We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dylan Woodhouse a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dylan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I was supposed to be a heavy diesel mechanic. That was the plan. Or at least, it was the plan others had for me. My parents wanted something “within my skill set” for me. In Zimbabwe, where I grew up, that made sense. You get a job, you work with your hands, you keep your head down. Practical. Predictable.

But even then, I knew there was something else out there. I didn’t know what it was or where it was, but I felt it.

One day, a coach from my international Water Polo team pulled me aside and said, “There’s an opportunity in the U.S. You’ve got a week. Do you want it?”

I didn’t know anything about where I was going. I didn’t have a plan. I just knew I had to go. So I said yes. I packed my things, said goodbye to everything I knew, and got on a plane.

It was the first real risk I ever took. I left behind certainty, family, familiarity. I landed in a country I’d never been to, chasing a version of myself I hadn’t even met yet.

That decision changed everything. It got me to college. It got me competing. It cracked open the world. That risk was the start of everything. Every room I’ve walked into since, every pitch, every set, every moment where I’ve bet on myself, started with that choice.

It wasn’t calculated. It was instinct. But sometimes, instinct knows more than fear ever will.

Dylan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’m Dylan Woodhouse. I’m a Zimbabwean, producer, builder, and entrepreneur who’s spent the last few years moving between traditional film and television and the new frontier of digital media. Right now, I run digital and development at Unrealistic Ideas, a production company founded by Mark Wahlberg, Archie Gips, and Stephen Levinson.

I earned a scholarship to attend college in the U.S. That changed everything. It opened up a new world and gave me my first real shot. While I was studying, I started a renewable energy company focused on bringing clean power to underserved communities in Southern Africa. I built a team, raised seed funding, patented a working concept, and proved to myself that I could start something from nothing.

That momentum led me to USC, where I earned a full ride to study two master’s degrees; an MFA from the Peter Stark Producing Program and an MS in Entrepreneurship and Innovation from the Marshall School of Business. I went all in on entertainment. Learned the creative. Learned the business. Learned how to move through both.

My path doesn’t make sense on paper. But that’s kind of the point. I’ve never followed a script. I’ve written my own from day one. I build things that don’t exist yet. I figure them out as I go. And I don’t stop until they work.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My creative journey has always been driven by one thing. I want to uplift Southern Africans. That’s the core of it. That’s what got me moving.

At first, that mission led me to build a renewable energy company. The goal was to bring clean, affordable power to homes across Southern Africa. I believed that access to energy could unlock everything. I still do. But over time I realized I couldn’t do it on my own. I didn’t have the scale or the platform to move the needle the way I wanted to.

That realization pushed me toward storytelling.

Film and media have a different kind of power. They shift narratives. They create identity. They inspire movements. If I wanted to really uplift my people, I needed to step into the space where culture is shaped. I needed to be part of the story.

So I stepped out of the startup world and into film. I learned the craft. I built the network. I started making things that could reach people.

That goal has never changed. It’s still about creating something bigger than me. Something that reflects where I come from and pushes where we’re going. I’m just using a different set of tools now.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I didn’t grow up thinking I was smart. In fact, I was told the opposite. Over and over. By teachers, by friends, by the people around me. Being dyslexic, I was labeled early. Dumb. Disruptive. Unfocused. Not someone who would ever amount to anything.

And when you hear that long enough, you start to believe it. It becomes your internal baseline. So for a long time, I didn’t aim high. I didn’t think big. I assumed there was a ceiling on what I could do and who I could be.

Coming to America cracked that open. Getting a scholarship. Studying two master’s degrees. Building a startup. Producing real work in Hollywood. Sitting across from executives and creators I once thought existed in another universe. I had to unlearn everything I believed about my own limits.

The hardest part wasn’t doing the work. It was believing I deserved to be in the room.

I still feel that voice creep in sometimes. But now I know it’s not real. It was never real. The lesson I had to unlearn was that I wasn’t good enough. The truth is, I just hadn’t been in the right environment yet.

Once I got in the right space, around the right people, with the right opportunity, I started to see what I was really capable of. And I haven’t stopped since.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dylanwoodhouse/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylan-woodhouse-790754176/
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm15180031/