Film Courage: What are some things that you learned in the last five years that you wished
you knew in the first five years since you moved here?
Adam William Ward, Actor/Producer/Director (WALLY GOT WASTED: Some of it plays into things
I’ve already said but Number 1 is “Bank in yourself.”
If you really believe in yourself you have to bank in yourself.
And what that means is you can’t depend on an external person to make your dreams
happen.
If you want to make them happen, you go make them happen with yourself.
Now some actors are very much independent of a studio or a filmmaker if you’re not
a filmmaker yourself.
But even an actor in a way you could find the right director.
You could find money people.
You could then produce and put a whole project together.
But it’s the bank in yourself.
It’s to start learning and figure out what you need to do and do it.
Do it yourself.
WALLY GOT WASTED we did completely outside of the studio system and it would have never
got made if I was…I’d still be scratching my head handing in the script to people and
even though people loved the script I’d still be handing it to people and even the
people that might have wanted to make it they wouldn’t have made me the director.
“Who are you?”
So I had to do it to learn and prove myself.
That’s another thing that I’ve learned is that people don’t see potential.
You have to show them.
I’m the same person I was five or six years ago when I was telling people I’m going
to be a film director.
They don’t really believe me.
They don’t really know.
There are so many people who say things in this town.
Now they treat me with totally different respect and they look at me like a filmmaker.
It’s very interesting in that way, it’s like you know what you’re going to do or
what you’re capable of, so go do it and show people.
Don’t trust that they see it too.
They are not going to see it, you have to show them.
Film Courage: What you you say to people who aren’t as confident with themselves?
Maybe they are not confident with the way that they look?
I mean you’re a handsome man, you’re tall, you present yourself well, so it’s easy
for me to see why people (aside from talent) would want to believe in you.
But not everybody has that.
What would you say to people who don’t feel like they have it?
Adam: It’s funny because that kind of goes under motivation.
I’m actually motivated by people not believing in me in a way.
I mean I have a lot of support and a lot of my father and my mother and my family believe
in me a lot.
But I’m actually more motivated by people who tell me I can’t do something.
I don’t know how healthy that is but that’s what it is and I think ultimately you have
to start looking at yourself.
Then the work doesn’t start with making films, the work starts inner and you need
to go look and analyze yourself and really build yourself up maybe with positive reinforcement
every morning?
Maybe meditation, whatever it is?
Build yourself up to believe, the belief that you can do it because without the belief,
you’re not going to do it.
If you believe what people tell you, I think anybody who has ever done anything amazing,
they were told they can’t do it and if they believed it, they never would have done it,
so the fact that it’s never been done before just makes me excited that I’ll be the first.
Film Courage: So it’s more a challenge when someone polite or not says “No” to you
because then rather than someone who seems more “Yes, that sounds great.”
Maybe to you that’s not enough of a challenge?
Adam: I don’t look forward to it.
It’s not like I’m “Oh please tell me no!”
But it’s kind of like…I don’t know, it’s a fire inside of you.
You tell me “No” and I’m like “Why do you want to get in my way?
I’m going to win, no matter what.
I’m going to make this happen.”
And I have good intentions with it.
I’m not trying to defeat anybody.
But I have my goals and my dreams and my belief in it is…your belief in you and what you
can do just can’t waiver, it cannot.
And that’s the first place to work on.
If you don’t have that believe you need to work on it and get it before you even take
on the beast of a feature or any dream you have because I’m sure curing cancer, the
people working on it right now believe they’re going to cure it no matter what.
And you couldn’t tell them…you couldn’t convince them that they weren’t going to
cure it even though they haven’t done it yet.
But that’s the kind of belief that you need to have and determination to accomplish your
dreams no matter what they are.