Conversations with Matt Curtin

Today we’d like to introduce you to Matt Curtin.

Hi Matt, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I moved out to LA from New Jersey for college in 2015. I got it in my head that I wanted to learn how to be an artist but didn’t really know what the steps were to do that if there ever even were any. I studied theater at UCLA because I knew I wanted to tell stories, but I always felt like a dweeb among auteurs. Everyone around me came from performance arts high schools, had commercial representation, or spent summers in England working at the Old Globe. All I could claim was having near lexical knowledge of things like Dungeons and Dragons or comic books.

It wasn’t until after college when I started making art in the real world, did I discover that my voice had equal merit compared to anyone I went to college with. I started writing and performing on social media, discussing all my nerdy interests, and gaining close to a 350k following that grows even as I write this. Art’s only criteria is that is resonates with people positively. The prestige of art is just something we made up to put on award shows.

My growth as an artist and a storyteller has all led to the project that is currently taking up my life in the best possible way: The Game. It’s a streaming comedy that I co-created and developed about a group of strangers who get together to play Dungeons and Dragons. We shot the pilot last year and are in the works to finish the entirety of the season by the end of the year. When I was younger, I didn’t think anyone would want to watch something so undeniably nerdy, but I’m excited to prove my younger self wrong.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
I would say learning to be okay with failure is among my biggest challenges. So many of my initial creative endeavors never really found their feet because I was afraid of risking them in front of too many eyes. Even now, I over-question ideas I have and whether or not they’re worth being shared or seen. But I remind myself that five, ten, twenty bad ideas are what build one great idea. As discouraging as it is to fail at something, it’s all a part of the process toward success.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a writer, actor, and now producer of short-form and long-form media. But I just call myself a creator — it’s simpler that way. My daily routine is creating reel content for my own personal brand, my show’s brand, and other brands who contract out my services. While my larger work is spent writing for TV and Film when the pay is fair. (Support the WGA!) In addition, I perform in TV, Film, and Theater while also tutoring and working at children’s theaters on the side.

Do you have any advice for those looking to network or find a mentor?
I would choose to look at it as finding a peer or peers rather than a mentor. While I’ve had plenty of mentors in my life, I definitely gave myself a complex for a few years about putting other people and their work above me instead of seeing value in my own work. But the great thing about college is that it gave me access to a group of people who were starting out at the same level as me, no matter where they were at in their careers. If I didn’t go to UCLA, I would not have met the people who I would go on to develop The Game with — people with skills that I lacked and wanted the creative voice that I had.

I would encourage anyone to find peers in their fields and work with them as a means of learning, rather than under them. We’re only ever going to see ourselves in positions of success once we start thinking we belong there.

Contact Info:

• Website: mattcurtincreative.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matt_the_curtin/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-curtin-b42989262/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_TdkNHArHk