Today we’d like to introduce you to Brady Dowad.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was an actor, to start. After graduating from drama school, I moved to NYC to chase auditions and juggle jobs. I got to work on some great projects; namely Read Dead Redemption 2 briefly, which was a dream, and Ivo van Hove’s View from the Bridge. I also got very close on a few others (finalist alongside Harrison Dickinson for Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats and pinned for 8 months for Monte Rissell in David Fincher’s Mindhunter)… the rejection from which made me question my ability and lead me to then move to London, where I was born, to test a different market. I was met with similar enthusiasm, but the lack of forward momentum made me extremely doubtful and started to erode my self-confidence.
I then moved back to LA, where things started to feel like they were finally moving up… I went to Budapest to shoot the Netflix film Outside the Wire, met the love of my life while I was working at Fred Segal, and had just secured my first multi episode co-star role in a BBC series that was to shoot in Las Vegas. But in secret, I was hiding the fact that I was taking Oxycontin everyday, only sharing with my partner that I had a problem. So, she got me into see a doctor, who worked with prescribing me opioids in a wean off-type method.
That was February 2020. The pandemic hit and my mental health eroded. The costar job was gone. The doctors kept extending my prescription. Despite the support from my incredible partner, I hid how deep I was getting. My first short film Muma, which I wrote and starred in, got into the SCAD Savannah Film Festival (2020) and I also got an opportunity to one-man crew the entire production of and star in Trojan’s successful Couple Goals pandemic-era ad campaign; but the auditions were drying up and so was my sanity. Relapse, after cover up, after Relapse, after trying to do it myself; I was destroying the most supportive relationship I had in my partner’s love for me.
Thanksgiving 2021, I was in Pittsburgh visiting my soon-to-be-in-laws and I hadn’t brought enough pills to cover my withdrawals for the trip. Dopesick’s last episode had just come out, and it showed Michael Keaton’s character trying methadone. Seemed like a cure all. The next morning, we flew back to LA and I immediately checked myself into the BAART methadone clinic.
Still working at Fred Segal, a friend of mine recommended me as a freelance editor to ATTN. I jumped at the opportunity, and was thrilled to finally have a job that gave me a creative outlet everyday. I learned an incredible amount there cutting together quick videos meant to grab your attention and educate. Then the SAG-strikes hit, my managers dropped me, and all I could do was focus on getting sober.
Unfortunately, the methadone industrial complex is more complicated than you’d like to know: it allows its users to dictate their own dosages and I began to realize that I was just upping my dose each week, chasing the high it gave. It wasn’t a cure, for most people it’s a bit of a trap. I fought tooth and nail trying to get my dosage down to 0 from 50, the paperwork and sign-offs from higher-ups were constantly missed, keeping me at higher doses when I was trying to get off the drug. Once I was allowed take-homes, I took matters into my own hands and started planning a way to get off the red juice.
And January 2nd, 2023, I did. My partner and I got married that May. And that summer, I reached out to friends I had isolated myself from. July in NYC, Steve M. Robertson and I decided to meet up after not seeing each other for about 5 years. Our friend Ben Edelman joined us, and we all had a great catch up. Ben then offered that Steve play me Clown Song.
I remember laughing and crying so hard. told him how great I thought it was and that we should do something with it… a year later, my son was conceived and Steve’s catchy little tune kept creeping into my brain. I called Steve and asked for his blessing to adapt the song. Through many iterations of previzes, scripts, and animatics, I was able to attract other artists to come on board to make Clown Song. Some of whom were very close friends, others complete strangers. I then produced a new recording of the song with Steve, who brought in Daniel Hass to darken/deepen the tone to reflect the film. After some delays, we inevitably wound up with a November shoot schedule in Alta Dena, Palmdale, Downtown, Hollywood, and Lancaster. I wouldn’t be here without all these incredible artists who made this piece sing, and I’m so grateful my directorial debut was with this stacked team: most of whom, were personal connections. Luka Bazeli, our phenomenal DP, has been my best friend since I popped out the womb; Enzo Cilenti, our Clown, worked on Outside the Wire and was a great mentor to me on that shoot and thereafter. Jordan Meltzer, our insane sound designer, went to my high school. This became a family affair, it felt like, and reflected the themes we were exploring in the piece.
My cut was done by January 2025, and we then awaited Lucian Barnard’s availability to juice Clown Song up. My son was born in February 2025, Lucian had his cut done by May 2025, at which point I secured Jordan Meltzer to sound design and mix in July 2025. Clown Song was completed August 1, 2025 and we started applying to festivals.
We just had our first premieres in October; most notably, we won BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival, where we Canadian premiered alongside Johannes Roberts’ Primate (Paramount Pictures), and were nominated for Best Music Video at BIFA-sponsored Bolton International Film Festival. Our film will also be playing at the Oxford International Film Festival, making Clown Song BIFA-eligible.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
My addiction stemmed from the death of so many friends in such a short time. The first was Jordan Weiss, my classmate in senior year of highschool. Then my grandpa that May. Then my best friend Max Tinglof died in a car crash when I was a freshman at Carnegie Mellon. Thereafter, more friends dropped like flies… the guy who got me into Oxycontin ended up blowing his head off due to his addiction and self-hatred. Many more OD’d, others silently hid battles with cancer, my family friend Julian Sands disappeared and died on Mt Baldy. A series of intense deaths that never let up, drove my survivor’s guilt through the roof, made me feel isolated from my age group and friends. My career wasn’t going the way I wanted it to; but, my energy was also making that an impossibility. I put such pressure on every audition, and most these characters I was playing never even had any trauma to relate to… I became disillusioned and bitter and angry, and felt extremely alone. I thank meeting my wife for turning my life around. She watched a stranger in me suffer and healed me back to health; she gave me the time and grace to heal that I had never been given or gave myself. She supported my dreams of starting bigbadbaa productions, and supported our home to allow me to go out and make Clown Song (tour with it, etc). All while she was pregnant. I like to think that Clown Song was my attempt to create a baby at the same time she was growing our son, Patrick. To try and relate to how she felt, Though obviously, I never could or will. She is the reason I am here, happy, and healthy.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I don’t really like to define what I do; I think that’s the audiences job. For example, to me, Clown Song embraces and bends genres intentionally, we embrace the tropes of horror to set up our first punchline in music video fashion; however, for others, they only see it as a music video and categorize it as such. I love film, but I particularly love character and think my focus regardless of genre is always on true human horror and its absurdly tragic potentials. I think my ‘leg up’ is understanding the inner coil of an actor and how to communicate properly with those vulnerabilities; but, I also think my many years in music and editing helped me craft a unique style/tone. I’ve always had a soft spot for dark humor and want to be able to tell these heavy stores in a relatable, engaging, and hopefully freshly humorous way. I am super proud of this piece, and must say I don’t feel that way about any of my other work. But to be apart of the horror/comedy conversation has always been my dream, and that’s where I’d love to further cut my teeth as a creator.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Never. Give. Up.
Just do it.
And communicate, share, empathize: “Hapiness is only real when shared.”– Chris McCandles (Into the Wild)
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6061593/
- Instagram: @bradydowad @bigbadbaa @theclownsong
- Other: https://screenanarchy.com/2025/10/toronto-after-dark-2025-short-film-short-review-clown-song-is-a-banger.html
