Life & Work with Brady Dowad of Sherman Oaks

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brady Dowad.

Hi Brady, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

I was an actor, to start. After graduating from drama school, I moved to NYC and London to chase auditions and juggle jobs. I got lucky enough to work on some great projects out the gate and got very close on a few others (finalist for Eliza Hittman’s Beach Rats and pinned for 8 months for Monte Rissell in David Fincher’s Mindhunter).

I then moved to LA, where I grew up, and things started to feel like they were moving up… I went to Budapest to shoot the Netflix film Outside the Wire, had just secured my first multi episode co-star role in a BBC series, and met my future-wife Ashely while working at Fred Segal.

That was February 2020. The pandemic hit. The costar job was gone. And I was back to square one. The auditions were drying up and so was my sanity.

Still working at Fred Segal in late 2021, 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.

Then the SAG-strikes hit and my acting managers validly dropped me.

I knew I always wanted to be a filmmaker, but never saw a clear path forward if it wasn’t as an actor. So, with an absence of pressure to perform, I started to reexamine my creative sensibilities and a new purpose was lit within me. I reached out to old friends in hopes of building something new together, a film troupe of sorts. A crew.

And in doing so, reconnected with Steve M. Robertson in the summer of 2023, where he showed me Clown Song on his acoustic guitar. A year later, the song crept back into my brain and I threw together a previz for Steve and he gave me his blessing to adapt the song for the screen. Through many iterations of animatics and scripts, I was able to attract other artists to come on board to make the dream a reality. 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. We wrapped the edit in July 2025 and started festival submissions shortly thereafter.

We just had our first screenings in October; most notably, we won BEST INTERNATIONAL SHORT FILM (GOLD) at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival and were nominated for Best Music Video at BIFA-sponsored Bolton International Film Festival.

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?

When I met Ashley at Fred Segal in 2019, I was hiding the fact that I was taking Oxycontin everyday. Inevitably, I confessed to her and her only that I had an issue. So, she got me into see a doctor, who’s solution was to prescribe me opioids in a wean off-type method.

That was also February 2020. When the pandemic hit, the doctors thought the best option was not to rush the wean-off process. And though they inevitably stopped prescribing me by May 2020, my addiction had grown and I was hooked on a higher dosage.

Cover ups, relapses, trying to quit myself; I was destroying the most supportive relationship I had in Ashley’s love for me. I was waking up every morning convinced: “Today is the day I’m gonna stop” and I would end up taking more milligrams than I did the day before.

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.

And when the SAG-strikes came and I got dropped in ‘22, I had no choice but to get sober. Focus on the methadone process, which is a far more gray road to recovery than you might imagine…

But on January 2nd, 2023, I did just that. My partner and I got married that May. And that summer was when Steve and I reconnected.

I thank meeting my wife for turning my life around.

She watched a stranger in me suffer and nurtured me back to health; she gave me the time and grace to heal that I had never been given or gave myself. She convinced me that I should give myself the opportunity to succeed, supported my dreams of starting bigbadbaa productions, and managed our personal lives to allow me to make Clown Song. 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 the ultimate creative process of birth. Though, obviously, I never can or will.

She is the reason I am here, happy, and healthy; able to tell this story.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

I don’t really overly define what I do; I think that’s the audiences job.

I love filmmaking, but I particularly love character and think my focus regardless of the medium leans toward true human horror and its absurdly tragic potentials. To me, there’s no boogeyman out there scarier than humans. 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 have influenced a unique approach to designing a film. I’ve always had a soft spot for darker tales and want to be able to tell important stories in a relatable, engaging, and hopefully freshly humorous way.

To contribute to the horror/comedy conversation has always been my dream, and that’s where I’d love to further cut my teeth as a creator. Hopefully, one day, on a bigger canvas.

What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?

Listen, communicate, and empathize: “Happiness is only real when shared,” or so I’ve come to believe.

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