THE DAD ERA
A strange thing can happen when you spend enough years chasing one version of a career.
You get so focused on the thing you think you’re supposed to be making that you stop noticing the things that energize you in completely different ways.
Last week, a promo I wrote and directed for Sony’s upcoming movie The Breadwinner, starring Nate Bargatze, went online and blew up.
While creating a quirky “Dad Era” world with competitive fathers, chaotic daughters, and nose-hair waxing chaos, I discovered how much joy I find in exploring a totally different creative lane.
There was something incredibly satisfying about collaborating with a crew that instantly understood the rhythm of the bit. And getting to work alongside someone like Nate Bargatze, whose comedy I’ve admired for years, only made the experience even more surreal.
There was also something strangely satisfying about seeing an idea go from pitch to production to millions of views in less time than it usually takes to get notes back on a TV outline.
The entire experience reminded me that creative fulfillment can arrive in unexpected ways.
Not through the thing you spent years carefully planning.
But through the random opportunity that suddenly makes you feel fully awake.
Or, in my case, through a fake father-daughter bonding activity that definitely would’ve sounded concerning if explained out of context.
The shoot itself felt a little like organized panic.
I created a world where dads would have their nose hairs waxed by their very untrained, very unprofessional daughters.
Even the dads who agreed had a look that said, “I support comedy, but I also enjoy breathing through my nose.”
Meanwhile, the daughters fully embraced the day’s psychological warfare, talking trash to their dads with the confidence of tiny boxers, ready to inflict pain in 3...2...1...
Every few minutes, you’d hear a grown man yell “OH MY GOD,” followed immediately by the delighted laughter of an eleven-year-old girl.
So I stepped up first and told the esthetician to prep me for waxing. I know what you’re thinking: “hero.” And you would be correct.
She packed my left nostril with wax, pressed a strip of fabric against it, and then handed the honor of destruction over to my daughter.
I was ready and not ready at the same time.
RIP.
Out came the hair. Stayed went the wax.
The next morning, I woke up stuck to my pillow. For days, I dug hardened wax out of my nose like a kid digging for gold.
But somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, something else happened.
My daughter got her first little taste of acting.
Nothing huge. Just a fun day on set with me.
At one point, watching her confidently jump in front of the camera, I had the weird thought that maybe I was seeing Future Her in its earliest form.
But afterward, she walked away, asking where she should get her first headshots taken.
And I realized that at 11 years old, she already seems more comfortable stepping confidently into this business than I still do at 46.
There was something weirdly beautiful about that.
Kids don’t negotiate with themselves the way adults do.
They just want the thing they want and move toward it without apologizing for it.
Maybe this was one of those subtle moments when life reveals what’s already present beneath the surface.
Not through some giant life-changing speech.
Just through comedy, collaboration, nose wax, and discovering that my daughter may already have better representation instincts than I do.
Without further ado: