Scott Takeda – The Outsider

By: Paige Zinaman

Q) What are some of the newest projects you have coming up?

A) I just shot a Lifetime film-made for TV movie called Hunted by my Ex I think that will either come out this Fall or sometime early next year so that should be kind of fun. I play the best friend of the evil husband. I recently shot a guest spot on Comedy Central’s “Drunk History” so that’s very exciting. I can’t say anything about it, but it will be in the Season Five premiere. As a director, we just got our film into the Denver Film Festival, which I’m so excited about! It’s a very, very nice festival so I’m working with the cast to try and get them all from LA to walk the red carpet on that. I’m doing an independent film called Lucy With the Facts I believe. It’s a dramedy about elections. I just recently shot a short film in LA it was part of a USC Masters of Fine Arts thing so that was kind of cool. I’m always reading for stuff, constantly looking for stuff.

Q) What can you tell us about your film The Outsider?

A) It’s a dramedy. It explores the idea of what it means to belong. I think we all as humans seek and crave to belong to something and I specifically explore it when it comes to families. I’m retelling the story of my wife entering my family. I have a very large family and that’s not an exaggeration. I could send out an email saying, “Hey, we are having a BBQ this Saturday,” and dozens will show up. She came from a much smaller family and then we are also a mixed-race couple. She’s of German decent from North Dakota and I’m Japanese decent so the classic meet-the-family moment kind of happened when she met the family at a traditional ceremonial event called “Mochitsuki,” which the making of the rice balls called Mochi. She kind of got overwhelmed by the culture and the sheer number of people and she felt like an outsider in that situation so we kind of explore what it’s like to be an insider and an outsider.

Q) You’re the writer, director and producer of The Outsider. How was it juggling these roles while also starring in it?

A) It’s hard doing multiple roles, I’ll be honest with you. I think when you look at standard films you see “writer/director” a lot. We are in an industry now where hyphenation is where it’s writer/director or director/producer and I think writer/director is very common to see. But actor/director is very challenging, especially when I’m in so many scenes. This means I cannot be behind the monitor seeing the performances, whether not I’m seeing my performance to guide it to what I’m looking for as a director or if I’m in like the background and I can’t look at our really talented actor Kate Cook during that. So, it’s really challenging that’s why I’m so grateful to have two amazing producers on the project my lovely bride Lori Allred and my good friend Brock Sherman who are also directors where they can be at the monitor and help me co-direct me while I was on screen. I was really grateful to have a really talented team to help bring this story forward.

Q) The Outsider will be premiering at the Denver Film Festival this November. How do you prepare both physically and mentally for something so big?

A) I think for me it’s just kind of exciting because I’ve had the honor of being part of festivals like Toronto and New York. Toronto I was there for Dallas Buyers Club and in New York for “Lost Girl.” This is exciting because I am there as the writer and director so for me it’s a shared experience because my bride is a producer on the project and my best friend is also a producer. We cast three close friends from LA to do the project too so for me it’s not just about me it’s about the team. So, I think for me it’s being able to celebrate a group of professionals who happen to be friends too.

Q) What’s going to make The Outsider different from any other films out there?

A) I just hope people enjoy it. A goal we have as filmmakers is take universal stories and putting a personal spin on it. It doesn’t matter if you go back to the Cave Men and their cave drawings or the Romans and their graffiti, which is where the term comes from. But they each tell their story and I think that storytelling is how we have our shared experience of you’re not alone and we know what it’s like to be an outsider. And that’s what I hope people can take away is that they can see themselves on the screen and think they have a better understanding of life.

Q) What’s the main message or the takeaway you want the viewers to have when they see The Outsider?

A) The first one is that we are all outsiders and that the need to belong is universal and this need to belong is seen everywhere. This is about a mixed-race couple so first of all I put some of my family in there. So, it’s pretty cool to see them, but also you don’t get to see a lot of Japanese faces on screen and there is very much a downhome family and getting together and enjoying each other’s company. So, it’s not like sitting down and watching a cultural documentary. It’s very relatable. We like to take universal themes and putting a personal spin on it.

Q) You’re also starring alongside Laura Dern and Jason Ritter in The Tale. What can you tease about that and your character?

A) The Tale is a really fascinating film and I can’t wait for it to come out. We shot it a few years ago and I think they’ve been putting some finishing touches on it. I think they originally thought it would come out this Fall and they may be targeting it for some festivals that come out in early Spring. It is a film that is like an investigative thriller. It obviously stars Laura Dern and she’s a documentary film maker who gets a phone call from her mother who discovers a journal that Jennifer (Laura Dern) had written a long time ago that talks about an event that was very troubling that Jennifer doesn’t remember. Being a documentary film maker, she starts investigating her own life and starting to talk to the people from her past and starts unraveling if her current memory is correct or if the tale she has in the diary correct. I kind of come on near end of the end of the film as she starts to realize what truly happened as a young girl.

Q) What draws you to the roles you take?

A) I love characters that I think are really authentically real, that are human. I like characters that have three dimensional-ness to them. They have flaws. It’s always nice to say I can play this wonderfully nice perfect individual, but it’s kind of boring. It’s nice to play a character that has depth and has wants and longings and flaws and secrets because I think it’s real and authentic and I think that is what everyone is. I think as storytellers we have this responsibility and privilege to tell a story to help kind of make everyone go, “Oh! I see myself in them. I don’t feel so alone anymore.”

Q) What is something you take away from each role you play and do you apply it to the new projects you do?

A) I think filming or television making is a collaborative business., I think from my experience as an actor in looking at what other really talented directors I kind of see how they operate. One of the things I love to do when I’m on set and not in scene is hang around and see how the producers and cinematographers work and implement it. I’ve had the luxury of seeing how really good directors run a set and as a director try it myself. As an actor, I’m constantly reading scripts all the times so I’m seeing really good script writing so I’m bringing that and again as a director I’m also trying to be very conscious of how to direct actors and to what they want. And sometimes actors just say “Say it louder!” and sometimes actors sometimes what to be inspired by why say it louder and find something inside of you trigger emotions in that moment. And as an actor I can use that as a director to tell the story and how I want it.

Q) Can you tease about any upcoming appearances on “Days of Our Lives” as Dr. Lee?

A) That’s a great question, but I cannot. I would love to it would be kind of fun, but it would ruin everything so I cannot say what’s happening or coming up. But one thing I can say that I don’t think fans know this is the entire cast is so incredibly nice. And I know you’re supposed to say that, but it really is true. Every time I go back on set it is like old times and it’s always nice because people go, “Hey Scott! It’s nice to have you back!” And everyone behind the scenes are nice. They play really mean people and do really mean things on television but the actors doing that are very, very nice behind the scenes.

Q) You are a part of social media. Do you enjoy the instant fan feedback you receive to projects?

A) Yeah! There’s a lot of fun about the back and forth. It’s always interesting because the other day I got someone who complemented me on Dallas Buyers Club and it was like, “Wow! Thank you!” And that was nice. I’ve also gotten involved in interesting discussions sometimes with fans and social media has been interesting too because as a film maker we started collaborating years ago with a music composer who reached out to me on social media. So, it’s been interesting tool to shrink the world a little bit. We no longer have distances that separate us. We have this little device called a computer or a smart phone that allows us to communicate with the world.

Q) What would you like to say to everyone who is a fan and supporter of you and your work?

A) Thank you! It’s kind of an honor that people are watching and noticing. At least from my perspective, often times I’m so focused on the script or what does the writer want or what are they trying to set up. So, a lot of times I get caught up in the story and lose fact along the lines that an audience is going to see this and be impacted by this which is why we do what we do. It’s a nice reminder when folks are out there watching and supporting and I can go, “Oh cool! It worked! Thank you!” So, I would say thank you to everyone. Deeply.