Rachel Stubbings on being a jack of all trades and how it's finally paying off - a podcast by Steve Whiteley

In this conversation I chat to actor/writer/director Rachel Stubbings (https://twitter.com/RachelStubbings).

Rachel is a BAFTA nominated writer whose credits include The Athena (Sky), 8 Out Of 10 Cats (C4), Mock The Week (BBC2), The Last Leg (C4), Trollied (Sky) and Invasion Of The Book Readers (BBC). She is currently developing her short Good Grief as a feature film. As an actor Rachel has recently starred alongside Karl Pilkinton in Sick Of It (Sky), Julia Davis in Sally4Ever (Sky/HBO) and in the very funny Whenever You're Ready, written and directed by Craig Ainsley which is currently being developed as a sitcom. Rachel has also directed numerous shorts and as part of directing collective Barabara, recently signed to Sharon Horgan's production company Merman.

In addition to all of the above Rachel runs and curates Shooting The Brreze, a popular short film night and is also head of short courses for comedy writing and producing at the National Film And Television School.

We discuss:

Rachel recently being appointed the head of short courses for comedy writing and producing at the NFTS and what she enjoys about teaching. Why she decided to learn stop motion during lockdown, her resolution to direct more and the pros and cons to being a jack of all trades. She recalls the moment her drama teacher saw something in her and encouraged Rachel to pursue acting. Rachel describes how she get into stand up. Why she thinks she would have got further along with her writing if she wasn’t doing stand up. Why she likes to collaborate. What she loves about running her short film shooting the breeze and why she loves the short film community.

Why shooting commercials is a good training ground to direct narrative. Rachel explains how she conveys her ideas as a director to her DOP and how she learned her film grammar on set. Why she finds patching and sewing therapeutic. The importance in knowing when to park an idea and give it space to brew. Why having a co-writer to motivate you. How working in all the various forms is now paying off for Rachel after years of struggling. Her love for zombie and violent films. Why happiness is not conducive to Rachels style of comedy, why she won’t do therapy and loads more!

If you like this episode please do rate and review the podcast on Apple.

Happy listening :)

Steve - @offkeysteve

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