We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sebastian Twardosz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sebastian below.
Sebastian, 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?
Ever since I was a kid I always tried to map out my life whether it was picking all my college classes when I was still in high school or charting my career before I even graduated college. Because I’ve always known what I want to do. But of course that’s not how life works.
I’ve always had a finish line (still not there lol). What I want out of life isn’t something you can earn or buy and I certainly couldn’t afford it having grown up in a working class family. It actually has required my taking huge risks ever since leaving my home state of Michigan. In hindsight, I think I got my outlook on life from my parents who risked it all and left Poland so that my sister and I could have a better life here in America. I was born in Poland, but my parents took that HUGE leap of faith and I am so happy they did.
It was a risk for me to abandon my hometown and move to LA to pursue film at USC. It was a huge risk for me to leave my job at ICM where I was doing so well to go work as an assistant for Paula Wagner and Tom Cruise. It was a risk for me to leave that job after almost four years and pursue writing. It was all going great until I left CW and my writing career stalled lol. So I went back into development at Disney’s Touchstone Television and then I jumped again and became an executive for a production company at Paramount. These were all risks because I didn’t stay in any one job where you could steadily advance. It sounds like job-hopping but I was actually in each of these jobs from 2-4 years so it was risky for me to leave (and it was always my decision). It was just that I wanted to do something new. I couldn’t see myself being an agent or an executive and working for someone else. I probably would have stayed if I had felt fulfilled or if a saw a future but the truth was that each of these jobs became a dead end. I also didn’t feel like I was making anything.
I remember getting offered to host a web series called The Insiders about movies. We shot over 40 episodes. I’d never been in front of the camera before, but I was a professor at USC and UCLA so I took that opportunity. Why not? I was able to grow, try something new and, most importantly, I could do a show where I could give back because the whole purpose of that series was to open up the world of Hollywood and show our subscribers how they could make it too. You can still find all the episodes on YouTube. What I loved about teaching at USC and UCLA was that I was doing the class I wish I had when I went to USC and it was the same with my web series. I wanted very much to show everyone how you can do it and, at the same time, I gained confidence and resolve to do it myself. That’s when I decided to start my own company, Savant Artists, where I advise filmmakers who are trying to make their dreams come true.
The biggest risk of all is what I am doing now–raising my sons as a single dad. We are out here all alone. I’m pouring everything I have into their schools. I send them to private schools and I can barely afford it. But I believe these schools, staying in the same school K-8 with all your friends and the teachers who know and love you since you were little, I believe these schools have really helped me to raise them. I have no idea what my future holds, considering the sacrifice I am making but that’s the way it’s always been–uncharted.
Over the years, I’ve had a lot of success and I also got stuck in the mud. But I’ve worked at some amazing places and with great people. It was worth the risks I took. For the past ten years, I’ve been advising filmmakers in a producing capacity and I love it. But I haven’t crossed the finish line yet. I’m still in that race and I plan to finish.
Sebastian, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I didn’t choose movies–movies chose me. I love absolutely everything about movies and television which includes series and shortform. I’ve been in LA now for over 30 years and what I love most is knowing I live in the place where so much of what I loved watching was actually filmed. I used to live in the neighborhood where there’s the Brady Bunch house. I have walked through Franklin Canyon Park like in Andy Griffith and Star Trek. Almost all of the locations from E.T. which is my favorite movie. Locations for Back to the Future, Karate Kid, and so many more. All the back lots. I’ve met so many people who I grew up seeing their names in lights… I cannot express how much I love being surrounded by these people and places.
The moral of the story is that you can in fact achieve your dreams.
How did I get in? Well I had amazingly good grades in high school and I got a scholarship to go to the USC School of Cinematic Arts for free. USC absolutely changed my life forever. I grew up as a working class kid and I was actually an immigrant so there was no world where going to a school like USC was even a possibility–until it was. Being on campus there is probably the most inspiring place of all for me and that’s partly why I went back and taught at the film school for ten years.
For the time being, while raising my sons, I am working with filmmakers to help them achieve their dreams. This is via my company Savant Artists. I’ve worked with quite a few extraordinarily talented and entrepreneurial filmmakers who I personally admire and who help to keep the flame alive inside me. As soon as my sons are both off to college, I will return to making my own movies.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I think passion and resilience are the two most important traits of anyone in the creative community. I also believe it’s important to be creative as a way to help others and make the world a better place. For people like myself, it’s not really a choice. I suppose you have many choices in life but a passion to be creative is something that just drives every aspect of your life. The problem is when you’re so focused that you may neglect other aspects of your life and that’s where you have to be careful. But I guess no one is perfect. I’ve been here in LA for quite some time now and, well, I am still here and I am still making movies.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
Being creative is both very rewarding but at the same time it can be very painful. I’m not sure you can separate the two.
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