We recently connected with Joseph Frew-Miller and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Joseph thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Film Festival:

I have so many projects and ideas. Sometimes, it’s overwhelming because there is SO much that I want to do.

One of my major projects is organizing a film festival. I teach film studies to high school students. At a new job I started at a school in 2022, my students completed one short film that year. But, we had no location to show the students’ work. So, we hosted a “film festival” of one film in our school media center. The sound was horrible, the screen was small… but, the parents and students were thrilled to see their work on the screen.

The next year we rented out two movie theatre screens and showed their work. We had 5 films that year. The students showed up in formal wear and it was a red carpet event for them. At the end of that year, 2023, I transferred to yet another school.

In 2024, our film festival went international. We had 134 entries from 20 different countries, and we awarded 68 trophies at the event.

Our 2025 festival looks to be an even larger event.

Artist:

I remember drawing flower gardens in the 3rd grade and my teachers going on and on about how great the pictures were. I have just recently picked up painting at the age now of 60. I love to paint. I get frustrated when some of my paintings don’t turn out like I want. I’m also colorblind, so that can be an issue. But, I move forward. I have created about 30 paintings in the past two years. I have a gallery showing in August from the Hinesville Area Art Association in Hinesville, Georgia. Two of my paintings are now on display at a small deli/gallery in Savannah Georgia where one of my paintings just won honorable mention. I may not ever sell many paintings, but it’s great mental therapy for me.

Acting:

I think I have always acted. I remember in the second grade, my teacher saw me reenacting a Playtex girdle commercial. The one back in the early 70s when the lady says something like, “I’ve been on my feet all day long, and my girdle is KILLING me.” I thought she was proud of my acting skills, as she took me from classroom to classroom to do my “commercial.” I found out later that she was really making fun of me. She actually told my mother in front of the classroom of 2nd grade students that I was “retarded” and needed to be placed in a school that could deal with “THOSE KIND” of children. Something in my mind determined to show her that I was not stupid. I didn’t really know what it meant, but I was determined at the time to get as much education as I could. I have always been one of those “I’ll show you” kind of people. It took me a long time and overcame a lot of hurdles, but I got my PhD in education. Back to acting… I think my longest running performance was being married 31 years to someone I did not want to be with. I knew at an early age that I was different. That I was attracted to guys. But, I thought getting married would “fix” me. So, I got married. And, it was torture. We had two great sons together. But, in 2015, I had signed onto a theatre group to do a major production of Les Miserables. Acting was my passion. We were only weeks away from opening night when my older son, 24 years old at the time, got in a horrible car crash and was killed. I was devastated but put all of my efforts into my performance as bishop Myriel Bienvenue. I made it through those performances. Then when I played Mr. Turnblad in Hairspray, my scene partner playing Edna new that deep inside I was dying. He called the suicide hotline and insisted that I get help. I started going to therapy and my counselor told me that I could not keep up my charade forever. So, after about a year of therapy I came out to my wife [which is another entire story] and have been happy ever since. I got married to my husband, Charlie in 2021 and it has been amazing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I am Joseph Frew-Miller. Much of this information was explained in the previous question.

I have always liked to create and problem solve. I am constantly coming up with solutions to problems. At one time, I was a liaison between high schools and colleges. The high schools were having a difficult time searching student course records and determining what courses taught in high school counted for college credit. We call that articulation. I approached a friend of mine and we wrote a computer program that would search student records and compare the course numbers to the state articulation guidelines. The end product was a certificate that the student could take to the college to get college credit for high school courses. What our program did in seconds for an entire school would sometimes take guidance counselors over 30-45 minutes per student.

With art, I loved to draw as a child and have recently returned to painting. It has been a struggle because of having no formal training. It’s a struggle sometimes being colorblind and can’t get the right color mix that I want. But, my paintings look pretty darn good. It’s therapy for me to paint and create.

Acting helps me both bury myself and explore myself at the same time. I can throw myself into a role to escape what is going on around me. But, I can also explore my own feelings through a role. I am aspiring to be in a big movie one day. But, the business if fickle and not for the weak of heart. There are SO many people trying to be actors right now. Just a one or two-line role in a movie may have over a thousand people auditioning for that role. Rejection is a big part of the industry. But, I keep plugging along and hoping that one day I will land a significant role.

I love to teach film studies. I love teaching students how to tell a story through the lens of a camera. Our films have won local, state, and international awards. Sometimes I will just hear a catch phrase and start thinking of a story that can be told using that phrase. Just teaching film studies is an exercise in teaching problem solving. Many times, things don’t work on set that looked great on paper in the planning process. We sometimes get to a location and the weather causes us to change our script. Or, like one time, we had our location owner cancel on us the night before. We had to scramble, find a new location, change the shooting schedule, the works. But, it’s a great exercise for the students. They must learn to be flexible, adaptable, and willing to work through difficult situations.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I have a lot of interests. Those interests are not necessarily profitable monetarily. My art has not made me much money. But, it has provided my with a wealth of enjoyment. My acting has not made much money. It’s more of a financial liability than anything. But, those things bring me joy. They make me feel alive. I have had people tell me that I should quit acting because I pour money into equipment, auditions, classes, etc. But, I will be miserable if I quit. As long as my creative initiatives do not cause stress between me and my husband, I will continue on.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I absolutely love it when my students win an award for one of their short films. I love it when someone tells me that the story we created moved them. We have a story we will film in November that I believe will be one of those films. I can’t go into the story here, but it’s about an enslaved young woman who goes to extreme measures to keep her family together. I also love it when someone buys one of my paintings and talk highly about it on social media. I also give a lot of paintings away as gifts. It’s so rewarding to see the look on their faces when they open their present and see a painting that I did.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.joseph-l-miller.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61559577071326

Image Credits

Photo of me: Anthony Paderewski

Artwork: Joseph Frew-Miller