Nicholas And Derek interview actress Kat Q. We ask about her life and how she changed from a STEM major to moving out to LA. Listen in to find out more!

This is Film Center.

Your number one show for real entertainment industry news.

No fluff, all facts.

Now, here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.

Hey, welcome to Film Center, I'm Derek Johnson II.

I'm Nicholas Killian.

And today, Nicholas, we have a very special guest.

We have a very special guest.

Would you like to introduce yourself?

Sure.

My name is Cat Q, or I go by Cat Q.

She goes by Cat Q.

That's her stage name.

It is.

Oh yeah.

It was recommended to me by a casting director.

What he recommended it?

What do you mean?

I was an intern at a casting studio with the purpose of

Oh, she has the insights then.

Yeah.

Ha.

I was just trying to get whatever knowledge I could.

And the deal was that if I worked for free for three months, I would get a sit

down with the one of the owners, which was a casting director at the time.

And she just told me, she's look you have an ethnically ambiguous look.

Lean into it when they see your full name on the paper.

They don't know how to feel about it They're gonna look at you and

then it's gonna be a mixed bag.

You're cat cute.

You show them what you are inside You know what?

There's so much truth to that.

I first of all, one of my friends Anatoly Pancheco He was in Infinity

he was in the League of Bureaus.

It's like in Morocco right now Anyway, so he had a very had the same thing

happen to him almost well almost so he worked at a casting company for

Four months, three, four months.

And then they allowed him to audition for them for something, but yeah, it was

pretty cool, but they had the same thing.

Cause his name's Anatoly Panchenko.

Very obviously Russian Ukrainian sounding.

Yeah.

And me and him, I remember we used to stay up nights and be like, he's okay,

what's the American version of Anatoly?

I was like, it's Anthony.

But I was like, so we were like, A hair away from like changing his name to

Anthony Wolfe, but then he was casted So I was like, Oh, now we're good.

Now we're good.

What before getting to, to, to all the stuff, what made you say Oh, I'm

going to, we'll get to that later.

So Cat Q, where are you from?

I'm Colombian.

So I just had the.

hesitation of when people ask me where I'm from I've been in,

or I grew up in a lot of places.

Like I, I was raised in Columbia, South America, in Cali.

Very warm in weather and warm environment.

Like everyone, the neighbors and the neighbors, son, daughter, mom, always.

And then I went back to New Jersey.

That was my first, that's where I learned English.

And then I went down to South Carolina and by I, I mean my family.

And right.

How long were you in Columbia?

I was there until I was about seven and a half, eight years old.

Oh, Hey, those are all the formative kid years.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

Those are all the formative kid years.

Yeah.

So what made you, so what made your family come to America?

Better life, better quality of life.

And before my full family moved over.

We had some aunts, my great grandmother had been in America and Puerto

Rico, she worked all her life.

And they just, yeah, it's just, there was this very specific time

in Columbia that was very rough.

And a lot of people just started automatically migrating out of there.

And what about South Carolina spoke to you guys?

She went to New Jersey first.

New Jersey, yeah.

Hold up.

Alright, if we're thinking of all the states in America to

learn English from, New Jersey.

That's a harsh that's like you didn't dip your toe into the pool.

You got thrown into the deep end, New Jersey Man, do you have

beef all time with New York?

That was that must been interesting It was and it's hilarious because I

have a lot of we have a large family So I grew up with just cousins all

the time Yeah, and they're also they already had spoken English.

They already learned so, they're Jabbing at you, they joke in and poke

and I'm like, I need to understand.

So it's an emphasis to get to learning faster.

I also just really like languages.

Oh, that's cool.

And I took to it very quickly.

And yeah, that was What other languages do you know besides English and Spanish?

So I speak Spanish and English fluently.

I speak French conversationally.

Oh!

And I'm learning Russian.

She speaks French.

Oui, je peu de français.

I speak a little French myself, croissant à la mode.

Oui.

Eiffel Tower, paris.

So then so you're coming from Colombia, you move around a

little bit in the United States.

When did you know that you wanted to start acting?

Funnily enough I remember, the earliest memory of ever even thinking about what

is acting, that is an actor, or they're pretending is not real, is novelas.

I would, my mom would tell me, Tell us, bedtime is at 7 p.

m And she closed our bedroom door and you know puts us to bed Yeah,

and I would hear the TV come on and I know that starts at 7.

She's watching our stories.

Yeah, so I would crack the door open and I would just sit there like that

and always these ridiculous stories and things like that, but I found it Very

Like a way to a place to Put something.

I don't know.

I found it very Unless you escape.

Yeah.

Yeah First saw it and then so when I was growing up I would for some reason tell

my mom like I want to be an Actress or I want to be a dancer, but we didn't have

money for either one of those things Yeah, so I don't know why where when

she would be she's a wonderful mother.

She would always be like, yes.

Yes, that's Great.

Oh, she was supportive.

Yeah, she was.

Yeah.

She never ever told me you're crazy.

You're like, that is so wonderful to hear.

We have so many stories on the show.

We have so many sad stories on the show.

That is great to hear.

All right.

All right.

So a lot of people who listen to the show, a lot of them are already in the industry,

but there's some people who want to get into the industry and guys be listening.

See, look, some people do care.

Sometimes.

Somebody.

Some people's families do care and they do want them.

And she didn't have any money to back up the fact that she was supporting me

emotionally, but she kept telling me yes.

Even when we were in New Jersey, she took me a couple of times to like these, those

things they do at the malls where they're like, come and be seen by whatever agency.

Like a little fake runway thing or whatever.

And they, but they tell you that it's that's how you get

into any kind of the world.

Placed in the right street, but she was just looking for a way to do it

without having money So we went to a couple of those that sounds so sweet.

Yes.

Yeah, she's guys gonna make me cry, but She then just kept doing that and feeling

that emotional part for me even though we didn't have money and to the point

where When I got to high school I realized if I'm gonna be able to go to college

because we don't have money I have to be on top of my game with grades and I

was just a nerd like I just buckle down.

I got good grades the whole way through and I was gonna I was when I had my pick

of colleges I was like now I can actually study what I said I wanted to so I told

myself that I would but at the same time they don't give you financial aid when

you say I want to be an actor I very much I told the University of South Carolina

that I wanted to be a double major in biology and theater and The amount of

people that looked at me with these sad little eyes that were like, Oh, you poor

thing, you don't know what you're doing.

They said it was difficult.

It was, nobody does double majors.

People get too stressed.

When I was in, when I was in undergrad, something that I thought was really great.

So my uncle, I love my uncle, but he didn't go to college,

but he's like very street smart.

This one was going to Florida state.

He was like, Because I was playing on double majoring myself.

I was going to go to I was thinking about doing politics and Coming to seeing

my stem research right a stem degree.

So he was like Why don't you just choose the one that makes the most money and then

spend all your time doing the other one?

Then you won't be in class.

You just don't do what you feel like doing it and I was like

why didn't I think of this?

This is why you gotta talk to your elders sometimes, Yeah, so you were

Ella majoring in biology and theater and I'm pretty sure they thought,

oh, she wants to teach fist to dance.

Of course.

This is what Leading to no it actually Because I most of my financial like it was

all scholarships or grants And technically it ended up that I was being just paid

to go to school at that point But it was solely it was mostly because of the

biology portion And so I had to keep up with like lectures everything the grades

had to be almost perfect To the point where there was a moment where I got to

see somewhere I don't remember what class it was and I almost cried and freaked

out because I was like losing my life.

Yeah Which is not as healthy I see now but I came to a point where

I was so busy Doing like I think it was population science math

problems Pages of math problems.

Yeah, they're working on them and I enjoyed that work But I was like,

this is not what I want for the rest of my life yeah, not and I was at

that point I had gone through I was supposed to be the vice president of

a sorority Oh, you joined a sorority.

I was starting at the first chat where I was like, oh They might not like that.

I'm saying I was helping because I came over here.

But it was like the first chapter in the university of South

Carolina of a Latina sorority.

Oh, very interesting.

I'm part of her fraternity myself and something that.

Like we loved partying with the the Latin fraternities and sororities

because they can all dance.

No, there's no, no offense to some of the Caucasian fraternities and sororities.

But like usually had no idea how to dance and usually there's like

a huge discrepancy in the DJ to choose right Usually there's a huge.

That's always the first thing.

Why are you staring at me?

Everything Listen, I have no, I can't dance, but I have no problem making

a fool of myself on the dance floor.

See, I I've seen Nicholas dance.

He can dance.

He just, does it in his own way.

I'll give him that much.

That's being nice to say he can't dance.

But so you did all of that at university, and then you're like, okay, you know what?

I didn't finish.

Oh, you didn't graduate.

I actually, I, when I was, going through that, the moment that I

realized that the sorority life wasn't quite for me, or at least that one

I didn't really like some of the ways that the, what are they called?

The bigs were talking to the way that some of them were interacting with each other.

I just I don't know.

I don't, I didn't like it because the whole idea behind that one sorority was

that they were very much emphasizing like the education part of it, being

together in that and celebrating we're just learning and things like that

wasn't the core of it as I found out, but because of that, I went through

the big, this big shift in my life.

It was very intense.

I had to move out of campus.

I was by myself.

I was just very isolated and it actually, I thank God that happened

because it allowed me to see exactly what I didn't want for my life.

And also, then I had to have that moment, which I know I heard in an interview from

you of okay, I'm gonna call my mom first.

Yeah.

. Yeah.

And then I'll talk to my dad, . My mom, the mom always feels like

the softer blow, doesn't it?

Yeah, it always does.

Yeah.

Because I'm like, at the very least, even if she's upset she's always gonna do that.

She's oh and then, and my dad is a sweetheart too, but I feel like

he, his reaction, his immediate reaction when I called him and I was

like, Hey, there's, so I found, wow.

I'm gonna backtrack a little bit because this is actually quite significant

and if he ever hears this, I want him to . There's a guy in my high school.

who I saw once in a play.

He's this, he was big.

He was this big guy.

And he was amazing, phenomenal actor, phenomenal singer.

I don't know where he gets his voice from.

And he just stuck with me.

And when I saw him share on Facebook one day, I'm going to these

auditions being held in Atlanta.

Atlanta was like three hours from my family.

And I was like, wait a minute, he's going to move to LA, go become

this and do that with his life.

And we went to the same high school and we live like same origin story.

Yeah.

And I'm like, I, and I'm sitting here.

So I immediately went cool, let's see if I can go into these.

What is audition?

I to do.

And then I saw that it just so happens that I think it was a couple of months

away from when I was sitting there looking at it, that AMDA conservatory that I

went to here they were having auditions in Atlanta and they just required

for you to do Typical two monologues.

The monologue.

The comedy, the drama monologue.

But at that time I'd never done a monologue So I'm sitting there

like I don't even know what I was looking for I just knew like this

is this shift was happening and I'm like, I need to do something.

So when I call my dad I'm like, I Think I want to go Try this audition.

His immediate response was, I thought you liked animals because

my track was to go from biology to veterinary school and stuff like that.

The track that you tell to lie to other people.

Ah, the lie track.

It's so much fun because you get to say that you're going to do anything.

Anything.

'cause you don't have to, you don't have to don follow through on any of it.

You're looking at the other classes they're like, oh yeah, I'm, they're like,

oh, so what are you, what you studying?

'cause I studied also political science when I was in school and they were

like, oh, why did you, when to college?

Oh, why are you studying?

Oh, I'm gonna be, a mayor one day.

I just, my goals is to be a mayor of, Tallahassee.

Yeah.

, Tallahassee, Florida.

Yeah.

The capital of Florida.

That's unappreciated people don't even know what's the capital of Florida.

They think it's Orlando or Miami, but it's not.

It's this border town next to Georgia.

So your your dad's reaction to you wanting to be an actress was.

He was a little, I think, nervous because we, they don't have money.

You know what I mean?

We never had money and I don't say, how are you going to do this?

Yeah.

I didn't, I don't want to say that in a boohoo way.

I meant more so like they.

just, they were genuinely curious.

Yeah.

And also they're realists, they've been through so much and they had already

switched countries and things like that.

So he's you gotta do something, you gotta prepare somehow.

First.

. And so I talked to him a little more and he's the one that ended up taking me to

the audition to to audition for amda to.

And when I came out the door, he was like a little kid.

He was like, how did it go?

How did it go?

I'm like, I thought you didn't want me here.

, . He's tell me everything.

Yeah.

And so ever since then, I think he saw how much it meant to me to So you got in?

Yeah, I did.

I did.

Yeah.

How was how was that?

It was great.

I had never been in an environment where.

I was solely focusing on that.

Like I was always doing some math problems, some biology

lectures, some chemistry thing and doing acting as a hobby.

And now it's no, I would go home and study, but instead of

studying for my finals, I was over there memorizing 12th night.

And it was cause it was my first time reading like this

play in this way or whatever.

And it was just, it was great.

It was great.

And it was weird because I had never been in that environment.

I got introduced to the tension or the kind of cattiness of,

this is a performing arts school.

Yeah!

And So Nicholas, you have more experience in this area.

So what you're saying is that you found out how two faced people could be.

No, I didn't say that.

You found out.

Look, this is our show.

We can say what we want.

Not necessarily two faced, more so this need to have this

front of this is who I am.

When in reality, I was walking in I don't know, I've never been to the state.

I've never been to the city.

I've never been in the school.

I've never had theater friends.

I've never, I didn't grow up in the theater world.

I haven't been doing play since I was 12 and I felt very much, and it might also

be just me being self conscious at the time, but it felt very much Oh, like they,

everyone here thinks I don't belong here.

But then, the way the school set it up, they had this orientation

and it just so happens Immediately I glommed on to this one girl.

She's from Argentina, Buenos Aires, phenomenal musical theater.

She's a singer, but her dad and my mom met at the parents orientation

and my, me and her met, and then when we joined up, we're like, oh, great.

We're going to be roommates.

Oh yeah, done deal.

My, I had my mom and another mom, her mom, her daughter.

was from Alabama.

So they like, globbed on to each other and became real good friends.

Oh!

To the point where they where the moms tried to conspire together

to get us to become a couple.

That's hilarious.

Did you?

No!

laughs They didn't conspire well enough.

No because I was talking to my mom years later and cause they, they're

still friends to this day, right?

It's didn't been, years.

They found out the moms broke out the blueprint.

And all right, they would have legitimate conversations going.

Okay.

I like you and I like your son.

How do we get them together?

Yeah.

And.

I was not in it in the slightest.

Looking back on it, did you think of any moments where like being

her, we're in this situation together that we would normally

never have been in the same place.

No.

Because I didn't allow it.

That's what the issue was.

I was not interested in the slightest.

But anyway yeah, it's, the thing is, you know this just as well as we do.

The industry, the entertainment industry, attracts pretty much

the most broken of people.

And I think the most common thing that happens is they expect they

expect what they want to fulfill them.

To fill that hole of whatever it might be.

Yeah.

And so the thing is also sent.

I can't let you know that I'm vulnerable.

I can't let you know that I need something from this goes against the work, right?

Exactly.

Because that is what's preventing you from putting out such incredible work.

But at the same time, all three of us in this room can think about at least

10 times where we've been screwed over.

So it's a paradox of, I'd love to be vulnerable, but I can't tell

you that I'm vulnerable because then you're going to screw me over.

It's very quite interesting.

I think that it's a little bit different from my experience.

Cause you guys went to acting schools.

There was an acting wing in the school that I went to, but with filmmaking,

it wasn't like, Oh I would say there's a little vibrato, but it's more

like everyone just being Kanye West.

Everyone there was like, Oh, I'm a genius.

Oh, everything I've made up, it's just genius.

Oh, you should look at this.

I wish I had that confidence.

Yeah.

Everyone there was just, they all just thought they were geniuses.

I did not know.

I went there to do like costuming and I ended up doing not that.

But.

. So you here in la?

. And one thing that's really interesting about the current landscape is that

there is some complaints from some audiences that are like, okay, we see

literally the same actors in every movie.

Yeah.

There is not a movie out there where like finally we see some new faces

unlike like you would've seen, back in the early thousands where it's oh, okay.

Like for example an Harry Potter.

Not only him, but like the whole cast, you had no idea who these people were.

They were kids.

That's true.

But at the same time, even the adults were playing some, like some of the roles

who had not really seen them before.

That comes down to money nowadays.

Everything is so risky and the studios are like, we have to make

this our, it's our, but right.

So in this current landscape, what do you think is your what is your

opinion or how do you think that.

Studios can possibly more your uncomfortable, opening

up to newer cast members.

How they can become more comfortable?

Yeah, more comfortable.

I think they don't need to be comfortable.

I think you're supposed to lean into the uncomfortable.

I think the point is to make them uncomfortable.

I think that the idea that we need, that they need to, yeah, I'm sorry.

I think the idea that they should be comfortable at all is, I think, ridiculous

because we The artists are, like you said, going through pain and actually,

it's funnily enough, before I came here, I was listening to an interview by, with

Shakira and she goes, artists have this luxury of transforming pain into something

else, but People providing the money.

Yes.

They're giving that support for us to give the platform to the artists, but

they're not the ones digging through that.

They're not the ones going through the experience.

Very true.

They shouldn't.

Why are they comfortable?

We're not comfortable down here sweating.

That's, I think it's silly that we think of the business side of art in that way.

Like it should somehow reflect.

The art yeah goes to that dogmatic structure of this is how we do

business and we must get the money Yeah, it's quite interesting.

I like so I used to work in development and some of the We did our packaging.

The first thing I always want to say is oh who's in it?

They'll say it.

No, they'll say is it paid for first?

Ironically when we have projects they'll say is it paid for meaning that?

Oh, Are you going to need money for this?

And then they say, Oh, who's in it?

And a lot of times we, I worked at a hot pot productions.

And at the time we had like a lot of newer faces and stuff like that.

We were trying to put out and they'd always go, okay, you know what?

We'll work a deal.

We'll say we'll get X amount of new people, but then we need X

amount of like famous people.

And then, eventually what they always do is Oh, we need less and less

like new people until eventually.

No one's there's no new people, right?

So something that I think is quite interesting especially about what you're

saying is that you know They should sweat too and I they I don't really

mean that people that Like stuck in the middle There are some like assistants

or some people who are like they're like juniors or oh I just have to make

sure I do good In fact Nicholas and I talked about this on a previous episode

in which some executives just to keep their jobs Give you terrible notes on

purpose You What just because yeah, just so they could justify them being there.

Yeah, like For example, I yeah, we I've had I've written some scripts

and had projects that are made that they were like, oh I just have to

give a note because I'm a junior exec.

My senior exec boss is here.

So I need to make sure that I look like I know what I'm doing.

So I'm going to tell you things to purposely mess up what you're doing.

No integrity.

No integrity.

The thing is I haven't spoken in 15 minutes.

So I look like I'm stupid.

Yeah.

So I look like I'm, I look like I'm idiot or I haven't spoken at all

during this meeting because I have no idea what I'm talking about or what I

would say, but my boss is right here.

And he's not paying attention to the person up there presenting or the

creative, he's looking at me like.

Do you deserve to be senior?

Why do I have you on as my junior executive if you've

offered nothing this whole time?

And if I have no I'm white, right?

If people didn't know already, I'm white.

We're doing the project we're currently doing right now.

If I were to sit here and try and give you notes on that, just to

justify to the upper management, just so it looks like I'm doing my

job, but it would be counterintuitive to making the project successful.

And a lot of times, there are very rare instances in which

they give notes that are good.

Not like useful.

No, I will say in these specific instances, sometimes executives do give

notes that are good, but usually in my experience has always been other artists

that give me the best notes because they're the ones actively doing it.

But from a more personal place, as opposed to this is what it says in the binder.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

And sometimes it's sometimes I give very rarely, they'll have one W where

you'll just end up magically working.

One of my favorite stories about the magical.

Note that actually did work that the executives will ride until the wheels fall

off for the next 100 years is one choice.

Yeah, it was a Batman.

Yeah.

In Batman Beyond this guy was like, oh, one executive's oh, Batman's old.

We don't like that We need to freshen up Batman and they're

like people like Batman man.

I don't know.

That's a good idea He goes.

No, he needs to be a teen.

He has to be cool.

And also he needs to have a girlfriend and they're like What?

And also, Batman, originally, it's just not in it.

It's just like he's like a descendant of this person.

And they're like, I don't know about that, man.

He goes, alright, cool.

You know what?

I guess you're going to have Batman in it.

But just so you know, I like Spider Man.

And they're like, what?

This is true.

It's huh?

What do you mean?

What does it have to do with anything?

And he's make him like Spider Man.

And then, yeah, no, that's it.

Cool Batman, teen.

He needs to have a girlfriend.

Though Batman's there, and then future Spider Man.

Go ahead, go.

And the team of artists are just so good at what they do.

It actually ended up working out.

They interpret, they interpreted it at its highest level that they could have.

So for an actress such as you, such as yourself, you have this

hardworking background, right?

How does that translate into how you prepare for roles?

Just give me like the goosebumps because it's my favorite part.

Yeah.

Because it's like I, I was obsessed with science and like the scientific

process and the fact that you can break things down, figure out how they work,

go back to the cellular molecular, like every, just the essence of everything.

And then I also, after Amda I am currently in Playhouse West

where they practice Meissner.

And it's very much focused on listening and what's in front of you

and playing off the other person.

Essentially the other actors do your work for you when you really connect to that.

Like drawing them out too.

Yeah.

And it just makes everything more grounded.

But that is, because of that, for example, the last thing I would do, again I'm

gonna say this first because I hesitate always to talk about anything about

process, because I'm not like, this is the way that you're supposed to do it.

No, everybody has their own way.

But I'm and I'm still even discovering what I do.

But my favorite part is breaking everything down, going from, Initially,

what it is whatever resonated with me from when I read it as my boyfriend

puts it as like a newspaper, you read the script like a newspaper for facts,

what's the story, what is this, does it even connect with something in here?

When it does, I go back in, and then I start looking for, okay, what is the

author's point of view, where is this person coming from, and why do they care?

Which is why when I told you I saw the one.

But it's, The last thing I even worry about is memorization.

Because for me it's the work, the intention of the human being, the soul.

Once you get the core right, the rest of it will fall into place.

Yeah.

And I think that's the same with anything.

When you care about the why more than who or me or whatever.

Or the superficial stuff.

Yeah.

I think it just naturally starts melding together.

And also it More specific, more specifically bringing the

director's vision to life, I think.

You know what's quite interesting just to speak about breaking you down science

wise, I'm the only person I know who studies scripts within an Excel sheet.

Like, when I read a script, I don't want to break it down.

Tell me more.

Please.

Yeah I so I'll look at a script that I really like, and when I

break it down, I really study.

And this is a super simplified version because my Excel sheets are pretty

large, but I will literally make a column that says for characters,

I'll make another column for like intention, I'll make another column

for this character intention setting on character, meaning that how is the

character using the setting, like the action space and stuff like that, and

I'll basically start like numbering them.

Okay, this character isn't here.

This character isn't this one.

Okay and the scene lasted for a page and a half.

What happened in this page and a half scene?

He started in this emotional state, and then it went into

this emotional state at the end.

Do you do that as a writer, director, or actor, or just any time with any script?

Any script.

I do it with all my scripts.

With all scripts that I write, or scripts that Because it gives you a more

Broad view of what's actually going on.

It's almost like you're seeing this the storytelling structure.

Yeah Yes, essentially and what makes good seems good.

So It's been so great having you on the show.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thank you so much for coming.

Yeah, so Where can people follow you?

I am on Instagram as cat Q or am I the What is it called?

The handle, the handling.

KQ.

Yeah.

I know so much about Instagram.

KQ, U I C E.

And then that's pretty much it.

Cause you can see me on whatever screens up next.

No.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you for coming guys.

This has been film center news.

My name is Derek Johnson.

The second Nicholas Killian.

And we're here with cat Q and we'll see you next time.

See you.

This has been Film Center on Comic-Con Radio.

Check out our previous episodes@comicconradio.com.

You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major social media platforms.

Tune in next Wednesday for a fresh update.

Until next time, this has been Film Center.