Written By: Michael D. McClellan | Gerald Webb arrived in Hollywood the way you might expect, landing in Playa del Rey with the same dreams that others have packed into well-worn suitcases countless times before him, the odds stacked overwhelmingly against his outsized ambition, an unforgiving film industry primed to grind him up and spit the tiny bits and pieces cross country, spitting him back from whence he came. Happens every day. Tinseltown has teeth, sharp and jagged, and they’ve pierced the armor of even the most resilient souls. Surely, Gerald Webb would be next. He might as well have tried his hand at pulling Excalibur from that goddamned stone, because claiming sword from rock is easier than launching a Hollywood career and making it stick. Certainly he’d be forgotten in a blink, crash landing in his old neighborhood, left to explain his demise to empathetic ears while plenty of mouths threw shade the moment he walked away. I told you he’d be back. I knew he couldn’t cut it. He doesn’t have what it takes…
But Gerald Webb is from Philly, and certainly that counts for something. He’s also a blue collar, lunch pail type-of-dude with great instincts and a supreme work ethic. Webb’s parents always shot straight and set good examples, and his hyperactive imagination was there from the jump. Oddly, acting wasn’t his raison d’être as a youth. Music came first. Growing up in the ‘80s meant being there when an entire industry shifted from vinyl to digital, records replaced by compact discs on their ultimate journey to the cloud. Webb was fascinated with this new platform. An early adopter who recognized its paradigm-shifting potential, he couldn’t help but tinker with the technology. Could a CD player be used to scratch the same way that DJs scratched on vinyl?
Webb figured out how to pull off that little trick. By then he was a DJ with a regional reputation, and his innovation not only caught the attention of Pioneer executives, it led to a chance encounter – and close personal friendship – with Jason William Mizell, better known by his stage name Jam Master Jay. Soon the world’s first digital turntablist was opening shows for the flashy, founding member of Run-D.M.C. Webb’s acting bug? He’d grown up with that thought in the back of his mind, but it remained parked there while he scratched his way through clubs all over the East Coast. Only in those quiet moments did he allow for an honest assessment of his career arc. The DJ money was good. The events were a blast. Problem was, the DJing scene fed the ego but not the soul. Webb wasn’t fulfilled.
Serendipitously, the urge to act intersected with a class offered by Philadelphia casting director Mike Lemon, best known for his work on The Sixth Sense. Webb soaked it up like a sponge. He dipped his toes in the local acting pool, auditioning for parts in commercials and industrial films. The experience pushed Hollywood closer to the forefront of his mind, where an army of doubt and indecision waited to slap it down. You’ll try and fail. Hollywood is a Tom Cruise town, a Sylvester Stallone town, not a town for someone who looks like you.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Webb took a class from famed life coach Tony Robbins, and followed that up by diving headlong into The Landmark Forum, a 3-day personal development course grounded in a model of transformative learning – a way of learning that gives people an awareness of the basic structures in which they know, think, and act. Webb emerged with a fresh perspective on his life. The fear that was holding him back? Still there – but no longer capable of wielding the same power. He laid out his plan, trusted his gut, and moved to Los Angeles twelve months later.
~ ~ ~
Even armed to the teeth with a new way of thinking and plenty of street cred in the DJ universe, Gerald Webb was starting from scratch in a city designed to pay him no mind. He was just another would-be actor in a town teeming with them. He arrived in enthusiastic beginner mode, smitten with the beautiful weather and the equally beautiful people hooping and biking and running on Venice Beach. This was a far cry from the bleak February he’d left behind in Philly. He set out to score auditions but had no real clue how to pull it off. Like Rocky Balboa going up against Clubber Lang, Webb was throwing roundhouse punches and hoping to connect, a brutish approach with no refinement or sophistication. Barely six weeks in, Gerald Webb was disillusioned. And then his support system split town. He was alone, on his own, and he could feel those Tinseltown teeth bearing down.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Again, Webb got still and quiet. He listened to his inner voice, and he took the necessary steps to be taken seriously. Check the DJing at the door. Identify what you don’t know and come up with a fresh plan to do something about it. Get out there, find and create some genuine allies.
Gerald Webb soon landed his first audition. And then another. Baby steps, but Hollywood began to take notice. Soon he was booking jobs and building his reel. Then another door opened and Webb was casting movies for The Asylum, the independent movie studio that gave the world Sharknado. Webb’s keen eye for talent led him to an executive position within the company, and then, ultimately, partnering with Christopher Ray to form DeInstitutionalized Films, where he’s produced more than 25 films for respected partners such as Netflix, Reel One Entertainment, MarVista Entertainment, Lifetime Network, ION Television and Cinedigm.
Against long odds, Webb was quickly creating a name for himself in this city.
~ ~ ~
Gerald Webb still acts. He’s shared the screen with Danny DeVito, Chevy Chase, Ving Rhames, and Malcolm McDowell. How he pulls this off with everything else on his plate is anyone’s guess, but the man with the indefatigable work ethic also has a bushelful of talent. Witness the accolades which continue to roll in, a 2019 Daytime Emmy award nomination for “Outstanding Daytime Digital Series” as a producer on Amazon’s The Bay, and seven Telly Awards for his production of Circus Kane among them.
~ ~ ~
The coronavirus pandemic has shut down global economies, shuttering the entertainment industry along the way. What it hasn’t done is extinguish the creative light burning bright inside Gerald Webb. His response? $TACK$, a seven-minute short film that he produced and directed, followed closely by the COVID-relative music video Dropping Deuces. Clearly, Webb has his finger on the pulse of a public in desperate need of a diversion from the 21st Century’s first omnipotent pandemic. He can also add director to his ever-expanding resumé.
Not bad for a Philly guy that Hollywood was primed to spit out in bits and pieces.
Please take me back to your childhood in Philly. Did you always have a creative side?
I was born in Philadelphia. We lived there until I was about two years old, and then moved across the bridge, to a little town in South Jersey called Sicklerville. Even as a kid I was always involved in creative things. My dad was a TV repairman, so we always had technology around the house. When VCRs came out we were one of the first families to get one. Dad had a reel-to-reel, and he would hook up a microphone and record me telling stories, so that was probably the beginning of it. When I got a little older I’d watch the news and pretend to be Peter Jennings. I did a school report on Walter Cronkite when I was a young, and I’d watch Alex Trebek on Jeopardy!, and that kind of intrigued me. When I got a little older I got into breakdancing and popping, so the performer in me has always been pretty close to the surface.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
You’re known in the business for a tireless work ethic. Did you get that from your parents?
My father worked for someone for many years in Philadelphia, and then he started two shops of his own when I got a little older. I would see him go to work in the morning, and he would come back after what felt like a long day later, and then he would dutifully get up and do it all over again. Every once in a while he would go to work on a Saturday. He stressed doing things the right way, taking time to get it right, and focusing on the task at hand. The lessons he imparted and the values he instilled, I used those every day in my life.
My mother ran a daycare center out of our house, which she still does to this day. She wakes up at 5:30 every morning, is downstairs and ready when kids are being dropped off an hour later, and works until the last kids are picked up at 6:30 at night. She puts in those 12-hour days and never complains, doesn’t take off many holidays, and will only occasionally go on vacation. She’s raised three-quarters of Sicklerville over the years [laughs]. Everybody calls her Mommy Webb. If you know my mother, and if you saw her with those kids, you could tell that she’s clearly doing what she loves. I think that’s what keeps her young.
You worked as a DJ before you started in film and television. This was during a period of rapid change in the industry.
Yeah, everyone has seen DJs scratch on vinyl records, but the technology started to change with the arrival of the compact disc. I recognized early on that CDs were the wave of the future. Pioneer made a CD player that could loop a section of the song, which at the time was revolutionary. They had a spin-off in 1998, and I took their CD player and an effects processor with me. I was able recreate the sound of a record scratching, and the engineers from Pioneer went crazy. They wanted me to show them how I did it, and I was able to leverage that into a job with them. I consulted on product design, marketing, and a bunch of things for Pioneer for the better part of four years. Then I moved on to work for a company named American Audio, and then for Technics, which is a division of Panasonic and Matsushita. Even Hewlett Packard came calling about consulting, though we never closed a deal.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
As a DJ, you were very much in demand.
I started touring and going to all of these trade shows. There were also all of these articles written about me, and before long I had a national reputation as the world’s first digital turntablist. Then Jim Tremayne, who was the editor of DJ Times magazine, came to me and said, “We’re having a DJ convention in San Francisco, and we want you to compete in the first ever CD-versus-vinyl scratch-off. Would you be interested?” I was like, “Yeah, I’m in!” Jim explained that he had DJ Qbert – the best scratch turntablist all time – lined up for the scratch battle. CD technology wasn’t quite there yet, so I knew that I was bringing a knife to a gunfight [laughs], but Qbert was cool as heck. There were people in the audience yelling, “Kill the CD DJ!” Qbert kept it loose. He was like, “We’re going to go back and forth, and we’re going to have fun.” Qbert understood that though not quite ready at that point, innovation wasn’t necessarily the enemy. It was really an honor to be on that platform with such a legend.
I’ve read where you met the legendary Jam Master Jay at the same convention.
Jay was there promoting his new Scratch DJ Academy, and he was in the back of the room during our battle. The next day, Pioneer had a booth at the show and I’m giving a tutorial on how to do these scratch techniques on a CD player. Jam Master Jay is walking by the booth and stops, but there’s about twenty people in front of me watching the tutorial. He looks over for a minute, and then he walks away. Afterwards, I’m hanging out in the booth and he walks back around the corner. He’s like, “Hey, can you show me what you are doing?” I still have the picture someone took of me and Jay in that moment, and in it I’m teaching the person who most inspired me to become a DJ. Jay is one of the greatest DJs of all time, so I totally geeked out. It was definitely a bucket list moment.
Jam Master Jay became not only a friend, but a mentor. Please take me through the genesis of your relationship with Jay.
When we got done talking he introduced me to his assistant, Lydia, instructed me to give her my number, and said that he’d be in touch. Well, months passed and I didn’t hear anything from Jay, and then out of the blue I get a call from him. He’s like, “Hey man, you still in Philly? I have an event going on in New York on Saturday, and I want you to open up for me.” The next thing you know I’m opening up for Jay at this party at S.O.B.’s [Sounds of Brazil] where he was DJing. He gave me his number afterwards, and we started keeping in touch. He’d call and say he was going to do a show somewhere and he wanted me to open for him. We started to pal around, and he took a genuine interest in my life and career. He saw what I was doing and recognized the obstacles in my way. He helped because he genuinely cared. That is so typical of how amazing of a person he was.
Photo Courtesy David Redfern/Redferns
Jay got his started playing at parks, and faced his own challenges on the way up.
He told me the story about when Run-DMC did their first European tour. They were already a hit in the U.S. when they arrive at the first venue where they’re going to play. Jay has his turntables, and just as they are ready to do a soundcheck, the people at the venue go, “Where is your band at? You can’t do a concert without a band.” Jay said Run and D were like “Jay IS the band.” That lack of understanding followed him throughout that entire European tour.
You actually worked with Jam Master Jay at Scratch DJ Academy.
He was doing a documentary called Slipmat Studies, and he asked me to be in it. He also asked me to be one of the founding professors for Scratch DJ Academy. It’s still hard to believe.
You have a great story about DJing Jay’s anniversary party.
Jay and his wife rented a boat to tour around New York Harbor for their ten-year wedding anniversary. This is Jam Master Jay, and he could have had any DJ on the planet DJ this party, but he asked me to do it. When everybody got ready to start the dancing, Jay walks up and leans in front of the booth beside my little turntable and goes, “Gerald, crank it up. Get these guys going. Show off.” You have to realize, it’s a Who’s Who of hip-hop in New York on the boat. Russell Simmons, the co-founder of Def-Jam, is there. So I start doing my little trick to make this noise and get everybody’s attention and get the party started. The next thing you know, big-time DJs like DJ Hurricane come running over to the table with their jaws on the floor. A few minutes earlier they were all looking at me like, “I can’t believe that Jay got a CD DJ. This is gonna be whack.” Jay was just standing there in his all-white tuxedo with Adidas Superstars and the biggest smile on his face, looking like the cat that had swallowed the canary. He was like, “Yo, y’all check out my DJ.” That’s who this guy was. He took a chance on a kid from Sicklerville, and not only introduced him to a new audience, but also put him on a different platform. He’s a part of me and will be for the rest of my life. I am just so fortunate to learn from him. His example of humility and serving others is something that I carry with me every day.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Jay died tragically, and I’m sure it hit you hard.
It was devastating. I couldn’t even talk about it for a long time. Jay was the humblest guy in the room every time I was with him, even though he was arguably the biggest star in the room. I still have a video of Jay talking about his opinion of me as a DJ, and there could be no higher praise. Not long after he passed, I won the American Disc Jockey Association ‘Nightclub DJ of the Year Award.’ I dedicated that to him, and I got to show the footage at the award presentation.
Jay’s murder reminded me that life is precious. Ironically, I was also a victim of an assault with a deadly weapon. I was driving down the highway in LA and somebody shot my car up. Two bullets hit me. If you saw my car, a bullet was inches away from killing me. The mental and physical recovery took months and was one of the most difficult times of my life. But somehow, I felt like Jay was there guiding me through it the whole time. People are going to think that this is insane to say, but I don’t wish it didn’t happen. Who I am now is totally different because of that shooting and the fight to recover and reclaim my life in its aftermath. I don’t know who I would be had that not happened. It was one of the biggest tests I’ve ever faced and it prepared me for many of the professional and personal tests I have faced since.
You’re at the top of your profession as a DJ when you make the jump to film and TV.
I was still living in Philly at the time. I’d always wanted to pursue acting when I was younger, but I veered off into the DJ world. In hindsight, it was a Band-Aid for me, an easy way for me to get into performing without really taking that next step into the film and acting world. I later took an acting class from Mike Lemon, who was the casting director for The Sixth Sense and some other big movies in Philadelphia. During an open call with Mike I did a Hawkeye Pierce monologue from M*A*S*H, and afterwards I told him I was torn about pursing acting. He asked why, and I explained that when I looked at TV and movies, I didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me playing roles like Maverick in Top Gun. Mike assured me that the industry was changing and that there would be plenty of roles for me. Thanks in part to his encouragement, I got an agent in Philly and started going to auditions.
You paid your dues, working your way up by doing industrial films and commercials.
Early on in Philly, I did a commercial for a company called Stratford Academy, and I did some stuff for Waste Management, which really started me working in industrials. You get the auditions that you get, and trust me, it’s a thrill when you book a role. They can tell you that you’ve booked Bystander Number 1, and that you have 1 line, but it doesn’t matter. You’ve booked it. There’s an excitement that comes with it. You can’t help but think, “They like me, they want me, I’m a professional.”
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
What are the auditions like?
To me, every audition is a form of training. You have to do your best to represent yourself as a professional, and all of it helps you get better. You prepare properly and do the best you can, and then you let the chips fall where they may. But it is all on you. You have to go in prepared having fully embodied a character with a unique perspective and life experience. You won’t land every role, and it won’t always be your fault, but you know when you haven’t performed at your best. In those cases you take a lesson from it and move forward. In fact, the audition I bombed the worst is probably the one I grew the most from. Failing feels terrible but we grow so much more from having experienced failure if we get up and continue taking shots.
Now that you’re in LA, do you still audition for commercials?
Yes, but now I have more of a choice. I took a break from commercials for about four or five years because I was focused on TV and film acting, and the rest of my free time was dedicated to producing. Now I’ve come full circle and have chosen to audition for commercials again, so I’m back in that mix.
Tell me about that jump to LA in 2006. Was it an easy decision to make?
It took years and was not easy at all until… I learned that you need to be both quiet and still in order to make the right decision, because there is a lot of noise that can get in the way – and not just negative noise. Even people who love and care about you will give you advice that is not designed around what you want to create out of your life. It’s designed for you to be safe. And while that is meant with love, it’s not necessarily conducive with you having a fulfilled and happy life. Truthfully, I think it took me at least ten years to get quiet and still enough to move to LA. There was a lot of noise – going to LA isn’t sensible, you probably won’t make it out there anyway, you’ll fail and bounce back to Philly, and on and on – but, once I got quiet and still enough, I didn’t allow myself to become discouraged, and I was able to make a choice that had been essentially speaking to me since I was a small child.
It was hard to let go, but I had been doing some soul-searching for years. I was enjoying DJing. I looked happy and fulfilled, because touring with rock bands and hip-hop artists was cool and a lot of fun…but it wasn’t fulfilling me on a base level. I knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the next twenty years. Still, I was holding onto it with both hands as tight as I could. Once I figured out what I really wanted, I realized the only way I could ever attain it was by letting go. That’s when it dawned on me: I was holding onto this my DJing success like it was the most important thing in the world to me. While DJing is and always will be a huge part of me, it wasn’t even really what I wanted for my life and career. If I had to do it all over again, I would’ve jumped to LA straight out of high school.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Many dream of pursuing a career in Hollywood, but few actually make that leap.
Fear never goes away, it just transitions to another set of challenges – auditioning for a role, casting a film, or whatever the case may be. Some people like to claim that they’re fearless, but that’s garbage. Everybody has fears. You sometimes act in the face of those fears and create courage along the way. I took a course called The Landmark Forum, which is a personal development course that really helped me understand and acknowledge my fear and create my future despite my fears. It opened up my thinking. Almost immediately I made the decision to move to Los Angeles and one year later I touched down at LAX with two suitcases and a backpack.
What were those early days like in LA?
The beginning of 2006 was a dream. I was living in Playa del Rey, a block from Venice Beach. I’m riding my bike to the beach every day and playing basketball in February like it’s summertime. For a Philly boy, this is amazing…at least for a few weeks. Then one of my friends moved to Vegas, and the other left for Thailand to help with the tsunami recovery effort there. A month-and-a-half went by, and I wasn’t having any luck as an actor. I thought I knew what I was doing. I had headshots, but when I look back they were terrible. I was getting this newspaper called Backstage, which came out a couple times a week, and I’d read it and send my headshots to all these casting offices. I even went in person to a couple of them and I quickly learned that they don’t want you dropping in. They were like, “There’s a box on the corner, there’s a box outside, leave your headshot in the box and get out.” It was almost that rude [laughs].
So I’m waking up every day and nothing is happening with my career. I’m sleeping in more, I’m feeling a little lonely, and I started to realize that I’m even a little bit depressed. I start to question myself. Maybe coming out here had been the wrong choice after all. Then I thought: You took a decade to decide to come out here. You got rid of your company. You changed up your whole life. And now, after a month-and-a-half, you want to pack up and move back? That’s when I said to myself, “Your DJing career isn’t going to get you into an audition rooms here in Los Angeles. Nobody cares. Get over your ego, humble yourself, and start this new job like you know nothing.” I said it direct and forceful enough – with a few curse words thrown in – that I went, “Okay, I’ll try another approach but you don’t have to be a jerk about it, Gerald.” [Laughs].
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
The ultimate come-to-Gerald moment [laughs].
I did two things. First, I took a piece of paper and split it in half. On the left-hand side of the paper I wrote down everything that I thought I needed to do to help my acting career. On the right-hand side I wrote down everything that I knew I needed to do, but had no clue how or exactly what to do. For example, on the left-hand side it was like, ‘Get new headshot.’ On the right-hand side it was like, ‘Which photographer?’ ‘What do I wear?’ ‘Where do I have them printed?’ The next one was like, ‘Get an agent.’ On the right-hand side, it was ‘Make phone calls.’ ‘Send emails.’ The list on the left was about half a page, and the list on the right was about four pages long. It was overwhelming, so I made myself a promise, and that was to get up every day and take action on one thing on left-hand side of the list, no matter how big or how small.
The second thing that I did was make a list of the few people that I knew who were either in LA, or who were in LA at some point in their lives. I called each one of them and I said, “Listen, I need a favor. I’m really lost, and this is what I want to do with my life. Do you have any advice, or do you know anybody that is in this industry that would take a five-minute phone call from me?”
One of the people I called was my buddy, Mike Hines, who is a singer/songwriter from Delaware. He’d moved to L.A. briefly to pursue his career, and he said, “I took a class from a guy named Mike Pointer. He talks about mindset, and I think you’ll like him. You can audit his class for free.” I immediately Googled this guy and sent him an email, and he replied almost as quickly. The next night I audited his class and was blown away. It probably knocked off a page of the stuff on the right-hand side that I didn’t know. I was like, “So this is what a headshot should look like; this is where you should have them printed; these are some of the photographers that you should look at; this is how you get an agent; this is how you get into an audition.” It was a great class for anyone new to L.A. and the business.
I called another friend, Eugene, who said, “My buddy Mark has been a series regular on four shows. Give him a call, tell him you are my friend, and he will talk to you.” It turns out Mark is Mark Christopher Lawrence, a character actor who has been in movies like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, The Pursuit of Happyness, and the series Chuck. His advice was simple. Get a job so that I have some money coming in, and then get in a class. He showed an amazing amount of grace by taking that cold call and giving me advice. He’s since acted in a bunch of movies that I’ve produced and is in my directorial debut film, $TACK$.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Did things start to click?
I went from 0-to-60. I started auditioning in March, and in April I booked my first feature film. The timing wasn’t good though – I’d already agreed to go on tour with Sammy Hagar starting in May, so I didn’t want to leave because things were starting to ramp up. I went anyway. It was really important to honor the commitment. You have to be your word. So I toured with Sammy Hagar for three months, which was one of the best experiences of my life.
Did the Sammy Hagar tour break your momentum?
Ironically, no. About two weeks before the end of the tour I started going on this electronic casting website and submitting myself. I got back to LA on a Friday night in early September, and I had and audition the next morning. Over the next three months I went on 120 auditions, and I had booked seven or eight different projects. And from taking Mike Pointer’s class, I knew I could audit other classes for free. I audited almost every acting class in town [laughs]. I went to 90 classes in 85 days. This was a great lesson to learn to not create problems that don’t actually exist. The idea of my momentum being broken was a fear I created not reality.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Let’s bounce back to Jam Master Jay for a second. I’ve read where he lined you up for an acting gig.
A pilot called “Espia,” was being shot to present to Showtime with Mike Clattenburg, who was involved in the Trailer Park Boys series, directing. Jay was going to do this big cameo, and they were looking for a real DJ to play one of the lead roles. Jay was like, “Yo, have my boy G come up.” I auditioned, and even though they didn’t give me that role, they encouraged me to pursuing acting. To hear that from people who were in that industry as professionals, that really meant something at the time.
What happened to the pilot?
I don’t believe it ever went anywhere. They ended up giving me a different role in the film, I played a kind of pre-DJ Khaled hype guy at the club. The funny thing is Espia had ESPN’s Max Kellerman in the pilot. It’s kind of hilarious now. Years later I actually had him do a cameo on one of the Sharknado films. I feel bad because, at the last minute, his cameo was cut from the final edit. So Max missed out twice, unfortunately.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Speaking of Sharknado, you have quite the resume as a casting director. How did this come about?
I was a little scared of casting because I didn’t come here to cast. I came here to be an actor. Christopher Ray, who is now my business partner at DeInstitutionalized Films, was directing a movie for The Asylum, which is the company that produced Sharknado. Chris and the casting director didn’t really see eye-to-eye on the talent, so Chris said, “Hey, can you do me a favor? I can’t be in all of these auditions, can you sit in and just make sure that I am getting good choices?” I agreed, as long as I didn’t have an audition myself.
The movie came out and they were really happy with the cast. One of the partners at The Asylum, David Latt, came to me and said that they had another movie starting in two weeks, and he wanted me to cast it for them. I asked for a couple of days to think it over, because, to be really frank about it, I was scared that this was going to get in the way of my own acting career. I could see myself becoming so consumed with auditioning actors for their movies that I’d have to miss my own auditions if my agent called. Well, I went home and thought about it, and I finally just told myself to stop being an idiot…to stop creating problems that aren’t there. Once again, I had to realize that the problem exists when it exists, and when it did I’d figure out how to deal with it. Worst case scenario, if I had to call a bunch of people and reschedule, then I’d call them and reschedule. I worked at that company for the better part of five years, and actually ended up being an executive there. During that time I think I missed two auditions because of conflicts.
I imagine you were working your ass off during this time.
The Asylum was doing a movie every month. I’d cast one, and maybe work in it as an actor, and then jump into another one. The great thing was that I had a job and I was making money, but I was working 70-to-90 hours a week, plus whatever I did onscreen. I loved it, because I was involved in various aspects of the filmmaking process. I learned that some of these casting decisions don’t necessarily go to the best actor. I had a producer one time say, “Great actress, but I can’t cast her because she reminds me of my ex-wife.” I understand that, but I feel sorry for that actress. The truth of it is that there are a million reasons actors don’t get roles, and I got to see the other side of that as casting director. You’re too tall, you’re too short, somebody’s friend got in the door. By having a seat at the table I was able to get to know directors and the producers, and as a result I got placed in plenty of films. I never came at them and said, “I want this role. You need to put me in in this film.” I would audition, or I would have them take a look at my reel, or I might tell them that I’d love to be in their movie if they had a role that fit me.
When it comes to casting a film, what’s the pressure like to land a big name to help carry it?
It’s huge, and I’ll give you an example. My business partner Chris Ray was directing a movie for the Syfy Channel called Almighty Thor. We’re about a week away from filming, and they don’t have any recognizable names to help sell this film. David Latt, COO of The Asylum, approaches me and Chris a bit panicked. He says, “I’ve struck out. I haven’t been able to find any stars for this movie. If you have any ideas please let me know, we’ve only got a few days or Syfy may back out of this deal.” So I made some calls to some agents that I’d been dealing with, and I was able to find a couple of recommendations. One of them was Richard Grieco, who we cast as Loki. Then we got Kevin Nash, a WWE wrestler, who was perfect as Thor’s father, Odin. I got those deals done and the project moved forward without a hitch. Distributors want big names to sell. Without them your road to distribution and profit are rough.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
You have an eye for talent.
Yeah. The next deal comes up, it’s a movie called Zombie Apocalypse. David Latt says, “Read this script and tell me who you think we should hire for the star.” So I read it and gave him my list. He liked it but said that I’d never get any of them to do our movie. I asked him to let me try, and then I went out and got Ving Rhames, Taryn Manning, and Eddie Steeples. At the time, Ving was a really big get for The Asylum, probably one of the biggest names that they’ve ever had.
What’s your secret when it comes to landing stars?
A lot of it was relationships. I’ll talk to their agents and say, “This is what have, who do you have that needs work? Who wants to work? Who’s hungry?” I also look at projects a little differently than most. For example, Ving Rhames is someone who’s known for playing the bad guy, so I’ll go against typecast and offer him the hero role. We’ve had some roles that were written for men, but put star name women in those roles. Kel Mitchell, from The Kenan and Kel Show, is known for comedy. I made him the hero soldier in the Syfy Channel film Battle of Los Angeles. He had never gotten to play that type of role.
I cast a movie called Android Cop for The Asylum. Michael Jai White played the lead detective who later on finds out that he is an android. Kadeem Hardison played one of the other detectives, and Charles Dutton played the mayor. I sent Michael the script, and Michael says, “You’re really going to let me play this role?” He was shocked because these weren’t the types of roles that Hollywood was letting him play. Charles Dutton comes to the set, and he’s like, “I can’t believe you’re letting this many minority guys play these level characters altogether.” But by giving them an opportunity to be a part of something that they weren’t used to seeing, and playing roles that they weren’t used to playing, it made our film better.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
Hollywood needs more champions out there breaking down those typecasting barriers.
Actors want to be challenged. Actors want to break out of the stereotypes that Hollywood wants to impose upon them. It’s a Catch-22. In order to break through in Hollywood, you have to somewhat accept and master the stereotypes that they want you to play, and they want you to master them. Then, as an actor you don’t want to be stuck there, so you have look for roles in independent projects to show Hollywood that you can do other things. I am so happy to see the progress mainstream Hollywood is making in diversity. But there is still a long way to go both in front of and behind the camera. The champions you reference will shine as they have more opportunities as writers, directors, studio executives aka decision makers.
You’ve also been ahead of the curve when it comes to diversity.
I’ve been doing this kind of counter-casting for the past dozen years, well before the whole #OscarsSoWhite controversy and the current Hollywood focus on diversity. But I couldn’t do it in a vacuum. We were working on a movie that was going to star Bai Ling and Christopher Judge from the Stargate series. Paul Bales, one of the partners at The Asylum, backed me from Day One. He said, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sell this movie, but we’re going to give it a try.” I give David Rimawi, David Latt and Paul Bales, the partners at The Asylum, a lot of credit because they embraced my unrelenting push for diversity and allowed a lot of it to happen. They deserve a lot of credit for that, I’ve seen many others use any excuse in veiled attempts to side step diversity. And to your point, our diversity went up dramatically during that period. We started getting notes from networks like Syfy, commenting on how we were getting stars that other companies couldn’t get them. Collectively, we were way ahead of the curve on this and dispelled the old and false narrative that diversity doesn’t sell.
One moment you’re a casting director, the next you’re an executive. You’re busy.
I think my boss must have thought, “Hey, I can offload some work because this guy is good at it.” [Laughs.] So he gave me more responsibility and a promotion to Director of Talent, an executive-level position. Keep in mind, I’m still pursuing acting, and I’m casting the series regulars for the first season of Syfy’s Z Nation series. Then Sharknado comes out of nowhere and I cast that project – Ian Ziering, Tara Reid, John Heard, everyone in that first cast were all my ideas and hires. One of the reasons I got good at what I was doing was because I had no choice but to put the time in. I had to find great casts. I had to find great stars but had limited time and resources at my disposal. One year we did 20+ movies and a TV series, and I oversaw all of that casting. Over a five year period I cast 130+ movies, and a television series. I know casting directors who haven’t done that many projects in their entire careers. So, it turned into a lot, but it was all growth, all challenge, all push. There were few moments to just relax, but there’s a reason The Asylum has been around for 20+ years. They don’t fix things with money. They have a budget, they stick to their budget, and you have to figure out a way to make things work. I learned and grew a lot while working there.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
What do you like most about being an executive?
I think of myself as an executive-in-training. There are some things that I am terrible at, and others that I’m probably pretty good at. I really want to learn how to put bigger projects together. As an executive at The Asylum, and now at DeInstitutionalized Films, I truly enjoy steering projects and having the ability to influence a project at a high level.
People think being an executive is a cushy place, but I think it’s the exact opposite. There is more stress and more work, and you’ve got to wear so many hats. I’m a blue-collar guy. I will get in there and move tables and chairs if that’s what we need on set that day. I have cleaned a toilet. I will help the art department. There are times when I do all of those things, but, there are also times when I shouldn’t be doing any of them because I need to be focused on things that are going to steer the ship better. So, I’m still learning how to delegate, how to handle teams, how to deal with the Millennials that are working for me. There are so many things that still have to be learned, that have to be practiced, that I have to get better at. So what I like the most is the challenge of being an executive-in-training.
Do you have an example of how wearing so many hats forces you to look at things from different perspectives?
We’re working on a series at DeInstitutionalized called FraXtur, which Christopher Ray and I co-produced. I just got the edit of the eight episodes, and while I’m excited to watch them, I’ve got to make time to watch them in a critical manner. I need to be thinking how we can make this better. I might need to send notes to the editor. I might need to pick up the phone and call Chris, who is also the director. If I’m only an actor and project is released with something that doesn’t work, that’s not really my problem. There have been times I’ve worked as an actor on somebody’s else’s set, and it’s just not my place to say something. I may offer my opinion. If they don’t take it they don’t take it. Sometimes Chris and I may butt heads and disagree about something, but, we are both fighting to make the project better from different perspectives. I like having a seat at that table. $TACK$ was an entirely different perspective coming in as writer, director and producer. I saw the whole process from a new angle and it was very enlightening.
Photo Courtesy Gerald Webb
You’ve acted with Danny DeVito. Tell me about that.
I booked an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and when the time comes I’m like, “Wait a minute, I’m doing a scene with Danny DeVito!” That’s the cool thing about acting. Tomorrow I could be doing a scene with any actor in the industry. I could get an audition tomorrow, and the next thing you know I am opposite Patrick Stewart. Or Viola Davis. Even now, the idea of ever acting with Danny DeVito never seemed possible…at least until he was standing right there in front of me. It’s a wonderful reminder that truly – anything is possible. Also that most limits and barriers are ones we create or at least accept ourselves.
You not only hired Ving Rhames, you’ve acted with him.
I had a death scene with Ving – I was the token black guy who dies at the beginning of the movie [laughs]. To make it worse, I cast myself in that token role, so I’ll take full blame for that. Seriously, acting with Ving was great. I was in the scene with Ving, Eddie Steeples, Taryn Manning, and Lesley-Ann Brandt among others. The zombies swarm me and started biting, and I’m trying to get away. It’s actually two death scenes in one because I turn into a zombie and they have to kill me all over again. Well, we’re walking back to base camp after filming and Ving says, “Yo, Webb, that was nice man. That was a really nice death scene, brother.” I laughed so hard! That was a really cool moment. . It was also a critical moment in my development as an actor. It confirmed for me that I was ready to stand opposite anyone in the business as long as I prepared and did my work.
I’ve read where you did a scene with Malcolm McDowell. What was that like?
That was incredible. I play an INS agent, and Malcolm McDowell’s character has married this young woman to get her citizenship. My partner and I are trying to find holes in their stories, so I’m interviewing Malcolm and my partner is interviewing the young wife. The scene is supposed to be played like something from Dragnet – no joking, dead serious – because we’ve got to catch this guy. The whole time the camera is on me, Malcolm McDowell is trying to make me laugh. The whole time. And I have to stay serious! Score one for me, and take one away from Malcolm, because he didn’t break me. As soon as we were done I said, “I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t break me in there.” He just started chuckling. Malcolm McDowell was a lot of fun. . I think somewhere in the back of my mind I could hear Ving Rhames’ voice saying “Yo Webb, Malcolm McDowell can’t break you, brother!”
Those are memories to last a lifetime.
Yeah. I just did a scene with Jessica Alba and Gabrielle Union for the show called LA’s Finest, which is on Spectrum. They play two LAPD detectives. Traditionally that would’ve been two men. So that was a really cool moment, being in a scene with strong, talented women in non-traditional roles. Being nominated for an Emmy as a producer is something else I’ll never forget. Winning our first Telly Award was another. Being on the set of $TACK$ as a first time director was amazing. You never want to take these things for granted.
We talked about fear in terms to taking risks. Have you ever acted in something that, for whatever reason, has scared the shit out of you?
I just did an episode of a show called 9-1-1 for Fox. I’m playing a sergeant with Ryan Guzman, one of the series regulars, and I’m in one of his flashbacks when he was a medic in Afghanistan. I get to location, and they have a real Black Hawk helicopter there. The guy goes, “Are you okay going up in this?” I spent two days flying around in a Black Hawk helicopter! With the door open! Who gets to do that? When those rotors are spinning and you walk underneath the blades and out to the helicopter for the first time, you have some fear. When you go up you’re really scared, but you’re an actor so you’ve got to be a professional [laughs].
Final Question: If you had one piece of advice for others who aspire to get into the acting game, what would that be?
Two things: First, be really clear about what you want. If you can get to a place and stay quiet and still enough to really listen, something is already speaking to you. Second, you have to be willing to humble yourself and do the work. I feel like we’re living in a time when so many people don’t want to really do the work. They want to work as much as the person next to them, maybe a little bit more, but at the end of the day that only makes you average. You’re not getting ahead in this industry just being average. Be honest with yourself about where you are in your journey, the quality and amount of work you’re willing to put in etc.