Grayson Rusell: How a Tent Revival Miracle Changed My Family Forever | DSH #1744

That's the crazy part about being an actor that I never thought would lend itself to music.

Is that I learned early on what stories I can tell well in ones that I just got to leave alone, you know?

I think I've skilled a half.

There's somebody else that can play this better than me. There's somebody else that can tell the story better than me.

There's some that is mine to tell. That I can only communicate at the most effective.

So we're on the same one. Performance is the same one.

My pet peeve here in town is, you know, watching somebody sing a song and I don't believe that they believe it.

You could sense that? Yeah, you can tell when even though the performance might not be immaculate.

The heart behind whatever it is, disingenuous.

And not that they're not trying to really communicate effectively.

It's just that I don't believe in what they're singing about.

Or I don't believe that they believe it. For me, it has gone hand in hand.

Okay, here are the stories I'm open to.

Well, here are the things that I've lived through.

Here are the ones I can communicate that people will believe.

Even though I live through all this other stuff, they're not going to believe that friggin' actor, kid, whatever.

I actually had to go through X, Y and Z.

And so some of those, you know, I have to let somebody else sing.

Who, you know, people will believe that they've not lived through.

All right.

So Grace and Russell here today in Nashville.

Let's go.

What's up, my man?

They're trying to stay alive.

Yeah.

After hearing your schedule, yeah, I get that.

Yeah, I went to bed about 6.30 this morning.

So we're probably, we're lunch.

Oh, man, it's fine. We'll have a big night and not.

But thank you for having me.

I really appreciate it, my friend.

Yeah, I'm curious about your journey, man.

You've worn a lot of hats already.

Yeah, dude, it's crazy.

I know we're kind of talking a little faith-ish earlier.

And we don't have telego into it.

But I was raised predominantly by a bunch of old women.

So my granddad was the youngest of six.

And whenever I have a great relationship with my folks,

but whenever my parents are going to work, like,

Bertha and I as an Ethel and all these old women kept me.

And like I said, I grew up touring doing gospel

when my folks and I was five.

Even the most, you all know me as an actor, which is great.

My granddad, when he was three, his mom died.

She got melanoma from pick and cotton and fell dead.

Yes.

And like her 30s.

And when his dad became like a belligerent alcoholic after that,

and when my granddad was five, he got rheumatic fever,

which is like, happens after you have like strep throat.

And don't treat it because penicillin wasn't a thing.

In 1940, 1950.

Before antibiotics.

Yeah.

And it paralyzed him.

So he would just scoot around on his butt as a five-year-old child.

And it got to the point where it was about to kill him

because there's nothing they could do.

And they're like, look, kid.

There's like a traveling preacher coming into town.

They'll take you over there if you won't.

You don't have to, but that's about the only shot you got.

And so the whole family rolls up with this like tent revival,

like shucking and bucking church servers in the middle of like Burbina, Alabama,

with this crippled child in their arms,

arguing about who's going to have to take him in there,

because none of my folks want to church at that point.

They didn't want anything to do with it.

And so it was, you, I didn't take him in there.

You take him in there.

Well, the hell I'm going in, you take him in there.

And so my belligerent drunk frickin' hammered great granddad.

It was like, fine, y'all, I'll take him.

And this drunk comes stumbling down the aisle with his crippled child

that had walked in eight months.

And the preacher was like, what's wrong with him?

He said he's paralyzed.

He said, my father's son Holy Ghost, put him down and let him go.

My granddad took off running.

Miraculous healing.

Whole family converted to church. I was raised in.

No, my hand.

It was like boom, boom, boom, boom.

And I lost my granddad in September.

I mean, him were really close.

And I've got the video.

I'll show you at some point of him talking about it.

And this is, wow.

70-year-old man, bawling his eyes out about, you know,

how this, you know, miraculous thing happened to him as a child.

He can't explain.

That's the thing.

What a story.

So that's how my life got kicked off.

You know, like, that's what I grew up under.

But certainly, you know, when you don't know any different,

you know, there's always another, there's always another side to it.

Yeah.

And then when you fall out of that or fall into something else,

there's always a perspective back on what was healthy or unhealthy

about what you had going on with.

Have you had those battles where you've gone away from faith

a little bit throughout your life?

Not wholeheartedly.

Because I always understood that no one reason why I'm doing the things

that I am doing or have been afforded the opportunities that I have

is because the man upstairs decided to, which, you know,

at some, you know, certain times in my professional life

I've been a burden for those of y'all who don't know what to do.

My name is Grayson Russell.

I'm an actor and singer-songwriter and travel and play music

and mental health counselor, all kinds of mess.

But the first movie ever did was a NASCAR movie called Tally,

that's what most people don't know from.

Which might have been more your time in the movie.

I heard of it.

I never watched that one, though.

So I played Will Ferrell's youngest son in that kid named Texas Ranger.

I had no intention of being an actor at all.

Because I grew up in the same town that my granddad

and all his older sisters had lived in.

Small town.

Planting Alabama 9,000 people maybe.

Wow.

And so I've done commercials for the guy who owned the local car dealership.

But he would use the cheer squad.

He wasn't a big thing at all.

And I was six.

Maybe I was in the first grade.

Talladega Nights was an open call audition in the newspaper.

The only reason we went was because my dad had a term that he wanted to go fish.

Because my dad loved the bass fish at that point.

And me and my mom were bored.

That was it.

And two months later, I land the role.

Wow.

No idea what's going on.

Because I couldn't read.

Like I hadn't started the second grade yet.

And my folks didn't know if it was going to be a real movie.

What it was.

Like Saturday Night Live.

It was past my bedtime.

They didn't watch Anchorman.

We had no idea what was going on.

Totally illiterate.

So we understood like from that point.

Like okay.

This, whatever this is, is a whole lot bigger than us.

Because there's no reason why.

Grayson from Clantin, Alabama.

Population 9,000.

Who should be a peach farmer when he grows up.

Because that's what everybody does.

Has now been afforded this opportunity to be an actor.

Right.

Got saved doing that film.

Met Michael Clark Duncan.

Who's the big guy from the Green Mile.

He played the Pit Crew Chief in it.

It's a NASCAR movie.

Okay.

And at the premiere, he set me up with his manager.

And that's how I was able to stay in it.

Wow.

And so I don't know if anybody really expected me to keep going.

Yeah.

Much less get it to start with.

But I've done probably 18, 19 different, you know, film related projects.

Since then did all the diary of Wimpy Kid movies.

I played Fregly in those.

Who is this like white kind of Erkle?

Yeah.

I remember him from the books.

I played Fregly in those.

The last movie I did, we got nominated for an Oscar.

It was an order two film with Tom Hanks called Greyhamp.

Let's go.

Tom Hanks, Legend.

Tom Hanks, he precious.

One of the, I mean.

There's people that you work with.

And I'm sure probably at least going through this podcast is probably the same for you.

Like there's individuals that you grew up going, man, it'll be really cool to meet this guy.

Yeah.

I'm really cool to work with this woman above the bar.

But never actually like.

Maybe you dreamed that you would, but there are those that are so far above those.

You know, dreams that you don't even, they don't ever cross your mind.

Like I haven't once ever thought about catching a touchdown in the Super Bowl.

Because that's just not going to happen.

Yeah.

You know, like that's, that's not in the cards.

No different than going, hey, you're about to spend boot camp and then two and a half months on a Navy destroyer with Tom Hanks and getting nominated for an Oscar.

Well, you were actually on a ship for two and a half months.

Yeah. So we were on either the fake ship or the real one.

So we were on the, we were, is, I've never worked on a gimbal before is what they call it, which is this.

Hydraulic motor with the set built on top of it about 20 feet in the air.

And it moves under you.

And so we had the fake ship.

And then we had the actual ship, which is the USS kid, which is docked on the Mississippi and Baton Rouge.

And a lot of people, a lot of people ask most of the time because I know they're traveling to me as well.

You know, which one do you, you know, if you had to pick one, which one and why?

And for me, there's not another occupation where I can wear gear made to fight the Nazis in World War II.

Made in 1941 or World War II.

Yellow hat and get yelled at by Tom Hanks.

Surrounded by 70 something extras jumping and screaming and getting shot at.

And put myself through school so my folks don't have to.

There's not another job on the planet that I can do that.

But also, I am not in my real life.

A single man's second class on the side of the USS kid fighting Nazis.

And when I'm doing film, I get to tell somebody else's story.

When I'm doing music, it's mine.

And I get to be me and this is, you know, how I end up, how I act.

And these are the, you know, stories and lives and cautionary tales that I've led.

When I started putting together this record, you know, even though I have done music my entire life.

And I'll get by the grace of God, open for my not Grammy winner this year.

I'll do it in Southern Knox stuff.

Sorry.

I lost.

I lost second grade in government.

What about your whole life?

Yeah, yeah.

Most people, you know, they only know me from the film side.

Which is absolutely warranted.

And I've been afforded so much grace with it because most people, you know, I've gotten to hit a level three different times

with Todd A. Gnotts and Wimpy Kid in Greyhound that most people never hit at all.

Right.

If they do, they hit it once, maybe.

And by the time they do, they're, you know, Morgan Freeman's age doing driving Miss Daisy when he's 60 and his grandparents and his parents.

And all the people that put in the work to raise this Darwin artist aren't around to see him do it.

And dude, if I'd never work again, got my money's worth.

I get smoked by the pedal trolley on Broadway to not do not wait for me.

And when it, when it all kind of rolls around, most people know me for film.

But I have to work my whole life.

And so for me and my own mind to be considered someone who's, you know, not just doing music for this that or the other,

you know, because they got bored or because they hit it on a, you know, social media platform.

It's really important to me to write this whole record.

And, you know, this is, it's called Living and Women Volume One.

Because when all my band would get together to pray before a show, whether it was Broadway, whether it was open for casting crowns.

The general prayer request was not a hell.

Living and Women, that kind of covers it.

What a name.

That covers it.

And so I wrote a lemon of the 13 songs that are on here.

And that's because two of them are covers.

And so we started slow rolling that out back in October.

And, you know, we'll see where it goes.

I figure I'll write this whole one myself, which I have and then the next one.

And then somebody else can live through hell.

And I'll just pick the songs that I know I can communicate.

And that's the crazy part about being an actor.

That I never thought would lend itself to music.

Is that I learned early on what stories I can tell well.

And ones that I just got legal on.

Yeah.

You know, I think it's cool to have.

There's somebody else that can play this better than me.

There's somebody else that can tell the story better than me.

There's some that I can, that is mine to tell.

That I can only communicate, you know, at the most effective.

So I'm writing the same way, performance the same way.

My pet peeve here in town is, you know, watching somebody sing a song

and I don't believe that they believe it.

You could sense that.

Yeah.

I mean, you can tell when even though the performance might be immaculate,

the heart behind whatever it is is disingenuous.

Yeah.

And not that they're not trying to really communicate effectively.

It's just that I don't believe in what they're singing about.

Or I don't believe that they believe it.

Right.

And so for me, it has gone hand in hand.

And okay, here are the stories I know can tell well.

Here are the things that I've lived through.

Here are the ones I can communicate that people will believe.

Even though I live through all this other stuff,

they're not going to believe that for an actor, kid, whatever,

I actually had to go through X, Y and Z.

And so some of those, you know, I have to let somebody else sing.

Who, you know, people will believe it.

You know, they might have lived through.

I hate songwriting as much as I love it.

Partly because it takes a great amount of effort for me to write.

And not because I'm lazy.

I have a very dear friend.

He's 91.

He's the only doctor we had in the county for like 30 years.

20 years.

And one of the maybe two that we might have started as a veterinarian

became a people doctor in the 60s.

And he said my favorite thing about being a doctor was delivering babies.

He said, because that's the only thing that somebody walked in with

and come out with something better than they had to begin with.

Well, that's two.

He said that's the only, that was my favorite part.

Yeah.

And that's always been songwriting for me and that I'm walking into this.

Really, I'm walking out of this relationship or I'm walking through this

particularly God awful situation that I probably got myself into.

And when a song happens to come out of the other end of it,

it at least redeems part of that situation.

Yeah, because you could teach others your struggles, right?

What you went through.

I told you that story about my granddad.

I've got a song that'll come out for fathers that he'll turn out good.

That's the kind of pre-chorus of it is sometimes I'd look into his eyes

and they seemed old.

But just by looking, you'd never know that his mom died when he was three.

He got cancer, picking cotton, fell down in the weeds and he wouldn't tell enough

to see what was going on.

It's seven.

He got paralyzed from the waist down because the favorite took his legs.

So we'd slide on the ground but they took him to a tent revival and they all watched him run.

So you can't tell me that they're at the father and they're at the son because he turned out good.

And I saw it and nobody will take that away from me because I saw the man that he became

after having to lose in a mom, lost a mom, being terminally ill and then just not anymore.

Crazy.

On the other side of that, I told you I did a master's in clinical mental health counseling.

I did so much work with actors.

Just, you know, you get put in a relatively confined space somewhere where you've never been before

with four or five other people and you're there for two months, working 16 hours a day,

you all get pretty freaking close.

Yeah.

And somebody's lost almost always falling apart if it didn't mind as somebody else's.

And I figured, you know, if I'm going to be put in the situation, I want to know what I'm doing.

And so I went and I got up, you know, I was able to do a master's in it.

And I remember sitting outside cooking steaks with my dad in Alabama.

And I don't get to go home that often.

I was there.

I was going through that part of my curriculum where I was learning how important,

like first couple of months to a couple of years of your life are as do you turn it out.

You know, as you turning into who you are without any relative kinks along the way.

And I was sitting with him, I was like, hey, thanks for, you know, hindsight's 2020.

Thanks for letting me be raised by a bunch of old women in their 70s.

Who had nothing better to do than worship ground I walked on and that it wasn't like a half lit sophomore that didn't care.

Thanks because I'm understanding now, you know, doing all my clinical stuff, how important that was to me being me.

Yeah.

And my dad's always been a very hard man.

And he locked up, started crying.

He said, the only reason you were raised that way is because I was a piece by my,

by my babysitter when I was at your soldier mama.

No one nobody knows it.

I don't remember my childhood.

I don't want to believe that it was good, but I don't know because I don't remember it.

So I jumped back up.

And so that first verse of that song being my granddad lived through all this hell.

The good Lord intervened.

He turned out good.

The second verse very quickly became, here's my father.

Who was beat.

No, he did nothing.

The first 18 years of his life.

And abused by the only individuals who were supposed to take care of him and love him.

And the only reason he still has his marriage, he's not in prison.

He has me.

I am okay.

It's because of good Lord intervened.

Keep in mind, we're Southern Robin.

We take a little gospel turn somewhere in the middle because that's the roots for everybody.

And then we'll go right back playing Skinner or Free Bird or whatever.

But there is no comparison for me and my personal or professional life.

Then when I'm able to stand here in front of 30, 40,000 people and sing this song about why I am the way I am

because of the people who brought me to the dance and watch grown-ass men ball their eyes out.

And then go, hey, here's your evidence because my dad can sing circles around me and then bring him out.

He's going to be on it.

We've got a live record coming out in September and me and dad did this old gospel song.

I can't even walk without you holding my hand.

I like the 80s.

Josh Terry will be on it for sure at some point.

And he heard, he was there when we did it.

That's beautiful.

And to watch my father stand next to me and I watch tears coming down.

I watch tears coming down behind his right bands as he's singing.

And experiencing some form of redemption from the hell he was raised in.

Not that the point of that was for me to write a song about it.

I'm not so naive or whatever to believe that was the case.

But to watch something that absolutely wrecked my father's life,

they were deemed in something as simple as a song.

When film kicked off I couldn't get hurt so I couldn't play a lot of ball.

And Alabama, that's all it matters is if and when and how good are you?

That's the ball.

That's the ball football baseball.

It didn't matter.

And I wasn't really any good at any of them.

But I couldn't afford to take a line drive to the ribs or collarbone or whatever and be put out work.

Because I had a bigger fish tomorrow.

My dad had the most rushing orange in the state for a private school in 1988.

Dad.

Was in USA today.

His graduating class was 18 people.

Wow.

My father has yet to see me score touch down right now.

But my gift to him is being able to stand there with him.

And if we didn't ask our stuff, next go around for a towel day tonight.

So the concert series that could be 200,000 people.

And watch that man's life.

No, not entire life, but those situations in his life be redeemed and turned around.

And then when we're done, you know, we'll do, like I said, we'll go back free bird.

We'll put on a show.

You'll pop off.

But the crazy thing is by the time we're done, there will be as big of a line if not bigger of burly hairy 40 old men ballin' their eyes out coming to meet my father.

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Because you shouldn't be here.

Wow.

And neither should my grandad.

It's my extension me.

It's a long rant, but that's how I came up.

That's how it was raised.

How impressive that your music is touching the lives of grown men and they're so open that they're crying in front of you.

Well, it's not something I ever thought I would do.

I remember I put my this band together my freshman year college.

So we've been playing together for eight years.

Next month.

And I remember at some point driving through campus going,

I have no desire to do original music at all ever.

Because why?

Like, what do I have to say?

What could I write?

There would be any more entertaining than me just getting up there and playing free bird.

Yeah.

So you just said coffers at first?

Yeah.

For the first five years?

Damn.

From coffee shops to like frapporties.

Nothing but covers.

And, you know, now this year we'll probably hit three or four arenas.

Holy crap.

And it's the same guys that have stood by me,

Brasson and Nick and Caleb and Austin.

And, you know, Johnny, guys that have stood by me,

playing coffee shops for nothing.

Like, and me saying, hey, let's do deaf leopard.

And a coffee shop with three homeless people in the back makes us sense.

You know, theory has always been if you only ever going to play coffee shop music,

you'll only ever play coffee shops.

So we were playing hair metal.

You know, at the Salvation Army coffee shop in 2017 for nothing.

And those guys have stood by me this long.

So you know, we made it to this point.

And incredibly gracious for that.

I'm glad I was saying grateful for it.

But it has been a, it has been a ride.

And if I get smoked by that pedal trolley did not.

I got my money's worth.

Wow.

I got my money's worth.

You've come to peace with death at a fairly young age, Matt.

Well, is that's the other side of being raised by a bunch of old people.

There's only like two left.

Out of the entire village that raised me of probably 30 or 40 people.

You know, I've gotten to where I was about four or five a year.

Damn.

And that's not always old people when life happens.

But without, I think, you know, experiencing the cycle of life.

I don't know how you appreciate the life that you have.

You know, that's true.

The enough that you just need to be exposed to it all the time.

Like, no, that's not healthy.

But I think, I took for granted how close my family was as far as like.

I didn't have to go more than a half hour to find my farthest relatives.

Wow.

Like, all my folks are on the same road.

Granddad, young, six, everybody had kids is a friggin' herd.

That's what I was accustomed to.

But that's not the case at all really anymore.

America's going away from that.

Yeah.

And so when you have, you know, a family that's, you know,

you're not necessarily like a marriage, but when you got a family that's, you know,

I got cousins here and cousins here and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you're not around that cycle of life.

The dog don'ts about it, you know, and that one could be wrong.

Dogs of dog.

But it's different.

You know, when you lose eight people a year, certainly when COVID happened, that's what it was.

And it was all people that was relatively formative to me.

The coolest thing was my granddad passed away in September.

And I was playing whiskey jam here, which is huge deal.

Yeah.

And we played it, and mom called to, hey, the next Lawrence said, hey, you better get down here.

And I got to be with him when he passed.

Watching that freaking, I got movie soon, EKGB.

His oxygen went down to nine.

My grandma said she loved him.

It flicked up to about 11, and that was it.

And I was able to be with the man that raised me.

He was there when I came into this world, and I was there when he left it.

And that will always be one of them, but that's hard to talk.

Hard to talk.

I've kind of stood by, I'm never told anybody.

Well, I've stood by this kind of, I don't know, eat those might be a different, might be a weird word for it.

But I think the two most important things you can do in this life is take a life and make one.

And knowing how and when, it's appropriate to do so, is the most valuable thing you can learn.

You should know how to build a dude, but I'm not saying you got here and just have to whack somebody inside the road.

But you also should be capable of it.

You should have it in your back pocket.

You never know these days.

Yeah, but then also just don't like, hey, don't be a dumbass and have as much kids as you're not going to raise either.

That isn't just pertaining to frickin' getting after it physically or sexually.

But Rob right here and Reese have helped to make my life where it is.

Certainly where it's going in the future.

You have contributed.

Thank you to forwarding the life that I want to have.

And hopefully I can turn that around and do that for you as well.

It's not just physically making a child.

But knowing how you can contribute to a life that makes all the difference.

Yeah.

And so I've tried to allow that to kind of be the greater governance of how I operate.

And I think it's afforded me well thus far.

I don't always adhere to that the best.

But I think part of that perspective comes from seeing that cycle of life happen.

And going the most important sacred thing I can do is be here when this man leaves that.

Or be here when my sweet baby cousin Riley was born.

Wow, this is incredible.

Forget Hollywood Boulevard, dude.

It can go piss up a rope in comparison to these moments.

You'll never forget those moments, right?

Never forget them.

Now don't give your own.

Hollywood has made the life that I have.

I'm incredibly grateful for it.

And it has allowed me to share these moments.

Because I wouldn't be here having this conversation to whoever's hearing this conversation.

Tomorrow or 30 years from now.

But it has given me a platform that I try to be very respectful of.

Yeah.

Because I know it's not a calling that's any better than anybody else.

It's just a different one.

Yeah.

And it's one that you got to take care of or you won't have anymore.

A lot of responsibility.

Yeah.

Cancel culture too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was so thankful.

My mom was on me.

Still is on me.

But it's been on me my whole life.

I've never understood as an eighth grader.

Well, I just couldn't tweet what I wanted to do.

Like who cares its Twitter.

I am 11 years old.

Yeah.

And did when frickin' canceling started kicking off when I was like a senior in high school.

I couldn't be more thankful for that.

They started pulling out.

I was like, people are getting asked for something they tweeted about the Super Bowl when they were nine years old.

I was like, what is going on there?

21 now.

Who cares?

And so I'm very thankful that my mom was a strict on me with that.

Because she didn't know.

My folks didn't plan on having an actor.

I had a hard enough time just having me.

You know?

Much less like, okay, Coenar, going to have a kid that's going to be under an incredible amount of scrutiny.

The rest of his life.

Good luck.

Yeah, especially in Hollywood, man.

Yeah.

He's an accountant.

She's a partner.

And the firm she started working in in high school is a sophomore.

Could not be more proud of her.

My father's a contractor.

Retired.

Built homes.

Grandparent speech farmers.

Had a teacher company.

I'm not supposed to be doing any of this, dude.

So the fact that my mom did have to wear it with all.

Even in the little things.

She said, hey.

Yeah, shout out to her.

Yeah, shout out to my mom, Crystal.

She said, whatever you're at, I think was today.

Today's March 18th.

She said, March 19th.

She was flying in Texas.

It is rolling.

It is rolling.

Do you ever dive into, like, theory of relativity?

A little bit.

Yeah.

And I could be totally awfulness.

Y'all can quote me an absolute crucifix on it later.

Going back to old people.

My God, I take long to say stuff.

Well, they're doing studies on that.

I think they're processing speed as much slower.

Yeah, well, well, the processing speed is much slower.

Makes total sense because it is.

Yeah.

But growing up, I remember 15 minutes she's take forever.

Because in relation to the four years that I had been alive.

15 minutes was a long time.

Yeah.

But in relation to my 79-year-old grandmother.

15 minutes is a blink.

Once I started looking at stuff that was,

oh, that's what town's flying by.

Because the increments are not near as big as what they used to be.

That's true.

It does feel like it goes by way quicker as we get older.

It's like so fast.

Yeah.

But growing up, I was like, can this day get over with?

Yeah.

You know, pick up the face.

Yeah.

I used to be super impatient.

But now days are just flying by.

Losing loved ones by the year.

You know, it's crazy.

Yeah.

And I didn't mean for all that, you know, take a morbid turn with it.

No, I think it's important.

But it is.

I mean, because that's how, you know, I mean, you don't know what you got to go home.

You don't ever want to, you know, not appreciate things.

Yeah.

But certainly when something or someone is taken from me,

it absolutely should light a fire under your butt to make the most of what you have.

Before it is taken.

Because you really never know.

You don't know.

Yeah.

You don't know.

But also, I mean, it's motivation to freaking get after it, dude.

Get it done.

Yeah.

And I'll take that to you.

You still have the same drive as you did when you were first entering the scene.

Oh, far more.

Far more of a drive.

Because whenever I got into the film and the music so early on, I didn't know any different.

You know, just like, okay, cool.

This is what I'm doing with film.

It was always cool.

You're going to audition for this.

And if they want you, they want you, if they don't, you don't.

Or you might get a call out of the blue in three years.

It says, hey, you got something in here.

So what you're doing with music.

It's very much a much a grind and a far more foreseeable path.

And my joke is, with music, there's far more asses to have my head up.

Because I can be on Rob about doing something here.

Or I can be on Skinny or Ward or whoever, boom, boom, boom.

And here's what we want to do.

And here's how we can do it.

And here's kind of a control.

Well, yeah.

Here's a more foreseeable path.

At least I can be working toward.

With film, I can be working out.

Working on some kind of skill that's going to make me more marketable.

I used to fence in the eighth grade.

Or work on my accent.

And the networking side of that is far more limited because it's not always up to the powers it be.

Right.

Because who's to say that the script that they really love is going to get picked up.

And who's to say that when it does get picked up,

that it's going to get greened up by studio to actually be made.

Or the budget's going to be there to do it the way that they want to.

And who's to say that if they do get that far,

it's not going to conflict with something you've already got going on.

And at this point, you're five years into somebody going,

Hey, I got this part I'd really like for you to read for.

So it's a different, it's a different animal altogether.

I'm glad that I got into it early on when my livelihood did not,

or at least the livelihood of my family didn't depend on it.

Because like the rejection side of it that really eats people up is one that,

that kind of, I escaped.

Because it wasn't as big of a deal whether I got the movie or not as a nine-year-old.

Because I was just doing it.

Because I knew I was supposed to be doing it.

There were some roles I didn't get that I really wanted.

I auditioned for SJ in the blindside.

But it was too tall.

You were too tall.

Like the final round of the ball thing that I was, you know,

five, eight, Grayson, you know, as a nine-year-old was too tall.

Or whatever.

But, you know, when you're, you know, just starting out into it,

having enough success to where you won't do that full-time.

And you're, you know, 30.

And you, you know, or 35 and you've got a wife and two kids.

That's how you're making a living.

I don't wish I had only anybody.

A lot of pressure.

A lot of pressure.

Because it's not up to you.

It is not up to you.

You can be the best actor on the planet.

And somebody's grandkids decide that they want to take a seat.

Yeah.

A lot of politics involved there.

Yeah, or, I mean, okay, the budgets are there.

Okay, well, well, now we've cast our lead and our leads five-nine.

So now everybody else kind of has to be.

Now, if the leading males five-nine,

the leading females probably are going to have to be five-six.

Wow.

You know, and so now you've got the height discrimination.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't even think about that.

Well, I mean, that's just how it shakes out.

I mean, I didn't get a lot of roles growing up because I was red-headed.

Really?

Not because people don't like red-heads.

It's just because it's hard to match you to a family.

Oh, that's true.

When there's not a lot of leading, you know, women and men who are red-headed.

Towed against is my saving grace because I never thought about it.

They wanted it to look like I was illegitimate and wasn't Will's kid.

Damn.

Even though I was Will's kid and I didn't think about that until somebody pointed it out.

Probably like two years ago.

He didn't even know.

Yeah, and I didn't think about it.

But both my parents had black hair.

You know, there's not another red-headed person in my family.

There was apparently on both sides.

It may be a great, great ramp on it.

Somewhere.

Somewhere down the line because it has because it's recessive.

Yeah.

Which if you'll see people like that have a red beard but black hair, then it's because it comes from one side.

Okay.

So you need both to be exposed.

Yeah, both.

Wow.

I wonder if I have it.

My aunt has red hair.

Maybe.

I'm Irish, so.

There you go.

Yeah, I'm not sure.

We'll see if my fiance has some red hair in her family.

I wouldn't mind a red-head baby.

Yeah.

Now how long have y'all been together?

Eight years.

Getting married this year, man.

Congratulations.

Yeah.

Well, is there like a particular place you'd always want to get married?

We met in Jersey, so we're going to do it there.

Both our families are from there.

Okay.

But big change.

I'm no longer engaged.

I was engaged for a while.

Oh, that was one of my questions for you.

Yeah, yeah.

So I was not anymore.

You know, was it happy about it then?

Not over the moon about it now, but you living and learning and you do the best of what you have.

But I remember probably five, six years ago.

No, it's probably not.

Once I got old enough to, you know, like, no, okay, cool.

I really, you know, once I started thinking about, you know, okay.

If I propose to somebody, where am I going?

Where am I going to do that?

And the most beautiful place I'd ever seen in my life was Adiris and the Lord of the Rings.

You're seeing Lord of the Rings two towers.

I've seen it.

Where all the horse riding people are from.

It's this little hill surrounded by snow-capped mountains, 360 degrees.

That's beautiful.

And I saw that as a four or five-year-old.

And that's always in the mind.

And that's the most beautiful place on planet.

And so when I got ready to propose, gosh, 20 years later, it's like, okay.

Going to New Zealand, taking her to Mount Sunday, and that's where I'm proposing.

Because, you know, that's the most beautiful place on planet I can think of.

Yeah.

Now, I probably should have asked her before I did.

But I probably should have consulted her about it.

So she said no?

Oh, no. She said yes.

And then it ended up not working out long for other reasons.

But the other side of my mind was, if it don't work, I got a trip.

And we're good.

And you know, that's one of those things where, like I said, my grandparents did t-shirts.

They t-shirts.

Yeah.

You know, I would be four or five years old with a stick.

In the back of the shop, you know, fighting imaginary or works.

Mm-hmm.

And so 20 years later, to be blessed enough to say that I want to go proposed to my wife in New Zealand.

Yeah.

And I've gotten my little sports shop, Clanton Alabama Hat, wrapped it up in some rocks.

And unless the wind blew it off, it still sit.

I love that.

Oh, that mountain.

I've been in 20 countries, man. New Zealand is top three for me.

Dude, it is the most consistently beautiful place in earth.

It's so beautiful.

And the people are awesome.

People are great.

Like, you can be in the worst part of town.

And you can just pull some homeless guy up and he'll be like, oh, man, you just hang a lift down here.

And then you know, it's like, I'll never once felt threatened at all.

And the last time I went, we rented a Toyota Highlux at the Cross Church Airport.

We're driving down the South Island.

And I started cranking George Jones.

Yeah.

Like, old-scale, like, you know, like, where the wind is down.

And the parking attendant came up.

And he was younger, guys, like in his 30s.

He's like, I can't do a Kiwi X in it all.

He's like, oh, I heard your music.

And thought, ah, red necks.

And he's like, you can take the boy out of America.

You can't take America out of the boy.

It's about the guy who came up and started making fun of us.

He was an old guy and the young ones.

And I'll shut up here the same way way, Elton John.

It's funny.

It's just really sweet people.

Yeah.

Really good food.

Food is, oh, my gosh.

I love the fact that sheep are so stupid.

I understand now why the good Lord refers to people as sheep, because we're stupid.

Yeah.

But they'd go down the road, sheep everywhere.

Honk the horn.

The whole flock will scatter in complete and utter terror.

They live next to a road.

It's not like they've never heard a car home before.

It was a blast.

Yeah.

The same thing with squirrels.

When you go to certain spots, squirrels are stupid.

But where I grew up in Jersey, they're smart.

Yeah.

They'll avoid you.

But New Zealand will come up to you.

It's crazy.

Yeah.

Everything's nuts.

Everything's nuts.

Every animal's nice over there.

It's like, what's going on?

It must be the energy.

It's the free health care.

That's all they like.

No one's bothering you.

They're on an island.

No, he's bothered them.

They're on their own island.

I don't got to worry about border issues.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's crazy.

Oh, Grayson.

It's been fun, man.

I can't wait to follow your journey.

Work with people.

Keep up with you, man.

Yeah.

If y'all want in mind, on my Instagram or TikTok or whatever, it's Grayson, g-r-a-y-s-o-n-c.

Russell.

Two S's and two S's in my website.

It's GraysonRussellOnline.com.

Oh.

Listen to a music.

Got a new song that I'll call go cross somewhere else.

How I introduce that one is a friend by whose ever cheated only then cried about it.

It's a song that's called go cross somewhere else.

I'll stop it now.

And yeah, Sean, I really appreciate you having me on.

Rob, Rayson, thank y'all for setting this up.

Sean, I look forward to seeing you again, my friend.

Likewise.

Check them out, guys.

That was a fun episode.

And for an episode.

I'll see you guys next time.

Oh.

Thank you.

I hope you guys are enjoying the show.

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