The Fighter and the Filmmaker: Our Conversation with Olivia Curry

[this transcript has been edited for clarity]

Jeffrey:
Welcome to the Human Friend Digital podcast. I’m your co-host, Jeffrey Caruso.

Jacob:
And I’m your terrible host, Jacob Meyer.

Jeffrey:
And today is a friend episode. and we have my very good friend, Olivia Curry, on with us today. And… hi, Olivia.

Olivia:

Hi

Jacob:
Hi, Olivia.

Well, let me give… let me, we got to do an introduction. We wrote some things about you that seemed pretty cool because you are not only in the film industry, but you’re a director in the film industry, and you edit in the film industry, and you do commercials with big companies like Duluth and others like that. We’ll get into those in a minute, but then, on top of all of those cool things you’ve done, you’re also a kickboxer—not just a kickboxer, a boxer. I’m sorry, I should say that again, pro boxer, a pro boxer with some Muay Thai experience.

And I have to say, I was just looking up what is Muay Thai recently after our conversation, and holy cow, I think someone said it was the combat of like eight limbs or something like that. There’s some…

Olivia:
Yeah, art of eight limbs. That’s the traditional way to think about it because you can elbow people and knee people. And thankfully, I don’t do that anymore.

Jacob:
Well, that’s great. So happy to have you on. Thank you. Welcome, Olivia.

Olivia:
Thanks for having me.

Jacob:
So Jeff and I are going to ask you some questions, mostly to start off about your filmmaking career because, you know, as a digital marketing person, we often are on the receiving end of other people’s assets, and we have to put them on websites.

But you’re actually out there making some cool stuff. So let’s talk a little bit about that. So Jeff, hit her with a question.

Jeffrey:
Do you just want to briefly say for yourself, sort of your background in the industry?

Olivia:
Yeah, sure. I’ll explain what I do a little bit. So right now, I am a commercial director and editor on a roster of a production company here in Chicago.

But I came to this line of work through all sorts of different types of jobs in the commercial industry—some camera stuff, some direct business-to-business, one-person-band shooting stuff, line producing on other people’s shoots, first AD-ing, AC-ing, which is like assistant camera work, all sorts of stuff, and then finally editing and now directing.

Jeffrey:
So you’ve done it all in your years since. Yes. And you went to University of Northwestern for your degree?

Olivia:
Yeah, Northwestern. So I went to film school, kind of like, you know, my intention was I want to direct movies, right? Art films, which maybe, hopefully, I’ll still get to do one day. But to pay my bills, I have pivoted into making commercials.

Jeffrey:
And you’ve worked on various different scales, right? I mean, the budgets of the stuff you do have ranged really wildly.

Olivia:
Yeah, from negative dollars all the way to like half a million dollars. Usually, that’s the art stuff, right, the fun projects, are the ones with no money. And then, the boring, well-paid projects are the bigger commercials.

Jacob:
So you did do one thing for the pod that I’m going to stick you on, and just get ready. We’re very much into explaining acronyms as we go through stuff because people don’t know what you do. Early in the thing, you said you did an AD and you did an AC: so what are AD and AC?

Olivia:
Yeah, so AC is assistant camera, so it’s like the people who help put the lenses on for the DP, which is the director of photography. There are a lot of acronyms in film production. And an AD is the assistant director. So they’re the ones who are yelling “quiet on set” and making the schedule, and it’s actually a really, really hard job on set. It’s the person who’s the most stressed out and who’s always running behind. We have to figure out how to make the day. Yeah, the organizational brain, kind of.

Jacob:
Oh, wow. So then you’re wrangling not only the director and getting their focus on different things, but you’re also wrangling probably the client, who’s probably trying to get you out of focus because they’re like, “Hey, what if you did this?”

Olivia:
Sort of. So on commercial sets, it’s interesting because it works a little differently than film stuff. Often, we’re working with ad agencies who are actually contracted with the client. Sometimes we do direct-to-client work, but a lot of the time, the traditional way is the production company hires crew, which are often freelancers, like me. Then they’re contracting with an ad agency, say like Leo Burnett or McGarry Bowen, or someone like that, who has the…

Jeffrey:
I totally know what those are.

Olivia:
Those are some of the big ones. But yeah, there are all sorts of different people, and who talks to who is very specific on set. The producer will often talk to the ad agency and the client and stuff, and the director talks to the client directly as well on set. And then the AD, who’s the really stressed-out one, they’re just telling all the crew what to do.

Jacob:
Okay. Let me just get a little deeper into one of these things. So you’ve worked on some of these cool videos, and you have them on your website, and we’ll link to it at the bottom of the podcast. But if I could pick on one, maybe the Duluth Trading Company one, because on that one, I see an acronym listed, and it says DP David Vollrath. So you were a part of this. What was your role in that shoot? And what’s it like working on a big commercial? And then, probably a lot of people listening to our pod are on the smaller business side. So let’s scale that vision up and down and see what it’s like on a smaller scale. But anyways, talk a little bit about what it was like working on a commercial project like that.

Olivia:
Yeah, so that one was pretty fun. I actually directed that. I co-directed it with my buddy Jake Zalewski. So we’ve co-directed a few things now together. And David Vollrath, who’s our DP, he’s our camera guy, right? So he makes it look beautiful.He’s the one behind the camera.

Jacob:
So that’s what that means? So if I see that, and this is me just dumb. If I see DP there, that doesn’t mean that he was a director, director. He was just doing the visual lead of the photography and you were the real director for that thing.

Olivia:
Yeah. And I tend to credit my DPs on my website just because I want to be clear, like I wasn’t holding the camera. I’m just pointing at stuff and telling them what to do.

Jeffrey:
As director, like the main director, it’s your vision, and then you have all these other sub-people for sound, visuals, set design, I guess, and all that stuff.

Olivia:
Exactly. Yeah. So we’re the main creative vision as the director, and we also have to make it happen. So we’re delegating tasks to each department, who execute based on what we want.

Jacob:
Great. So in that one, are you a part of the storyboard process of the creative vision for that? Or is that another execution of an agency? Because that one is one that I feel like you could see on TV, that commercial. And, you know, when I see TV commercials, I don’t know how it works, but, like, in that case, where did the creative come from?

Olivia:
Yeah, so that was a really interesting case because the boards often come from the ad agency. They’re coming up with the overall creative idea, and then the director interprets that. But this one in particular was a little bit loose, and you can sort of tell when you watch it. Jake and I, something we do often when we work together is a hybrid style where we’re using some traditionally cast talent or we’re going to cast actors, and then we’re using some real people and shooting in more of a documentary style, where we’re finding people who really do a thing. 

Maybe they’re a fly fisherman or maybe they, um… In this one, there’s a woman who really owns and operates the cattle farm that we shot on, right?

Jacob:

Oh, so it’s not a model or… it’s not, it’s not an actor.

Olivia:

Yeah, that’s like her real work, her real family, everything, and we like that because it makes it feel more authentic. Yeah. A lot of times it’s really hard to find great actors, to be honest. A lot of times you get better performances when you just cast real people and show them doing what they really do.

Jeffrey:

Do you pay them for this, for being in the ad?

Olivia:

Yeah, they get paid. So everyone gets paid still. But also, if they’re regular people, they don’t have to give a percentage to their talent agent or whatever.

Jacob:

Yeah. So do you prefer working with real people as a director versus a model when you’re doing commercial stuff?

Olivia:

I’m sort of still figuring that out. I think I’m still trying to work with actors as well and learn how to be a better, more communicative director with them. But I really like working with real people, and I’m interested in how to get the best performances out of folks who aren’t trained as an actor because I think it’s different, you know, than how you would direct someone who is.

Jacob:

Well, that’s interesting because a lot of times in the commercial photography space with, like, a lifestyle shoot, they almost always want to have real people in there for the set. But oftentimes a real person getting in front of a camera can make some real awkward moments because you’re going to be like, “I’m going to be on… You know, this big, this thing.”

And so a lot of times, you know, in the photography space, in my experience, you know, getting a real person in there, if the photographer wasn’t a good people-person, that shoot could be way worse than if you just paid the money and got a model because you have less delays. Usually, those models are like, “Where do I need to be?” And they’re in the moment immediately. So you’re trying to get that out of them. So how do you get that point across that you’re good at getting those people to be natural when you’re, like, in this process of selling your work to other people?

Olivia:

I do think it is about making people feel comfortable and having a process where you can build a rapport. So the Duluth thing is a perfect example because there is a scene at the end of that spot where these two sisters are in a kitchen at night, crying, having a moment. And that was something that was in the original agency boards. They wanted, like, a tearful moment between two people.

And I’m like, “Ooh, so this is like a real performance we got to direct.” And like, to be quite honest, sometimes the talent they can afford, even on a pretty big commercial, is going to be nonunion, maybe sort of like community theater talent, and might not be able… they’re not… I don’t know, like, Christian Bale or something. Like, they didn’t cry on command. So we were like, “How are we going to do this?”

So what I did—and it was really useful to have a co-director—because Jake, my other cohort, went over, was talking to the camera department, lighting, getting everything for that scene set up, while I just sat at a patio table outside with these two sisters. We had talked to them and cast them. They were real people, not actors—real sisters. Especially the one was kind of like a model, but the other sister had never been on camera.

And so I just started talking to them about their life and about their relationship and their bond. And it turned out they had some kind of family drama and had gone through some stuff recently. And I sort of got into it a little with them, and then I was like, “Okay, kind of hold it there.”

And then, when we’re on set, we’re not even going to be listening; we’re not micing you up. We’re going to be shooting from the corner, but I want you guys to start talking about this as soon as we get in there. And just seeing where they had already gotten to, and I had fed them some other questions too, things like, “What does it mean to you to know that this is where you are after the way you two grew up together?” or, you know, stuff like that from the discussion.

And then it just kind of happened. And I also told them—and I think this is something a lot of commercial directors don’t think to do, but I think it works well, and I think it’s the right thing to do—I was like, “Look, this is a commercial for, like, pants, and we’re paying you, and we know it’s stupid. I’m not trying to exploit your emotional trauma, but we’re trying to get you guys to cry. So if it feels like that’s where you’re headed, don’t hold back.” And just being upfront and honest with them and kind of telling them, I think they felt free to go for it.

Jacob:

Well, I’m impressed when I watched that. Getting a genuine emotional feeling across with people is really hard when it’s actually, like, directed. I thought that was going to be something that you captured by happenstance right in the moment of filming, and it was like, “Great, we got that magical accident that we put in there.” The fact that you got it on the storyboard and you made that happen… that’s pretty good, Olivia.

Olivia:

I know, I feel really proud of it, but also I’m not convinced that I can do it again. You know, it’s one of those things where we’re like, “God, I hope this works,” because the client’s sitting there, and like, if we don’t get it to work, what are we going to do?

Jacob:

No, but I mean, like you said, you don’t have Christian Bale’s. You’re requiring non-Christian Bale’s of the world. Kudos to you for doing that naturally.

Jeffrey:

And then I want to just jump in. So, like Jacob was saying earlier about your small-scale stuff versus large-scale stuff, and you know, if anyone listens to this podcast, it’s probably on the smaller scale. Can you make a pitch for why someone should hire an actual company to direct a commercial for their company versus just, like, you know, other means of advertising? Do you have any advice for people reviewing portfolios or, like, breaking that stuff down? How should someone approach this problem?

Olivia:

Yeah. So sometimes I think you can tell there’s, like, of course, the nitty-gritty stuff that, as professionals, we can talk about—differences in lighting or how the story is told through the edit or whatever. You can get really granular, but I think most people, when you just see something that’s good, you kind of feel it and know it, and you can tell the difference. You might not know why. You might not know it’s because they had a whole lighting crew instead of just, like, some guy with a ring light, or because they had an Alexa 35 camera instead of, you know, your iPhone, but your eye and the feeling it gives you will be able to tell. So I think it’s like, especially for companies, if they go on to the websites of world-class production companies like Smuggler or Pretty Bird, for example—those are, like, high end of high end. And the commercials look like movies, and those are super expensive, but even commercial companies the size of Picture North, who I work for, or even smaller and more local, what I will say is that you can appreciate that these are professional jobs, right?

It’s easy to think, “Oh, well, we all have an iPhone. We can just film some stuff.” But when you have a crew, even if it’s a really small crew of maybe someone who is holding the camera, someone in charge of sound, someone in charge of lighting, and a director or someone who’s doing the interview, if it’s a doc-style thing, just having those jobs split out, it gives brain space for each one of those people to be a professional and do what they specialize in doing. And it’ll become a higher-end product, in most cases, than just trying to do it yourself or doing it on your phone or having your friend who owns a fancy camera do it. There’s all this knowledge that goes into shooting things in a high-end way that’s not just about technology, too. So you can have the best camera in the world. You can have a RED or, you know, an ARRI or whatever the latest thing is, but if you don’t know the principles of lighting or lensing, it’s not going to come out looking like a movie. But you can hire someone who knows that stuff.

Jacob:

I think one thing that is always surprising to people that don’t do this stuff is when you see behind the scenes of, like, a movie, there’s, like, so many people back there. But you do need some people back there, even on a commercial shoot, even if it’s a really small one. So, like, what is the minimal crew you need to make something like this happen? Or in your ideal world?

Jeffrey:

In the Duluth, how many people were working with you on that?

Olivia:

Duluth, I think we had probably like about 50 people.

Jeffrey:

50? Five-zero?

Olivia:

Yeah, five-zero. I will also say I like working with smaller crews, and I don’t think you always need that many people there. Sometimes, depending on the budget and other, like, technicalities, there becomes a little bit of crew bloat just because of… Like, think about it this way: if you have ten people from the client side who are gonna be on set because that’s what they want to do, now you have to have a tent and food and snacks for all of them and people taking care of them. That’s like five extra production assistants that maybe you don’t really need, you know? 

So I can actually make the thing. You don’t need 50 people. And I’ve done a lot of stuff back in the day, before I kind of got to where I’m at now, where I was the only one shooting, or maybe it was me and two other people, and it turned out pretty high quality for a business of that size. You know, maybe they’re paying me 2000 bucks just to shoot something for half a day and edit it quickly. And, you know, you can still find people who are more or less skilled to make that a worthwhile thing to pay for if you’re a small business.

Jeffrey:

There’s like sliding scales for these things.

Olivia:

Yeah. And it can become as expensive as you want. Like, obviously, we can be making a million-dollar commercial if you have a million dollars, and we would be happy to take that money. But you can also, you know, make stuff that looks pretty good for 10,000 bucks.

Jacob:

So now, answer my question because Jeff piggybacked on my question. I’m just giving you a hard time, which was like… so the crew can scale, but in your experience, what is the tight-knit crew size that you really like, and who are those roles that go in there? How many people do you want in, like, just a core crew, and what are those roles?

Olivia:

Yeah, I’d say probably like 10 to 15. I think the main people… so, director of photography is key. That’s the person who’s in charge of the visuals, not only the camera, but they’re also kind of like… they’re like the visual goalie.

We’re like, in soccer, the goalie is supposed to be telling everyone what to do. The director’s that main person. But then, in terms of visuals, the director of photography is telling the lighting department what to do, and it’s their direction. So that’s like an important collaborator.

And then lighting, of course, is important. That’s usually a separate team. Usually at minimum, two guys, right? A gaffer and a grip—sometimes multiple grips.

Jacob:

What’s the difference between a gaffer and a grip?

Olivia:

The gaffer is the head lighting person, and the grip is like their underling. So the gaffer… everything is set in a hierarchy, right? Which is a whole other topic because I think sometimes that can be bad too if you’re, like, really strict about it. But it’s sort of like director, director of photography underneath, then gaffer, and then grips. And that’s like the kind of visual department hierarchy.

But what’s also really important that people often don’t think about—and I think for smaller stuff, or like business-to-business stuff, it might be the most important—is sound. A good sound person is like super key. Because if you can’t hear what people are saying, then it all falls apart. I think people are much more willing to look at something kind of ugly if they can hear what people are saying. Then, like, you can have the most beautiful thing in the world, but if the audio is terrible, then you’re kind of screwed.

Jacob:

So I’m imagining the guy with the pole and the microphone—that kind of guy?

Olivia:

Yeah. Boom op, sound mixer.

Jacob:

I love these titles. Gaffer. Boom op… 

Jeffrey:

They really are so… like, I mean, outside of, like, the director of photography, they have no obvious relationship to the role. Like, what is a best boy?

Olivia:

They’re in charge of plugging stuff in and unplugging stuff.

Jeffrey:

They’re the best.

Olivia:

I don’t know where those terms originated either. I’m sure there’s really interesting history, and we probably learned them when I was a freshman in film school. But yeah, best boys are like, they calculate the watts and amps on stuff and make sure you don’t blow a fuse.

Jacob:

Oh, that’s scary. I’ve been on a set where a light battery exploded, and man, that was like… it’s like having a lightning bolt in the middle of a room. It’s crazy.

Olivia:

You need a best boy.

Jacob:

Yeah, we did need a best boy. Oh, my gosh.

Olivia:

Yeah, actually, that is so interesting because the bigger set you’re on, the more people like that—kind of like safety people—start popping up too. There’s all this stuff that comes into play. So, for Duluth, you might have noticed there’s a scene… well, maybe this didn’t make it into the director’s cut, but there’s a scene where we shot a baby goat, there’s cows, there’s a fish… there’s all sorts of animals. And every time we saw an animal, we needed a Humane Society member either there or, like, on live stream video.

And they would tell us, like, “Okay, that fish has been out of the water more than six seconds; you have to put the fish back in the water.” You need a whole… like, to rake care of clients, you need a whole person for that, right?

There’s positions that you never even would know about. And for children, if you’re shooting with children, you need… I don’t know what they’re called. Child welfare officers or something.

Jeffrey:

CPS people? 

Olivia:

Yeah.

Jacob:

Wow. Okay. Wait, I know I got off on a tangent ’cause I picked on the gaffer because… I’m sorry. I’m reading the Lord of the Rings right now, and I think Samwise Gamgee calls his father the “old gaffer,” and I’m like…

Olivia:

I always think about that.

Jacob:

So you had… and then we’ll get on to other topics, but you had the DP, you had lighting people, you have sound people. So after that, was there anybody else you wanted to highlight?

Olivia:

So I think another one that people often… this will get cut if you’re on a really, really low-budget thing, but it’s something that in a commercial space is super important. It’s like art direction, wardrobe, styling… Those are all usually different people, but art direction—like thinking about if you’re filming in a location or in a room, what’s in the room? You know, there’s someone in charge of all the props, someone in charge of whatever blinds or shades you have on the window, the tablecloth on the table, just making sure it looks like what your vision is.

And similarly, styling of all the people. What are they wearing? Do they have makeup on? Do they not? How’s their hair styled? So all that stuff really comes into play. And I think that’s… if you don’t have the budget to hire those positions, it’s something at least worth thinking about if you’re shooting something.

Jacob:

That makes a lot of sense. In the photography space, I was also on the sales part of that, and these larger commercial shoots, and I remember hair and makeup stylists were the one thing that we’d always be fighting for because a lot of times, if they’re not on set, you’re putting the… you’re oftentimes putting the onus… will end up in the retouching department.

And boy, is it way easier to have a hairstylist go up there and fix the hair than it is for a digital retoucher to comb someone’s hair virtually.

Olivia:

Right? In video, it’s even worse because something a lot of clients don’t understand, because they’re so used to Photoshop and photo retouching in stills, they’ll come to us after the fact in the edit and say like, “Oh, can you just make this person do this… make hair flyaways go away? Or can you just paint out this sign?” So, you can… there are ways to do all those things. Sometimes that’s going to cost you $80,000 of visual effort because something’s moving, it just becomes way harder and way different than if something is still.

Jacob:

That’s true, and that’s exactly the kind of thing I would tell clients in that moment to be like, “You could spend $1,500 per day for this hairstylist to be on set, or depending on how the shoot goes and how many photos, you might be adding like $100 to $200 per photo of extra retouching that might be needed at the end of the shoot.” So you’re like, “Okay. Are you willing to risk it?”

Jeffrey:

So what about on the back-end side of things, like after the filming is done? Who are the big people on that?

Olivia:

Yeah, so the editor, which is the other side of what I do. I work as just an editor a lot of the time too, which is the person splicing all the footage together. And that really is the person who can have a lot of creative control. Like, so often the editor, especially if something goes wrong in the shoot or there’s some issue or, you know, you didn’t get exactly what you thought you were going to get, the editor can kind of make a whole new story out of it.

Jeffrey:

That’s what I do with this podcast every week.

Olivia:

Exactly, you know. So the editor, and then, in the commercial space, we have a colorist, a sound designer often as well, sound finisher. Sometimes we even have like a composer or something. Although most of the time we’re using stock music in what I do.

Jacob:

It’s hard not to at this age because it’s so plentiful. You know, stock audio is just unbelievably plentiful at this point.

Olivia:

It’s hard to convince them to spend a ton of money on music. Unfortunately, I wish they did.

Jeffrey:

Although we did our own music. That is to say Jacob did.

Olivia:

That’s cool. Yeah. I think it makes a huge difference, to be honest.

Jacob:

I try. I wish I was better at the editing portion of it. Like, I can get in a microphone and get that going. But again, I need an audio editor to really make it there. Because it’s like… that’s way harder than people… well, personally, I think it is. Every time I record something, I’m like, “This sounds great.” And then I put it on my headphones, and I’m like, “I sound terrible,” and it takes me like an hour to make it sound decent. And then I’m like, “It still sounds kind of okay, pass. I’m B-plus. Here we go. Put it out there.”

Jeffrey:

Well, also, Jacob, you’re a little bit of a perfectionist when it comes to that. But I mean, that’s not a bad thing, I guess.

Jacob:

Or neurotic, depending on the way you look at it. 

Jeffrey:

Two sides of the same coin.

Olivia:

I do think engineers are, though. So maybe, maybe that’s a field you can get into.

Jeffrey:

Oh, yeah, you’d probably have to be. I mean, just editing this podcast, I’m like, I am not enough of a perfectionist to really get it great, but I’m like, I can get it good enough. Whereas, like, if Jacob was doing it, he’d probably spend, like, so many more hours on it, which is why I do it.

Jacob:

I have to delegate it because if I did it myself, it would take forever. It would be my full-time job. I would take all week on an episode. I need someone that can just make choices.

Jeffrey:

It’s good enough.

So let’s move into boxing a little bit. You did a commercial for Boxraw, which is a, like, clothing company or equipment company? What is it?

Olivia:

Clothing company. I actually like them a lot. They’re a brand that I wear, so this… I will… you typically don’t really say it, but because, you know, I trust you guys, I’ll give you the dirt. I’ll put it out there on your podcast, which is that this is a commercial that was spec, which basically means, like, it wasn’t real. Like, I did it for free or, like, I paid to do it as a showcase of my work. 

They were really cool. They sent us a bunch of free wardrobe to use in it. So they were onboard, they were sort of involved, but they were basically like, “Oh, yeah, we’re not going to pay you to do a commercial, but if you were trying to make more work…” which, as a commercial director, you have to have stuff.

Yeah, so I was trying to do something that I could do with the resources I had. I was thinking, “Who do I know?” And, uh, it’s a bunch of professional boxers. So I used ’em—I used all my friends, because I am also a professional boxer—and put ’em in my thing, and I think it turned out pretty good.

Jeffrey:

Yeah, I thought it was really good. There are some, like, really great shots. There was one, like, I don’t know, inside of some warehouse where, like, all of a sudden, like, this shaft of light just, like, illuminates the… it was just, it was a really cool shot. So what was that like, the intersection of your two worlds?

Olivia:

It was so fun. I had such a blast making that. It also helps that if there’s no client on set and if you just came up with the idea yourself for fun, which is what I did for that one, it actually makes work, like, way more enjoyable, it turns out.

Jeffrey:

Yeah, when you’re making your own stuff.

Olivia:

Yeah! But it was really cool. Speaking of real people… I feel often like my social circle and just sort of what I do, how I split my regular weekdays, is so in one world or the other. Like, I go to the gym in the morning and I see all my gym people that I’m really close with. And I live in that world, and we’re all bantering and talking shit. And then I go have to be a professional person with my production company folks. And then at night, I go back to the gym, and I’m back in that world. So it was kind of cool to merge them on this shoot and get, like, I think pretty good performances—pretty natural performances—out of all my friends I’ve only known as an athlete, you know.

Jacob:

Oh, I think this goes to the other point we were talking about with the Duluth one. You get non-skilled actors, real people that are pretending to be actors for this stuff, to make some really authentic moments. I think it’s really hard as a director to get that, and you definitely got it in here, and you got some great shots. And it’s really fun to see those worlds collide. 

But let’s dive in a little bit about this: You’ve been out of the country boxing. You’re not just “I like to box for physical activity”; you’re a real, legitimate boxer. 

Jeffrey:

Do you want to chart your course with that? 

Jacob:

Yeah, I wanna hear it. I had to look up Muay Thai earlier, and I want to hear about that or, like, why that and why not that? And I have no idea, I’m a wimp.

Jeffrey:

Did you live in Thailand and study Muay Thai in Thailand at one point?

Olivia:

A little bit. I went for like a month. But yeah, I did go over there myself. Yeah, so I started with Muay Thai, and I was already in college. Like, I had never… you guys knew me in high school. I wasn’t the most athletic person. You know, probably not something anyone would’ve predicted.

Jacob:

I remember once being at UC and hearing you sing or practice music, and, um, you were really good then at that. And then all of a sudden here you are literally kicking ass. So anyways, continue your story.

Olivia:

Well, because I think it is interesting—this is one reason maybe I was drawn to it—I think as kids sometimes we’re put in these boxes of, like, “Oh, you’re a kid who is good at school,” or “you like the arts,” or “you’re a nerd in some way,” and like “you can’t also be like a jock”. Like, these things don’t go together. They’re like different groups that sit together in the cafeteria, like that kind of mentality. And so I think as an adult, when I finally realized, like, “Oh, I can do all of the above,” that was, like, really freeing.

But I started Muay Thai when I was in college, kind of just like taking a class for fitness. I think I’d seen the movie Ong-Bak, which is like a Thai martial arts movie, and thought, “Oh, I’m kind of out of shape, and, like, this would be fun to try.” And it just spiraled out of control. I just ended up really liking it. I was going through some stuff in my personal life then, like having sort of insomnia, trouble sleeping, and I realized that I would be able to sleep every time that I got home from a really hard two-hour-long training. Problem sort of resolved itself. So I was like, maybe there’s something to this working-out thing.

And then once I started fighting, like I won my first couple of amateur fights, and it feels good to win stuff, so I was kind of hooked.

Jacob:

Yeah, that’s great.

Olivia:

Yeah. And I switched to boxing eventually just because I’m big and I ran out of people to fight in Muay Thai. For some reason, like Muay Thai, all the girls are really little.

Jeffrey:

Oh, so they wouldn’t be your weight class?

Olivia:

Yeah, I fought everyone that I could in North America and was kind of like, well, maybe I’ll go to boxing.

Jacob:

Wow.

Olivia:

But then eventually, after the pandemic and after 2020, I missed Olympic trials by a fight. I lost one split decision and did not make it to my goal of Olympic trials. And then I was like, well, do I wait another four years and try that again? Or go pro? So I decided to go pro.

Jacob:

With the Olympic trial— I mean that’s amazing, that’s really close—how long do you have to wait to go to the next Olympics?

Jeffrey:

They’re every four years, Jacob.

Jacob:

Well, I don’t know. I was saying, for the trials to be entered into that…

Olivia:

Well, it gets complicated, because…I don’t know, this is also part of it. There are some politics and stuff in there. If you’re, like, on the national team for a long time, you kind of know who’s going to win sometimes. Like, you’re not necessarily going to get picked. So there’s all this, like, inside baseball.

Jacob:

Well, let’s just leave that crap over there. I was just curious for a second. Screw those people. So in your boxing now… so, first off, really impressive that you were just casually like, “Well, I fought everybody.” Not to say…

Olivia:

Not to say that I won. And I’m not saying that I was good. I’ve gotten a lot better in the last, like, three years specifically. I was pretty trash for a while.

Jacob:

You said that you’re bigger than everybody. So, like, I see listed here that you’re a middleweight boxer, right?

Olivia:

Yes, correct.

Jacob:

So, like, there’s all these weight classes and stuff like that. So what is it like being a middleweight boxer, and how does that really differentiate between the weight classes and, like, the people that you… and you’re a woman, so you have, like, a kind of a… do you have, like, a smaller pool of just people in general that you’re fighting on a regular basis versus men?

So there’s a big, like, triple-barreled question for you of different topics to go through.

Olivia:

Yeah, it’s smaller. It’s growing a lot—like, women’s boxing has grown a ton, even just in the last, like, 5 or 10 years—but especially for the higher weight classes. Like for me, it’s still fewer people. So middleweight is 160. I’m like 5’10”, fight at 160 pounds. So there’s just, you know, on the bell curve, it’s on the higher end. There’s just not a lot of us.

So there’s only, like, 30 or 40 ranked professionals at my weight class in the world, versus men might have a thousand or something. It’s a huge difference. So the good thing about that is it makes it way easier, in a sense. I mean, it’s never easy because you still have to get hit in the face, but it makes it easier to move up quicker. And, like, luckily, I think I’m in, like, the top five or so, top 10 in basically whatever ranking body… you know, there’s different sanctioning bodies, but I’m up there, ranked high.

But it’s a little easier because I didn’t have to beat out, you know…

Jeffrey:

A thousand different women.

Olivia:

Right. But it’s easier for them to find fights. So that’s the flip side of it.

Jeffrey:

So on that note, what is it like being… I mean, you know, you only fight women, but you train around men all the time. Your coaches are men. Your boxing sparring partners at the gym are probably all men. What is that like, being a woman in such a male-heavy sport?

Olivia:

Yeah, I mean, I think it depends a lot on where you’re at. I’m really lucky. I feel grateful that my current gym is filled with a bunch of guys that I really love, who we have great relationships. And it’s like a culture that… there’s a lot of disrespect because this is also the culture of a boxing gym—a lot of banter, a lot of, like, shit-talking, a lot of, like, you know, off-color jokes, whatever, that, like, happens in a boxing gym. But still, my gym right now, which is Unanimous Boxing, has, like, a culture that, you know, doesn’t tolerate actual sexism to the degree that I’ve seen at other boxing gyms.

So that’s pretty nice because I think it can be hard, and I think it was way harder when I started than it is now. I’m seeing more and more women trying it, coming in just for classes.

So that’s great. But I do think for me, particularly being, again, like, larger, all my sparring partners, for the most part, are men. Once in a while, you know, there’s a woman my size I can spar with, but that makes it just like, you know, you never really feel like you’re on even footing. I’m always feeling kind of like I’m failing constantly, which I think is a pro and a con.

Because often I’ll be just getting beat up. It’s rare that I come out on top in sparring, and in boxing, you spar hard. We’re going, like, trying to kick each other’s asses, you know? So it can be dispiriting sometimes. And then I have to think, I think it’s actually great preparation for my fights. Because I think “okay. I’ve gotten my ass kicked, like, three times a week for the last six weeks. I’ve been coming out of there with bloody noses with all sorts of stuff, but there’s no way that the girl that I’m about to fight hits as hard as all these guys.” A girl, even my size, is not going to hit me as hard as a 170-pound man.

Jacob:

So sometimes you do take them down, though, right? Once in a while?

Olivia:

I don’t know about… I mean, look, I will say this. It’s also really fascinating. I don’t know if this is even relevant to this podcast, but I’ll say it because I think about this all the time. It’s fascinating that so often in women’s athletics, I think there’s a certain contingent of, like, very online, sort of, like, male discourse, especially recently, that’s kind of like, “Well, men and women are different, and a woman can never beat a man at any sport, especially if it’s, like, a combat sport.” And I will say, like, men my same size and ability level have, like, testosterone and are, like, stronger than me, and they will beat me. But men who are my same size and not at my ability level, I can beat fairly regularly.

So it’s all on a bell curve, it’s not an easy kind of black-and-white situation that people want to pretend it is.

Jeffrey:

Right. And also because different women also have different… like, it’s not just a bell curve between men and women; it’s a bell curve within women and within men.

Olivia:

It opens up a whole discussion of gender that just lets you see that it’s more complex than people want it to be.

Jeffrey:

It’s not black and white. There’s definitely going to be overlap on those two… the female bell curve and the male bell curve is going to have a… there’s going to be a Venn diagram there, you know, for some people. So it’s… yeah, it’s like you said, it’s not black and white.

Olivia:

And personality makes a difference too, because in boxing… Look, you can’t get everywhere with heart. That’s sort of like an old Rocky movie trope that’s not exactly true. Like, you also need to be in shape, but I will say some people are just not cut out for getting hit in the face. And I’m sure you tried it. I don’t know. People really don’t like it. And then, you know, that the sport is not for them.

Jeffrey:

I loved kickboxing as a workout, but then I only sparred one time, and I was like, nah, I’m out. I’m done. I’m not sparring.

Olivia:

And that is a good decision. Like, no one should do it if they are not really, really into it. And it… you know, I do often wonder why am I into it?

Jeffrey:

I was just going to say, what is it? I mean, you get injured, like, all the time. How do you come back from that and keep justifying it to yourself, “This is worth it, this is fun, I like this.”

Olivia:

Yeah, that’s like a conversation—an internal conversation—I’ve had with myself a lot, ’cause I’m not quite sure that I’m making the right decision. I think I keep coming back to it ’cause I really do love it a lot. And the things that boxing gives me in my life—the positives outweigh the negatives.

There will come a point—and I think it’s important for all combat sports people to recognize this point—where it’s not worth it anymore. You get a little older, you get a little slower, the injuries are really serious, and I’ve been concussed and I’ve had my nose broken, and I think the brain injury part of it is the part where: I’m here for a good time, not a long time. I do not want to be in the sport for the next 10 years.

Jeffrey:

Well, you had a pretty bad concussion last year. So what was that like, that recovery process?

Olivia:

It sucked!

Jeffrey:

Well, first off, what happened? What was the fight like?

Olivia:

So you’re getting all the tea, actually, because this is something I usually don’t talk about, but I will. So I was in a fight last August, not this past one, but a year ago, on the Jake Paul-Nate Diaz undercard against a woman named Shadasia Green, who is a very accomplished boxer—a weight class above me, but very good at boxing and tough, and she kicked my ass.

We had a great fight. It went all 10 rounds. She didn’t knock me out, like, everyone else before me. And, you know, I gave her some business back.

Jacob:

I think it’s amazing.

Olivia:

Yeah, it was great. And it was televised, like the whole thing. It was like, we did it up big. So it was a great experience, honestly, like wouldn’t change it. But I did have a concussion afterward, and it lasted… like the post-concussion syndrome lasted for a good four or five months. And some of that is not just because… I mean, it’s because of the fight. You’re in 10-ounce gloves for 10 rounds, you’re going to get hit.

Definitely got hurt in the fight, but you also wonder, like, “Okay, I’ve also been boxing for a while now. How much of this is the accumulation of other concussions?” So, you know, it was scary, and the recovery sucked. It meant, like, I couldn’t work like I normally do. I couldn’t look at a computer screen effectively. My thoughts were really scattered, kind of all over the place. Couldn’t concentrate. It sort of felt like I was drunk for four months, but not in a fun way.

Jacob:

Wow. Just the bad parts.

Olivia:

Just the bad parts. Yeah. The part where you’re like, “Oh man, I really wish I wasn’t [feeling this way] right now.” That’s what I felt.

Jacob:

That’s crazy.

Olivia:

I’m fine now. I’m totally recovered and, hopefully, not going to get any more concussions. That’s my goal.

Jacob:

Well, I have to say, going 10 rounds… I mean, I’ve watched some boxing fights. I’m not, like, I don’t really watch it regularly, but going… uh, isn’t it like a phrase, “going the distance,” or isn’t there something… some phrase?

Olivia:

Yeah.

Jacob:

That… I mean, you did it. That’s pretty crazy. I mean, no wonder you got concussed. But, like, that’s some stamina there. I mean, that’s some stick-to-itiveness. 

So, I’m going to use this as a segue to go back into filmmaking and boxing, because I’m noticing something in this conversation. You are happy to go into a traditional male-dominated space and stick it out—boxing more so than filmmaking, but even filmmaking there is this nature of perseverance that you have through both filmmaking and boxing, which I think is great. But, with the boxing, I can feel your energy and your perseverance through that. So with filmmaking, what’s the equivalent of that fight in you for that? Like, where did the fire of filmmaking come from?

Olivia:

Yeah. Okay, so I think with boxing, it’s easier because there’s this, like, culture of toughing it out. It’s easy to kind of have a chip on your shoulder and say, like, I’m gonna keep going, I’m gonna push through. And I think it’s a lot harder to do that in a creative field, because there’s a lot of self-doubt, imposter syndrome, right? Like, constantly questioning all these decisions you’re making that are essentially subjective. It’s all based on taste, not necessarily like, can you solve this math problem? Right. It’s like, “what do you think is cool? What do you think is pretty?”

So I think what I’ve found helpful for myself is to try to dig into, even when I’m watching other people’s work, like, what do I like, and why do I like it? And do some introspective work about art and creative pursuits and how they’re useful to me, sort of internally.

Because I think once that’s clear, it becomes a lot easier to think, “Okay, I have some sort of perspective that’s worthwhile to get out there.” And even if it is just in a commercial for pants or whatever, I know that I can bring a little something new to this, and we all have to pay our bills. So for me, part of the drive is also like, why not pay my bills doing something that’s intellectually stimulating, creatively stimulating, that’s getting me closer to my eventual goals of, I guess, expressing something real.

And you know, if people want to pay me to do even, like, 30 percent of that, then that’s a great way to get my rent.

Jeffrey:

Yeah. Do you ever think boxing will pay your bills?

Olivia:

It has paid some of them. So…

Jacob:

That’s something.

Olivia:

Not as much as I would like, but that one fight—the fight that gave me the concussion—paid a lot of my bills for, like, half a year.

Jacob:

Hey, that’s good, 

Jeffrey:

‘Cause you couldn’t work otherwise.

Olivia:

Maybe we’ll get one of those again. But if not, I think, honestly, to go back too, to wrap it all up, my real reason I do both of these things is, it’s like, I’m just the type of person where I’m in it for the story. I just… like, when I get old and die, I want to be like, “Yeah, I have some good stories under my belt,” and sometimes you just gotta do the crazy thing.

Jacob:

Well, I think you’ve made quite a lot of accomplishments so far in both careers, I guess. I don’t know if boxing is considered a career at your point.

Olivia:

I’m trying to say it. I’m trying to consider it a career because I treat it as seriously as a job. So at this point, other people better call it my job.

Jeffrey:

Any final, final thoughts, Olivia?

Olivia:

Um, no, just thanks for talking with me. Yeah, I’m liking listening to what you guys are up to. I want to hear more about all these other people that you’ve been talking to and what crazy stuff they’re up to. So I’ll be tuning in.

Jeffrey:

Yeah, yeah, but yeah, thanks, Olivia, for coming on. It’s always fun to talk to you. I mean, like we said at the top, we have been friends forever, so always a pleasure.

Jacob:

Thank you, Olivia. I really appreciate you coming on. Great energy through a lot of this stuff, and I felt like I learned a lot about filmmaking on the commercial side and all the people that go into it. So I think it was a very educational episode for some people.

Olivia:

Thank you, guys. And Jeff, have fun editing.

Jeffrey:

Yeah, it’ll be fun. I mean, it’s always more fun to edit these episodes than the digital marketing ones.

Olivia:

Yeah, I’ll have to tune in to learn more about digital marketing from your guys’ perspective.

Jacob:

No, don’t do it.

Jeffrey:

You can improve your website stuff.

Olivia:

Yeah, probably.

What kind of SEO do I need to get people to fight me? That’s what I want to know.

Jeffrey:

It’s good. All right. Well, thanks, Olivia. Thanks, everyone, for listening.

Jacob:

Thank you.

Jeffrey:

All right.

Jacob:

Bye.

Jeffrey:

So, Olivia, you’ve got a fight coming up. You want to talk about it?

Olivia:

Yeah, I have a fight coming up. It is in the Chicago area in Rosemont, Illinois, on a Bobby Hitz card. And it is on my birthday on November 27th, the night before Thanksgiving. So if anyone is in the Chicago area and wants tickets, you should DM me on Instagram @oliviarosecurry and buy your ticket from me.

Jeffrey:

We’ll link to it. Alright, thanks Olivia.

Olivia:

Thanks.

Jacob:

Thanks.