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Daina Griffith is a very much in-demand actress of breathtaking range and depth. She has performed in over 55 productions with Pittsburgh’s greatest theatre institutions such as The Pittsburgh Public Theater, Off The Wall, City Theatre, Front Porch Theatricals, PICT Classic Theatre, and Barebones. In 2013, The Pittsburgh Post Gazette named her Performer of the Year. In 2015 she was nominated for the Carol R. Brown Emerging Artist Award.

From May to September of 2018, Daina was seen on stage at City Theatre in Sean Daniels’ The White Chip, Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists, Ragtime at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center, and Front Porch Theatrical’s sold out production of Grey Gardens.

Daina’s film credits include: Richard Linklater’s upcoming Where’d You Go, Bernadette, starring Cate Blanchett and Kristin Wiig; Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Anna Martemucci’s Hollidaysburg, Pittsburgh Dad’s Street Light Stories (starring as Deb, Dad’s usually invisible wife), and Unsinkable, in which she plays the Countess of Rothes, a passenger on the Titanic.

Daina’s TV credits include: Guiding Light, a recurring in WGN’s Outsiders, multiple pilots, web series roles, and national commercials. Daina also runs Griffith Coaching, where she coaches actors of all ages to prepare them for auditions and to help them discover the joys of acting.

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Read the Podcast Transcript

Speaker 1:

This is StoryBeat, storytellers on storytelling, an exploration into how master storytellers and artists develop and build brilliant stories and works of art that people everywhere love and admire. So, join us as we discover how talented creators of all kinds find success in the worlds of imagination and entertainment. Here now is your host, Steve Cuden.

Steve Cuden:

Thanks for joining us on StoryBeat. We’re coming to you from the Center for Media Innovation on the campus of Point Park University in the heart of Downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. If you like this podcast, please take a moment to give us a rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great StoryBeat episodes to you.

Steve Cuden:

Well, my guest today, Daina Griffith, is a very much in-demand actor of breathtaking range and depth. Born and raised in Fairfield, Ohio, Daina moved to Pittsburgh to attend Point Park University from where we’re recording this episode of StoryBeat. After graduating, she established working relationships with every professional theater company in Steel Town. Daina has performed in over 55 productions with Pittsburgh’s greatest theater institutions, such as the Pittsburgh Public Theater, Off the Wall, City Cheater, Front Porch Theatricals, PICT Classic Theatre, and Barebones.

Steve Cuden:

In 2013, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette named her Performer of the Year. In 2015, she was nominated for the Carol R. Brown Emerging Artist Award. From May to September of 2018, she was seen on stage at City Theatre in Sean Daniels’ The White Chip, Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists, Ragtime at Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center and Front Porch Theatrical’s sold out production of Grey Gardens.

Steve Cuden:

Daina’s film credits include Richard Linklater’s upcoming Where’d You Go Bernadette, starring Cate Blanchett and Kristin Wiig, Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, Anna Martemucci’s Hollidaysburg, Pittsburgh Dad’s Street Light Stories, starring as Deb, his usually invisible wife, and she’ll soon resume filming on Unsinkable, where she plays the Countess of Rothes, a passenger on the Titanic.

Steve Cuden:

Daina’s TV credits include Guiding Light, a recurring in WGN’s Outsiders, multiple pilots, web series roles, and national and local commercials. Daina also runs Griffith Coaching, where she coaches actors of all ages to prepare them for auditions and to help them discover the joys of acting. For more information, please check out www.dainamichellegriffith.com.

Steve Cuden:

For the record, I had the great good fortune to work with Daina on PICT Classic Theatre’s Sterling 2015 production of Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris. So for me, this is a true honor and pleasure to welcome the great Daina Griffith to StoryBeat today. Daina, welcome to the show.

Daina Griffith:

Thank you so much. It’s so nice to be here.

Steve Cuden:

Well, it’s really grand to have you here. Tell us a bit about your history. I mean, you’ve been at this acting game for a little bit of time now but at what age did the bug first bite you?

Daina Griffith:

I actually didn’t start performing in plays until I was in my latter years of high school. I didn’t grow up doing this. I was in show choir. I was in chorus but I was pretty athletic growing up. I played tennis, did gymnastics, I was a cheerleader, those kinds of things and I got into it pretty late. But the bug bit me very early. Little Shop of Horrors was one of my favorite movies and Rags to Riches was one of my favorite TV shows. They were musical, they were set in the 60s, they were fun, and I knew every word. I knew everything. So I wasn’t loving musicals when I was little but I was definitely around music a lot.

Steve Cuden:

Were you an in-the-mirror performer as a kid?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I was. Because I’m an only child so I played pretend a ton. And there was a mirror that was in our house that I liked to pretend in front of and I would actually envision myself in makeup and hair. And I was thinking about this the other day, it looked real to me. None of that stuff was on me but I was able to like look in this mirror and imagine eye shadow and I could see it, it was very bizarre. But as a child, my imagination, because I was an only child was huge.

Steve Cuden:

Clearly, you’ve been able to fulfill a lot of that. Do you still have those visions when you’re looking at yourself in the mirror?

Daina Griffith:

Not necessarily that clear but I do. For each role I play, I have this idea. I get this idea, I see myself as whatever that thing is, and we’ll have grand conversations with the hair and makeup people to… Not necessarily in movies and film but on stage I’ll say, “I see this.” I just finished Revolutionists at City Theatre, and she was a writer and I saw her hands just covered in ink and the costume designer was a little terrified of this because that means there’s ink on my hands in her gorgeous costumes. And so I took it upon myself to find something that would work, that would not stain anything else because I had to have these dirty hands. Because ink would have been all over her hands.

Steve Cuden:

And the costume designer didn’t allow that to be part of the costume then, where there was ink on the costume as well.

Daina Griffith:

Exactly. Yeah, she wanted to keep it nice and clean, which makes total sense because they were built for me and they were gorgeous, all the costumes were amazing. But she was like, “Yeah, I dig that idea. Find something that doesn’t come off your fingers.”

Steve Cuden:

Are you the type of actor who you come to life more once you’ve got the costume and makeup on?

Daina Griffith:

I don’t know if I would go that far. I have a pretty clear beginning vision when I read the play and when I’m auditioning for a play of what I see it, how I see it, which might work to my benefit when I audition for things because then I come in with something very clear. It’s not muddied. It’s how I envision it to be and as we go on, as we rehearse, it becomes clearer and clearer. It gets in my muscles. That’s the thing that I find rehearsals are so amazing for is that we get to figure out how this person stands, how this person reacts to people and what that means in their muscles.

Steve Cuden:

And I take it that that comes from your very first reading of the text.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

So how many plays have you done where you’ve done something with that play before? Any of them? Like you’ve done two different productions of the same play.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I’ve done Cabaret the musical three times, I’ve done Death of a Salesman twice, I’ve done Oliver the musical twice. Is that it? I think that’s it.

Steve Cuden:

Do you feel like each one of those productions that were different, do you approach them differently? Or did you come at them the same way?

Daina Griffith:

I did approach them differently. It’s funny when you do things multiple times at different times in your life, they change, they evolve and you evolve.

Steve Cuden:

You evolve.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

You mature, life impacts you in some other way.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, totally. So, Cabaret was at three very different times in my life-

Steve Cuden:

Always Sally Bowles?

Daina Griffith:

No, twice. Once I was a Kit Kat Girl and Sally Bowles understudy, and then the other time was at Point Park in 2000… I don’t know, three, two. Something like that. And that was Sally Bowles. And then the other was Kit Kat Girl. So it’s funny. It’s funny to like just the brass in that musical, to go back to it a couple of years after playing Sally and having that kind of reaction to the music and where our country was at that time. It’s just so interesting. So they’re all a little different.

Steve Cuden:

Well, that play has political resonance as well and you’re playing it in a certain time, and era, it’s going to have a different resonance to it.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, totally.

Steve Cuden:

And that’s a very clever part of what Christopher Isherwood did in the original I am a Camera that got translated into a musical. Do you feel that acting is a calling for you?

Daina Griffith:

I do. I totally do. It sounds so cliche but it’s totally true.

Steve Cuden:

If it is, that’s what it is.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I always have. I mean, since I was little but I thought that being an actor… I didn’t realize being an actor meant you had to… I mean, why would I know this? But I didn’t realize you had to train and you had to move to a place where acting happens. I thought it was going to be a job like my dad going to the factory every night to build cars. I thought I would go down the street and I would make TV shows.

Steve Cuden:

Two blocks away-

Daina Griffith:

Totally.

Steve Cuden:

People acted.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, past that farm there’s a place where you make TV shows and movies. And I legitimately thought that.

Steve Cuden:

Well, in Los Angeles, that’s true.

Daina Griffith:

Yes. But in Fairfield, Ohio-

Steve Cuden:

No, not so much.

Daina Griffith:

Not so much. Exactly.

Steve Cuden:

Or in Pittsburgh for that matter.

Daina Griffith:

Exactly. In Fairfield, it’s like, “Past that farm you’re in Indiana, so, yay for you.” But yeah, so I did. I knew I wanted to do it but I thought I would be an art teacher because that was my creative outlet, was painting and pottery and ceramics and I really thought that’s what I was going to do because I didn’t know how to get into this.

Steve Cuden:

Are you still painting and doing pottery and ceramics?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts has a great pottery studio there. And I just painted my house. My house is filled with my paintings. Nobody else has… Wait, my mom has one.

Steve Cuden:

Okay, I love this because I love when people are artists, they tend to do more than one art, one kind of art, more than one discipline, I should say. How does your painting, your ceramics and so on, how does that impact your acting?

Daina Griffith:

It’s interesting because I feel like my painting, especially, when I got back from New York, when I moved back to Pittsburgh from New York City, I was painting all the time. Because I was sad, I didn’t know what was happening in my life and it seems to come into play… And same with the pottery, that’s when I started going to Center for the Arts because I needed to use my hands, I needed to do something that was creative that wasn’t coming out of my face and my mouth and my diaphragm, I needed to not create a person, I needed to create something beautiful.

Steve Cuden:

And it wasn’t all about you.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Because actors it’s all about you. You’re the instrument, you’re the mechanism through which we get this thing called acting. But pottery, you make it but then it sits there on its own.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, exactly.

Steve Cuden:

Or a painting, same thing. And so when you came back from New York did you feel a sense of displacement?

Daina Griffith:

I did. Because I felt like I was failing somehow.

Steve Cuden:

What year did you go to New York?

Daina Griffith:

I came back at the very end of 2007.

Steve Cuden:

So you’d only been there a few years?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I had only been there a handful of years. I knew I didn’t like it from week one. It was it’s-

Steve Cuden:

Too much Hurlyburly?

Daina Griffith:

Too much Hurlyburly. Initially, we lived near Turtle Bay, on the east side, and then we moved to Hell’s Kitchen. And we were on 49th, between ninth and 10th.

Steve Cuden:

I assume you were out auditioning all the time [inaudible 00:12:43]

Daina Griffith:

Constantly and I loved the auditioning. That was the best part of the day because you got to be somebody else for two minutes.

Steve Cuden:

Sure. And my assumption is, is it didn’t turn into the big thing you’d hoped it turn into and that’s why you came back.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, kind of not really though because I know that if I would have stuck it out, I was getting Broadway call backs. I wanted to make my autobiography, me and the girl that got it because my time in New York, it was legitimately me and the girl that got the Broadway contracts. And it always came down to the two of us. And it was fascinating. And I would watch them in their call backs. I would be at TLC and there were windows and the doors and I could see them in there and hear them and wonder like, “What’s different?” Well, Point Park did not have, at the time, a showcase. We were the last class to not have a showcase.

Steve Cuden:

Is that right?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. And we begged for one, Marcus Stevens was in my class. There’s a bunch of people that then moved to New York who were like, “Okay, let’s get this started.” And I got myself an agent and I did the whole thing but I loved the auditioning. The reason I left was really because my life… And I was leaving, I was meeting lots of people and I was leaving and going to do shows and that I would come back and my life was only about making myself something else for someone. Every audition, I felt so amazing. And then I would leave and I would think like, “I better go to the gym, I better go and do this. I better walk there.” Because that will be extra movement for me and it just became this obsession with being perfect for the people in the room.

Steve Cuden:

Whatever that means.

Daina Griffith:

Exactly. Whatever that meant.

Steve Cuden:

Because I am also a perfectionist, and I understand what you’re talking about where it’s got to be just exactly right.

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

Whatever that means.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Because for other people it means something else.

Daina Griffith:

Totally. So I was going to all these dance calls and it was like I had to have the perfect outfit and I had to have the perfect dress and the perfect LaDuca dance shoes. And I mean, I was obsessed with it. And I was getting places.

Steve Cuden:

Well, I’ve got to tell you, it’s hard for me to imagine you weren’t.

Daina Griffith:

Thanks.

Steve Cuden:

Because you have just unbelievable amounts of talent.

Daina Griffith:

Thank you. It was exciting. But then I realized like, “I just want to be an actor, wherever that is.” And I was coming back to Pittsburgh once a year to do a show, like at the public. And I thought like, “I’m definitely not going back to Fairfield because I have no need to be there. But I could go back to Pittsburgh, I already had these relationships.”

Steve Cuden:

The cows were not calling to you.

Daina Griffith:

No. They weren’t. Thank God.

Steve Cuden:

And Pittsburgh has a spectacular amount of activity here theatrically.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, totally. I mean, it’s amazing. And with all the movies. Movies had started filming here. And I thought, “Well, let’s try.” And it worked to my benefit.

Steve Cuden:

Well, good move on your part.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

And I think not just good for you but good for us. That’s the real key.

Daina Griffith:

That’s so nice.

Steve Cuden:

So obviously, you’ve done a bunch of stuff. And at what point did you think to yourself, “Hey, I am actually pretty good at this. I do understand what I’m doing.” Or has it never hit you?

Daina Griffith:

That really hasn’t happened yet. But I do find that I am much more confident than I was 10 years ago.

Steve Cuden:

You know when you go up for part and you get a part, you’re going to be able to do it.

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

There isn’t a question in your head that I don’t think I can do this. No, you actually know you can do it.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

The question is how well and in what way?

Daina Griffith:

Right.

Steve Cuden:

Right?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. And how much is it going to take out of me?

Steve Cuden:

I think it’s a very good thing for our audience to hear someone like you say that you don’t think you’ve quite gotten there yet because that is what makes you keep going after it. Otherwise, why bother?

Daina Griffith:

Exactly. A lot of my students will say, “I need to get rid of my nervousness. I have such stage fright and I get so nervous when I audition.” And I say, “Oh, no, no, no, no. If you get rid of that, that means you don’t care anymore. I’m nervous every time I walk into an audition.”

Steve Cuden:

Are you?

Daina Griffith:

Absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

To this day, do you get nervous before a show?

Daina Griffith:

The first show, yes. After that, no.

Steve Cuden:

How do you handle it?

Daina Griffith:

A lot of deep breathing and trying to focus. I am a firm believer in focusing my energy as much as possible as the character. So Daina is out of the picture for the first like 10 minutes of that first play in front of an audience.

Steve Cuden:

So you really have to be deeply into the character to get to that point?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. And then there’s some plays like Grey Gardens that play, it was from beginning to end… I don’t think I thought my own thought, a thought of my own because I just had to be fully committed.

Steve Cuden:

I mean, because I’ve seen a lot of things you’ve written online. And I know that Little Lady was a big deal for you. And you had been studying her for a very long time.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, not even realizing but yes, I was.

Steve Cuden:

You were deeply into that thinking or that character before you got there.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

I assume pretty much a fulfillment for you to do that.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

I got to see it. It was pretty awesome to see to that part. So clearly, of late, you’ve been unbelievably busy. I mean, you’ve been going from one gig to another to another to another. Now, obviously, that’s a challenge. Let’s explore that a minute. What is it like to be in a show, having another one that you’re working on at the same time and have a repetition of that from one show to the next? How do you handle that?

Daina Griffith:

It’s really hard. It’s been the last 10 years since I’ve returned from New York. I’ve done 55 shows.

Steve Cuden:

That’s a lot of shows.

Daina Griffith:

That’s a lot of shows.

Steve Cuden:

That’s five shows a year.

Daina Griffith:

At least. And there were some years that I did seven. The year I won Performer of the Year, I did seven shows.

Steve Cuden:

In your mind, how do you manage it?

Daina Griffith:

I don’t know if I do it very well. I become-

Steve Cuden:

You do it extremely.

Daina Griffith:

You’re very sweet. I can’t do things, anything in my life, I don’t do it halfway. My agents are always like, “You give 200% in everything that you do.”

Steve Cuden:

Good for you.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. And I do. And I think it’s because I wanted to do this so badly growing up, and then when I actually started getting cast, I was like, “Oh, my God. I can’t wait to do it again. I can’t wait to do it.” And every time I would get cast in something new I think, “Oh.” And I still do this. I’m like, “Yes, I get to do it again.” And I just throw everything into it.

Steve Cuden:

Well, you certainly must know there are plenty of actors in the world who don’t get to do that.

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

And you’re very fortunate in the sense that you get to do it over and over again like that.

Daina Griffith:

Absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

So you just take advantage of it every time.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I love it every single time. I do get two points where and I’m at one of those points right now, where I take a break, and I step back. The last time it happened was in the end of 2014. And then it happened again at the end of 2016. And that was after just doing things back to back, to back, to back because this year, I’ve had two weeks off since the first week of January. And in those two weeks, I went to Florida, and then I went to Maine with my husband and every other week of this year, I’ve been either rehearsing in a theatre or performing in a theater. Sometimes overlapping and doing both at the same time.

Steve Cuden:

You ever get the lines mixed up?

Daina Griffith:

I don’t. I never have. Thank God. I need to knock on something. I have not. But I push myself and then I crash when it comes to theatre.

Steve Cuden:

But the theatre also lifts you up, the audience lifts you up.

Daina Griffith:

Yes. I mean, rehearsing and being on stage is the most thrilling thing in the entire world.

Steve Cuden:

It’s oxygen to you.

Daina Griffith:

Absolutely. It’s the time away from that when I’m like trying to gather my energy and relax that I feel the weight of it, how much it takes out of me and having to, all day, you’re sprinting all day long. And then you have this performance at 8 PM. So you’re going to start running the race at 8 PM but I’ve gotten up at 6:30. So it’s how do you… And figuring out when your meals are and all. It’s fascinating. And it’s exciting when you get in that repetition. But then, at the end of it, I’m like, “I need to be me for five seconds.”

Steve Cuden:

So more or less since you’ve been back to Pittsburgh, there hasn’t been a great long period for you, in which, “I don’t have a gig and I don’t know when one’s coming.”

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

That’s really fortunate.

Daina Griffith:

Yes, absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

And it’s also a testament to something else, right?

Daina Griffith:

Sure.

Steve Cuden:

To your abilities. So I guess the question I’m going to ask you, maybe you don’t have a good answer for, which is how do you manage the downtime? Well, you don’t have a lot of it.

Daina Griffith:

I don’t have a lot of it.

Steve Cuden:

And you already know… I’m guessing you already know you’re booked out in advance to a certain extent.

Daina Griffith:

I usually do at this point. This year has been a very special here. They’re all very special but this year has been super special because of Grey Gardens and because of Revolutionists and because of Ragtime and Devil Inside with the rep with the Playhouse. It’s just been every role that I have played this year has been epic and I’ve gone one right into the next. At City Theatre in The White Chip, I played 17 characters.

Steve Cuden:

Oh, my goodness.

Daina Griffith:

In an hour and 15 minutes. I was male, I was female, I was young, I was old and I never left the stage. So this year has been so crazy fulfilling and I’m satisfied. I am very full artistically. And I’m just going to step back. I’m not auditioning for anything. Film and TV, I am auditioning for because that is a super challenge and I love a challenge.

Steve Cuden:

You find that film and TV is more of a challenge than stage?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Why?

Daina Griffith:

Because there’s so many people watching you that you can disappoint if you screw up and they have to go back to one. And there’s just a lot of pressure and the continuity… Because I am a creature of my environment so whatever is on stage that night, that’s what I’m reacting to. And it’s never the same.

Steve Cuden:

You’re an of the moment actor for sure.

Daina Griffith:

Big time. So having to not be that and be in the moment but make it the same and have that continuity-

Steve Cuden:

With the same hand motion, same head turn and all the rest of it.

Daina Griffith:

It’s so hard and I love it. I think it’s fascinating. So, yeah, so I’m going to audition for film and TV things. And, of course, shoot Unsinkable and teach kids how to do what I do.

Steve Cuden:

So all right, let’s talk about auditioning for a brief moment.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

What is your philosophy? How do you approach auditioning?

Daina Griffith:

I approach it in… I like to be myself. I don’t like bringing into the room someone that they’re not going to then rehearse with the entire time or film with the entire time. And Nancy Mosser, who runs Nancy Mosser Casting, a couple of years ago, she asked me to teach an audition class for her, which I do when I have the time and I haven’t had much time this year but I have taught at once this year.

Daina Griffith:

But she said, “Nobody auditions like you. Can you please teach people to audition like you?” And I thought, “That is such a great compliment.” Because I was in my mid 30s, and we’re always still figuring it out. And I thought, “What is different? How am I different?” And I’ve sat in a lot of auditions and I see that I think that I bring an ease to the audition room, that my energy is not jumping out of my skin.

Steve Cuden:

So your nerves don’t show?

Daina Griffith:

No. I don’t think they show at all. They used to, for sure. But I think meditation and yoga and all of those things and just being a chill person in general works in my benefit.

Steve Cuden:

I would think it does.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

I mean, for sure. And we all know that folks that work in front of the camera, it’s all about how deeply you can relax in front of the camera.

Daina Griffith:

Totally.

Steve Cuden:

And without that ability, it shows you’re in clothes, you’re looking at the skin.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

So the fact that you don’t show your nerves even though you’ve already told us that you have them. Can you tell us how use adjust deep breathing?

Daina Griffith:

No.

Steve Cuden:

It’s a mental process you go through?

Daina Griffith:

I think so. I think it goes back to me when I was growing up. I was really able to… I mean, even my dentist says this. My dentist is like, “You go someplace else.” And I legitimately do. I can really put myself in a completely different place. And even my husband will say, “Where’d you just go?” Because I just go. And it’s because I was by myself all the time growing up, except with my parents.

Steve Cuden:

So you have a very rich and vivid imaginary life of sorts.

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

And by the way, auditioning is clearly not like pulling teeth for you according to your dentist.

Daina Griffith:

Yes, exactly. Very true.

Steve Cuden:

How do you learn lines? You’ve learned a lot of lines in your career till now and I assume you’re going to learn a lot more. What is your line learning process?

Daina Griffith:

I was told by Sharon Brady from Point Park. A handful of years ago, we did a show together where she played my mother. And I had monologue, after monologue, after monologue in this play. And I had come in with 60% of the monologues completely memorized. And I was having trouble with the last couple of pieces. And she told me that, at Juilliard, they teach them to… And this is what I teach all my kids to start at the bottom and work their way up.

Steve Cuden:

What do you mean at the bottom of the page?

Daina Griffith:

The bottom of the monologue.

Steve Cuden:

The bottom of the monologue and work your way backwards.

Daina Griffith:

Work your way backwards. People pay for my coachings for me to tell you this. So now, it’s out there for everyone.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah, but not everybody’s going to hear this show. Trust me.

Daina Griffith:

Exactly. You start with the last line and let’s say the last line was, and that’s the day I left. So you would say that line with no inflection, and you would say it three times in a row, and that’s the day I left and that’s the day I left and that’s the day left. Then you add the next one on and say it was Tuesday was the first day of my life. Tuesday was the first day of my life and that’s the day I left. Tuesday was the first day of my life and that’s the day I left. You do it three times. It’s tedious but you always know what’s coming next. You always know what’s next because you have learned it in this monotone. And this is what works for me.

Steve Cuden:

Uninflection.

Daina Griffith:

Uninflection. So then you are totally free because you’ll always know what the words are.

Steve Cuden:

Well, that’s David Mamet’s big point about acting is too. It must be. The lines once you’ve spoken in an uninflected manner.

Daina Griffith:

That’s boring but yes.

Steve Cuden:

Not when you’re performing.

Daina Griffith:

Right.

Steve Cuden:

When you’re-

Daina Griffith:

When you’re learning. Yes, totally. I’ll do five or six a night right before I go to bed, and then the next day, I pack on another five or six. And then the next day I pack on another five or six and pretty soon I have the whole monologue and I’m good to go.

Steve Cuden:

Do you do that with the whole play? Do you start at the end?

Daina Griffith:

No, I just do it with-

Steve Cuden:

With long chunks.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, with long chunks. With chunks that are more than like five sentences. With dialogue, it’s tricky with dialogue and me because I go through the script and I find the trigger word. Whatever the trigger would be.

Steve Cuden:

Describe what a trigger word is for the audience.

Daina Griffith:

A trigger word is the thing in your sentence, that in the sentence before when you speak, that makes you think of what you’re saying next, not you the actor but you the character, and why that triggers your character to respond the way that they do. Does it tick you off? Does it make you jealous? Does it make you fall in love? Whatever it is, so it’s spontaneous, like how we speak.

Daina Griffith:

This can as I’ve gotten older, it’s tricky because I will go through and find the trigger words. And I will legitimately not know what’s coming next. And when I was in my 20s I knew every single thing, I knew exactly what was coming next, I could go through the dialogue and not hear the other person. Be just be in my dressing room spitting my lines out. As I’ve gotten older and done this more, I will not know what’s coming next.

Steve Cuden:

Even though it’s in your head.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I know the line but during Revolutionists, the stage manager said, “When you say X, Y, and Z.” And I was literally like, “When do I say that?” I mean, I’m serious because I’ve made it so spontaneous and that is a good and a bad thing. For the actor, it’s terrifying. For the audience, it’s exciting.

Steve Cuden:

For sure.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. So it is legitimately me responding, in the moment, every single time.

Steve Cuden:

So I teach acting, directing for writers in the program here. And one of the things that I teach is that you’ve got to be in the moment and that we want the performance to come out as if it’s just happening spontaneously, just what you’re talking about. But it’s really hard for actors to get there.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Because once you’re on stage, you’re already one step removed from reality. And it is canned in a certain sense because it is memorized lines, it is memorized blocking and staging. And so for human to then repeat that over and over again and make it seem fresh is really hard. So I think what you’re talking about technique wise is phenomenal. I’m not sure everybody can do what you’re talking about.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I don’t know.

Steve Cuden:

I hope more can than not but that seems like it’s really an interesting challenge to give yourself.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, when I first felt myself doing, it felt like freedom. I mean, I love the idea of the fourth wall being missing and people snooping in and I love theatre that feels like that when I go and I see a show and I’m like, “I feel like I’m totally snooping and that’s so exciting.” And I got in my head, many years ago, that I just wanted it to be so alive and present. And that has created what my performances have become and it’s been for years. I mean, I think the first one that I really felt that was blithe spirit and that was in 2014. And pretty much everything since then, you could say aligned to me, and I would have no idea. If I was out of the scene, I would have no idea what my response would be.

Steve Cuden:

That’s very interesting.

Daina Griffith:

It’s so weird.

Steve Cuden:

So how would, in a rehearsal process, how would you then pick it back up? Somebody has to prompt you?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

You’d have to get prompted.

Daina Griffith:

And I do. And I would say, I do it all the time, and say, “Okay, what do I say next?” And then I would be able to get back into the cycle.

Steve Cuden:

I think that’s fascinating.

Daina Griffith:

It’s crazy. And it’s terrifying. But it’s wonderful because it’s so free on stage and I get off stage and I leave the theatre and I’m like, “Yes.”

Steve Cuden:

It’s never failed you?

Daina Griffith:

No.

Steve Cuden:

It’s always come out the right way?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. I mean, there might be a word or two, I say that instead of this or something like that.

Steve Cuden:

But it doesn’t cause you to go completely off book somewhere.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, no, no, no.

Steve Cuden:

I think that’s fascinating. You have a capacity for both comedy and drama, as well as musicals, which you excel at, is there one flavor that you prefer over the other?

Daina Griffith:

That’s adorable. No, I like it all. Like this year I did two musicals. I’ve not done two musicals in one year since a very long time. When I got out of school at Point Park, I only did musicals. And I was always called back for the plays but I never got cast in them. I was always cast in musicals. So when I got out of school, I was bound and determined to be taken seriously as an actress and not as a musical theatre performer. And so, I would do a Monologue from Salome where I was talking to his head on a platter and do because I really wanted somebody to be like, “She’s a great actress.”

Daina Griffith:

And luckily, I got lucky and did a couple of plays here in town at the Public and City Theatre and stuff. And so I’ll do like a series of plays now and then I’m like, “I need to sing.” And then I’ll sing, and I’ll be done with a musical and I’m like, “I can only do plays.” I mean, it’s literally like back and forth constantly.

Steve Cuden:

So one is like a palate cleanser for you?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, totally. Absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

The next one cleans it out. So if you went back to back, to back on musicals… Have you ever done a super long run like a year or more?

Daina Griffith:

No.

Steve Cuden:

No. So that experience it would be unique one to you, if somebody cast you in something and you’re on the road, say, for instance, a huge part on the road, that would be a unique experience for you?

Daina Griffith:

Yes. I think in the sense of if I was doing something on the road, that would be exciting because the scenery would change, the job would stay the same but we would be in different places and that would be exciting. And so I wouldn’t feel like I was settling or being routed or something. But if I was here, doing something a long time, living in my house, I don’t think I’d be able to do that.

Steve Cuden:

Well, the good news is on that is that doesn’t happen.

Daina Griffith:

It doesn’t happen.

Steve Cuden:

No.

Daina Griffith:

Exactly.

Steve Cuden:

There’s no such thing. Not in this city anyway. Occasionally, you see it in the bigger cities, certainly New York. But can you think of what the most challenging experience you’ve ever had? The most difficult experience you’ve had and how you handled it?

Daina Griffith:

In the theatre?

Steve Cuden:

Or in movies or TV? What was something that was like, “Holy mackerel, how am I going to handle this?” And how did you handle it?

Daina Griffith:

That’s a tough one. I think that there’s a couple instances that come to mind and Grey Gardens is one of them. I had not been so excited and terrified to play someone in my life.

Steve Cuden:

It was deeply emotional for you.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. And I mean, I started watching that documentary when I was in high school. And so I was really scared that I was going to mess it up and that the diehards like myself that are total fangirls would not accept it because of X, Y, and Z because I’m not the same age as Little Edie, I’m not the same size as Little Edie like just things that were out of my control. And so I was terrified and I went back and forth after I was cast with the director saying, “Are you sure? Are you sure? Because I’m so excited. And I’m also terrified for the first time in… I mean, a very long time.” Because I didn’t want to screw it up.

Daina Griffith:

And so that would probably be… It was the biggest challenge because I didn’t want to mess up and then through rehearsals, it started like I said, with the whole getting in your muscles. It just started happening. And I would be home and I would say something to Dan and he would say, “Okay, Edie.” Because it would be in the same… Because it was happening all the time. And I wasn’t watching the film but it was fascinating. And it was every night before doing the show, I was really scared because I just thought if I do something that’s not truthful, that’s not Edie’s truth, some diehard is going to find it and see it and know it a mile away. A civilian out there that loves Grey Gardens.

Steve Cuden:

And what did you think that they would do to you?

Daina Griffith:

I don’t know.

Steve Cuden:

Do you think they would run on stage, grab you, and kidnap you, and drag you away and say, “How dare you do this to Little Edie?”

Daina Griffith:

No, when I saw it on Broadway, it was so exciting to see it come to life. And she’s singing, that’s amazing. And so seeing it in New York at 25 years old or whatever I was, was so cool because I got to be live in the room with Little Edie.

Steve Cuden:

So what was the solution to this great big, other than the ultimate result being you did the show, during the process where you had to pull your way through, was it this day to day you solve this challenge by day to day just keep banging away at it?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I mean, when I would get home… It’s all consuming when I’m going to show but I never turn it off. I get home and I’m still working. I’m working and I’m working and working. And my husband’s always like, “It’s midnight. Stop.” And I just don’t.

Steve Cuden:

Do you dream it?

Daina Griffith:

Yes, absolutely. I wake up the words. And I don’t sleep very well when I’m in shows. Because it’s all consuming, which is exciting and hard.

Steve Cuden:

And exhausting.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. Exactly. It’s crazy exhausting. But I would get home after rehearsal, and it would just be this constant thing. And I would think of her and I would think of her face and I would think of how she would stand and saying these things. And it found its way into me because I was afraid I was going to be pissed at myself on stage that I would feel like something wasn’t truthful.

Steve Cuden:

Did you feel like you were being a fraud?

Daina Griffith:

Yes. If I wasn’t being completely her, if I wasn’t having her thoughts only, and I do it… Of course, I was going to do it.

Steve Cuden:

If there’s a theme that runs through a lot of StoryBeat episodes, it has to do with artists to the that everyone’s going to figure out they’re a fraud.

Daina Griffith:

They’re fraud. Totally. That’s totally true.

Steve Cuden:

It really is true. Most artists think, “Well, they’re going to figure me out in a minute. And then when they do, I’m going to be put into artist jail and I’m never getting out.”

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Right?

Daina Griffith:

That’s hysterical.

Steve Cuden:

Yeah, that’s absolutely a problem.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Okay, so then I think I got the answer to the question, which is to overcome the challenge was just to keep doing the work.

Daina Griffith:

Yes. And feel like I was being honest.

Steve Cuden:

And feel like you’re being honest.

Daina Griffith:

As her.

Steve Cuden:

So it requires honesty to feel like you’re being honest?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. Totally.

Steve Cuden:

You can’t dishonestly feel honest.

Daina Griffith:

Exactly. I, Daina have to feel honest in the skin of Little Edie, in her honesty and what her truth is. Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

That’s great. So let’s talk about directors for a moment. You’ve worked with many different directors, some multiple times. Many of them are not famous directors but you’ve also worked with some spectacularly famous directors, especially in movies.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

What do you want from a director? What are you looking for?

Daina Griffith:

That’s an interesting question because, like actors, directors each have their own thing, their own way about getting what they want from you. And I respect and love the fact that it’s always different. I love being told, “Start walking on your right foot and end on this sentence.”

Steve Cuden:

You do? You like being that specific?

Daina Griffith:

But I also love being told, “Just go.”

Steve Cuden:

Right.

Daina Griffith:

I love it all. Because it means that they trust me enough to know that I will start on my right foot every single time and end in this place and do exactly what they want. It’s like they choreograph the show. I’m going to do that. I also love being told, “Just try something. Do whatever you want. See what happens.” I’ve done equally both and I love both. When I was younger, I did not like the, “Just try it, figure out what comes out.” Because I didn’t trust myself but after doing it, doing it, doing it, I was like, “Oh, I totally know what I’m doing.”

Steve Cuden:

So there are infinite flavors of actors and there are infinite flavors of directors.

Daina Griffith:

Totally.

Steve Cuden:

And sometimes it meshes well, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Would you say that you like directors to give you line readings? I would think not.

Daina Griffith:

No. And I never really have had a director that’s given me line readings. There was a director once that said, not to me, this was years ago, told an actor to change their face, which was hysterical. And I remember thinking like, “What the crap does that mean?”

Steve Cuden:

You’d go over to the proping department and you get a new face.

Daina Griffith:

I need a new face, please. Yeah. And I was like, “Does that mean like their emotional value of what they’re saying?” And he didn’t elaborate and she was like, “Okay.” Like, “What’s that mean?”

Steve Cuden:

Is she’s still working or she’d been screwed up for life?

Daina Griffith:

She does not.

Steve Cuden:

She’s been screwed up for life by that one comment.

Daina Griffith:

She’s not in the business anymore.

Steve Cuden:

Change your face.

Daina Griffith:

And she’s beautiful. So it was him not being able to articulate what he wanted.

Steve Cuden:

So all right, so let’s talk about movies and TV for a minute, which is kind of a different beast, right?

Daina Griffith:

Totally.

Steve Cuden:

You’re still acting, you’re still memorizing lines, you’re still putting on costume and makeup and there’s lights and all the rest of it. But they’re coming in and they’re really up in your grill so to speak.

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

Obviously, there’s a different technique to acting for film and TV than there is for stage.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

And how do you think your way through that? You have to bring it way down for movies and TV, don’t you?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. It is. It’s much smaller. I always think when I go into [crosstalk 00:45:51]

Steve Cuden:

Intimate is the word.

Daina Griffith:

Intimate. Yes. Intimate. When auditioning or filming, I often think whatever the feeling, whatever the emotional value of the particular scene or sentence or statement, if you feel it in your gut, it will show on your face. If you just feel happiness, the happiness will show. And you’re not showing happiness like on stage of like, “Look at me, I have a big smile, see how happy I am.” So that the people in the back of the theatre can see it. It’s literally because it has to be so intimate. If you think happiness if you think the emotional value, it will come out.

Daina Griffith:

It takes a lot of trust in yourself and knowing that it’s there. And I did a lot of practice in the last 10 years in front of my computer, where I would have my computer here, set up, looking at me and I would be doing my scenes that I would then go in audition with or then go and shoot and try to catch the fraud, try to catch the moment where it was too much. And I’ve never been told on set to pull back and I have been told to I love improving and it’s terrifying in front of a camera but during Hollidaysburg there was a lot of-

Steve Cuden:

Because it’s going to live somewhere forever.

Daina Griffith:

It’s going to be somewhere and it was terrifying having all those people watch and it was a comedy. So it’s very much kind of just, in my opinion, feeling it and not showing it because it’s going to come out if you’re thinking it.

Steve Cuden:

So both for stage and for camera, it’s an internal process, a psychological process but one is going to come out distinctly different than the other?

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

And you’re in charge of that, you have to regulate it.

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

And so that requires a lot of self-awareness about what’s going on physically, what that outcome of your psychological processes physically. Are you thinking your way through that? Or are you getting to a point where you’re just doing it?

Daina Griffith:

I’m getting to a point where I’m just doing it. In fact, the last couple of years have been that. I despise mirrors, I don’t like to know what I look like. So those chunk of years that I was doing things in front of my computer to see if I believed myself, I did that and then I stopped because I hated looking at myself on a computer. Because playing back, I would be just so horrible to myself like, “Oh, look at this and look at that.” And so finally I was like, “I can’t do it anymore. I just have to trust that it’s happening because I’m seeing that it’s happening, the emotional value. And I have to not worry about what my face looks.”

Steve Cuden:

And my assumption is, is that you get onto set they shoot and nobody says to you, “Oh, that was really awful, that was really something wrong.” Or anything like that. They’re good with what you’re doing.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

When you’re working with a very prominent director like a Richard Linklater, like a Christopher Nolan, is it a different experience?

Daina Griffith:

That makes me giddy because the call backs… Richard Linklater has Dazed and Confused, when I was in high school was one of my favorite movies. And so, a lot of times when these really amazing directors come into town, getting the call back is the thing that makes me feel like I won the game.

Steve Cuden:

Sure.

Daina Griffith:

Because I just want to meet them and not fangirl out but just say thank you. The little girl from southern Ohio wants to say thanks. And so meeting Richard and working with Richard, he’s so down to earth and he’s just such a dude from Texas and he’s awesome. And like you would expect him to be and it’s cool because you think his mind has created some really incredible characters and really incredible stories. But I fangirl over people in shows like people that I’ve done shows with at the Public that… Judy blazer who I was in Company with. I was a big fan of hers when I was in the latter years of high school.

Daina Griffith:

I saw her in shows and I would watch her on stage in New York. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. So when I found out she was going to be in Company, I freaked out. And the first day I was like, “I’m a fan.” And she’s like, “What?” And I’m like, “I’m a fan. And I have been a fan since I was 17 years old.” And it’s important for me to feel that fangirl thing because then I never get to the point where I’m like, “I’m really important.” It’s like, “No, I’m a fan of hers.”

Steve Cuden:

Has that happened for you yet?

Daina Griffith:

Where? What?

Steve Cuden:

Like somebody comes up or either in the show and they say they’re a fan of yours? Yeah.

Daina Griffith:

Yes, it’s so weird.

Steve Cuden:

And how did you think about that?

Daina Griffith:

It’s so strange and wonderful.

Steve Cuden:

Because I have a sort of a similar thing that goes on for me.

Daina Griffith:

I’m sure.

Steve Cuden:

And people figure out what I’ve done. And they come up and they actually start shaking and it’s like, “Stop.”

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, that’s amazing.

Steve Cuden:

It’s a bizarre thing [inaudible 00:51:51] but you experience it from both sides of the fence.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Where you are a fangirl and then people were a fan of you.

Daina Griffith:

It has happened before.

Steve Cuden:

Well, it’s going to happen more for you over time. Believe that.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, it’s pretty strange.

Steve Cuden:

Tell me what is a direction that you’ve received from any director that you think is a really fantastic direction? Or a series of them?

Daina Griffith:

Let’s see. There’s an actor in town who was also a director, who you know very well, Marty Giles.

Steve Cuden:

Yes.

Daina Griffith:

I have not done a show under Marty’s direction since 2013. We did John Gabriel Borkman at Quantum and he is one of my favorite directors I’ve ever worked with.

Steve Cuden:

Okay. So tell us why.

Daina Griffith:

Because he’s an actor and because he’s a brilliant actor.

Steve Cuden:

Very.

Daina Griffith:

I mean, he’s incredible and when I fangirled over him when I was in college because I saw him in a production of Uncle Vanya, at PICT and I was a junior. And I waited afterwards for him and I was like, “Hi, my name is this. I’m going to make myself the official president of your fan club.” And he was like, “Okay.”

Steve Cuden:

Did he call security?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, right. Exactly. In typical Marty [inaudible 00:53:22] was like, “All right, cool. You’re so strange.” But I had never seen… I mean, Uncle Vanya was like so amazing. And I had never seen someone go so fully, like in my life because I didn’t grow up going to see shows. So I went to see that play and I was like, “That guy. I am peaking. I am snooping.”

Steve Cuden:

He’s all in.

Daina Griffith:

Oh, God. Yes. And I wanted to be just like him and will continue to want to be just like him. So when we started, we’ve done a handful of shows together that he’s directed and he has this outside of the piece, outside of the play way of creating the atmosphere he wants. And it’s not necessarily the easiest way but it’s the way he sees it and it’s the way he wants to create that atmosphere and wants that atmosphere to feel to the audience. And I find it so challenging and fascinating.

Steve Cuden:

Is there something that he does that you… Does he start in the beginning of the rehearsal process and tell you what that is? Or does he work you into it?

Daina Griffith:

I think he works you into it and some actors, soak it up and other actors push it away.

Steve Cuden:

And what do you do if you’re working with an actor that’s counter to it?

Daina Griffith:

I just try to stay open. I just try to keep going the way that he would want me to go and hope that that actor gets on board. I never say anything. I never-

Steve Cuden:

I think that explains a whole lot about you. And that is that you’re malleable.

Daina Griffith:

Very much so.

Steve Cuden:

You’re not stuck in one place. You don’t come in, “This is the way I’m doing it. Everybody get out of my way.”

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, no, no, no.

Steve Cuden:

I assume you’ve worked with an actor to have [inaudible 00:55:21]

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

And what do you do? You just do your thing and remain open?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, I react as honestly as I can, in the moment, to the same line being said to me every single night and whatever is in the atmosphere at that point.

Steve Cuden:

I’m going to jump to conclusion, you prefer an actor that’s giving back to you more than you’re giving to them sometimes? Or both? And that it’s a challenge when you have an actor that’s not giving to you?

Daina Griffith:

Yes, I love when it is new and fresh every single night. It is a challenge when somebody… When I know exactly what I’m going to be getting because then it’s all on me. It’s all on me to live and breathe in this moment, new. New feelings, new everything. And in the past couple of years, there have been some really amazing actors that I have been so inspired by because it was a tennis match between the two of us. It was literally, I was gathering what they were scattering and they were picking up what I was putting down.

Steve Cuden:

That’s cool.

Daina Griffith:

And I would come home every night and I’d say to Dan, “It’s thrilling. It’s just fantastic.” Because it’s always right and truthful and different things would happen. And it would have a different quality but it was always right in the scene.

Steve Cuden:

That’s a chemical process that you can’t plan for.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

That’s something that’s just happening, not generically, but happening in that mix.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

It’s chemical. So when you’re creating a character, when you finally have the text, you’ve got the part and you’re getting ready to do this thing. Where do you start to create the character? What is your thinking process going into it? I know you’ve got the text. Do you have a methodology where you say, “I’m going to create this character?” Or is it just happen organically?

Daina Griffith:

I think that rehearsal, I love rehearsing and reading a play is wonderful. And I get the nucleus of these are the given circumstances, and these are the things that I know. And then getting into a room and hearing the voices of the other people that I’m talking to, it helps so much in creating that world, what world are we living in? And then the character can grow from there. This is the tone that I’m responding to. And we’re all creating characters together without really talking about it. But talking through the character’s voice in the scene.

Steve Cuden:

This is part and parcel of the you go somewhere and people don’t know where you’ve gone because you’re imagining that world?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

And that has to come out of the text because clearly if you’re doing something that’s science fiction if you’re doing The Dark Knight, that’s entirely different from doing The Revolutionists.

Daina Griffith:

Totally.

Steve Cuden:

Entirely different from doing Jack Broyle. They’re very different. So you just have this ability to see what is the text of the thing and then to envision what that world is going to be even before you get there?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Is that the development of the character?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, that’s the beginnings of the development and then it all becomes physical and senses come into play.

Steve Cuden:

Would you say that it’s a little bit like misshapen clay till you get into rehearsal and then the rehearsal actually shapes that clay?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, absolutely. It’s very misshapen clay before I get into rehearsal. It’s a real big mess but it’s not been focused yet, it’s not been refined.

Steve Cuden:

How often does it happen to you where you’re feeling not disciplined about something and how do you get disciplined? Or does that never happen to you?

Daina Griffith:

I feel like I’m too disciplined, sometimes, most of the time, all of the time. For instance, this last year, I have no social life. I mean, because as soon as-

Steve Cuden:

You just work.

Daina Griffith:

I just work and I’m just like my mother. My mother was the same way. And so I just work all the time, and I am so disciplined that it never shuts off. I sometimes wish that I punched the clock and was done. And my parents have talked to me about like, “You need to leave that stuff at the rehearsal hall.” But that’s not the nature of this.

Steve Cuden:

That’s not who you are.

Daina Griffith:

And that’s not who I am. So it’s all consuming.

Steve Cuden:

So your discipline is not a problem.

Daina Griffith:

No.

Steve Cuden:

Because there are a lot of people that have discipline issue.

Daina Griffith:

Sure.

Steve Cuden:

I’ve got plenty of students, they have discipline issues.

Daina Griffith:

And I had discipline issues when I was in college.

Steve Cuden:

So what did you do then? How did you become more disciplined? Fear?

Daina Griffith:

Probably, yeah. I didn’t want to disappoint. And I had disciplinary problem. I wasn’t a bad kid by any means but getting work done… I mean, I remember a particular paper that I was supposed to write for theatre history at Point Park, and I started it the night before and it was supposed to be this massive thing on… Oh, God… It was some Greek play. And I ended up… This is so ridiculous. I ended up making a Dr. Seuss inspired book and made rhymes and made Drew, the Dr. Seuss characters.

Steve Cuden:

Of a Greek play?

Daina Griffith:

Of a Greek play. And I gave it to Kate Aronson. Kate Aronson was my teacher. And I think it was a sophomore. And she was like, “This is amazing. I can’t grade this. You were supposed to give me a 20-page paper on Agamemnon.” It wasn’t Agamemnon. I can’t remember what it was. “But you were supposed to give me a paper. And this is really cool but I can’t grade this.” And I was like, “Really?” Because in my mind, that would suffice for a grade, that would do it.

Steve Cuden:

I would have given you a grade.

Daina Griffith:

Like a D.

Steve Cuden:

No. If it was really clever and thoughtful and you did a good job on it, I would give you an A for that.

Daina Griffith:

I appreciate that. I did not get an A. I ended up having to take that class again. I did. I had to take it the next year but I’m not a paper writer. I despised school from first grade on. And then when I got to Point Park, I loved it because it was like summer camp.

Steve Cuden:

You were having fun.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, you’re going to grade me for my emotional construct of this-

Steve Cuden:

In school, you’re being forced to have fun at least that’s in my mind, if you’re a theatre student, you’re a film student, you’re being forced to have fun. And when you see students, your fellow students who are not having fun, you think, “What are you doing here?”

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

You’re wasting your time. This is fun.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. Especially, if you didn’t grow up doing it. And then you get here and you’re like, “You guys, are so weird. Let’s have fun.”

Steve Cuden:

Exactly right. So we’ve been talking for a little more than an hour if you can believe that. And always the last two questions of StoryBeat are, you’ve obviously, met and worked with lots of people over time. Can you relate to us from your experiences any kind of an oddball quirky, funny, strange, weird story that might be fun to hear?

Daina Griffith:

Oh, goodness about another actor?

Steve Cuden:

No, it could be about anything that happened to you or that something else that happened.

Daina Griffith:

Okay.

Steve Cuden:

On a set or on a stage.

Daina Griffith:

Two come to mind but the one that-

Steve Cuden:

We’ll take both if you want.

Daina Griffith:

Okay. The first is from Dark Knight Rises. I was really excited because I was a big Batman fan, of course, fans of all this stuff because I had infinite amounts of time when I was young to do whatever.

Steve Cuden:

Because it was just you and the cows.

Daina Griffith:

It was me and the cows and my cats and my parents when they were around. And so I was really excited, I was doing Antony and Cleopatra at PICT when I found out that I was cast, and I just couldn’t believe it. And when I finally went… I had to drop out of a show because it was going to be taking place during filming. And I got to set and it was 4:30 in the morning and I was in the trailer and Marion Cotillard is on my left. And Gary Oldman is on my right and Joseph Gordon Levitt is on his right.

Daina Griffith:

And I kept thinking over and over one of these things is not like the other, that song from Sesame Street because I’m like, “What is it?” She’s on the phone, speaking French, it’s 4:30 in the morning, and they’re putting this… I’m like, “What am I doing here?” And they were all very nice. We get to set and Gary Oldman, we’re walking up, I think it was 40th Street in Lawrenceville or something. It was their first day filming in Pittsburgh. We’re Walking up 40th.

Steve Cuden:

You were in the first day of their-

Daina Griffith:

First day.

Steve Cuden:

Oh, my Lord.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. So they had all just gotten here. And they were in India prior to that, doing things. So I’m walking with Gary Oldman, and all I’m thinking is like, “Sid Vicious, Sid Vicious.” But he’s so nice and he’s so British and he’s so nice. And so we’re walking up the street. And he said, “Chris and I have been calling you Wilma.” And I said, “Why?” I’m like, “Where’s that come from?” And he said, “Well, when I asked who they cast as Matthew’s wife, he said this pale, redheaded girl, the last letter in her name is an A.” And he’s like, “And I immediately thought of Wilma.” And I was like, “From the Flintstones.” And he’s like, “Yes.”

Daina Griffith:

And so the whole time I was on set. When he took me and introduced me… He took me to introduce me to Chris, Christopher. And I walked up and he said, “Wilma.” I mean, that was the first thing he said. And I was like, “This is so weird.” And usually, people never say my name right because it’s spelled weird. But it was the first time ever that I was like, “Yep, I’m Wilma. Call me Wilma. Whatever you say because you’re Christopher Nolan and Gary Oldman.” And they called me Wilma the whole time. It was hysterical.

Steve Cuden:

So if they saw you today, they’d still call you Wilma.

Daina Griffith:

They’d probably called me Wilma. I would imagine.

Steve Cuden:

And you would be grateful for it, wouldn’t you?

Daina Griffith:

Absolutely.

Steve Cuden:

What’s the other story?

Daina Griffith:

The other story is I was living in New York and my agent had gotten me this audition. Actually, Ted Pappas made me write a whole thing of this before.

Steve Cuden:

Ted Pappas, the artistic director at Pittsburgh Public for a long time.

Daina Griffith:

Yes.

Steve Cuden:

He’s now recently retired.

Daina Griffith:

He’s now recently retired and he actually cast me in my first play when I was at Point Park. George Abbott’s Broadway, and I had the best time. And that created this whole relationship. So they were doing Venus in Fur. And they had asked some of us to remember and write down a funny audition story because it’s about auditioning, that show. And he remembered this story that I told him when I was living in New York. My agent had gotten me an audition for this off Broadway show that I was told was about farm animals. And that they asked me, they wanted one song to be sung as a farm animal, and then another song to be just you singing. And I was fascinated by this and I was like, “Oh, my God.”

Daina Griffith:

So I came up with this whole thing. I love being given like, “This is what the outcome needs to be. Find your way there.” And so I decided I would sing Love Revolution from I Love My Wife because that was my big belty song. And that would be my song as a person, as a human. And then I decided that I would sing Unusual Way, the last 16 bars of Unusual Way as a chicken laying an egg. And so I paper macheted an egg that I did… It was like a whole week thing and I papered macheted this egg. I mean, I lived in Hell’s Kitchen, so I was able to just walk to where I was going, and I carried that stupid egg. And I got there and I sang my first song and they really liked it.

Daina Griffith:

And then they asked me for the second song and I got on the ground, they didn’t see the egg. I like hid the egg and it was underneath me and when I got to the end of (singing) and I was convulsing and doing all kinds of things. And I lifted it up… Like it was Simba. I said, you may be whole and raised it to the air and they were cracking up and clapping. And then the woman was like, “That was amazing. This isn’t a comedy though.” And I was like, “Oh, my God. No.” Because I thought, of course, a barnyard animal musical has got to be funny. It can’t be… But it was like religious. So I got a call back. But I didn’t book the show.

Steve Cuden:

Did you bring your egg the second time?

Daina Griffith:

They actually said that I could leave it at home and I was like, “Okay.” I have so many little stories like that where I go all in and I come up with these weirdo ideas.

Steve Cuden:

I think that that is the way to think about it because if you play the middle, it’s-

Daina Griffith:

Too safe.

Steve Cuden:

It’s too safe.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Even if it doesn’t work, you went all in.

Daina Griffith:

Totally. And it makes a great story.

Steve Cuden:

So I’m not sure whether that’ll be also your great piece of advice. But do you have a single piece of advice or a tip that you can give to those who are trying to make their way in the world or trying to make their break or to further themselves in career? Do you have a good piece of advice?

Daina Griffith:

Yeah. Be yourself, don’t question yourself, be true to you. As soon as you start doubting what you think is right, or acceptable. Just be you and it will be picked up on. It’s a hard life and it’s a hard career and you’re constantly told no, and it’s not based on you and your character. It’s based on the costume that needs to be filled, or the person that they’re trying to fill in this part as they need for that person to be taller because the guy is taller. I mean, there’s all these things that are not in our control. And as soon as you accept that and know that you’re worth something, you are worth a lot and you love yourself, you get out of your own way.

Daina Griffith:

Because I feel like it comes into the room if you are a nervous wreck and desperate for the job. And if you just come in and say, “This is me.” And then leave there and not play it over a million times in your head, when they call and give you the call back. It’s all the more sweeter.

Steve Cuden:

I think that’s very valuable piece of advice. Just be you.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

Because after all, that’s what you’re… Again, that’s the temple that you’re bringing people into, is you.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah, totally.

Steve Cuden:

Wonderful. Well, Daina, this has just been one of my favorite episodes.

Daina Griffith:

Yeah.

Steve Cuden:

This has been terrific. Lots of great information. I loved your Dark Knight Rises story. That’s just fantastic. So thank you for coming today.

Daina Griffith:

Totally. Thank you for having me.

Steve Cuden:

And so we’ve come to the end of today’s StoryBeat. If you liked this podcast, please take a moment to give us a comment rating or review on whatever app or platform you’re listening to. Your support helps us bring more great episodes to you. This podcast would not have been possible without the generous support of the Center for Media Innovation on the campus of Point Park University. Until next time, I’m Steve Cuden. And may all your stories be unforgettable.