Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Herskowitz.
Hi Brian, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Really, it depends on which story you want. But I will give you a brief overview. I decided I wanted to be an actor when I was around nine years old. By 11, I was cast in local dinner theaters, making the enormous sum of thirty dollars a week.
That desire to perform stayed with me through my youth, and at twenty, I came to Los Angeles seeking my fortune. I worked in theater in LA and did the odd TV or film shoot, but I never really caught fire. Not long after arriving in LA, I met my future wife. Actress Gina Hecht. We started dating, and after nine years of living in sin, we were married.
In 1980, I was injured during the Olympic trials for the US Judo team. I blew my knee out and had to withdraw in the third round. This is important because a year later, I had my knee reconstructed, and I was laid up for the better part of a year. During that time, I wrote my first screenplay. It was loosely based on my experiences as a martial artist living in Japan. In any case, the script came easily to me, and I soon had an agent pushing my work.
At that point, I wasn’t married (not for another eight years), and the dream of being a working actor still burned pretty brightly for me. On top of that, my father was a writer. He was a biographer to people like Bette Davis, Dan Rather, Mickey Mantle., and George Bush. I didn’t think I had the intellect or the discipline to write.
That changed when I finally decided to get a “real job.” A friend was a producer on a new series called Tour of Duty, and he needed an assistant for post-production. I was hired and eventually rose to be the associate producer. I had also written a film that was produced between the first and second seasons of the show.
I ended up writing an episode, and that helped me lock in an agent at William Morris. I continued to work as an actor, doing mostly voice-over work, but writing and producing became my career path.
I had a passion for studying the craft of screenwriting and eventually started teaching. I taught for Writer’s Bootcamp for about five years and UCLA Extensions for another 10 years, and since 2004, I have been the lead faculty for Boston University in Los Angeles Screenwriter in Hollywood Program.
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?
Struggles give you a story to tell. It’s way more interesting to have fallen and gotten back up than to simply walk a smooth path… at least in my opinion.
One of the biggest challenges has been ageism. Around the time I hit 40 years of age, my work in TV stopped. I had been a fairly active writer in both hour and half-hour TV. I was a staff writer on Blossom for NBC and wrote four episodes of the syndicated Legendary Journeys of Hercules. When I hit 40, it was like someone had turned a switch.
I struggled with that. I couldn’t find an agent. I wasn’t getting any other work on my own. Then, in 2006, Jeffrey Tambor mentioned that he was working with a new production company in New York and that I should work with them. I started writing a pilot, but slowly but surely, I became more involved. I was eventually an executive with the company, which turned me to the idea of producing independent projects.
The ageism is still there; not too long ago, I was at a party with a manager and mentioned that I was looking for a new rep, and she unapologetically said, “It really is a young person industry,” I yanked the knife out of my heart and moved over to the bar.
One good thing that came from the prejudice I felt because of my age came from a burning fire to prove people wrong. and to continue to write, direct, and produce quality material.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Most of my work has been in film and TV as a voice-over actor. I have had the good fortune to be in hundreds of shows and films, computer games, and commercials. I did national spots for Propecia, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Berringer’s Wine, and others. I was the lead voice in Medal of Honor: Airborne and played Catbert in the Dilbert Desktop Games.
If you listen closely, you’ll hear my voice in Forest Gump, X-Men, Wolverine, National Lampoon’s Vegas Vacation, and TV series like True Blood and Kidding.
My first voice-over gig was in 1981 in a Chuck Norris movie titled Invasion USA.
My first directing gig was a short film that starred Academy Award winner Red Buttons, Emmy Winner Jason Alexander, Golden Globe nominee Rachael Chagall, George Wendt from Cheers, Merrin Dungey (Alias), and Joel Brooks. The main actor in the film was Jason Schwartzman (Hunger Games, Rushmore, Asteroid City). It was a great experience, and I fell in love with directing. That film won a handful of festivals.
Over the years, I have directed several shorts and a feature-length documentary that I made for 1736 Family Shelters.
During the pandemic, I turned my original award-winning screenplay, Conceptus, into a novel. The book is available on Amazon, and it has close to a five-star rating. I loved that process and plan on writing more novels over the next couple of years.
Currently, I am working on two different novels, a biography, and several screenplays. One of the screenplays, Bevore Moonrise, is currently being packaged for funding, and I hope to direct that film sometime this year.
Risk-taking is a topic that people have widely differing views on – we’d love to hear your thoughts.
I think that all of life is about assessing risk. The fear of failure can be so debilitating, and without the courage to take risks, we can get stuck.
Working in the film business is 95% risk. Unlike a 9-5 job, it takes a village to make a movie. Starting with the money. When I first started producing independent films, I would see desperate filmmakers focused on getting their movies made but forgetting about the investors. I wanted to change that.
I have worked for several companies that tried to lower the risk for investors and make films that would return a profit. None of those companies have hit the right balance, but as someone who believes in taking risks, I continue to pursue that goal.
In my personal life, I continue to take risks by competing in martial arts on a national and international level. Most of the time, I compete against people my age and weight, but as recently as last December, I’ve stepped onto the mat with the top competitors in the US… most of them 45 years my junior.
Pricing:
- Conceptus $17.95 in paperback on Amazon
Contact Info:
- Website: BrianHerskowitz.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-herskowitz-6608324/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@brianherskowitzbooks
