Savvy Jaye’s Stories, Lessons & Insights

We recently had the chance to connect with Savvy Jaye and have shared our conversation below.

Savvy, it’s always a pleasure to learn from you and your journey. Let’s start with a bit of a warmup: Are you walking a path—or wandering?
Right now, like many others in the film industry, I feel lost. I don’t even really consider myself “in the film industry” anymore, as my work has been so scattershot. On the one hand, I look at my IMDB and go, “what’s the point?” But then, I consider “Only You,” a horror/thriller short project about stalking I co-produced (with amazing people,) 5 years in the making, finally hitting the film circuit and receiving awards. I consider the recent stop-motion animation I did using Lite Brite for an old friend, part of an upcoming compilation surrealist animation film. I consider the online/YouTube comedy video essays projects I’ve had waiting in the wings for months, finally dedicating myself to making them, and I have to give myself props.

We need to give props to ourselves and other artists coming together to make something, when it feels like right now, there’s a whole lot of nothing. I have friends and acquaintances who I see are posting all their glamorous premieres, yet I know some who are bartending on the side. It is a massive struggle right now to be settled into any studio work– a few months ago, I lost my comfortable FAST channel bumper editing job partly due to the Paramount sale. The best and most hopeful result coming out of the chaos is seeing how many independent projects are thriving, e.g. from Women in Media, a network of talented creators, and independent filmmakers I know being able to make their projects. With this cultural shift and hardship, the direction has pivoted from blockbusters, to smaller, more dangerous films.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
My moniker is “therussianlunchlady,” though I am neither Russian, nor a lunch lady. I am an ex-theater kid, a receptionist, a meme-maker, a Welsh learner (barely,) a comedian, and, like everyone else, an artist on the side. I work on projects that are funny while being horrifying, off-beat and full of animation– literal and figurative. Every project I work on is a work of love with people I have the honor of having close in my life, and every project I spearhead is, in a word, “curious.”

Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What did you believe about yourself as a child that you no longer believe?
I had to be famous by the time I was 16, otherwise, my life was ruined. I was a child actor (or at least attempted,) and felt every pressure to be liked, not just as an actress, but as an Autistic child navigating the world. (Cue the groans from Internet denizens who only know Autism as a TikTok fad.) I still have the nagging feeling of failure, considering I was told my whole life I was meant to be famous. I see every missed opportunity and think, “this was my big break, and I’m awful, and I ruined it.”

With age, I focus on, instead of feeling diminished by my own standards, being grateful for what I do have. I need to push more, but also give myself some grace. I have a full time job, a husband, parents who are alive and (mostly) well, two cats and a dog, projects I’m working on and proud of, and my health (again, I’m 30, so just mostly healthy.)

Growing up in Los Angeles, it’s hard not to see the faux glitz and glam all around you and feel you are worthless for not ‘making it.’ Yet maybe, even if just a cope, I’ve learned with time how to escape feeling that if I wasn’t blonde, tall, thin, and fabulously rich, it doesn’t detract from my life. I am happy, and I’m less disgusted by who I am than I was as a child pushing myself into desperate greatness.

When did you stop hiding your pain and start using it as power?
I’ve never hid my pain– I cry, cry, cry a lot. I panic when everything is fine. I let my mind wander to terrible things that don’t even exist. However, in a sort of positive vengeance, I’ve come to the realization that the people who have tried to ruin me– not people who rightly criticized me, but those who’ve actively tried to hurt me– have all been revealed, with time, to be malicious. With my own self-doubt and hatred, I’ve learned that while blind positivity makes one stagnant, the doubt of others, when they are unequivocally wrong, leads to the inertia into action to prove them, and myself, wrong.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. How do you differentiate between fads and real foundational shifts?
You see teenagers putting 2007 watermarks on photographs. I’m 30 now, and looking at “the youths,” as a Boomer would say, it is jarring to see what was natural and new become fashionable again. Much like how the 1980’s were for tween millennials, the Bush-era aesthetics and fashions are back.

This didn’t happen overnight, however. Foundational shifts don’t come with a floppy disk dress nor a haircut, but from the frog boiling in the zeitgeist water over time. Suddenly looking around, you don’t see pay phones anymore. When’s the last time you talked to your neighbor? Do you know your neighbor’s name? These are the foundational shifts that fashion alone cannot predict.

Okay, so let’s keep going with one more question that means a lot to us: If immortality were real, what would you build?
Immortality is a terrifying concept, as it leaves you alone when everyone passes. When the sun explodes, are you just floating in space? Just hanging out there, bored? Can you play chess with God? (I can’t play chess at all.)

That being said, architecture is the only thing that stands the test of time. All someday will be lost, but for millennia, we’ve had formidable pyramids, and stunning statues, and arresting castles. The death of beauty in architecture is manifest in brutalism and minimalism; we must make sure that we create things people can look at 500 years from now, and say, “How did they do that?”

I often imagine the NYC subway trains as Roman ruins, crumbling, covered in moss and ancient stone. This is where the future lives.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.savvyjaye.com
• Instagram: therussianlunchlady
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/savvyjaye
• Facebook: Savvy Jaye
• Youtube: 50bop

Image Credits
Savvy Jaye