From Pastor's Kid to Screen Success

Matt: 00:00:00

Hello, friends.

Matt: 00:00:01

Welcome to yet another wonderful episode of the Faith and Family Filmmakers podcast.

Matt: 00:00:07

I am your humble host, Matt Chastain.

Matt: 00:00:09

Very, very honored today to have one of the, uh, most positive voices you'll ever hear on this or any other podcast, miss Anita Cordell.

Matt: 00:00:18

Now if you know her, you know this is true.

Matt: 00:00:19

She blends professionalism with fun.

Matt: 00:00:22

As a, a speaker, a podcaster, a bestselling author, or a realtor, an actress, an agent.

Matt: 00:00:29

I'm pretty sure she's also a, a forklift operator and a dental hygienist, maybe a college professor.

Matt: 00:00:34

I don't know.

Matt: 00:00:35

You got a long list of hat you wear there, miss Anita.

Anita: 00:00:38

gimme any ideas 'cause I just might run with it.

Matt: 00:00:40

Driving a forklift is fun.

Matt: 00:00:42

I'm not gonna lie.

Matt: 00:00:43

I would do that some days rather than the things I have to do, staring at a computer screen, but.

Matt: 00:00:48

Well, that's awesome.

Matt: 00:00:49

So now I, I wanna just wanna start from, 'cause you and I don't know each other, we've not worked together before.

Matt: 00:00:53

So I just wanna get to know who you are and how that led to where you are.

Matt: 00:00:57

And so the first thing is you're, you're a pastor's kid and that can mean a lot.

Matt: 00:01:01

One of many different things for people.

Matt: 00:01:03

So tell me about growing up as a pastor's kid.

Anita: 00:01:06

Well, you know, it's part of who I am.

Anita: 00:01:08

It's part of my story, it's part of my testimony as well.

Anita: 00:01:12

My dad admittedly will say this now, but he was very, very strict and he was, very legalistic, and so I grew up.

Anita: 00:01:21

From that realm.

Anita: 00:01:22

But I also grew up kind of in that glass house where people knew about us and so they knew about his rules.

Anita: 00:01:29

I had to wear dresses all the time.

Anita: 00:01:31

I couldn't, you know, wear makeup and had to be careful with our hair length nail polish and even number of rings on our hands.

Anita: 00:01:38

And so that kind of a thing.

Anita: 00:01:40

But you know, I wouldn't have changed it.

Matt: 00:01:43

Where did you grow up?

Anita: 00:01:44

I grew up most of my life was in Leavenworth, Kansas, which is, if you've heard of the big federal penitentiary, that's where, yeah, that's where, most of my life was at.

Anita: 00:01:55

But I've also lived in Denver, New Mexico.

Anita: 00:01:57

I was born in Oklahoma, and so yeah, we moved around.

Matt: 00:02:02

you're a Midwestern girl at heart though, I guess.

Anita: 00:02:05

I'm I.

Matt: 00:02:06

I love it.

Matt: 00:02:07

I love it.

Matt: 00:02:08

You know the Midwestern growing up, Midwestern I think helps a lot of people in acting because it puts you accent wise, right in the middle where you need to be.

Matt: 00:02:16

So then you can pivot and do any other accent.

Matt: 00:02:18

Here in the south, you know when you grew up like I did, talking like ish Israel here, and then they put you in 10th grade and trying to teach you Shakespeare, they have to train that accent out of you to take you to Kansas so that you can kind of hopefully do other things.

Anita: 00:02:32

Yeah, and then you gotta come here and learn it all.

Matt: 00:02:34

Uh, that's exactly right.

Matt: 00:02:36

Exactly right.

Matt: 00:02:37

So let's just, uh, you, you know, one thing about your bio, it talks about some, some challenging experiences that you had growing up that kind of fuel your, your mission and, and inspire you to, to offer hope to everybody else.

Matt: 00:02:48

I.

Anita: 00:02:48

Yeah.

Anita: 00:02:49

You know, one of the things that I do wanna mention is that even though my dad was very, very strict.

Anita: 00:02:55

Growing up as a pastor's kid, one of the things that I was always getting put into my face was a microphone.

Anita: 00:03:03

And my dad would, you know, say, here, go pray.

Anita: 00:03:07

Go sing a song.

Anita: 00:03:08

Go play your clarinet.

Anita: 00:03:10

And that's kind of, you know, I wanna encourage parents, especially because.

Anita: 00:03:15

I was not comfortable.

Anita: 00:03:16

I'm actually a true introvert and it, it was not comfortable for me oftentimes to be on stage, but it was just something that we did.

Anita: 00:03:26

It was part of our lifestyle.

Anita: 00:03:28

But there's this verse in the Bible that says, train up a child in the way he should go.

Anita: 00:03:32

And when he is old, he won't depart.

Anita: 00:03:33

And I have a little bit of a different perspective from that verse.

Anita: 00:03:37

A lot of times we are raised.

Anita: 00:03:38

That if you have your children memorize scripture or you talk about the Bible or you talk about scripture and you're training them so that when they're old, they will come back if they're wayward or they will stay in that mission.

Anita: 00:03:53

But I also believe that scripture means to train up a child in their bent and when they're old.

Anita: 00:04:01

They will not depart from that bent.

Anita: 00:04:03

And I believe that my dad, without even knowing what he was doing, he was training me up to be a speaker, to be on stage, to be on camera, to live a life to where that I became more comfortable because he was kind of, in essence training me in that way.

Anita: 00:04:21

And I give him honor because I would not be really where I am today.

Anita: 00:04:27

And yet, there are times when we.

Anita: 00:04:30

Have that child who makes poor choices or who makes decisions that might be in disalignment with the path that God would have us go on.

Anita: 00:04:39

And I did that.

Anita: 00:04:40

I was pretty much a great, you know, kid straight in the narrow.

Anita: 00:04:44

And then I fell short with one relationship.

Anita: 00:04:48

And in that relationship.

Anita: 00:04:50

I lost my virginity and got pregnant in the same week, and it revolutionized my life.

Anita: 00:04:56

I was scared of my dad and I pursued an abortion and I had, there was a friend of mine who, um, was at the church and he told me that if the board members found out about my pregnancy, they would fire him.

Anita: 00:05:10

And so I went on a pursuit to try and save money and I was a waitress and I started putting.

Anita: 00:05:17

My tip money into an envelope, and I had went to Planned Parenthood and all the stories that you hear are true.

Anita: 00:05:25

They did not let me listen to the heartbeat or any of that, and I left there knowing the price that I needed to raise so that no one would find out.

Anita: 00:05:34

And lo and behold, I would save the money in the envelope and put my tip money in there, and all of a sudden my tire would blow.

Anita: 00:05:43

An electorate bill would come.

Anita: 00:05:44

I mean, it was like God had his hand on my envelope and I came to realize that I need not go down that pathway.

Anita: 00:05:54

And my girl is 32 years old and I have four grand babies today.

Anita: 00:06:00

And the hope that I give to people is to just realize that God.

Anita: 00:06:05

Has his hand on our envelopes even when we are trying to make decisions that aren't in alignment with him.

Matt: 00:06:16

Thank you for sharing that story.

Matt: 00:06:17

That is a, that is a chilling story.

Matt: 00:06:19

I mean, you, you get the chills just listening to you tell it.

Matt: 00:06:22

I feel like, I mean, look, Jesus talked to us in parables.

Matt: 00:06:26

We are a people who, who learn more through story than we do through expositional preaching.

Matt: 00:06:31

And I, I go to the parable of the prodigal son.

Matt: 00:06:34

Kind of relating this to filmmaking, we let the preachers or the big brothers in the parable kind of be the storytellers and, and sometimes who tells better stories or who has better stories from which to pull, um, are the little brothers.

Matt: 00:06:47

We've all been little brothers at a time, but when we stray and we get into gritty situations, God is training us.

Matt: 00:06:54

The suffering is training us and then in when bringing us back with arms wide open, I'm sorry, but that person has better stories to tell than the, than the person who's been behind a legalistic pulpit their entire life.

Matt: 00:07:05

So maybe that's what slung you into a career in storytelling?

Matt: 00:07:08

I.

Anita: 00:07:08

I don't know.

Anita: 00:07:09

It could been, I wasn't actually on a mission to be this film actress.

Anita: 00:07:15

I never would have put this into my world, and now I've been in over a hundred commercials and over 60 movies.

Anita: 00:07:22

But that little girl.

Anita: 00:07:26

That, that little girl, she was five years old and I was a single mom, never got married until she was seven, but she was five at the time.

Anita: 00:07:34

And I started going to this inner city church and they put on this huge, huge production every Christmas.

Anita: 00:07:40

I mean, we're talking 150 members of the church were cast plus the crew.

Anita: 00:07:46

There were angels flying all over the, the tabernacle.

Anita: 00:07:49

You know, they brought in crew from Las Vegas.

Anita: 00:07:52

To whip up the, the cranes and, and the whole, I mean, it was a huge production and my daughter wanted to be a little angel in the heaven scene.

Anita: 00:08:00

And so I thought, you know, I'll go ahead and sign her up to be it, and, and I'll just sit and, and take care of all the little kiddos and help in the backstage with all the little kiddos.

Anita: 00:08:10

And she's there.

Anita: 00:08:11

And the director came up to me one day at practice and said, Anita.

Anita: 00:08:16

We have these 30 little angels that need to get guided down to the heaven scene down the big middle aisle of the sanctuary, and we need an adult angel that would just lead them down.

Anita: 00:08:28

You don't have to talk, you don't have to do anything.

Anita: 00:08:31

You know, just put on the angel scene, raise your hands and lead them down this aisle.

Anita: 00:08:36

Would you do this for us?

Anita: 00:08:38

And I was like, okay, I'll do that.

Anita: 00:08:40

That's totally fine.

Anita: 00:08:42

so this production notoriously would, would do like five.

Anita: 00:08:46

Productions each weekend, two weekends in a row, and there were people from all over, like 10,000 people would see this play every year, and about 1500 people would get saved every year from this.

Anita: 00:08:57

Well, she asked me after the production was all over.

Anita: 00:09:00

She said, Anita, I don't know what it is, but.

Anita: 00:09:03

I believe that God wants me to ask you, would you consider prayerfully being on our traveling drama team?

Anita: 00:09:10

So I was like, what I, this introvert girl and I have like no acting training or anything and I said yes, and I helped with this big production every year and made different roles in the very last year.

Anita: 00:09:25

I actually was one of the lead characters in this musical.

Anita: 00:09:28

And I remember walking on the stage and.

Anita: 00:09:32

It was the dress rehearsal night.

Anita: 00:09:34

I got there a little bit early and at this time God was starting to stir into me to get into film and it was already kind of a desire in my heart.

Anita: 00:09:42

A friend of mine had shown me some commercial she was in, and it was already it was brewing and I was kind of hoping that maybe an agent would come and see and sign me up, and you know how it is.

Anita: 00:09:52

As an actor, we kind of want that.

Anita: 00:09:54

I was walking along this stage and I was thanking God for the opportunity because when we get put into roles such as this, we know, or we should know that there is a huge responsibility there.

Anita: 00:10:06

It's not just the accolades and doing great and, and getting the praises and having the opportunity, but we also have a responsibility to live a life.

Anita: 00:10:18

To where that when people see us on and off the stage, it's consistent with our faith.

Anita: 00:10:23

And so I was standing there and walking along the stages and looking at the lights and I was like, God, thank you so much for this opportunity.

Anita: 00:10:31

I just thank you.

Anita: 00:10:33

I'm tearing up because he's spoken to my heart, something that I still to this day live by, and he said, Anita, he goes, I need for you to get out of the four walls of this church and get into film and commercial.

Anita: 00:10:44

I'm confirming that to you today, but there is one thing that I ask of your life to never idolize the platform that I put you on.

Anita: 00:10:52

I came home that night and I wrote it on a card, and it's behind me on my desk.

Anita: 00:10:58

God, I will never idolize the platform that I put that you put me on.

Anita: 00:11:01

That means don't idolize people, don't idolize, positions that they have.

Anita: 00:11:06

Don't idolize.

Matt: 00:11:07

Self.

Anita: 00:11:08

Self don't idolize, you know, TV spots.

Anita: 00:11:12

Don't idolize movies.

Anita: 00:11:14

Don't idolize those lead characters that you look up to so much.

Anita: 00:11:18

Do not idolize them because you're being put in a platform, but yet God is the one.

Anita: 00:11:25

To keep an alignment with, and have I been perfect all through my years?

Anita: 00:11:29

No, but he reminds me that when I have a great opportunity to, don't idolize the thing, but keep my eyes focused on him and say what he wants me to say.

Anita: 00:11:40

And I had to repent in that moment because I had kind of idolized that.

Anita: 00:11:45

Stage per se.

Anita: 00:11:47

And he said, no, you let me be your agent.

Anita: 00:11:50

You get out there and I will guide you.

Anita: 00:11:52

And that was kind of the launching and that confirmation of when my film and commercial career started.

Matt: 00:11:59

That is beautiful.

Matt: 00:12:00

Imagine the state of Hollywood these days if that perspective had been taken by most of the actors and directors and writers.

Matt: 00:12:09

Writers and agents in Hollywood, it would be a very different industry.

Anita: 00:12:13

Yeah, I guess so.

Anita: 00:12:15

But when we have the DNA of Christ and other people that are not saved, they don't have the DNA of a Christ follower, then, you know, we have to pray that in them and realize that they don't have that.

Anita: 00:12:27

So.

Matt: 00:12:28

So you've come a long way since then because, uh, not that we're idolizing the credits, but in terms of just looking at the metrics, I guess that was back in the mid or like 2007, 2008 era, I noticed on your IMDB, um, I think your first, first entry was 2007 or eight, but you've got 67 acting credits on IMDB since then, which is an incredibly prolific and I'm sure you feel blessed career.

Anita: 00:12:53

You know, I do.

Anita: 00:12:54

I am so honored and so blessed that God would use me to portray him.

Anita: 00:13:03

Through film, and I love every part, every part of it, you know, I love every opportunity and it's been quite the journey and I don't want it to stop.

Anita: 00:13:15

I wanna keep going.

Matt: 00:13:17

Well, in terms of representation, you're with the best of the best.

Matt: 00:13:19

You're one of the Treasure Coast family.

Matt: 00:13:21

I hear.

Anita: 00:13:22

I'm, yeah, I'm with Jean and it's been fun and adventurous and it's been neat to watch her grow as well through an agent and make.

Anita: 00:13:32

Decisions that have helped her to grow and to help ultimately us to grow as talent.

Anita: 00:13:39

And I wanna represent not just our heavenly father well, but I also wanna represent those around me in this industry well as well.

Matt: 00:13:48

Absolutely.

Matt: 00:13:49

I'm just looking through some of the roles I, I see you also, one, one of my favorite things about acting is beginning to play like little kids with co-stars, with your scene partners.

Matt: 00:13:57

That's so much fun to me.

Matt: 00:13:59

So, uh, you shared the, the screen.

Matt: 00:14:01

I saw you on your IMDB uh, demo reel in a beautiful one.

Matt: 00:14:06

You had a great scene with, uh, with Stacy Bradshaw.

Matt: 00:14:08

She's a wild one man.

Matt: 00:14:09

I talk about some energy.

Anita: 00:14:10

Yeah, that was a fun role.

Anita: 00:14:12

I played in a beautiful one.

Anita: 00:14:15

I played a little bad girl trying to give bad advice and playing opposite of Stacey.

Anita: 00:14:21

Just this really innocent character.

Anita: 00:14:23

And yeah,

Anita: 00:14:25

Innocent, but a, an intensely positive energy.

Anita: 00:14:28

Yes, yes.

Anita: 00:14:29

She is very, very intense and very positive.

Anita: 00:14:32

I love Stacy.

Matt: 00:14:33

Well, I've seen that role.

Matt: 00:14:34

You, you've played several roles, like you say, opposite of who you are.

Matt: 00:14:37

It seems like I see a lot of you in your demo as, as wholesome mom or like Peg Bundy, if she had less class in some of your roles, which I think that's fun, right?

Matt: 00:14:47

I like to play roles that are, or a lot more

Anita: 00:14:50

Yeah.

Anita: 00:14:51

And in fact, I've had some roles where the director will say, Anita, we are transforming you.

Anita: 00:14:55

And my goal is for people when they watch this role to not recognize you.

Anita: 00:15:01

And there's a lot of times where in my early ages of doing film, when I was taking classes, one of the instructors said, you want, just like a writer writes.

Anita: 00:15:11

what they know.

Anita: 00:15:12

An actor needs to act what they know.

Anita: 00:15:15

And I, I don't know if I like 100% agree with that because then you would be limited to the, you would be typecast basically and not be able to branch out.

Anita: 00:15:26

And that is one of the things that I have absolutely loved about the directors that have put me in these roles is that they see beyond Anita and they see what they can pull out of Anita.

Anita: 00:15:36

And there's this one role, it's a short film called Awaken, and I actually, was one of the awards that I won.

Anita: 00:15:44

I played this lady who was addicted to prescription drugs and who abused her son, and we were about ready to do the biggest scene where her son was actually in the bathroom.

Anita: 00:15:59

Mocking her, not mocking her in a sense, but copying her behavior and getting ready to and she was so drugged up in this scene and yet heard the cries of her son.

Anita: 00:16:13

And as I went back into a room and I was like, God, I've, I've never been addicted.

Anita: 00:16:20

I've, I don't drink even, I, I don't, I. I'm not a part of that world, and so there's a part of me that doesn't understand this and I need you to drop into me.

Anita: 00:16:31

And so being really prayerful about that, and he said, Anita, he goes, you do know.

Anita: 00:16:38

He goes just like this woman is gonna crawl to her son and, and try and help him.

Anita: 00:16:44

He said, think of me on the cross.

Anita: 00:16:47

This is what I did for all the sinners.

Anita: 00:16:49

I crawled to the cross basically, and I screamed, and I'm banging on the hell's gates because I want all to be saved.

Anita: 00:16:58

And so in that scene, that's literally what I. Imagined and he said to me, I will be right next to you in this scene.

Anita: 00:17:07

And so I remember crawling to the, bathroom door and banging on it and screaming out with the thought of.

Anita: 00:17:16

This is what Jesus does.

Anita: 00:17:18

This is what Jesus does for the unsaved.

Anita: 00:17:21

He cries out, he calls out.

Anita: 00:17:24

And so we all have stories like that I'm sure as, as actors where, you know, we might not necessarily 100% relate, but that's okay.

Anita: 00:17:33

Jesus will help us in that moment to get us to perform what the director wants.

Anita: 00:17:38

And so that's just another story, I guess from an experience that I had.

Matt: 00:17:44

I love that.

Matt: 00:17:45

So I was talking to another actor on, on one of these episodes and we were talking about how being a Christian can actually better prepare you to be, uh, a more genuine actor because part of the job of an actor is to be able to set aside your own ego and take on the perspective, uh, as genuinely as humanly possible of someone who is not us.

Matt: 00:18:09

And so if we are Christ followers and we have some kind of practice and dying to self and hopefully taking on the character of Christ that lends itself to accepting the, Christ-like empathy for a character who you've never gone through what they went through.

Matt: 00:18:25

So that sounds like kind of the exercise you were going through there.

Anita: 00:18:28

Yeah, and it's all a growth experience.

Anita: 00:18:30

I mean, when I first started, I was honestly so green, and I was a little vain in the sense that, oh my goodness, every time the camera gets on, I gotta have my makeup perfect and I've gotta have my lipstick on and I gotta do, and make sure that everything is perfect and stuff.

Anita: 00:18:46

And as you grow in the acting industry, you know, as I have grown.

Anita: 00:18:53

I don't care about that.

Anita: 00:18:55

It's what does the director want and what does God want through my role?

Anita: 00:18:59

And I've witnessed on set where there's actresses that just were like me way back then, like everything's gotta be super perfect.

Anita: 00:19:10

And obviously we wanna look good on camera, part of the journey is, are we gonna be comfortable showing up on set?

Anita: 00:19:18

And the director says, you know what, Anita?

Anita: 00:19:20

I'm going to make you into an unrecognizable person.

Anita: 00:19:24

Therefore, no makeup, no nothing.

Anita: 00:19:26

Your hair's gonna be a mess.

Anita: 00:19:27

You're gonna be completely different than you normally.

Anita: 00:19:30

And those are sometimes the funnest roles.

Anita: 00:19:34

I mean, really they are because you're able to stretch inside of you and allow God to pull that out of you and just it's deep.

Matt: 00:19:44

I, I totally agree.

Matt: 00:19:45

Could not agree anymore.

Matt: 00:19:47

We're gonna do two episodes with you 'cause one's just not gonna be enough.

Matt: 00:19:50

So I think that's a great place to end this episode.

Matt: 00:19:52

make sure you pay attention, um, to when, when this next episode gets published, because I'm gonna dive a little deeper, uh, in, with Anita Cordell about the empathy takes and, and where you draw upon that empathy to really channel, uh, the character that God needs you to play for his certain roles.

Matt: 00:20:07

So, uh, for now, thank you so much, Anita for joining us on the Faith and Family Filmmaker Podcast and we'll uh, look forward to seeing you in the next episode.

Anita: 00:20:15

Thanks for having me.