Hi guys, welcome to the Shipwrecked Podcast. Hi, hello, welcome. Here are some updates for you about what's going on in the world of Shipwrecked this week. We are having our first rehearsal today. Yay, with our actors! Our first standing and walking around, not just sitting down and reading lines rehearsal. It's very exciting. We also went wig shopping today for our Oscar Wilde, who does not have hair in real life, but will have hair.
I didn't realize that until late in the game. I was like, oh, gosh. You didn't realize that? Not until, like, last year. You didn't, like, think about it? I was like, Tom's great. He's going to be great. Oh, wait. Oh, he needs this. Okay, we found some really good wig options. Also, if you were in the L.A. area during the last two weeks of May, I would like to help out Poe Party on set.
please email us at popartyshipwrecked at gmail.com. Give us your availability, and we'd love to have you. That would be awesome. We can feed you food, and we can give you lots of hugs, and you'll get to see a bit of the magic. Yeah, I think it'll be a fun set. It's going to be fun. I'm quite excited. I'm feeling optimistic about the fun level. Today we have a lovely chat with Clayton Snyder, our Dostoevsky. Let's get right to it. Woo-hoo!
We mess up a lot of stuff. Really? Including the screaming children on the street? We have many podcasts with screaming children on them. We normally do it at my apartment, which is a little quieter, but since we're already going to be here for a rehearsal. And we are not closing this window because that breeze feels real nice. Yeah, it's fine. They can get some atmosphere. We're all eating. Everyone. Everyone is eating right now. They have a huge bowl of salad. Yes, I have a giant bowl of mixed greens, of sliced raw zucchini.
a bunch of chicken breast sprinkled with some, you guys heard of tahini? Yeah, like tahini sauce? Yeah, not the sauce, like seasoning. I just got myself into that bag this year. It's delicious. A little dehydrated lime bits in there. A little puckery punch. Anything tastes good. I'm going to have to try that. And some olive oil. What do you got there, Mary Kate?
Yeah, Pokey. Pokey? Pokey. Pokey? Pokey sounds more right. Yeah, I got this for the first time this week, honestly, because I recorded my Craftversations episode with Joanna Soto-Mura, who taught me how to say her name correctly, and we were talking about Pokey, and I didn't know what it was.
So you were saying you were talking about poke and you were just pretending like you knew? No, I was like, what is it? You kind of know what it was. We had a great conversation about it. But then afterwards, I went to go get it with Sean and I loved it. So I just went back to the same place. This was like three days ago. So I just went back to the same place just now before this to get some more. And then I brought it in and Clayton did not know what it was. And this is how I have learned to describe it is that it is the burrito bowl of sushi. So it's like what the burrito bowl is to the burrito, poke is to sushi. It's just in a bowl instead of in a little thing. It's really good. It's condense at all. Yeah, I really like it. I really like it. So that's my recommendation for everyone.
That's what we're eating. And I have saltines and ginger ale. Why do you have saltines and ginger ale today? My tummy hurt this week. I do believe it was food poisoning. That's no bueno. I'm so sorry. It looks like you're on the...
The up end of it. Up and up. That's good. You're on the up and up. Yeah. I just want to get every sickness out of me like this week so that as we get closer to shooting. A-OK. That's smart. It's coming up. Yeah, I know. It sure is. About three weeks now. It's not that far. Today, we're having our first rehearsal with the cast outside of the table read. So that's why Clayton's here also to be on the podcast. Yes. Clayton, thank you for being on the podcast. Of course. How are you? I'm so good. You know how excited our sweet, wonderful audience was about you? They got real excited. I'm excited about this audience. Yeah, they're great. Because they have been fantastic.
just like so excited and supportive of this project. And they're so, I mean, you guys provide a lot of platforms for them to interact with you guys. And they do. And we love it when fans and audiences interact. You get a kick out of that. It's a little bit of an affirmation that this is interesting to other people. I mean, this project I'm sure was made because it interested you guys. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And we were excited when we first started putting it up that people were so interested by it. We weren't quite sure how it was going to go over. But people got really into it. I feel like it's a niche, but...
very passionate corner. It's so true. It's so true. One that we already know well because of Lizzie Bennet Diaries and the Telltale blog. They're smart people, which is really nice. Also keeps us on our toes. You guys are going to have to fact check every reference and get it really downright. Lose out about some of our authors and I'd be like, this one's tricky, and immediately 10 people would be like, oh, we got it. Yeah, they're smart people, which is great. I'm very excited to be a part of this and to play such a fun character. If I...
heard this pitch without hearing the characters, I would hope that I would get to play Dostoevsky. That's so cool. When it was offered from the start, I was like, ooh. That's so cool. Oh, we're so happy to have you. You also killed that Russian accent. I can say that because I just had to do one. Yeah. You're better at it than me. I was a Russian spy in a play just a few weeks ago. Oh, really? Yeah? Can we hear a couple lines? Oh, dear. Conversation in Russian accents. We'll have to out the Russian ourselves. Eh, it's not bad. Listen, however, it's eh.
A combination of a Serbian and Balkan accent. Because I live in Serbia, in Montenegro, in Croatia. Yeah! For some time. So, to be fair, it is not so foreign to me. But it's still fine. Yours is probably much more accurate than mine. But I'm going to be sexy, alright? That came first. Accuracy second. Exactly. Always sexy first. Tell us about you living there. I know. I totally forgot. This is insane. Yeah, you mentioned that in passing a while ago. Yeah, what? What's that story? That story is...
I play water polo, and I like it a lot. And I played since I was eight years old. Wow. Was doing swim team and stuff before that. And played through age group in high school and college at Pepperdine, AO waves. And then I was going to stop. I was a film studies major at Pepperdine, and kind of was...
enthusiastic to get back into acting and directing because I've been on the hiatus since Liz McGuire days. So it had been, I don't know, 11 years since the show. I was like, okay, I think it might be time. But then I was talking to some coaches on the national team and was encouraged to continue to improve my experience and skills to try to make the team. I was like, oh man, so I got to try. There's a great opportunity in front of me. I'm going to do the what if game perhaps. And what you do is if you want to continue to grow your skills and you're not necessarily on the national team training directly with those players and those coaches.
is you play professionally overseas. We don't have a professional league in the U.S. Wow. So you find a team, whether that be some guys go to Australia, some guys go to Italia, Italy, some guys go to Hungary, Croatia, kind of wherever you find a spot. Spain is a popular one, and there's no agency or network to do this. It's all word of mouth just because people who have played over there over the decades, you know, this guy knows this guy knows this guy, another thing in this player who does that position.
So many things have to line up just right to even find a team over there. And so my first year, I was playing in the second division in Italy. And then my next season, I was going to be playing in Australia. But then I got pulled into a team in Hungary halfway through the season. And then I began a season on a fantastic team in Montenegro in the Adriatic League, which is the best league in the world. It's like the best teams of Italy, like that whole coast of three months. And that's like we're like the hub of waterfalls. Like you're just playing with all these Olympians or like, you know, like multiple time Olympians, like gold medals and stuff like that. It's crazy. By then, I'd already...
dipped back into acting a little bit, and the injuries were racking up, and it just wasn't having a good time anymore. It got to the point where I had to really be passionate about what I was doing. I love water polo. It's so much fun, and it's still a part of my life, but I guess I didn't love it that much, and knowing that my friends and family and acting was back in Southern California, I was like, alright, it's time. Wow, that's amazing. That's such a interesting story. So how many years ago was that? How long have you been back? This was, the seasons were 2010-11. Okay.
11 and 12 and 12 and 13. So it was like two and a half year stint, I'd say. Some people go on for quite some time. You find guys playing over there in their mid-30s. That is so interesting. And yeah, so I've been back in the acting pool since 2013 then. So are you still finding ways to play water polo? Yeah. Actually, just this last December-ish, me and a couple buddies, because there's Masters tournaments, if you're not playing professionally and you're not on the national team, that's your avenue to play, just kind of pay for play tournaments, you can get a club, just throw a bunch of guys together, get approved by using water polo and move forward. There are only a handful of teams that are actually really competitive.
that kind of dominate these little national tournaments or these opens or invites throughout the year. And me and a couple buddies were like, yo, let's make. But one of them's technically based on New York. And one of them is based on San Francisco. And Southern California is the hub for water polo in the United States. So why isn't there a dominant club in Southern California? So let's start one. So we started, it's been called a Republica Water Polo Club. And it was crazy how many people wanted to jump on that ship. And our very first tournament as a team has been in National League.
which has been, this is its second year. It's a four-weekend tournament of all of our national team guys, our collegiate all-stars, and the top men's teams, club teams we have in the country. It's the toughest tournament we have, essentially. So that's been our entry into that. So we are without a win yet, but we're not discouraged by any means. And it's been very exciting. We've been improving every single game because we've also never played together as a team before this.
bringing in some guys who just finished up their senior year of college and have gone through the spring so aren't in the best shape that they were. So a lot of guys are still trying to get back into that and realizing that this is an opportunity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we've had some awesome developments also in a partnership that is going to take place, I feel like, within the next couple weeks. So these top clubs are representatives of athletic clubs, which are like...
I don't know if you guys are familiar with what an athletic club might look like. So it's a place where you have a membership, too, where you can go and work out, but it's also like a lounge area. There's a restaurant, bar, hotel kind of deal. It's not like a members-only kind of thing. So there's New York Athletic Club. There's Olympic Club. That's one in San Francisco. And we actually have one in downtown. That's the Los Angeles Athletic Club. And so Republica is being adopted officially to be Los Angeles Athletic Club.
Waterfall team, including membership and all that. Oh, that's great. Very awesome opportunity to be a part of and to develop and pay forward. Wonderful. It's going to be so great. That's so impressive. That's so different from anything we do. Yeah, so we got Weekend 4 is coming up. The finals weekend is April 30th and May 1st, this upcoming weekend at the Speaker Aquatic Center at Cal Berkeley. So if any of our fans are around Cal Berkeley, the weekend of...
April 30th. Come on by, check out, we're still Republica right now, so that'll be us. And say hi, please. We'd absolutely love that. Good luck to you. Thank you. That's so exciting. Yeah, if you guys go, give us an update. Yeah, we're on the, the team's also on the Facebook and on the Instagram. It's R-U, no, excuse me. Great way to misspell already. At R-E-P-U-B-B-L-I-C-A.
WPC. It's Water Polo Club. So there's, Republica has two B's in it. WPC. Awesome. Follow, follow, guys. Very cool. Yeah. And so since you've been back, what's getting back into the acting world been like? Yeah, how's that been? I had a manager who, have a manager who was with me since at the end of the Lizzy days. I kind of got with her halfway through that. And she was my in, pretty much. And I was asking, so, Bev,
what do I do? Basically, yeah. And first thing, I was like, well, let's get you, let's get to the Gears Grease and the Cobwebs Uncobbed and get back to an acting class and we'll go from there. So, jumped around from a couple, kind of finding sweet spots and doing some improv classes and voiceover classes. And a lot of it has simply just been, like this time, it's been really crazy and fun to see how...
I don't like the term network because it makes it seem impersonal, but it's what it is. To see my friend circles expand. But that's what it is. To see my friend circles expand and it starts up in a class where you get to know, you know, 12, 15, 20 people pretty intimately, and you become each other's fans, and you get involved, and you just be like, you are referred to this project here, and then you meet 20 people at that production, and then you, they refer you to there, and it's been crazy. Everything keeps circling back, and I keep seeing people, and if I had it my way, to be honest, I would be off of social media, and off of the internet entirely, like off of Facebook, just because I want to be more present with the people that I'm around and with. It's just such a valuable tool, especially being in the entertainment industry, and I love being up to date with everybody, and it's simply not.
practical to call everybody all day, because that'd be an entire day, so I'd get a nice little feed of what's going on, what people are up to, and even that's kind of a barrier some actors have to overcome. Some people are a little too good at self-promotion in a negative way, and some people don't do it enough, because we want to hear, I want to know about what you're doing. I see a lot of people do too much of it, for sure. Yeah, but a lot of people are hesitant to even get into it. I think because of, yeah, I'm always afraid of posting too much about my, like, being obnoxious, because you see people and you think, oh, oh my god, I bet you can't fall into that trap either. No, I think a way to go about it is,
I like to put myself in the shoes of others. So, if I was your fan, Mary Kate, I am your fan. Let me rephrase that. So, I'm your fan, Mary Kate. Yes. And, you know, I'm living my life. I'm doing my jobs. Like, I have my friends who are doing stuff like that and whether we're not. But, you know, busy throughout the week and I go through Facebook, I'm like, I don't know anything for Mary Kate. I wonder what she's doing. Like, I'm curious to know about what you're doing. Totally. I'm curious to know what Janine's doing. I'm curious to know what John's doing. I'm curious to know what Tatrinas is doing and Garcia.
But if none of that's shared, I don't get to know about it. And I want to see you post that so I can like it. So I can comment on it. So I can say, awesome. So I can give you support because the Lord knows we need to support each other. That's true.
So with that mindset, it can be easier for me to post things knowing, hoping that my friends feel the same way or would want to support me. And it's not necessarily a selfish thing to self-promote. It's simply sharing. I think that's what it all is. It's the share button. It's not necessarily the look at me button. But it's the let's share and celebrate these cool things that are happening with everyone. Yeah, that is nice. Positive spin on social media. Go figure. Go figure. Well, we're so excited to have you as a part of our show. Have you read a lot of Dostoevsky?
I have read The Brothers Karamatov. Oh, I haven't read that. Right. And I started Crime and Punishment. This was back when I was... I'm looking over at Shanee. She's actually the only one wearing headphones. And a plane just went by. Oh, I was thinking about the plane. I was thinking about that ring. Oh, yeah, that bad joke. But the plane just, like, took everything over. So I'm going to start that again. Yeah, so, hey, Clayton, have you read any Dostoyevsky? Yeah. I've read The Brothers. Still eating that delicious chicken salad. FYI, if you could tell, I'll be starting stopping already.
I read The Brothers Karamazov, and I started Crime and Punishment. And this was actually back when I was playing in Hungary. And I had some, I mean, you're training, when you're doing this pro water polo business, you're training like six hours a day. So while there is a lot of downtime, you are recovering for most of your days. So having very passive.
Activities is welcome. Like reading. I actually shipped over my Xbox 360 and was playing a lot of Skyrim. Oh, yeah. A lot of Skyrim. Yeah, okay. FYI, our fans, I'm a huge Elder Scrolls geek since Morrowind. All right. So if that means anything to you guys, Morrowind is perhaps the best game ever. I always thought that looked like a fun game to play, but I don't play any games. Yeah, it's tough to start. But it looks cool. Yeah. I feel like I would be into that if I had the resources. So that was one pastime, and then I wanted to...
I wasn't a reader as a kid at all growing up. I was a gamer. But as I got older and I wanted to be more well-read. So I had a list of various classics that I've kind of been going through that I never read. Like I didn't read Great Gatsby in high school, read that this last year, like other things like that. So Dostoevsky was on the list, those two books. And I think it was doing Crime and Punishment, but then just things got kind of crazy and picked up. And it's not really a book that you can...
pick up and put down. Yeah, too many names. Yeah, there's way too much going on, which is the brilliance of him and how layered it all is, but you gotta be in it, and you gotta stick with it. I mean, I honestly don't remember a lot of what happened in Roadster Massa, but I do, what I took from it was a better perspective on how frickin' intricate and complicated just any circumstance could be about anything, things that you know or don't know, and not to say, like, everything is subjective, that's not necessarily what I'm saying, but it's... It's just a lot that you don't know, and there's a lot more affecting things that you can't realize. So to have a little bit more grace and patience with whatever's going on. That's really cool. That is. That's really interesting. I don't know what I took away from reading Crime and Punishment, but I enjoyed reading it in high school. Yeah, I remember the test we had on it very, very well. Because it was just like, name this character who did this. And I was like, that's not what we're reading. What is the main character's name? I can't even remember. Skolnikov? Oh, yeah. I liked it at the time. My best friend, we had an author project in my AP Lit class, and my best friend at the time did Dostoevsky. I did Dickens. Many people were very...
We're hoping to see him at this party. Dickens. And a couple for Dickens. No, I know. Because we asked early on, like, who else? Like, after we had revealed, like, two. And they were like, who else do you want to see? And so many people said Dostoevsky. I know. So they were very excited when we revealed you at last. They were very enthused and humbled and excited to be your Dostoevsky. Oh, we're so excited. Do you have a favorite author? Yeah, in general. Hmm. For, like, in this clamor in general, I'd say...
Shel Silverstein. Oh, that's a great answer. That's a great answer. I read some Shel Silverstein. I babysit last night. It was great. I love Shel Silverstein. That's a really nice answer. Yeah, I respect that. Me too. I like that. Nobody said that yet. I see you have a beard going. I do. That's great. You want to keep that beard going? Yeah. She's got a beard. I feel like that beard. You like that beard? You want to keep that beard? Okay. Yeah, this guy's going.
is going for the project. I'm also growing on my hair. I'm growing on my hair specifically for another project, but it won't hurt. Yeah, I was going to say, what else are you working on right now? It seems like you've got some other stuff. I'm also working on my armpit hair. I'm also working on chest hair. It's really hard. I need more hot sauce. So, hang on. I can look at Shanice's face, if our sound is good or not.
Dump truck just went by. I was doing some promoting earlier, some sharing. Oh yeah, sharing. Earlier about this thing called Second Star, which has been an interesting process. So creator, no, excuse me, Maker Studios. Yes. Maker Studios is a...
product of the Walt Disney Company, they reached out to a friend of mine to ask him if he wanted to pitch a show, and if they liked the pitch, they would give him a little bit of money to do a proof of concept, which is like a five-minute pilot. And they liked the pitch, and then he asked me if I wanted to be a part of it, said, let's do it, and went forward and made this little short trailer called Second Star, and you can see it, it's on secondstar.tv. Sweet. But he actually turned it into a short pilot, so like a 12, 15-minute video, and it was originally just going to be given to major studios and say, hey guys, do you like this? made me want to turn into a network thing. And they're like, no, we're just going to put it out on the internet and see how people like it, and then we'll decide. And we're like, oh, okay. So it's kind of weird, because it's not like a fully funded pilot. It was never meant to be a pilot, but now it's being promoted as a pilot. So it's like, this isn't the quality that you'd want to show everybody, you know, because it doesn't necessarily represent everyone.
that well, but it was getting good feedback, and so we're kind of waiting to hear what's going on with that. So there's a lot of hurry up and wave, and if it doesn't run something, that's awesome. If it doesn't, whatever. That's cool, too. Great to be a part of it. And that same guy and I, he's producing a couple features. One of them is, we'll be filming in Ohio.
It's a feature that's Goonies meets Lord of the Flies meets Zombie Apocalypse. Anything that's Goonies meets anything else I'm on board for. I made sure to leave with that. I was into the Lord of the Flies aspect. So that'll be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to that. That's what I'm growing the hair up a little bit more for. Are you shooting that? That'll be in like...
August. Okay, sweet. Like July, August. That's so awesome. Yeah. How fun. Yeah. That's cool. Pretty ton of fun. Cool, cool, cool. Good for you. Thank you. I feel like you've got some stuff going on. Some stuff is going on. That's wonderful. And just keep on chugging. Keep on growing the hair. Keep on bearding. Keep on bearding. Is that a hashtag now? Keep on bearding, yes. Well, there you have it. Well, thanks for joining us. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to rehearse now. Yeah, let's rehearse some stuff. Woo! Cool. Bye, guys. Bye. Bye.
Cool. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode, and thanks to Clayton for being on our podcast. You can follow Clayton at HeyClaytron on Twitter, Instagram, or whatever, and you can follow us at ShipwreckedComedy on Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, everything. Tune in next week. We'll have more updates and more interviews for you. Don't forget to subscribe, and thanks for listening.