Please introduce yourself. What do you do? Why? What do you want people to know about you?
What’s up, everybody? I’m D.J. Hale, an Actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, podcast host and twitch streamer! I’m a storyteller at heart. I believe my mission on this planet is to inspire people through my artistic gifts and personal experiences. The motto of my production company, Starshooter Entertainment, is to DREAM BELIEVE PERSIST and ACHIEVE, and that is precisely how I live my life!
What qualities make you different and unique from everyone else in the industry?
I think the qualities that make me different from everyone else in the industry comes from my own personal uniqueness. As an artist, you’re only as good as your personal experiences and your imagination. The deepness of that well you’re able to draw from comes from you and nobody else. Lucky for me, life has taken me all over the place and I’ve had to experience every kind of person, every kind of environment, and really just every kind of stimuli that you could imagine.
I know that I’m extremely multi faceted growing up in a dysfunctional family environment and surviving poverty, going to a Waldorf school, playing sports, taking a fondness to visual and performing arts, witnessing my role model’s death and the life prison sentence of my brother, both happening when I was twelve, and just coming to the understanding that life is ultimately up to you. The more you’ve experienced, the more you’ve been influenced, the wider your creative pallet.
Describe THAT moment when you realized you’re doing what you were born to do.
It definitely had to be when I made my first short film “If I Retaliate” back in 2016, and we were lucky to screen all across the country and win awards, most notably a few best actor in a short film awards. For one, I had no idea what the hell I was doing! I didn’t go to film school or anything like that, my film school was simply being an actor and learning to write scripts looking at my audition sides and the scripts of the projects I had worked on.
I didn’t even know what half of the production crew positions were, know any of the responsibilities of producing, and had zero concept of cinematography whatsoever! I just knew that I had a story I wanted to tell, and I was going to tell it no matter what. So, to go through all that and lose all the money I did, all the time I put in, the sleepless nights, the relationship turmoil, really suffering all the slings and arrows this life shoots at you, to complete the film and have it received in such a positive manner as I just jumped in feet first, definitely let me know this is what I’m supposed to do. This is what I’m born to do. This is what I will die doing.
What’s been the biggest challenge you’ve had to go through and how did you grow through it?
The biggest challenge you have to go through in this industry by far is the constant rejection you are subjected to. There is nothing like receiving a call or email from your agent about a life changing audition, starring actors you’ve admired or a major network television show, or a huge studio film, and looking at the character description you feel like it was written for you perfectly.
This is your time. This is going to be your break! The universe has finally set its gaze on you, and all that hard work and dedication you’ve put yourself through is going to pay off. You work your ass off getting your audition ready, show up and do your best in that moment. Whether it was good or bad, you’ll never know, you only hear anything if you’ve been chosen to move forward in the process. You wait a few days to hear back from your agent, those days turn into a week. That week turns into two weeks.
Those two weeks turn into a month and you accept you didn’t make the cut. Then somewhere between six and eight months later, you start seeing the billboards of the project you auditioned for appear all over Hollywood. Then you see the trailer, and you see the actor that got the part saying the exact same words you said in that casting office months prior. That really could have been you.
You were given that same chance and they passed on you. Your life could have changed forever, but here you are working your two jobs, living in your home with three roommates and being a disaster away from being broke since all your money does is go to bills, rent, acting classes and headshots every three months.
It’s hell. Literal hell. But it’s what you were born to do. It’s what deep down in your soul, deep down this is who you are! You didn’t come here to be a star, if that happens it’s a byproduct of your work, you came here because this is the only place you can be to make a living doing what you love doing and working in this industry. You keep going.
You keep persevering! Nothing will stop you if it’s what you truly want and feel it’s what you were born to do. You can be rejected a thousand times, but all it takes is that one YES for your dreams to become a reality, and for that to happen you can not give up no matter the circumstances!
Who are the TOP 3 people you’d want to meet that could elevate your career or business? Why these specific individuals?
The top three people I’d love to meet that I think could elevate my career would be the filmmakers that have made it big from my city of Sacramento, California. Deon Taylor, Greta Gerwig, and Nick Leisure.
Just knowing we all drove down the same roads, shopped at the same places, ate at the same restaurants, and more importantly shared the same dreams, gives me confidence they would see me as they saw themselves. A dreamer with his eyes set on a bigger picture that was given to him, and the determination to make that dream a reality.
Drop your social media links.
Instagram and Twitter are @djhalesupreme
Facebook and YouTube is D.J. Hale.
Production company website is Starshooter Entertainment
Instagram is @starshooterentertainment and Twitter is @thestarshooters.
My twitch is @djhalesupreme
My podcasts are “Uncensored and Whatever”, “The Starshooter Podcast”, “The Philosophical Principles of Lifesim, Selfism, Stoicism”, “The History Nut Podcast”, “The Dope Nerd Podcast”, “The Ones That Never Made It” all available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Google Podcast with visual recordings on YouTube.