Part One

 

Sage Tanguay
Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Andrew Pifko, a rising actor who was the recipient of the award for Best Supporting Actor at the Northern Virginia International Film and Music Festival for his role in the film Daddy Issues. Most of our listeners will likely recognize you from the Super Bowl Stella Artois commercial that you’re in.

Andrew Pifko
Yep.

Sage Tanguay
So I have to ask, what was it like to be on set with Sarah Jessica Parker and Jeff Bridges.

Andrew Pifko
So amazing. I mean, you know, on a, just a pragmatic level, it’s obviously great to get a good gig like that, and what I found with them, and certainly what I found with every, you know, celebrity that I’ve worked with, the bigger they are, usually the more gracious they are. It was absolutely true with these two, because they know…I mean, they’ve been doing this for ever. And so they know exactly all the stages it takes to get to a certain level. So the grace that they show other performers who are maybe not at their, you know, famous or whatever level, they just absolutely magnanimous, and especially in like a large scale commercial like that, right time is of the essence a lot of money is being spent. You could allow for, you know, some celebrity to, you know, lose their cool rank themselves. And it was never the case. You know, we had a few moments had a few hours working with Sarah Jessica Parker. And just there was one moment she was like, ‘Andrew, do you mind if I sort of come around the table at this angle? Just like working with the camera?’ And I was like, ‘Yes. Sarah Jessica Parker. That’s totally- do that. Thank you for asking Sarah Jessica Parker. Wow, let me stop saying Sarah Jessica Parker.’ Um, but yeah, same with Jeff Bridges. He’s exactly what you hoping to be just kind of a cool dude shakes his hair out and hops on set? You know? Yeah. So it’s always nice. In situations like that, when you have somebody who could theoretically be, you know, put their ego first. And that was absolutely not the case on set.

Sage Tanguay
I haven’t seen the film yet, but as far as I can tell, it’s a fairly intense character. And I just wanted to ask about the process of getting into sort of a high emotional role.

Andrew Pifko
Sure. Yeah. So the film is Daddy Issues, we actually toured around to about 30 festivals. We’re actually just got, we got distribution, it was just released theatrically. So we’re in about 10 theaters across the state. And it just started streaming on iTunes and Google Play. So we’re really happy that the, you know, the world is going to get to see it. So anybody can, it is it’s a pretty intense, you know, sexual triangle. On one side, there’s a relationship between my daughter and this one woman, who, as it turns out, is also my girlfriend. And that’s one of the, you know, plot points you get into. To the notion of how do you get to an extreme place –  Everybody obsesses about something everybody obsesses about, you know, do I have enough gas in my tank, is there going to be you know, food at the end of the day? Can I pay my bills? So in our normal day to day lives, everybody has that. So I think the key is to just take what everybody normally has, and just, you know, to quote Spinal Tap, just, you know, “turn it to 11.”

Sage Tanguay
Absolutely.

Andrew Pifko
And for if you love someone you love someone to an almost psychotic level they’d like you can’t live without them. Right? You know, we’ve all been in this situation where, you know, there, we want to love somebody, and maybe they don’t reciprocate you think well, but why? Why couldn’t they just? So you take those high school feelings of, you know, “my life is over, because this person doesn’t love me” and just really just crank it to the extreme. And I think that’s kind of the key for pretty much any role. You just you take a one you take a need, that everybody has, and you just crank it up.

Sage Tangua
I asked Andrew, what other projects he has on the horizon?

Andrew Pifko
There’s a great new show called Dwight in shining armor. It’s one of these great sort of kids adventure comedy shows that entertains the kids and adults in this at the same time in the way that, let’s say, old school Sesame Street used to do. I’m in a few episodes of that. So anybody can go online and watch that. Daddy issues is on iTunes, Google Play and OnDemand. If anybody’s in the Los Angeles area, I’m in a musical called “More Guns: The NRA Musical” at Second City Hollywood. We just got an extension; we’re running every Saturday night until the end of August. Yeah, a couple of exciting projects.

Sage Tanguay
Yeah. You definitely have stuff going on and and stuff you’ve done in the past coming out and and that’s wonderful. Stay tuned for part two of this interview where we talk about Andrew’s background. For Allegheny Mountain Radio, this is Sage Tanguay.

Part 2

 

Sage Tanguay
In part one of this interview, we heard about the current happenings of actor Andrew Pifko’s career. Now we’ll learn more about his beginnings in performance.

Andrew Pifko
Early on, I was a rooster in a grade three school play, and that’s when it bit me, the performance bug. And from there on, I just started doing, you know, choirs and concerts. One thing led to another, I eventually went to an arts high school up in Toronto. Did you ever see Fame?

Sage Tanguay
Yes.

Andrew Pifko
Yeah. So it’s a it’s an arts high school, very similar to that in Toronto called Earl Haig. So excellent. So I was kind of on that track and then I got sidelined into the sort of a dark world of microbiology.

Sage Tanguay
Yeah. I wanted to ask about that. When, when did that kind of enter into your field. I didn’t realize you had gone to a performing arts high school.

Andrew Pifko
Really quite an amazing high school. I can’t say enough about it because it was actually – so there’s the arts program. They also had an academic program, which is pretty amazing. For biology and physics and some some pretty high level track academia. But I was really into biology and they actually had an amazing marine biology program there that took us down to Jamaica to the Hofstra University labs, got my research diver there. And that really kind of took me off the arts path for a while and got me into that sort of where I was going to go right into performance. This kind of sidelined me into into the scientists and I was actually going to be going down that road for a bit. But you know, you’re titrating chemicals and you’re singing show tunes, and eventually the show tunes win out over a like a microscope, right? So that and it was actually actually paid my way through college, starting to get gigs, directing theatre, directing short films, directing musicals.

Sage Tanguay
So the arts actually ended up becoming kind of the more practical application just immediately

Andrew Pifko
You know, you never hear that. I traveled for a year after college and then, when I came back I just went right into, just started going gig to gig and, you know, one thing leads to another film leads to a musical leads to a TV show and it’s not dissimilar to like, you know, mountain climbing, you’re just trying to… there’s a lot of lateral movement. And just trying to go from rock to rock.

Sage Tanguay
I just want to say you must really be in the right place if it called back so strongly when you were already sort of developing another very viable possible career.  That’s a very heartwarming story.

Andrew Pifko
You know, you meet a lot of people different disciplines along the road and it excites me when I see amazing musicians are amazing. You know, performers have success, but the corollary to that is it sadly when I know there’s so many great artists out there who but for like a stroke of luck or the wrong opportunity, just didn’t have the means. So I’m pretty thankful that you know, I’m here and got myself to this place, but I know that there’s any number of you know, landmines that could have taken me off the bat.

Sage Tanguay
Definitely. I asked Andrew what factor made a production particularly enjoyable?

Andrew Pifko
When they know, when whoever the director, the producer is – when they know exactly what they want. They know exactly aesthetic. They know. You know, they’re so specific in what they want. That is the best. That is the best production to be in. I’ve been in really like soul crushing, you know, checkoff plays, but I did an absolutely enlightening staples commercials. Yeah. Okay, cool. And it’s totally true. Because they know, they know the message they want. They know how to bring it across. They know the aesthetic of the spot, whatever it is. The flip side of that is you’re involved in a production where they don’t know what they want, right? You know how to describe it. And you’re like, “Oh, my God,” I’m just there, waffling. And you know, your lost.

Sage Tanguay
Finally, I asked Andrew, if he had any advice for aspiring artists,

Andrew Pifko
I’m going to give your listeners the advice one of my best singing teacher said to me, your listeners can apply this to their life and how they see fit, but… don’t feed sound into the echo feed into what makes the sound and the echo will take care of itself. So that could apply to you as a performer identifying yourself as whoever you are, if you’re trying to worry about how does the Instagram appeal to an audience? Don’t worry about that. You figure out like what pictures you want to take. You take those you figure out what kind of actor you are, you’d be that actor and the echo will take care of itself. You’re a chef. You use your cardamom or your veggies or your beef in whatever way you want. But don’t start with how what would they think of it? How will they receive this. You like it, you find out why you like it, and the echo will take care of itself.

Sage Tanguay
Well, I think that is some excellent advice for just about anything that people could do. Well, thank you so much. Do you have anything else you’d like to add?

Andrew Pifko
No, I mean, this is such a pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Sage Tanguay
Yeah, absolutely! For Allegheny mountain radio. This is Sage Tanguay.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai