I’m collecting side quests this year and one of them was the opportunity to talk to Charli XCX during her press tour for The Moment. I’ve been a fan of Ms. XCX’s music for years and am very interested in her pivot to film as of late, so even though I only had 10 minutes to speak with her during her packed schedule, I tried to make the most of it.
Thank you to my friends Steven Carter (co-director), Helena Riley (actor), Cassidy Hop (DP), Drew Mazzarella (cam op), Amina El Kabbany (cam op), Annie Graffe (art director), and Akaylah Reed (PD/set dec) for helping out!
In related news, I’m bringing back my podcast some time this year. I realize I’ve never addressed the full story with High Brow (my old podcast), but I initially put it on hiatus because it was operating at a loss. I understand that sometimes it takes awhile before a business can become profitable, but at the time (2022-ish), things in the industry were starting to shift downward and the podcast bubble was bursting. Formerly, top podcasters could sell their shows for millions of dollars. But then the networks realized that they were throwing too much money at these endeavors and majorly scaled back. Beyond that, Spotify monetization was abysmal and I could never get my Patreon off the ground. I had to take a step back to re-evaluate my priorities.
The reason I never made an official statement about it though (beyond saying it was on indefinite hiatus) was because I wasn’t sure whether or not I was going to revive it in the future. I loved doing it and I loved the intimacy with my smaller demo of listeners, but I also was already underwater trying to meet Youtube and Instagram content deadlines, make it to class, and tape for auditions. I was also in the midst of writing a book (this project has since been cancelled for reasons I’ll maybe share in the future). But after months and months of deliberation, I think I’m finally at a place to devote more time to producing a podcast. With that said, it’s still in its early development stages so I can’t declare a launch date yet, but just know that it’s coming…
So, the other reason I interviewed Charli was to practice my interviewing skills. I haven’t interviewed someone in years and granted, this was a really high-profile segue back into it. I’m sure you can tell,but I was extremely nervous, especially because we were running on such tight timelines! Hopefully you all still find it interesting :-), and of course, I’m open to any future guest suggestions from the audience! <3
