Ilse Will Say

Intrepida Entertainment
  • 5.0 (10)
  • Comedy

Ilse Will Say is an EVERYTHING podcast with a core focus on the entertainment field. Expect Ilse’s takes on TV shows, pizza, nostalgia, bigfoot, butterbeer, the weird little S we all drew in middle school—literally everything. If it lives in your group chat, it lives here too.

  1. 5d ago

    Tommy Martin: He's harmless, we talk to him all the time

    Tommy Martin is a Chicago based actor, filmmaker, and musician who has basically worked every job on a set at some point, and honestly it kind of exhausted me just hearing about it. We start with an unreasonable amount of hair talk (his, not mine) before getting into how a random DIY filmmaker workshop years ago quietly kicked off both our careers, his very unexpected path from a music business degree to Second City to booking his first web series, and what it's like acting in a scene while also being the AD on the same movie (he did this on Haunt Season, insane). Then Hot Cakes happens, and things get weird fast. We're talking two genuinely unsettling ghost stories, a tarot reading that predicted an actual job loss, and a very serious conversation about whether Bigfoot is real (yes). Tommy also gives updates on Grilled Cheese, the horror comedy short he co-directed that's currently making the festival rounds. Follow Tommy at @actortommymartin. In this episode: 00:00 – An unreasonable amount of hair talk02:45 – How we actually met (a DIY filmmaker workshop, years ago)06:03 – Music business major to filmmaker, a whole journey12:10 – Acting in a scene and being the AD on the same movie, at the same time13:05 – Hot Cakes15:06 – Ghost story #1, the haunted house by our high school17:22 – Ghost story #2, the crouched thing in the corner21:15 – The tarot reading that actually came true23:29 – Bigfoot, aliens, and my skinwalker era26:02 – What's next: Grilled Cheese, Morning Moon, Haunt Season, and The Knot Job Mentioned in this episode: Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com

  2. Sep 8

    John David Wolfe: The Hansel and Gretel origin of Candy House

    This week, Ilse sits down with John David Wolfe, a DGA member and Chicago based producer whose two decade career as a location scout and manager put him behind the scenes on Spider-Man 2, High Fidelity, Proof, and Rhythm + Flow before he made the leap to producing his own work. John talks through his path from West Des Moines, Iowa to Chicago, landing High Fidelity as his very first studio credit, and what he'd tell someone trying to break into the industry today. The conversation gets delightfully weird during Hot Cakes, including a real ghost sighting at the Uptown Theatre and a detour into Mandela effect conspiracy theories. Then John shares the real story behind Candy House Productions, the company he co-founded with Chloe Koegel, including the surprisingly literal Hansel and Gretel connection behind the name. He also gives an update on Big Spooky House, Candy House's upcoming feature from filmmaker Jerry S. Gonzalez, which is currently in pre-production with a crowdfunding campaign launching this fall. Time sensitive: Big Spooky House is heading into a GoFundMe style campaign launching in early fall 2026, so keep an eye on Candy House's Instagram for updates. In this episode: 03:02 From Iowa to Chicago04:05 Landing High Fidelity as his first credit06:06 Is the PA route still the way into the industry?09:53 Getting your creative work seen today13:34 Hot Cakes17:35 The haunted Uptown Theatre19:05 A Mandela effect rabbit hole22:49 How Candy House Productions came together26:36 Why "Candy House"? The Hansel and Gretel story28:14 Big Spooky House and working with Jerry S. Gonzalez Follow Candy House Productions on Instagram: @candyhouseproductions @wolfejohndavid Hosted by Ilse Zacharias Rivera. Say hi / follow along here: @ilsezacharias Mentioned in this episode: Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com

  3. Sep 1

    Connar Brown Sprenger: I called them chicken nuggets

    Connar Brown Sprenger is an actor, puppeteer, voice actor, and award winning filmmaker who somehow makes all four look easy. She joins Ilse to talk growing up between Tokyo, London, and Atlanta, playing all seven brothers in one production of Grimm, and the practical, gross, wonderfully weird world of her short film Grilled Cheese. Catch Grilled Cheese on the festival circuit: TromaDance Film Festival (New York), September 4-6. Delaware Horror Film Festival, September 24-27. Massacre Horror Movie Marathon at the Pickwick Theater in Park Ridge, IL, October 10. Connar and Ilse get into the wild logistics of growing up multilingual across three countries, what it's actually like to be a stage understudy who finds out she's on three hours before curtain, and the delicate art of writing a feature film with a friend without losing the friendship. Connar also shares the very specific, very gross inspiration behind Grilled Cheese, the practical effects work from her "goo gang," and a genuinely unsettling haunted house story from her childhood in London. In this episode: 03:08 - Chicago to Tokyo to London to Atlanta and back: the elevator pitch03:56 - Juggling Japanese, Spanish, and English in one brain06:04 - Knowing this was the job since a school production of Snow White in Tokyo09:02 - Understudying Ride the Cyclone and the reality of being on-call11:00 - Writing Grilled Cheese and a feature script with writing partner Tommy Martin11:54 - What she learned producing her first multi-location shoot14:27 - Bribes, threats, and the business brain vs the artist brain20:22 - Hot Cakes: sour patch kids, deep dish, chicken nugget puppet wings, and more23:20 - Ghosts, aliens, and a haunted house in London28:27 - Where to catch Grilled Cheese on the festival circuit Follow Connar on Instagram @jgcbrown97 for more. Hosted by Ilse Zacharias Rivera. Say hi / follow along here: @ilsezacharias Mentioned in this episode: Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com

  4. Aug 25

    Veronica Miles: New Orleans has an internal council

    Veronica Miles has spent over 25 years inside the business of film exhibition, running festivals, theaters, and now the American launch of a ticketing platform. On this episode of Ilse Will Say, she and Ilse get into film festival strategy, the reality of building a career in independent cinema, and why New Orleans might be running its own kind of energy audit on everyone who moves there. Veronica walks through how a scholarship to a film camp in Tuscany as a teenager shaped her, and the surprisingly emotional layers underneath a trip she took back to that same small town decades later. She and Ilse dig into the unglamorous side of submitting to film festivals, how to actually pick which ones are worth your money, and what she's learned helping select mentees for Cinema Femme. Veronica also opens up about the short film she made about her grandmother, shot entirely on her phone during Mardi Gras, and gets into the specific kind of energy she thinks New Orleans holds onto. Find her on Instagram at @veronicalm. In this episode: 00:00 What brought Veronica to New Orleans03:16 How a public school film class turned into a career in film exhibition05:43 Splitting the film industry into art and business09:03 The hats Veronica's wearing right now, from arthouse cinema to Ferve12:30 How to actually get audiences into theater seats13:25 A real strategy for picking which film festivals to submit to17:20 Hot Cakes18:48 The Tuscany film camp story, and what it cost her21:43 The photo of her grandmother that led to a short film23:22 New Orleans, energy, and the city's "internal council"27:04 Her upcoming solo travel film trilogy28:13 Where to find Veronica Mentioned in this episode: Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com

  5. Aug 18

    Tony Scott-Green: Reformed chronically late person

    Tony Scott-Green spent years as a corporate consultant with an entire soundtrack playing in his head before he finally let it out of the speakers. This episode is about what happens when you actually listen to the thing that makes you different. Tony walks Ilse through his path from a bedroom guitarist in Scotland too anxious to play live, through decades in tech consulting, to composing scores for feature films and building sonic branding for major companies out of his Chicago and LA studio. He gets into the exercise that changed everything, a literal hour by hour map of a Thursday ten years in the future that his wife made him write out, and how that became his real roadmap off the consulting track. The conversation also wanders into Scottish folklore, banshees, the muse, and a fully formed conspiracy theory about grapefruit juice. Follow Tony at @tonyscottgreen on Instagram. Tony's documentary First Feature recently screened at the Chattanooga Film Festival. Find it linked in his Instagram bio. In this episode: 00:00 – Tony's reformed chronic lateness01:28 – Cold open and intro03:42 – Growing up in Scotland, bedroom guitarist to engineering school05:40 – The Thursday ten years from now exercise09:59 – Why networking is really just being a good hang10:22 – Music for Imaginary Films, the demo reel that got him his first score13:05 – Hot Cakes15:38 – How Tony learned to actually take a hard director's note16:56 – Scottish folklore and getting woo woo19:30 – The Rachel Dratch line: if you believe in magic, you'll see more of it21:22 – The grapefruit juice conspiracy theory22:44 – Tony's documentary, First Feature Mentioned in this episode: Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com

  6. Aug 11

    Miguel Lepe Jr: Jon Seda punched a bee for me

    Chicago based comedian, writer, actor, and filmmaker Miguel Lepe Jr joins Ilse for a conversation that starts with a defunct pandemic podcast and somehow ends up covering pick-me culture, immigrant parent one liners, a haunted house, and the correct way to sleep in a marriage. Miguel opens up about learning improv at Second City almost by accident, building his sketch duo Supremo with Rich Alfonso, and starting his own production company, Leafcutter Productions, named after a bee species (despite popular belief, it has nothing to do with lawn care). He gets into his real, lifelong fear of bees and the time Jon Seda saved him from one on the set of Chicago PD, his wife's uncanny ability to pause and resume her dreams, and his family's immigration story, the subject of his new documentary American Dreams. Catch American Dreams screening around Chicago: Saturday, August 15 in Pilsen at Indigo Mercado. Friday, August 21 in Humboldt Park at the Kimball Arts Center. Friday, August 28 in Aurora at the Aurora Prisco Community Center. All screenings at 7:30 PM. Follow @lepetv for details. In this episode: [01:03] Intro[03:18] Pick-me culture and the pressure of immigrant kid overachieving[06:31] Visiting his dad's hometown deep in the mountains of Mexico[07:45] Finding Second City by accident and falling in love with improv[09:00] Where his sense of humor really comes from[10:44] Building his sketch duo, Supremo[11:14] Where he gets his ideas, doom scrolling included[12:44] Hot Cakes[14:31] His haunted house and his wife's wild recurring dreams[18:26] Starting Leafcutter Productions and why it's named after a bee[20:49] His documentary, American Dreams, and his family's story[23:19] Kankakee, immigrant journeys, and the world's best conspiracy theory about aliens Hosted by Ilse Zacharias Rivera. Say hi / follow along here: @ilsezacharias

  7. Aug 4

    Juan Luis Garcia: I want to need an exorcism

    Juan Luis Garcia has designed key art for Netflix, HBO, and A24, and was the art director and photographer behind Narcos: Mexico. He also built a sports media company that hit 300 million YouTube views before walking away to go back to making posters, because apparently one impressive career wasn't enough for him. In this episode, Juan and Ilse get into: Growing up in North Long Beach and the early Guadalajara yearsBuying his first camera with leftover scholarship money and just deciding he was a photographerThe difference between designing a poster for a filmmaker's wall versus a poster built to sell ticketsWhat it actually means to run a company with 24 employees with zero plan for howAdvice to his younger self: do it and enjoy every second, the good and the badHot Cakes: best movie poster of all time, the worst studio note he's ever gotten, Weird Al being cooler than expected, and what's chasing him in his dreamsWhy he actively wants to need an exorcism (yes, really) Follow Juan on Instagram at @iamjuanluisgarcia, and check out his site to see the work for yourself. Hosted by Ilse Zacharias Rivera. Say hi / follow along here: @ilsezacharias Mentioned in this episode: Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com

  8. Jul 28

    Sofie Khan: Doritos and yogurt go together, fight me

    Sofie Khan is an actor, writer, producer, and director born and raised in Chicago, with a chapter of her childhood spent in Brownsville, Texas. She's the creator of the sold out, award winning one woman show MexiStani: Growing Up Mexican and Pakistani in America, wrote and directed the short film Ground Nuts, and won $25,000 through the CBS Pipeline program for her screenplay Ochoch, money she donated straight to an LA immigration legal services nonprofit. In this episode, Sofie and Ilse get into: Growing up in a multicultural, interfaith household in ChicagoMoving to Brownsville, Texas, and the unexpected Southern twang that came with itThe arranged marriage that got called off a single day before it was set to happen, thanks to a scholarship letter that arrived just in timeTrading a pre med path and a run at politics for Second City ConservatoryHer first audition, found on Craigslist, and how Teatro Luna shaped her as a storycreatorCasa NoHo as a creative home base for LA's indie film communityThe rules for a proper Doritos and yogurt situation, and why she's not backing down Follow Sofie on Instagram at @heysofiekhan Hosted by Ilse Zacharias Rivera. Say hi / follow along here: @ilsezacharias Mentioned in this episode: Thank you to our sponsor, Joel Maisonet Photography: maisonetphotography.com

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About

Ilse Will Say is an EVERYTHING podcast with a core focus on the entertainment field. Expect Ilse’s takes on TV shows, pizza, nostalgia, bigfoot, butterbeer, the weird little S we all drew in middle school—literally everything. If it lives in your group chat, it lives here too.

Information

  • Creator
    Intrepida Entertainment
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    57
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 Intrepida Entertainment
  • Show Website
    Ilse Will Say