Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 0:00

Hi, today we have Darwin Shaw with us. He is an actor, filmmaker, former physician, and Academy Award-nominated producer whose work spans blockbuster films, acclaimed television, and award-winning independent cinema. From Casino Royale and Homeland to his Oscar-nominated producing work, he's built a career defined by compelling storytelling. Thanks so much for being on, Darwin.

Darwin Shaw 0:24

Thanks so much for having me.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 0:25

So I wanted to first talk about you started your career off as a physician. What made you decide to change paths?

Darwin Shaw 0:34

Well, I was born in the north of England, and the opportunities for being in the media weren't really a possibility at that time. And I went to medical school because I always wanted to be involved in service and making a change to the world. And I went to London and spent seven years training and worked as a house physician and uh surgeon for a year. And then I had a six-month period when I had a sabbatical and I went to New York. And a friend of mine had given me the Artist's Way book to read. And one of the suggestions were was to have a more creative life and to just do other things that inspire you. And through doing this book, this course, I ended up in an acting class where I met my first acting teacher, Bruce Ornstein, which completely transformed my life. I just fell in love and got the bug so strongly, I kind of knew immediately that this is what I was going to have to do. And you know, that started this long journey of working in the arts, really. Well, I think as a director, it definitely is very helpful because you know one of the skills you you learn is to problem solve and perform under very high stress situations and keep calm when everything is going crazy around you. So that's a very direct access into the world. I think as a as an actor, it was kind of the reverse, really, because I think for me, my experience of training as a doctor really blunted me to human emotion because it's not really you don't want your doctor crying when you're telling them a sad story, you know, or you're explaining the challenges in your life. You want someone to be able to have a certain amount of distance. And it's always a balance between compassion and empathy, but also professionalism. And that was one of the big things that I had to, and I still am in the process of of growth as an actor, is being much more reactive to what's happening. It's very easy to blunt your emotions, whereas acting is kind of the opposite. You're supposed to you've got to have the emotions even if you're covering them. So I think that, you know, that was one of the things that really, really drew me to to being an actor is that I really regained my empathy and like a deep connection with humanity.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 3:11

Well, yeah. I mean, as a psychologist, I'm deeply relating to what you're saying about emotions. And I've actually have taken some acting classes and I've noticed that about myself. It's really hard to like you, it's almost like you spend so much time learning how to not feel things and not be impacted. Because, you know, when you're dealing with people's trauma all the day, it can like you need to be able to put up certain walls. But enacting that definitely you need to be able to take them down.

Darwin Shaw 3:43

Yeah, and I don't I don't think it's even a conscious thing. You just you just it's a sort of uh inherent self-protection, and you know, you can't be dealing with someone dying and then three minutes later being a complete wreck when you go and see your next patient who has another problem. You just learn to keep going and sort of blunt, I think, a little bit of your emotional experience. And that's for me, being an actor is not pretending, it's about having you know, bringing your truth to the parts you play. And that involves being emotionally accessible, and that's what we want to see as an audience.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 4:19

Yeah. Do you think you would be able to go back and be a physician again?

Darwin Shaw 4:26

I think I probably could, because I think you get into the environment and you have a certain amount of triggers which would switch you back into that, into that way. You know, I think in the same way as an actor, you you can be playing a a horrible character or uh a vulnerable character and you can switch in and out of that. I do think that I don't you know I don't really want to do that, and that you know, and it's and it's uh if I was to be a to work in a therapeutic place again, you know, I think one of the things that I would bring is is being connecting, better at communication and better at emotional understanding in a way which I probably didn't fully understand before.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 5:09

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. In experiencing success and working with successful people, are there psychological traits that you notice that others don't have as strongly or as much?

Darwin Shaw 5:21

Well, it's really nice for you to say that. I'm I'm not sure how successful I am, but I definitely have the thing which I think is really important, which is grit. I wouldn't have been able to carry on fulfilling this dream and a joy of what it is to be an artist if I was too concerned with financial success, for example. Because being an actor for the majority, the 99.9% of people, it is a struggle. You go through periods where it's a lot of soul searching, you sometimes don't know how you're gonna pay your rent that month, and it takes its toll. So I think one of the things for me is is just finding a way to survive financially and to have the you know, have the spirit to keep going. And I think you can only do that if you truly love the art, if you're if you're doing it for some other reason, and we all have a bit of that, but if you're not really truly fully in belief about what you're doing, I think it's difficult to keep going. So what I see in in the people who I think are successful, which are the people who are still doing it, is great passion, great love for the art. Success is a different thing. There's working with some of the well-known movie stars and actors, they generally are really great people. They're very open and on the whole, and very kind and great leaders. But in the in the movie industry it's different. There's certain other, you know, you can get to a certain level of fame and stardom where you need to protect your own space because you're constantly giving. People are constantly wanting things from you. So I think you know, being a star and being successful are two different things.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 7:07

Interesting. And I guess so do there are stars that you think you wouldn't call successful because maybe they're just like giving too much?

Darwin Shaw 7:14

No, I don't think so. Uh I just think it depends on on the personality. Some people are more robust, some people are more introverted. I mean, not all actors are are really forthcoming. A good example was I had a small part on the uh Colin Farrell show called Sugar, and I hadn't worked for a while, and I was quite nervous. And he just came in and was just so charming and so kind and thoughtful that he completely made my experience incredibly good for that period of time I was on the set. And he didn't need to do that, you know. Some people would have just stayed in their trailer, yet he's you know, very experienced, very talented, and you know, was able just to come and take my energy and and dissipate it. So someone like that is a classic example of successful and a movie star.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 8:04

Yeah.

Darwin Shaw 8:05

But you know, working with some people, especially if you're trying to do a very challenging piece of work if it's if it's very internal, you know, lots of people want to come and get some FaceTime with you. Even for myself, if I'm if I'm having to go into a space where I'm, you know, got to find a very tender moment and one of the background artists comes and wants to say hi, I would want to try and speak to them, but sometimes you have to be like, hey, like later, you know, I need to be in the zone, you know. And you know, and with social media as well, there is so many actors who some of the younger ones who are still not fully engaged because they're also in the world of of Instagram. And for me as a director, I really wanted not to have any phones on set, you know, apart from when real necessary. So when you're doing the work, you're doing the work, you know. And it's funny, I I went, I've been doing this uh I'm just filming at the moment on a show called The Chosen, and there was quite a lot of time beforehand on set, and it was in this beautiful location with fantastic actors, and immediately I was like, Oh, I want to take photos, and I was like, wait a minute, you know, practice what you preach. Like, even though the what I needed for that scene wasn't, you know, it was a wasn't a emotional scene, it's just about focus, and you know, I think wherever you are, the most important thing is to be focused. And and I've also worked with well-known actors. I remember doing a stage play very early on, very famous and incredible actor called Simon Russell Beale would just be doing Sudoku the moment before, and he was just like he could sit do the Sudoko, put it down, go on and be amazing. And it's just, you know, it there's no one kind of actor. There's so much luck and so much uh so much to do with the way you look and casting. You have to find your own way.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 10:02

Definitely. I mean, I think particularly with acting, I'm oh, rejection is part of every type of creative career. How have you dealt with the rejection without allowing it to affect your sense of self?

Darwin Shaw 10:15

I mean, you're assuming it hasn't affected my sense of self. I mean, I think it's it's it's very hard. I think I've over the years I've learned just to let it go, which is really hard because the the drive to be successful and to have one thing leading to another, which is how the industry seems to work, is very strong. But you can't really control I mean, none of us can really control our lives, but particularly you can't control your career. You can do things to support it. But for me, I think that starting to write and create my own work was the way that I've dealt with rejection because I have control of that. I'm able to tell more of the stories that I want to tell and grow. I think as an actor, if you know, at a certain point you need to be performing. So if you're not doing theatre, even if you're on set and working quite a lot, that could still only be a few days a year. That's not enough to keep your instrument strong, and it's I want to grow more than you know, more than that. And a lot of our work is auditioning. So we're constantly auditioning, and that is actually the the work of being an actor most of the time for most people. So yeah, I I think just finding ways of being creative, being finding ways of of having a life outside what you do. For me, it's it's not really that far outside. It is it is writing and and directing. But I think the people who get you know, it's very easy. I think most of us as actors, when we particularly in the first the first decade, it's very all-encompassing. But if you don't create some bounces or some protection, you can end up feeling, you know, very heartbroken. And it's like we we gamble with time, you know, with the amount of hours one puts into developing an acting career. Even if you were successful, I I'm sure if you kind of figured out how much you were getting paid an hour, it would probably be a dollar or something, you know, because it's there's so much work you put in, even just to get the smallest part. So part of it is, you know, learning. I think early on I was m I was doing a lot more meditation and yoga and that sort of stuff. Now I find a good workout in the gym is a good way of just, you know, focusing on something which I can control, you know.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 12:36

Yeah. Have there been any major like failures or setbacks that you in hindsight see as defining moments in your career?

Darwin Shaw 12:45

God loads. I mean, you know, forgetting your lines on I mean, at drama school I remember doing a play and I forgot my lines, and that haunted me for ages. It's a very vulnerable thing that we do. You're putting yourself out there and you forget the nine good reviews, but you'll never forget the one bad one. There is the business side of things, and you know, I've made mistakes where I've been too enthusiastic in places, or you know, I've I came off quite a big job some years ago and got a smaller job afterwards. And you know, I think I was feeling a little bit less inspired by this job and because I just played this big, huge role. And I think I was probably a little bit casual, you know, and not not giving it the same energy. I wish I'd I'd not done that, you know. And you you know, it's it is a process of learning, you know, it's also very exciting, you know. I look back at some of my early jobs, and I probably could have been a little less fun, you know. Um but you know, everybody you find your way, and we've all done auditions where we've gone in and completely screwed it up. And you go back to your car and you sort of put your head in your hands and start sobbing because you're like, that was the worst experience of my life. And uh, you know, I've never had that experience outside of acting. But you know, we we we care so much about what we're doing, and the pressure can be very, very high. So you need to find ways of of taking that off because nobody wants to see the actor being stressed inside a character.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 14:29

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You've also worked on everything from blockbuster films to projects with more of like a strong social mission. For you, what makes a project feel like it's worth dedicating years of your life to in some cases?

Darwin Shaw 14:47

Again, partly to do with chance, you know. Um the thing that I've just directed and I'm just working on the edit at the moment is a project that I'm doing with two friends called Children of Chaos. And it's set in the homeless community of Las Vegas, and we've managed to create a story which we hope will be a TV series which will explore the lives of these people. And that came to me because my friend had written a sort of pilot episode of this story, and I just thought it was a really it was really different to what I'd done before, and it was about something which is so prevalent in the world, very much in America, and I thought Las Vegas was a really good location, set a good setting to contrast kind of the excesses of of a country and also the side of it where vulnerable people are are lost or they who become invisible. So that for me was it was that story came to me and and I just felt I was in a place where I really wanted to focus on creating something right then. And you know, you get into the story and then you start, you know, so it's an investigative process often being you know in the creative arts like this. You start to explore, and then uh the more you find out, the more you go, this is incredible. And gosh, this this is actually something useful that we can we can do by trying to bring these people's lives to the screen.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 16:21

I hope that becomes a TV series too.

Darwin Shaw 16:24

I would love to watch it.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 16:26

Okay, so we're we're almost out of time, but my last question is if someone listening is talented but they feel afraid to take the next step towards the life that they want, what's something that you would want them to hear?

Darwin Shaw 16:40

Well, I would just tell them to go and do the artist's way. If it was just about something you're scared to do in life, I truly believe that we all have a lot of abilities that we are unaware of. And I think if you again, if you're doing something because you're passionate about it and you're really interested about it from you know, from a core level, not because of the trappings, whether it be being a lawyer or a an artist or or a doctor or anything, if it's something which is you know coming from not from your head but from your heart, I just think that we all are capable of doing things wa way beyond what we imagine we can. And I think, you know, focus and doing things with joy. Like when you do things with joy, it doesn't matter. Because you're not dependent on the result, first of all, but also spending hours, you know, like at the moment I'm editing until like two in the morning, three in the morning, and it doesn't it just feels like I blinked my eye and suddenly it's you know dawn is arriving, and it's because you know it's something which I I really care about. So I think that's the hardest thing for us all is to kind of find something that we that feels like something we want to devote ourselves to. And it's easy to kind of sublimate that into socializing or partying or, you know, distractions, t TV, you know, social media. But for me, I was lucky that I found this. And I only and I only did because I was really inquisitive about the world at that, particularly at that age, you know, I was still exploring and traveling. And I was working part-time in a bar when I was studying, and it was through meeting people who had a very different lifestyle to me at that time. I suddenly was aware that, well, there's there's different ways of living your life other than the more conventional path. And obviously, you know, it was a very fortunate position to be in. And there are, you know, there are compromises and there are sacrifices you do, which we're you know, we're reminded of every day when we look at social media about all these people with you know lots of material goods. But I do feel that I've had a so far pretty interesting and varied life, and you know, that's not something which is input price on it. And although it's hard at times, and sometimes I think, what am I doing? This is crazy. Um you know, every now and then you create something which you can actually be proud of, or even you know, and you should be proud of it, even if it's not brilliant, you know, because it's part of your evolution as a creative or as a person.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 19:26

Do you ever particularly when you were starting, were you ever did you ever think like, oh, maybe I should just go back to being a doctor?

Darwin Shaw 19:33

This is never. Never. But I didn't expect it to work. I wasn't, you know, I didn't I mean the idea of being in a play was to get cast in anything would have been was already beyond my dream. And as soon as I you know, when I got my first job and I flew to South Africa and I filmed this show about I was playing Adam in the story of creation, and suddenly I was in the sand dunes and in Cape Town, staying in a hotel which was already beyond my experience in like a five-star hotel. And it's like it was so thrilling and so exciting and so new. Again, it's like it's feast and famine, so you have these experiences, and then you go back to the uncertainty. I think it's only as time goes by that you once you've repeated that a few times, you you start to realise, well, I can do this and I'm not too bad at it. But then you then you come into contact with the industries, they could talk about it uh in terms of how people are cast, and and then there's so many things which are out of your control. But you never know when you you know whether you know as times change, new opportunities approach, technology's changing, we don't know what's going to happen. There's a lot of uncertainty, a lot of people are leaving. But you know, I'm sticking in there.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 20:57

Good.

Darwin Shaw 20:58

I don't know if I answered your question, and I kind of started drawing.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 21:00

Well you did that very much. Like in the face of uncertainty, I mean it seems like part of what's driven your success is you made up your mind and you stuck with it. And it's not that it's been easy. It's just been that you haven't given up on it.

Darwin Shaw 21:19

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I I'm still, you know, every day is uh is still out of the chipping away at the rock.

Dr. Rebecca Rose Payne 21:28

Yeah. Well, thank you so much for coming on. This has been such a pleasure to have you, and I really appreciate it.

Darwin Shaw 21:35

Thank you so much. It's lovely talking to you.