We recently connected with Caitlin Hutson and have shared our conversation below.
Caitlin, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Has your work ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized?
People are often very surprised when I tell them I’m a stunt performer. They see my big eyes, hear my mousy voice, cringe at my latest dad joke, and think that the last thing I’d do for a living is get hit and fall on concrete willingly, let alone enthusiastically.
On the flip side, when I audition for acting roles I am immediately pegged as “the nerd”, “the awkward shy girl”, “the romantic” – which I can pull off great… until the director asks me to wear a sundress and sees that beneath my girlish jawline is a body of 140lbs of muscle. Not exactly what they had in mind.
I’ve been asked on more than one occasion to become less muscular because it didn’t fit “my casting”. I’ve been told to not submit for military/police roles because no one will believe me once I open my mouth. And believe me, I’ve tried both! I don’t have the innate self-confidence to toss aside what others think about me. I have tried to fit into Hollywood’s idea of what I should be, and in doing so, I only started to work less.
I’m still trying to find the overlap in my weird, personal Venn Diagram. Much of the process has been accepting that the rejections I get ARE personal, in that they are not meant for the person that I am. Meanwhile, I have been more open to the opportunities that are naturally presenting themselves. One of my most exciting discoveries is that I am asked to play a lot of androgynous or inhuman characters–beings with simultaneously masculine and feminine energy. I played a creature that is disturbingly graceful and quick to kill. I was a character who begins as a male-presenting villain and ends as a female-presenting male. I’ve performed NPC movements that have to apply to any gender.
Suddenly, the contradictions that people so often tell me are holding me back in my career are providing me a path that is uniquely mine. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows of course: I still feel the need to wear oversized sweaters to hide my arms when auditioning for The Girl Next Door, and I still intentionally lower my voice when working on stunt jobs so people take me seriously. But I am always working to navigate both my career and my life with greater authenticity, with the faith that the right people and the right opportunities will arise.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Hi there! My name is Caitlin. I have been in Los Angeles for about 6 years working as a professional actress, stunt woman, and performance capture artist. Since the pandemic and various strikes (#unionstrong), I have also dabbled into independent filmmaking and screenwriting.
I often cringe at the idea of being a “multi-hyphenate” – something about it feels quintessentially LA, in the worst way possible. But the fact of the matter is that I have multiple streams of income and multiple interests that fill multiple different personal needs and wants.
I grew up doing theatre and martial arts. I was President of my high school thespian troupe and a Sensei at my dojo. In college I majored in Creative Writing before dropping out to go on tour with a live stunt show. It was during that show that I discovered the world of stunts in film/television, and made the decision to move to Los Angeles and give the Starving Artist Life a shot.
Jokes aside, I am so grateful for my life and career. I have been fortunate to have incredible experiences in my relatively short Hollywood stint. Currently my goal is to still be a performer for as long as humanly possible–there really is nothing like it. But I am also working on establishing my production company Uppercut Productions to create and tell my own stories.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
This is such a hot button topic right now. I’m sure every Artist and Creative would agree that the best way to support Artists and Creatives is to hire and pay Artists and Creatives.
Much like food, it is often hard for individuals or small businesses to justify the cost of commissioned work when there are cheaper and quicker options. But, much like food, what you put in affects what you get out. Just as we value the expertise of a doctor over our friend who watches a lot of massage therapy videos on YouTube, we should place higher value on artists with years of developed skills over, say, an AI that butchers and reconfigures stolen art.
I think this stems from a larger issue of corporations constantly depreciating the cost of artistic commodities (such as music and clothes) in order to sell more of them. This is a great plan if you’re a big corporation, because you are probably going to make more money that way. But just because you lower the price tag doesn’t mean that the value of that artist’s work has changed. As a result, artists are receiving pennies on the dollars of their hard work where they used to pocket the whole bill (read: residuals).
A podcast I listen to (you’ll learn quickly that I’m very into podcasts) talked about why renewable energies haven’t gained much traction over natural gas. TLDListen: Gas is priced lower than it’s actually worth so that people keep buying it over renewable energy, which appears to be more expensive. If we bought gas at its worthy price, we would be much quicker to opt for cheaper renewable sources.
And so, the creative ecosystem is much like gas. Snoop Dogg has famously rebuked music streaming services for ruining the music industry because records that once cost $15-$20 a piece can now be accessed in perpetuity with millions of other songs for the monthly cost of one LA coffee. This same thing is happening with television, film, podcasts, books, and literally everything else.
This is a large reason why so many facets of the entertainment industry are striking right now. Regarding the strikes, there is a lot of hearsay and a lot of fear and a lot of confusion within Hollywood, so I can only imagine how confused those out of the loop feel. Here and now, I’d say the best way to support artists, creatives, and a thriving creative ecosystem is to check on your creative loved ones, because a lot of them are probably living up to their Starving Artist title at the moment. If you’re going to play with AI, be smart about it – know where the data is coming from and if there is appropriate credit/compensation being made. If you have the means, hire a real artist to paint you something instead of ordering knock off prints from *insert sketchy online shop here*. GO SEE LIVE THEATRE (this is my personal agenda: everyone should see more live theatre). Big companies won’t respect the value of art until people respect the value of art.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
Go listen to Audrey Moore’s podcast Audrey Helps Actors!!! Whether you’re an actor or not, this is an invaluable resource that covers tenacity under hardship, pragmatism in a creative profession, and strategies for handling all parts of life with humor and compassion.
Audrey doesn’t sugar coat the hard parts of the entertainment industry. She also doesn’t hesitate to call out people who say they want a career in entertainment but don’t do All the Things it Truly Takes to have a chance at it. Sometimes her podcast is hard to listen to–it has made me question my wants, my choices, my methods, even my hair color (shoutout to Audrey for helping me decide to go back to my natural blonde after dyeing my hair red for TEN YEARS). But ultimately, she has helped me approach my creative career as a true professional rather than just a scrambling dreamer.
Seriously. Go check it out on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. This is not a paid plug. I just love it that much.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.caitlinhutson.com
- Instagram: @caitlinhutson
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCerlQxaI0tUR1YMRdElcOYw
Image Credits
James DePietro, Dana Patrick, Tanya Minassian, Frank Altman, AJ DeLeon