Today we’d like to introduce you to Nat Badillo-Griffen.
Hi Nat, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Hi! I’m Nat BG. Natalie Badillo-Griffen. I’m a screenwriter, cartoonist, and performer who grew up in a large Mexican-American family in the Bay Area, CA. I went to Stanford, where I majored in mechanical engineering (as all comedy writers do) and won a (very impressive wow) NCAA National Championship with the women’s varsity soccer team. I have a Super-Bowl-sized natty champ ring that is now my dad’s most prized possession. It has his last name on it. I should have ordered it in his size.
Coming from a middle-class-suburban-work-hard background, my upbringing was built around sports and school and “being practical” until I impulse-moved to NYC the year after I graduated from college. Ah — the chaos, the energy, the trash bags all over the sidewalks! New York wasn’t anything like where I grew up and that’s what made it the perfect place to explore. To be anyone. To reinvent myself as someone who could finally live outside of Scantron tests and sports fields. Even through my engineering days, I always knew I was a writer at heart. While working a tech job to pay the bills, I joined a screenwriting studio where I met Jerry Perzigian — former showrunner of the Jeffersons, writer on the Golden Girls; a sixtysomething ball of energy who I consider one of my closest friends to this day. He taught me how to write a pilot script, which got me my first managers out in Los Angeles and began my life anew as a writer.
… A poor writer. An unsuccessful writer. A writer whose parents asked often: “Why didn’t you just stay in tech? It pays so well! It has benefits!” But I was 23. In your early 20s, you’re invincible. You don’t care about benefits. Your body metabolizes stress, conflict, sickness, drugs, alcohol and staunch as an ox. Health insurance who? But that gets more difficult the more relentlessly you throw yourself into a creative life. I wrote scripts. I earned nothing. I pitched shows. They didn’t go. I changed my Instagram account to “@greatjobnat” and started drawing comics as an outlet. I dated people to procrastinate. I ignored my health. I did stand up. I had stage fright. I wrote a one-woman-show in which I smash a cake and performed it at Fringe Festival. At the tail end of my 20s, I feel I’ve made and lost a million friends, I’ve lived as multiple versions of myself, I’ve become so physically exhausted that I can’t ignore my health anymore — I’m finally learning to balance my aspirations with meditations. I’m not very good at staying still yet. But I’m trying.
I have my footing now in Los Angeles in entertainment. I’m a working screenwriter developing a pilot based on my own I.P. and I still tend to my Instagram webcomic @Greatjobnat and its cult-following. I could do this work forever. Writing stories and being weird on the internet.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth? Ha ha… no.
Okay: They say stress can kill you. They being my doctors, my mom, my friends. My mom, again. My doctor aunt who I annoy with every rash and headache I have —
The stress of being in a creative field can eat you alive, and it’s consumed me many times over. Answering these questions, I’m currently going through a bout of weird migraines that make the back of my head feel tired and confused. It’s hard to level out when you’re always stressed about the next paycheck, the next project. As a screenwriter, you work so hard on an idea for such a long time, you really pour yourself into it, you hand your beating heart into the hands of execs who might cut your dream at the knees just because they’re not feeling your pitch that morning. Maybe they haven’t had their coffee yet. Maybe they already “have an idea that’s too similar.” Maybe they “love it but want to see what else you have.” Maybe that’s genuinely true. But it’s still hard to watch a project die.
I’ve found that you have to detach your self-worth from your artistic output, from its reception. You gotta. As someone who both writes and performs, I’m beholden to both executives and live-audiences. Did they laugh? Did they like it? I’m learning to metabolize the good and the bad reactions as constructively as I can. Enjoying the good moments. Not living and dying by the applause or (cringe!) lackthereof.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a screenwriter, not-screen writer, cartoonist, and performer. Those are my specialties.
I’m most proud of my one-woman show Cake & Violence (both the short-film version I made and the live show version I hope to continue performing at the top of next year), my Instagram webcomic @greatjobnat, and my screenwriting projects that I’d love to see grace the small screen.
I think what sets me apart from other creatives is that 1) I’m an open nerve, and 2) I’m extremely flexible with the types of output I create. I come up with an idea and let it show me what it wants to be: A cartoon! A one-woman show! A script! I’m willing to try anything once. I’m willing to really put myself out there. And I’m always honest. Maybe that’s it. That’s my greatest strength. I’m so honest, maybe too much so. I am who I am in any context — through the cartoons I draw, through the live-shows I perform, through the scripts I write. That’s probably why I get all stressed about the audience response. Don’t reject my script! My script is me! Like I said, I’m learning to compartmentalize. Maybe I should get a lobotomy. Just carve out the part of my brain that cares what you think. Just kidding. Kind of.
How do you define success?
Extravagant wealth and a 30 million dollar house.
KIDDING. You guys, I write comedy. This is my job.
Success to me is, logistically: making enough money to cover all your bases. That’s the practical person in me. You need that solid foundation. I mean, some people I’ve encountered over the course of my life don’t need to worry about that; they come from families with reserves. But I don’t. So: money. Make enough of it. Do what you gotta do, baby. But on a more emotional level, success to me means living a life that attracts the right people into your orbit. The “right people” means whatever is right for you. You’ll know when people are right. I feel successful because my relationships with my family and friends feel right. I have dinners, conversations, drinks, laughing fits, and late nights with people who stretch open pockets of time who make it all worth something.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @greatjobnat
- Website: www.cakeandviolence.com
- Other: www.greatjobnat.com
