Ep 41 Improv Acting and Wedding Chaos! - Scott Hamm Duenas

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Luke 00:00:06  Welcome to another episode of the Improv Pod podcast. My guest today is Scott Ham Duenas.

Scott 00:00:13  First of all, thanks a lot for having me on here today. I started off, you know, in the entertainment industry as an actor. I have my hand in probably over 30, 40 television shows and movies. I started diving into the world of producing and making my own content with some other like minded people. I started writing and directing and producing more than anything, just getting involved, a little projects and getting to act in a lot of them as well. I've had some success and a couple of movies come out over the past three years. We have a thriller called This Day, which is on all the streaming services, which has done really good numbers. And just coming up on about a year now, we had a movie called broken. That one I wrote and starred in and it's with opposite Tobin Bell from the saw movies. And the most recent one is called Final Wager, and I produce and star in that one, and it's the guy to Michael Madsen and, you know, from all the Quentin Tarantino movies co-starring with me, and it's a movie I'm really proud of.

Luke 00:01:15  So I'm going to play a piece of music, and I want you to tell me what it makes you think of. So that's anything that comes into mind. Any kind of thoughts, emotions, ideas. Don't overanalyze it. And it's completely improvised. What did you think of that.

Scott 00:02:45  When your hands hit the keyboard? It just made me think of my wedding, which is so random. It's been ten years now, but then once you started going, I really thought about an ascending journey. I associate so many things with movies, but just sort of a character or a person trying to find their way in life. When I hear the really beautiful parts of your playing, I immediately think of my daughter. And then there was a little part in there where it picked up a little bit and down, and I think of like my son starting to walk and do those things and the ups and downs and falling. A lot of what came into my head really was just a lot of walking and thinking.

Scott 00:03:20  There was a movie I did called Were Broken, where there's a big montage of my character walking on his way to a grief meeting, and that could have totally played in there, because it just seemed very introspective to me to in a lot of places like you would be something I would want to hear on my headphones. When I was really trying to gather my thoughts and think about things like marriage, family, where am I going? Things like that.

Luke 00:03:49  I'd like you to tell me a story of some kind. And then I'll improvise a soundtrack to the story.

Scott 00:03:56  There's always a huge main story from my wedding, which was. We fired our preacher the day of and just had a random person from our guest list do the vows and marry us because we forgot our wedding license at the hotel, which is not that far away, and he refused to do the ceremony until he saw the license. And we were like, we have 200 people out there, can't we just get it afterwards? Or I'll send somebody right now and they'll bring it to you.

Scott 00:04:21  And he refused to do it, and we were really taken aback. And then he came over to my wife, who was already starting to cry about it, and she's in her gown and all this stuff, and he I no lie. He said this to my wife and all my wedding party scene. He said, I just don't understand how you guys can be so stupid as to not have the license here. And then I lost my cool and I said, what? Are you kidding me right now? You know, you sell this to a bride, blah blah, blah. And I started getting like a screaming match with the guy that was supposed to marry us. And then I told him he needed to get out of there before me and him were fighting. I didn't care if he was a man of the Lord or not, and he left. He called the police and we did have a car show up and say it was somebody making like terrorist threats or something. And I'm like, no, we had to tell the cop.

Scott 00:05:08  He had to laugh and then left. And then somebody from the audience that was a churchgoer said, I could wing this. We had them get up there and marry us. So we weren't really officially married. And until a couple of days later in the week where we made another day of it and. But yeah, that's my fun wedding story.

Luke 00:05:26  Yeah, that's a great story. So I'm going to go for this is your big day. You're obviously excited. It's a big life event and it's really positive. And then you have this change in vibe where this guy refuses to marry you because of this ridiculous situation. I'm going to go for the anger, the annoyance kind of vibe then, and we'll see what happens. What did you think of that?

Scott 00:08:19  We had a little bit of a network of struggling, so I had some parts where it went in and out, and then I think it was on a little bit of a delay, but I got the main gist of it. And actually, to be honest with you, the times where it went out a little bit and I could just hear your hands, like hitting the keys and just the sound of the empty sets.

Scott 00:08:37  It really was good because it sounded like two guys rustling around. It's exactly what I had for my wedding, because my uncle plays piano and the keyboards and stuff, and then I like the frantic ness of it, which reminded me of when we were starting to search around for who was going to marry us. And I even had one of my groomsmen going on going, how do you go online and becoming officiant online? I'll try and do it right now. And just everyone and everyone, just the chaos of it for a little bit. It was good.

Luke 00:09:05  I was going for these fourths. That reminds me of church bells in England.

Scott 00:09:20  Yeah, totally. I agree with you. That little ding ding ding ding.

Luke 00:09:26  Yeah.

Luke 00:09:27  And then I tried to mess it up a bit. Yeah.

Scott 00:09:30  Exactly. So that was perfect. The wedding bells. And then I got messed up a little bit, but then it all worked out.

Luke 00:09:41  So I'm going to ask Scott to play a character and then get him to tell me a story as that character, and then improvise a soundtrack to it.

Luke 00:09:53  The first character is called chance. so tell me a bit about chance.

Scott 00:09:58  Chance is a, he's a bit more of a wild guy. He's a risk taker. He likes to experience the highs and lows of life and the highs and lows of gambling. He's a long time gambler who's trying to get his shit together now and, go to meetings and, you know, he wants to make things right with his girlfriend who doesn't like the gambling and also with his family. He's a good guy, and he's a fun guy. But underneath, you know, there's a lot of problems happening under there. But he's got to get those dialed in and, and and see if he can become a better person.

Luke 00:10:31  So, chance, can you tell me a bit about your first win gambling?

Scott 00:10:37  We got these fake IDs to say we were 18 so we could go to the horse races with my buddy's dad, who was a bit of a sports addict himself or gambling addict himself. And, he was a player, and he used to take us all the time.

Scott 00:10:52  I hit a, my first ever exacta, which is where you got to get the horses that come in first or second. I had no money. I was a kid, but so I was betting a dollar a race, but I was, so I was just betting longshots. I put a dollar down to a bet. These two guys or two horses, two guys riding the horses. anyway, they, And I hit it and there was two long shots and it paid for $1 to pay like 587 bucks. And the double best thing about it was I thought I was going to be in big trouble, because you have to pay taxes and sign a bunch of forms if it's over $600. And not only did I hit it, I also didn't have to sign any paperwork, any forms as cash, my ticket with my little ID, and that was good to go. I think I bought a new bat or something because they put baseball when I was little. I was really excited, so I don't know, maybe it was a wasn't such a blessing in disguise that early hitting something big because I thought it was going to be that easy for the rest of my life.

Luke 00:11:48  So I'm going to try and get this sense of excitement.

Scott 00:13:18  I like your beginnings a lot, man. The beginnings always hit me the most because the beginning of that even reminded me of during the race, because it felt like the momentum of it. When you see all those horses turn for home and turn for that finish line, and now the heads are bobbing back and forth and the jockeys are going to the whip, and you look up there and you're trying to see where your numbers are, and then there they are. You're like, Holy crap, I got a shot. You're trying to wheel those things home. And it's back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Boom. and then there it is. And then you got to wait just to make sure it's official, make sure there's no inquiries. And there was that little hesitant time in there where I felt like it was that that time where I'm waiting for them to flash the winning numbers and holding on to my ticket and waiting to look up and make sure that it matched and then it matched, and then cashing that ticket for that money.

Scott 00:14:09  And, I like the very end to was that kind of jubilant walking away of, I did it, I won. Let's go get some dinner on me, man. Let's go get something fancy. Let's go get some Red lobster on me.

Luke 00:14:22  We'll go back to Scott. Now, how is that experience, Scott.

Scott 00:14:25  I like it. That was kind of fun. I've been out of my scene classes and my character classes for a little while now. You gave me, like, a free acting class.

Luke 00:14:41  Do you want to quickly try another character? Something of contrast. Someone who's quite different to chance?

Scott 00:14:47  Sure. I'll just go right to the other movie before because he's so different. His name is Will and his daughter disappeared and now can't get over it. And he's basically like a, a shut in. The only place he goes as he walks to the store to get a meal and, and get a bottle of booze, and he basically just lives that day, every day just praying for his daughter to come back into his life.

Scott 00:15:10  His seven year old daughter is very low. He doesn't talk that much.

Luke 00:15:15  So welcome to the podcast, Will. I'm going to play you a piece of music, and I want you to tell me what it makes you think of. So that's anything that comes into mind. Any kind of thoughts, emotions or ideas?

Scott 00:15:30  Yeah. sometimes music is hard for me, but. Yeah, let's give it a shot. A lot of things right now. Just everything reminds me of my daughter Shelly. And we used to go to the beach a lot. And we also had this, this little red ball that I got for us to use at the beach. And it was like one that you would get from the dollar store, just like a piece of garbage. But we ended up loving it because it's just the way that it never. You could never throw it straight or you could never catch it, right? Because it was just another not even piece of junk. But I don't know, it just made things fun because it would go out in the water and she would go out to get it, or I would have to go if it went too deep and I would have to swim out and get it for her, because God forbid I ever want anything happened to her.

Scott 00:17:27  And it just makes me miss my daughter.

Luke 00:17:29  Sorry to hear that.

Scott 00:17:31  Also, besides this, the weirdest thing that since my daughter's been gone, I haven't been able to find that bottle either. She's maybe got it with her, and I hope she does. If it brings her some happiness. And she knows that the way I used to track that ball down, I'm doing everything I can to track her down. I just hope that one day we can be back at the beach together. Because I'll never stop looking for.

Luke 00:17:55  So I'm going to try and get a sense of this ball, which, as you said, is a piece of trash, but it represents a strong emotional connection between you and your daughter. So I was trying to get a sense of the movement of the ball with that bit of music. It has a kind of bounce to it, slow kind of bounce and imagining a game happening bouncing back and forth between you two. Yeah, just getting a sense of movement. Thanks, Ben.

Luke 00:18:47  On the podcast, will, we'll go back to Scott now.

Scott 00:18:51  That one was crazy. That was like being back on, working on that thing when you had to get into these weird zones of loss.

Luke 00:18:58  Did it make you think about the music differently?

Scott 00:19:02  I really did because especially on that one, I really close my eyes to think about it. And you really do go into different thought process, like. Like I said, that I truthfully before was really picturing two horses running down the track when you played that song. And then on this one, I truly did right from the start. Just picture like the the stereotypical little little girl with their hands to the side, like spinning around at the beach. Music is just the best in that way. whether it's for acting or for just real life, I mean, I don't I'm driving around the car all the time, and just the song makes me think of high school or song makes me think of some kind of experience that I had. It's crazy how wonderful music is that way.

Scott 00:19:50  That was a fun exercise and just shows you how powerful music is.

Luke 00:19:54  Yeah, that's very true. So what did you get out of this podcast?

Scott 00:19:59  I got to hear some really good piano playing. Most of these are. It's always just the normal questions about acting in the movie and all that stuff. But adding this in, and then you made me have to put my thinking cap on and think about experiences and stories and stuff on the spot. So it was it was cool to be to turn my brain on here on the West coast in the morning like that and think and almost like create with you to I'm doing very literally creating, but you're taking my words and bringing them to life in a song.

Luke 00:20:30  Well, thank you very much for being on the podcast.

Scott 00:20:31  Thanks, Luke. When it's done, you'll have to send me a link or something so I can check it out. Definitely. I'd love to hear it.