The Tracksuit Podcast

BJ Hendricks & James Cullen Bressack

5.0 (3)
Film Interviews
Updated Weekly

The Tracksuit Podcast is media industry professionals sit down with fellow creatives, filmmakers, and experts for wide-ranging authentic, unfiltered conversations about the entertainment industry - covering everything from the business of entertainment to the unexplained. Hosted by BJ Hendricks and James Cullen Bressack.

6d ago · Video

Jesse V. Johnson - Getting to Number One on Hulu

Jesse V. Johnson — Action, Authenticity & Watching the Actor's Face Jesse V. Johnson — action director, former stuntman and PA, and the man behind *Savage Dog*, *Avengement*, *Accident Man*, and *Thieves Highway* — sits down with James and BJ for a deep, craft-first conversation about what three decades in the trenches of low-budget action filmmaking actually teaches you. Jesse traces his path from running cables as a teenage PA on Helena Bonham Carter's second film to doing second unit for Spielberg on *Lincoln*, Branagh on *Thor*, and P.T. Anderson on *The Master* — and why those years of enforced unemployment beside the masters were worth more than all his early directing credits combined. Key topics - **The actor roster:** Scott Adkins, Aaron Eckhart, Stephen Bauer (Scarface stories, Ray Donovan, and the heartbreak of scheduling killing the perfect casting), John Malkovich refusing to eat, Ray Park demanding one-take scenes, and Christopher Lee on the set of *Young Indiana Jones* - **Working beside the greats:** Spielberg shooting the Battle of Spotsylvania Ferry with 1,000+ extras and moving on after one take regardless; Kenneth Branagh's notebook method and treating a Thor script like Shakespeare; P.T. Anderson keeping Joaquin Phoenix on a stool facing a corner between takes and the real 1930s museum toilet that got destroyed - **Practical effects philosophy:** why real blanks change an actor's eyes, what Isaac Florentine learned from Sergio Leone's close-ups, and the Gene Kelly trick Jesse stole for *Accident Man* (light shoes = the audience follows the feet) - **The road to *Savage Dog*:** three years unemployable after a black-and-white passion project, the 1942 Jeep with no cup holder, and the roadside moment that reset his entire relationship to the work - **Thieves Highway hitting #1 on Hulu** with zero publicity spend — and *Above and Below* (Antonio Banderas, sharks, a boat) coming next - **Mentoring Luke LaFontaine** on his first feature (*Mexicali*), Jesse's son Aster as script supervisor, and the value of building a set around people you trust - **Advice for directors:** read the masters (Raoul Walsh, William Wyler, Howard Hawks), stop calling it content, and understand that movies are an extension of 2,000-year-old Greek theatre
Aug 9 · Video

Nicolas Wendl - Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes

Nicolas Wendl shot a horror feature in his co-director's apartment for $7,000 and it ended up on the CW. Nicolas (director of STUPID GAMES, Chapman grad, half French / half German) sits down with James and BJ to break down how he and co-director Danny turned a no-budget apartment shoot into a movie that trended in Tubi's top five horror titles, out-marketed studio campaigns with nothing but their own TikToks, and became the calling card that got him his next feature. Also: why every effect in the movie is in-camera, the magnets hidden under a board game, the real reason for the green M&Ms, Shannon Doherty's first-ever on-screen death, practical effects vs. aging CGI, a shark-movie bucket list, the dolphin HGTV pitch nobody asked for — and five straight minutes of Jim Carrey being personally responsible for the Mandela Effect. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. — WATCH STUPID GAMES —Streaming on Tubi and the CW · rent or buy on Prime · alsoOr just Google "stupid games" — the marketing worked that well. — FOLLOW NICOLAS —@nicolaswendl on all socials — THE TRACKSUIT PODCAST —Hosted by James Cullen Bressack & BJ HendricksProduced by Bent Wrist Productions
Jul 31 · Video

Jeremy O'Keefe - Casting, Directing & Audition Myths

## Jeremy O'Keefe — Casting, Directing & the Bold Choice Jeremy O'Keefe — casting director, producer, director, acting coach, and tracksuit convert — sits down with James and BJ to pull back the curtain on how the indie film casting machine really works. From assembling the stacked ensemble on *Boris is Dead* to landing Anthony Hopkins for his feature casting debut *Eyes in the Trees*, Jeremy breaks down the philosophy behind great auditions, why actors sabotage themselves by over-planning, and what it feels like to finally step back into the director's chair after 15 years for his passion project *The Avoidant*. **Key topics:**- Casting *Boris is Dead*: targeting 90s names, writing personal letters to actors, and why almost every role was a recognizable face- The Mindy Sterling "sadly passed" email incident that convinced everyone she was dead- Jimmy Duvall — 12 years of friendship finally landing in the right role- Jeremy's Meisner-adjacent acting technique: getting out of your brain, into your gut, and making your scene partner matter- Why over-rehearsed auditions tank on set — and how James spots it by throwing adjustments mid-read- BJ's Glee audition: nailed the choreography, lost the role to his own tattoos- Jeremy's shirtless Rallies Burger commercial audition dancing to Nelly — his most humiliating moment- In-person vs. self-tape: why bringing actors back into the room had them crying with gratitude- Landing Anthony Hopkins for *Eyes in the Trees* and learning the producing side of star attachments- *The Avoidant* — Adam Goldberg leads; shooting in Delaware; Jeremy directing for the first time since 2011- The Dregs (dir. Connor Martin) and chasing Freddie Prinze Jr. across two sitcoms- James's 100+ tracksuit collection, COVID origin story, and the Emmy tux incident- LA Metro life, Waymo shoutouts, and how Silver Lake is starting to feel like Astoria- Networking events, giving vs. getting, and why being useful is the real career strategy
Jul 24

K-Day - Gloppy, Ghost Hunters & Going for It

Kay Day — writer, director, actress, musician, Coyote Ugly veteran, Gloppy the gorilla, and the only person to escape a Brooklyn satanic naked shroom party by borrowing a stranger's clothes — takes over a host seat for a full Tracksuit first. James and BJ dig into her $7,000 debut found-footage horror film *There's a Man Over There*, five rounds of rehab (she hit on the EMT en route to number five), eight years of punk rock chaos at Arlene's Grocery in NYC, the viral Bowser thirst trap, ghost stories that actually scared us, and a remarkably open conversation about living with bipolar disorder. Plus: the satanic Brooklyn basement, Gloppy's origin story, Bears vs. Karen, and the Coney Island acid-trip movie she's already writing. Find Kay Day: @kraykayday on Instagram
Jul 21

Peter Jae - K-Town Cowboys to Hulu

## Peter Jae — Wrenches, Van Damme & Finding Your Voice Peter Jae — actor, stunt performer, K-Town institution, and the guy who carried The Workout on his back — rolls into the Tracksuit for a wide-ranging conversation about grinding through New York, breaking into Hollywood, and what it actually feels like to finally be the lead. **Key topics covered:** - Growing up in the Bronx, LaGuardia High School for the Arts, and ditching menswear design after reading *The Alchemist* on the subway - The New York hustle: bouncing at night, student films during the day, going days without sleep to feed a calling - How the death of two close friends pushed him to move to L.A. — and learning to drive at 28 as the world's worst Asian stereotype on the road - *K-Town Cowboys* — the viral web series that accidentally became a voice for Asian American representation before Asian content existed - **Darkness of Man** (Hulu): playing the main villain, meeting JCVD for the first time mid-monologue with Todd standing in, and shooting the final scene on day one - **The Workout** (Tubi): being handed 16 pages and a lead role, the wrench moment in the strip club scene, 20-camera setups, and the closed-down hospital Manhunt sessions - The April Fool's hospital bed prank that cost him friendships - Josh Kelly double-dipping between *General Hospital* and *The Workout* on the same days - **Black Hat** with Michael Mann and Chris Hemsworth: nearly losing his teeth on a table stunt, and Thor giving him a hug in the K-Town parking lot in front of everyone who doubted him - **Olympus Has Fallen**, meeting stunt legend Simon from *Best of the Best*, and how the stunt world runs on relationships - James training with a Golden Gloves coach for the Fantastic Fest boxing match and cornering with a UFC fighter - Working with Mel Gibson, Kevin Dillon (who knows everyone's lines), and Shannon Doherty on *Hot Seat* - Peter's original drama script inspired by the Bronx, and why he wants to write the stories he needed as a kid - Advice to aspiring actors: know your authentic voice, don't get lost in the smoke, and remember you're playing pretend for a living - *The Workout* officially turned a profit — checks incoming
Jul 10 · Video

RJ Cooper - What the Footage Tells You

RJ Cooper — Osmosis, Oners, and Editing Three Movies at Once James's longtime editing partner and secret weapon RJ Cooper finally sits down in front of a camera. A USC film school grad who started out designing posters for Batman Begins and Spider-Man, RJ has cut the bulk of James's directing filmography — Survive the Game, Hot Seat, Fortress, Darkness of Man, The Workout, Boris is Dead, and I Have Proof — and the two have developed a creative shorthand that borders on telepathy. This one gets into the real craft: how editors read footage, fight for the film alongside the director, and keep the heart of a movie alive when producers start circling. Key topics & highlights: How RJ and James developed their editing language across seven-plus films — and why the first cut keeps getting closer to what James actually wantedThe frame-blending trick born on The Workout and the Star Wars–style wipe transitions RJ snuck into Boris is Dead over James's objections (and won)Hot Seat's unique challenge: building fake computer screens for Kevin Dillon to react to and fighting for every stock helicopter shotWhy The Workout's extreme multi-camera chaos (15 cameras, cell phones, angles James didn't know he had) ended up changing the way both of them shoot and cut foreverEditing three feature films simultaneously — and how he keeps the worlds straightReading a director's signature: James = performance + action + dark humor; Matt Eskandari = relationships; John Keyes = women against impossible oddsActors who gave him gold he had to leave on the cutting room floor: Antonio Banderas and Alice EveRJ's most panic-inducing job: Hot Seat, with its blank monitor problemHis first feature: Game of Assassins shot in China with Bai LingThree Bruce Willis films with Matt EskandariPre-production involvement on Boris is Dead — hired before cameras rolled, suggesting shots and knowing the film needed heavy needle drops from day oneMusic as craft: temp tracks (Dark Knight, Interstellar, always Sicario), playing the edit like an instrument, and using his wife as a fresh-eyes test audienceAI in post: Night Driver as a real-world test case, AI ADR via ElevenLabs, the color-space limitations of AI-generated visuals right now, and why storytelling with a point of view is the only real moatRJ's directorial ambitions: sci-fi (loves Denis Villeneuve), Westerns (already collecting sound effects just in case), and James's on-the-record promise to produce his first featureJames's $7,000 first-film program and the indie model (No Stars, $200K budget, $4.5M at AMC with no P&A)UFOs, Tesla life, Gerald the Dolphin, and alien cinema (Blurp 3 is apparently the masterpiece) Find RJ: rjcooperfilms.com | @rjcooperfilms on Instagram
Jul 3

Samantha Sellars - The Hidden Sister Surfaces

James brings his big sister Samantha Sellars onto the podcast — curriculum manager by day, BookTok evangelist by night — and the result is an hour of family chaos: the graduation purse cigarette ambush, a toddler-James getting tricked by Toy Story walkie talkies, how Sam accidentally introduced her boyfriend to extreme M/M torture fiction, and whether 300 years of alien luxury living is worth getting eaten at the end. Watch on Youtube: Click here to watch a video of this episode. Creators & Guests BJ Hendricks - Host James Cullen Bressack - Host
Jun 26

Kelly Lynn Reiter - "Go" Bags & Chasing Dreams

Kelly Lynn Ryder - (actress/producer, Deadlock, Complex Texas, The Leader) sits down with James and BJ for a wide-ranging conversation about building a career entirely on her own terms — no reps, no fallback plan, no safety net, and apparently no Die Hard. Kelly and James have worked elbow-to-elbow producing Complex Texas and The Leader (a Heaven's Gate biopic that just got into Tribeca), and this episode is part industry masterclass, part warm roast of someone who sprinted to South Georgia at 5:36 p.m. for a last-minute Bruce Willis recast. Key Topics From quantity to quality: why Kelly went from saying yes to 95% of jobs to producing her own projects — and how cultivating financing relationships became her leverage The Deadlock call: getting phoned by director Jared Cohon at 5:36 p.m. and driving to South Georgia overnight for a three-and-a-half-week lead role opposite Bruce Willis — while her mom read the script to her on Bluetooth Bruce Willis from Friends: Kelly's now-legendary confession that she knew Willis primarily as a recurring guest on Friends, not from Die Hard Slotherhouse: the killer-sloth Tubi movie where an American sorority house doubled for the Serbian royal palace The first Deadline mention: sitting at Grumpy Grizzly coffee shop in upstate New York with her grandmother when the notification hit — and sobbing into her cup Producing Complex Texas: first full producing credit alongside James, including James knocking himself out cold taking a baseball bat to the head (one take, one piece of sugar glass, one dented car)Kevin Dillon on set: powering through illness for every take, running lines with the full cast, staying for everyone's coverage — and Kelly not knowing who Johnny Drama was until halfway through filming The crab bucket theory: why success creates enemies and why you have to build your own table The Leader at Tribeca: the Heaven's Gate biopic Kelly co-financed and acts in, with Joel David Moore's Balcony Nine and director Michael Gallagher Wes Craven's advice: the people who make it aren't the most talented — they're the ones who don't quit James's knuckle tattoo: deliberately making himself unemployable in restaurants to remove every possible exit from filmmaking The go bag: always packed by the door since Deadlock, ready to drive to Georgia at any moment Advice for aspiring actors: outlast everyone, say yes to the rooms the universe opens, and remove every escape route
Jun 19 · Video

David Lawrence - Cancer, Cannes, and a Fake Australian Accent

David Lawrence — Cancer, Cannes, and a Fake Australian Accent David Josh Lawrence (actor, writer, producer, acquisitions at Studio Dome / Bloodstream TV) pulls up a chair in the most eventful tracksuit session yet. What starts as a conversation about his self-produced passion project *Lincoln Must Die* quickly spirals into a deeply honest — and deeply funny — account of how he actually got here: surviving non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at 16, becoming a firefighter in San Bernardino, finding acting through exposure therapy, and learning to write scripts because the 2007 WGA strike shut everything else down. Topics & highlights: Lincoln Must Die — how David pitched the story from nothing at Cannes, waited five years, and finally got it made in a month with indie collaborators Leanne Bauer, David Mitchell Park, and Mario Garcia DuenasCancer at 16 — non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, the Make-A-Wish negotiation (Jackie Chan was busy, Jet Li was busy, Britney Spears was apparently doable), and why surviving it made everyone else's excuses hard to tolerateFirefighting & exposure therapy — how anxiety attacks on medical calls in San Bernardino led him to a therapist who told him he was actually just an actorThe Australian accent arc — faking a full Aussie identity to book a role, accidentally getting signed by an agent, booking Bundaberg rum and Outback Steakhouse commercials, and the moment it all unraveled at a client mixerBreaking into distribution — filling in for a no-show at the American Film Market and getting offered an acquisitions job by the end of the day; working with mentor Tom MalloyWhy you shouldn't put your indie film on IMDb too early — a genuinely useful breakdown of how festival dating kills your international sales windowComplex Texas, I Have Proof, and the buddy-cop-with-a-monkey movie — the ongoing collaborations between David, James, and BJWeed brownies, alien theories, and the case for just going out and making your movie already
Jun 12

Jessica Russo - Film Sales & Gerald the Dolphin

Jessica Russo — Sales Agent, Producer, Hat Assassin Jessica Russo (VMI Worldwide / Vantage Media) joins the tracksuit table for a genuinely rare perspective: the sales and distribution side of indie filmmaking. She and James have collaborated on a string of films — including Darkness of Man (starring Jean-Claude Van Damme, currently on Hulu) — and BJ just wrapped The Night Driver with her. So the war stories are real, the industry takes are sharp, and yes, the dolphin kidnapping story is discussed at length. ### Key Topics How the indie market has shifted — quality over quantity, the death of easy pre-sales, and why the financial model for indie films has fundamentally changed post-strikes The Van Damme hat story — how Jess saved the *Darkness of Man* poster on day one of filming by killing James's fedoraLibrary acquisitions & consolidation — Netflix/Paramount, Gravitas/Shout, Chicken Soup for the Soul/Redbox/Screen Media, and what it all means for indie filmmakersAVOD vs. SVOD — why ads came full circle and what Tubi's rise means for the marketWhat actually gets greenlit — script, team, name, and financials that make sense in today's landscapeDelivery schedules — the unglamorous paperwork mountain that filmmakers are never taught about in film schoolFilm school vs. real-world training — why internships and networking beat most curriculaThe Sex Pistols documentary — Billy Idol cameos, Glenn Matlock, and a Netflix sale Jess's first producing credit — Awake (Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Francesca Eastwood), shot in Oklahoma during tornado seasonCrystals, tarot, D&D, and Harry Potter — the full nerd profile of the most organized person at VMIAliens, Mayan temples, elongated heads, and one architect allegedly kidnapped by dolphins (James later discovers it was an April Fools story — BJ chooses to believe it anyway)Advice for aspiring filmmakers — read a delivery schedule, do an internship, go to networking events, be a good person > Want a delivery schedule? Reach out to Jess and tell her you're coming from the Tracksuit Pod.
Jun 5

Justin Cornwell on Improvising with Dave Chappelle & Starring in Training Day

Today’s guest is our good friend, the incredibly talented actor, singer, and artist, Justin Cornwell! If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to hit that SUBSCRIBE button and leave a comment below! Justin sits down to share wild stories from his decade-long run working consecutively in network and studio television. He talks about his nerve-wracking audition process for Spike Lee's Chi-Raq, improvising a scene with Dave Chappelle and Wesley Snipes, and acting alongside Tom Hardy in the upcoming Netflix film Havoc. He also reflects on starring in Training Day with the late Bill Paxton and surviving intense 16-hour days on set. Plus, we dive into Justin's hidden talents—from his killer karaoke skills and spot-on impressions to his jaw-dropping portrait art. We also discuss his new indie film Million Dollar Bet (releasing on April 30th), the crazy world of prediction gambling apps like Polymarket and Kalshi, and his dream of starring in a triumphant biopic.
May 30

Jesse Kove - Flip Phones & Peptides

Welcome to the Tracksuit Podcast! Hosts James Cullen Bressack and BJ Hendricks kick off episode one with actor Jesse Kove - son of Karate Kid legend Martin Kove - who showed up late, sans tracksuit, and immediately made himself at home. They cover Jesse's career in action films, working alongside Jon Voight and Kelsey Grammer in The Last Firefighter, his playable character in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, the upcoming Boris Is Dead, peptide therapy, men's health, ditching his smartphone for a flip phone, and his work with Wings of Rescue - flying hundreds of dogs to no-kill shelters across the country. Click here to view the episode transcript. Creators & Guests James Cullen Bressack - Host BJ Hendricks - Host James Rundquist - Producer 🐾 Support Wings of Rescue: wingsofrescue.org 📸 Follow Jesse Kove: @jessekove📲 Follow us: @thetracksuitpodcast

12 Episodes

5

out of 5

3 Ratings

The Tracksuit Podcast is media industry professionals sit down with fellow creatives, filmmakers, and experts for wide-ranging authentic, unfiltered conversations about the entertainment industry - covering everything from the business of entertainment to the unexplained. Hosted by BJ Hendricks and James Cullen Bressack.

Creator

BJ Hendricks & James Cullen Bressack
Years Active

2026
Episodes

12
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© 2026 Bent Wrist Productions LLC
Show Website

The Tracksuit Podcast