly - Host:Okay. I'll link everything in the show notes on where to find you. Yeah. Your website, your Substack, your Patreon.
Lauren - Guest:I get so much stuff, and it's all GlamourPossum. It's easy to it's easy to find me if you just put in one one GlamourPossum thing, then it all pops up.
Molly - Host:Okay.
Molly - Host:Perfect. Well, thank you for coming.
Lauren - Guest:Thank you for having down
Molly - Host:south ish.
Lauren - Guest:Yeah. It's it was, you know, hopefully hopefully, public transit is kind to me on the way home. Yeah.
Molly - Host:It should be.
Molly - Host:Yeah. Thank you so much for being here and listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Everything about Lauren aka Glamour Possum can be found in the show notes. But if you get lost, you get confused, glamourblossom.com will have everything you need to know about Lauren and her journeys from writing to acting to skit creation, and if you need some styling or fit model.
Molly - Host:The Better World trailer is out now on YouTube and Instagram, and the movie will be released December 6. So, keep an eye out for that, especially if you are a Throne of Glass fan. I'll see you next time everyone. Bye.