EPISODE 10: Amanda Walsh
Erica Ehm gets personal with Amanda Walsh about the legend that she was discovered in a bar, the reality of being the youngest VJ on Much, and how dealing with haters taught her valuable life lessons.
Listen as Amanda opens up about why she chose to leave Much at the top of her game, how her role on the pilot of Big Bang Theory brought her great perspective, and how she ended up working on the hit TV series Schitts Creek.
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Show Transcript
Clips: The guys from Kiss have arrived, they snuck in the back door. You spend your whole life doing the first two albums, and then suddenly everybody needs your attention.
Announcer: Reinvention of the VJ, a flashback on the career that made them who they are today. On this episode ...
Amanda Walsh: I definitely felt pressure and I also felt like I remember getting there and being told, "A lot of people wanted this job."
Clips: I'm going to get this party started, Rainbow. All right, DJ Mandy Walsh, do your thing.
Erica Ehm: So you actually were part of the Big Bang Theory's original pilot, oh my god, Amanda. Tell me what happened.
Announcer: This is Erica Ehm's Reinvention of the VJ. Now here's Erica Ehm.
Erica Ehm: Hi there, I'm Erica Ehm, and thank you so much for tuning into another episode of my Reinvention of the VJ podcast. So what are the chances that two MuchMusic VJs are both from the same tiny town in Quebec? Chances are pretty good. My guest today grew up in Hudson, Quebec, a quaint town 40 minutes west of Montreal. She attended Hudson High School and legend has it, she was discovered working as a small town waitress, landing a job on MuchMusic, and eventually headed to LA to make it big in showbiz. Sounds a little like a John Cougar song, right?
My guest today is the charming and quirky Amanda Walsh. As for who the other VJ to hail from Hudson was, it was me. Before I compare notes with Amanda about life in Hudson and life on MuchMusic, if this is your first time tuning into my podcast, let me give you just a bit of background. Reinvention of the VJ is my unscripted, up close and personal conversations with the eclectic and much loved on-air hosts that you may have grown up with on MuchMusic. Some I work with closely with, others like Amanda, were way after my time. While our personalities and our approaches were often very different, there is one thing that we all have in common. Each of us played a small part in Canada's most influential pop culture platform, and then we left at different times for different reasons. Each of us headed off on our next adventures.
But it's that story of what happens after Much, the reinvention, the resilience, the luck, the creativity, the struggle, and the perspective that really intrigues me. So listen, I'm making this show for you. Yes, my conversation with Amanda will probably be a trip down memory lane, but I'm also hoping that you find some interesting tidbits or insights into what it takes to get what you want in life, to reinvent, to inspire creativity, to deal with tough times, and maybe even redefine what success if for you. Ultimately, I hope to inspire you to look at your life differently in somehow. For me, this is a passion project.
For the last 14 years, I've been running one of Canada's largest platforms for moms. It's called YMC.ca, and really connecting moms with brands has been my business. But guys, 14 years, that's a long time. So I'm also hoping that this show will give me some food for thought, while I consider what the next chapter of my life could look like. Speaking of moms, from her home in LA, nine months pregnant and ready to pop, welcome Amanda Walsh to Reinvention of the VJ podcast. How are you?
Amanda Walsh: Hi, Erica. I'm good, I'm very happy to be talking to an adult.
Erica Ehm: I get that. Also, I understand that we almost didn't have this conversation, because you literally could go into labor at any moment.
Amanda Walsh: Yes. I'm in that window, that zone right now.
Erica Ehm: I remember it well. But you and I are on completely different timelines, because we're actually 20 years apart. So 20 years ago, almost to the day, my son was born.
Amanda Walsh: Wow.
Erica Ehm: He's 20 years, and you started on MuchMusic, I think it's 15 years, 16 years after I left. So there's a 20-year age gap between the two of us, and so this is going to be a really great conversation, because we have so much in common and yet so much different, which is what makes a conversation interesting, don't you think?
Amanda Walsh: Yeah, definitely.
Erica Ehm: So you grew up in Rigaud. Seriously, my daddy still lives in Rigaud.
Amanda Walsh: My parents are there too.
Erica Ehm: So where do they live?
Amanda Walsh: Up on the mountain, in the forest.
Erica Ehm: So does my dad.
Amanda Walsh: Really?
Erica Ehm: Yeah, he lives right across from the Polo Club, do you know where that is?
Amanda Walsh: Yes, yes, I do. Yes.
Erica Ehm: So we still have parents that live just outside of Hudson, you grew up and went to Hudson High School. Is that right?
Amanda Walsh: Yes, I went to Hudson High School, I worked at the grocery store at the local IGA in Hudson.
Erica Ehm: Is that the Poirier family own that?
Amanda Walsh: Yes. It's another family now, but it was Poirier forever.
Erica Ehm: I used to hang out with Mark Poirier, seriously. We have honestly, we probably know so many of the same people. I have a question for you actually.
Amanda Walsh: Yes.
Erica Ehm: My math teacher's name was Mr Walsh.
Amanda Walsh: Hudson Walsh? I don't know if he was a teacher, was he a teacher? It's not related, we're not related.
Erica Ehm: Just checking. Was it your dad or something?
Amanda Walsh: No.
Erica Ehm: Okay, okay.
Amanda Walsh: We moved there around when I was 11 or so.
Erica Ehm: That's when I moved there too. Exactly when we used to live Downtown Montreal, and my dad decided that he wanted to get into writing full-time, and so he moved my family to Hudson from Downtown Montreal and we basically bought the farm. We used to have to shovel shit every day after school, and then I shoved shit on MuchMusic in a different way. That's an old joke, but I still pull it out whenever I can.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah. I think it was a really good place to be a teenager, because it was kind of a softer place then. We were on the West Island before, but I'm really grateful for getting to grow up there.
Erica Ehm: So when I went to Hudson High School, which was very small when I grew up there, I think 600 kids from grade-1 to 11, because there's CEGEP after, there were no extracurricular classes, there was no drama, there were no arts. It was very bare bones. So I ended up directing theater and the plays, honestly, at Hudson. So I directed the play Grease for example.
Amanda Walsh: Amazing.
Erica Ehm: Yeah. So what about you, when you grew up in Hudson, you were already the artsy kid who wanted to perform, what kind of opportunities were there for you in Hudson?
Amanda Walsh: It's funny you say that, because in elementary, in 6th grade, I wrote and directed the school play in my elementary school, because we didn't have one there. But then when I went to Hudson High, I got a piece of advice right before going in from this day camp counselor at the day camp in Hudson, who was just like, "Get involved." Then I really took that to heart and basically joined everything. But yeah, there was the school play that I did every year and the paper and I was in the band. Yeah, I did everything. If you look through the yearbook, I'm just in every picture.
Erica Ehm: I ran the yearbook at my CEGEP, honestly. I guess there is a certain type of person, this is going to be an interesting conversation, I think we're find a lot of similarities. Tell me about, you were waitressing? This is the legend, the myth of Amanda, you were waitressing and you were discovered. What really happened?
Amanda Walsh: So I was ... Yes, I had come back from traveling and was waiting to start university, and taking any odd jobs I could. I remember going into the Chateau du Lac, which if you're from Hudson, you know it, or we call it the Chat.
Erica Ehm: This is Erica mimes the picking up a drink and guzzling it, putting drink down, guzzling it. Yes, yes.
Amanda Walsh: I remember sitting and the bartender was there, and I said, "Can I have a job?" Joking around, I was like, "This is my only $5." Then he said, "We need a waitress to start next week."
Erica Ehm: You waitressed at Chateau du Lac?
Amanda Walsh: Yes.
Erica Ehm: Holy moly.
Amanda Walsh: Which was not, I had a really good time and I would do, I think I was still working, I think I was doing data entry Downtown, I'd take the train back to Hudson, do one or two shifts a week at the Chat. Not my, I was not a big partier person. I had a great time, working at the Chat was like, you'd be like, "I'm just going to go dance for a bit on the dance floor." Then ask around, "Does anyone need anything?" Then keep hanging out. It was fun.
One night about a month or two into the job, I was walking by a table and when I walked by, it's a small town, everyone knows everyone pretty much, and one of the guys said to another guy, he said, "You know, Amanda's an actress." Because coming up through my teen years, I would audition for stuff that was shooting in Montreal and occasionally get things, I was like a struggling child actor. It never took me out of my life very much, but I was in the union and doing things here and there.
So I stopped to say hi and the guy was like, "I work in TV in Toronto." Was also from Hudson, and he said, "They're probably not looking for anyone, but my boss always says if we ever see anyone we think would be good, encourage them to send a tape in." He gave me his card and he worked in graphics for MuchMoreMusic. So I remember going back to my friend's house where I was having a sleepover that night and being like, "A business card, whoa." Then I called and they said, "No, we're not really looking for anyone, but you can always send a tape if you want."
So I focused in on just making ... I was already into making movies with my friends and improv and sketch, so I just found a friend of a friend who had a camera and we put together this tape, and I sent it in with really my only goal was not to be embarrassed and send something I was proud of. Because as having been an actor for even a short amount of time, I'd already gotten used to you send these things off and who knows. Then about a week later, they called and they were like, "Were those your ideas? We want you to come to Toronto." Then I went to Toronto for about a week, it was almost like a little bootcamp, a week's worth of mock shifts and sitting out on the street to talk with people and that kind of thing.
Erica Ehm: What was on this demo tape that got you a call back when they weren't actually looking for someone?
Amanda Walsh: I think, so one of the things they had said was, "Throw to these videos, so do five different throws or three different throws, and then do whatever you want." So I think for each throw or introduction to the video, I did one that was more straight, but then the rest of them were, I think one was for Destiny's Child Survivor, so I said, "Not a lot of people know this, but I actually auditioned for that. We do have a clip of my tape." Then I cut to a silly goofy thing of me doing a terrible audition.
Erica Ehm: So you were doing, you played roles, you played characters?
Amanda Walsh: Yeah, yeah. I did. Then I did a thing at the end, it was like an instructional video of how to pretend you know about music when you don't, but it was all black and white like a '50s instructional video. So I was playing characters and turned it into sketches. I had a lot of fun with it.
Erica Ehm: Wow. That's so cool. So do you think that your ability to create sketches and your understanding of humor and character was what pulled them towards you?
Amanda Walsh: I think so, because that was something that they kept, they were like, "You thought of those things." That was my strength, I guess, on the job, as it were. So I do think that's probably what got me in there.
Erica Ehm: But Amanda, you didn't know about music?
Amanda Walsh: I knew some about music. I was 19, I grew up in Hudson, and I kind of ... Not that you can't know about music growing up, but for me, my growing up, I wasn't a music-phile and I wasn't a pop culture-phile. A lot of my childhood, we moved around, I didn't have a television, I was in my own creative, drawn to what I thought was funny and interesting and I liked the bands I liked as a teenager, and I also liked a lot of big band music. I had an appreciation for music, I was in the music program at school, but I wasn't coming into it as someone who just knew this vast amount of music history.
I don't know that a lot of kids that age know those things, but I certainly didn't. I remember when they interviewed me, they were like, "So what are some of your favorite websites?" This was in 2001, so I guess not a lot of people were online, but I was probably ... I said Hotmail and the Air Canada website to look for travel deals, because I had just come back from traveling. So I was not presenting as, I will lead the way and be a pop culture trendsetter person.
Erica Ehm: So you were called in for that week-long audition, now we know how it ended is that you eventually got the job. Did they give you the job right after the end of the week or what happened?
Amanda Walsh: Nope. They said, "We'll let you know either way in a week."
Erica Ehm: Who is this? Who is this, by the way? Who is they? Was it David Kines? Denise Donlon? Sheila? Who was it?
Amanda Walsh: It was Sheila, it was David Kines, it was Tania Natscheff and it was Neil State. So it was them and they said, "We'll let you know." Then having been there in the environment and seeing what you could do, and you could book an edit bay and sit with an editor and book a camera and just make all this stuff, I already wanted the job, but going there, then I really wanted it.
Erica Ehm: So they called you a week later and said ...
Amanda Walsh: They called my house, I wasn't home, because I was having a sleepover at my friend's house, so then they had to call me there.
Erica Ehm: You're such a kid, you were such a kid.
Amanda Walsh: I know, it's the craziest part of it. They said, "We want to offer you a job and can you be here next week?" So I just up and moved, my parents drove me to Toronto, and then a week after I got there, I started on air.
Erica Ehm: Okay, so there's a bit of a space that you jump over, which is a week later, this 19 year old girl who is pretty sheltered growing up in Hudson, hanging out at her girlfriend's, having sleepovers, a teenager, still young, is being driven by her parents to Toronto. Where did you live?
Amanda Walsh: They put me up in an executive apartment a couple blocks from the station that my best friend and I called the Lonely Businessman, because it felt like it was a furnished rental. I was told I had the job for three months probation, so I had this apartment for three months. Then if they wanted to extend me, then I'd have to find my own place to live.
Erica Ehm: So you did, obviously, and how did you find ... You're 19, I'm sorry, but my son is 20, so I am feeling this right now. You're 19 years old, you're living in the big city of Toronto, how did you find an apartment? What was that process like?
Amanda Walsh: So those first few months were difficult for me. I had no friends, I didn't really have friends, I would be on air and then go back and sit at my desk and email my best friend who was starting at Acadia University in Nova Scotia. I'd be like, "Okay, I'm going on in a minute." She'd be like, "I'm going to go watch you." I'd do something on air, then I'd go back to my desk, because I just was so ... Everyone was older than me, I remember writing in my diary, "I just wish I was 26." I felt, there was a big learning curve at first. Then in terms of finding a place, he actually had been my first boyfriend who was then in Toronto studying theater, needed a roommate, so we became roommates for a while.
Erica Ehm: That's lucky.
Amanda Walsh: Yes. Then a little while after that, I made friends with one of the other employees at MuchMusic. She was so kind and knew it was my birthday and I didn't have anyone to celebrate with and invited me out with her and her friends, and we became friends. Then about six months after that, her roommate moved out, so I lived with her and another girlfriend.
Erica Ehm: That's a huge life change. I remember the first day, when I started at MuchMusic, I was 23. I started working at MuchMusic when I was 21 I think, and I worked behind the scenes for three years. So imagine this, I had already worked there for three years, you know what it's like being at the desk, you're already part of the action. Right?
Amanda Walsh: Yep.
Erica Ehm: But there is something different when you're given the role, the on-camera role, and at the beginning, it's not a big deal because you can't fathom the fact that people are watching you. But something went off in my head once when I saw people staring at me walking down the street, and I was like, "Oh my god, people are watching." Then I don't know, I just found it, there was huge pressure on me, huge. What about you? Did you feel pressure when you first started?
Amanda Walsh: Yes. I felt like my voice went up like five octaves and my shoulders were like this and it was just really ... My body just locked up for a bit at the beginning. I guess I managed, because they kept me around. I remember that feeling of "Just be yourself," and you're like, "Okay." You're getting used to talking into this camera and finding your feet. I definitely felt pressure and I also felt like, I remember getting there and being told, "A lot of people wanted this job." I hadn't thought of it in that way at the time, and then I was all of a sudden plunked in this place.
So I felt, I actually felt more pressure for me of wanting the people I worked with to like me or think that I was deserving of this position. It was still not quite sinking in that people at home, there are all these other people too. I was always as if I was talking to my friend who was starting university.
Erica Ehm: Then when did it really smack you in the face that you had a national audience who were watching every move that you made for four hours a day?
Amanda Walsh: There were two moments, one, a smack in the face would be, there was this show called Go with the Flow where you're half online and half introducing videos, and there's a chatroom going at the same time. I didn't know about chatrooms and things like that, and somehow I found out about it and I went and looked and people had posted what they thought of me and there could be anything in those things. That was the smack in the face for me, because it wasn't the nicest, and I remember just being shellshocked and devastated by people having these opinions and you're like, "They don't know me." It was a really big learning moment.
I remember going back to my Lonely Businessman apartment and just crying. Then finally hitting a point of being like, "Wait ..." I came out of that and I was like, "None of those things really changed, I'm still me, I'm still here right now." Does that make sense?
Erica Ehm: Of course.
Amanda Walsh: It was a good learning moment and I was like, "Okay." Then I started having some interactions too that I felt like were sent from the universe or something to reaffirm that for me, where people would come, someone had come up to me and said, he was like, "When you first started, I didn't like you." I'm like, "Okay." He's like, "And then one day, I didn't like you because ... You want to know why?" I was, "Yeah, please. Go ahead." He was like, "All my life, I've hated my nose, and I turned on the TV and there was someone with a nose like my nose."
Our noses actually were completely different, but it was such a glaring like, "Nothing is actually about you." So it was a really big lesson to get at a young age, but I'm grateful to have gotten.
Erica Ehm: Yep, that's a big one.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah.
Erica Ehm: So how did you prepare for your shows? I ask this, because back in the olden days, which would be my time, there was no internet. Look at your shock, she was like, "What?" But think about it, we were on air, or I was on air in 1985, and in 1985, the internet was just starting. There wasn't a lot of stuff on the internet, the Google thing was novel, it wasn't well populated. So every day, Craig Halket would give me my show and then I would have to go through the files, I would go across the street to the bookstore and I would look on the racks at Much for any magazines, and I would drag these heavy bags filled with potential research to write my show. What was your experience like?
Amanda Walsh: There's some similarities, although, we did have the internet, so that was very helpful. So not quite as many bags, but I definitely was heavy into the research, because I was operating from a place of, it was a gift, but because I felt like I never knew as much because I was younger and I was really worried about not knowing enough. If I had to interview a band, I'd go down to the library and pull every interview they'd ever done and all their press stuff and just watch. If they had referenced something I didn't know about, then I'd go research that. So it made me better at my job, but I definitely would lean heavily on as much research as I could do. But yeah, the internet was helpful.
Erica Ehm: Doing interviews, the art of interviews is something that is learned. Someone could teach you, you could take a journalism class, but to actually do it on live TV is a whole different ballgame. Especially when you're 19 and you don't have a lot of life experience, right?
Amanda Walsh: Yeah.
Erica Ehm: So tell me about the process of learning how to interview and how you developed your own style.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah. I think I definitely started out trying to do what I thought I was supposed to do, that didn't really work for me. I was nervous about seeming so young, I remember wearing glasses, I wore glasses, they were prescription, but I remember making those choices to try and be taken more seriously. I think that it was really when I started to ask things that I was genuinely interested in that it clicked more for me. Because at the beginning, I was trying to model what I thought I should be asking about.
But I remember interviewing Silverchair and being warned that they were going to be this notoriously difficult interview. So I doubled down on watching everything I could and at one point I remember Daniel Johns talked about how he has this, I think it's called synesthesia, I think is the word, but he sees colors when he hears music, the senses cross. That popped out to me so much more than the talk about influences and the more industry talk, so I focused in on that and brought that up and the interview just blossomed and it was a really good affirmation that if I actually followed what I was curious about, that was okay.
Erica Ehm: You used the word curious, and I think if there's one thing that I've learned I guess about interviewing is that you need to be curious, so that you're actually asking questions that you want to know the answers to.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah. I think a part of me was because we're on a music station and we're interviewing musicians, and of course, we're going to be talking about the music, I felt like, "Do all the questions need to be about that?" But then so many of those questions have been asked, and what I'm actually more interested in is the person underneath this and the artist and the stuff. So finding that it was okay to ask those kind of questions is when it got easier for me.
Erica Ehm: You said something that struck me, I interviewed, do you know who Teresa Roncon is?
Amanda Walsh: Yeah.
Erica Ehm: She was one of the hosts before you, more my time, she hosted the Power Hour at the time or the Power 30, and she also did City Pulse Entertainment at the same time. Very pretty, much like you, blonde, big eyes, very attractive in a classical way. She said that she struggled a lot to be taken seriously. Your comment about wanting to wear glasses seems to be similar. Do you think that it's more, has it been and will it always be more challenging for women who are attractive to be taken seriously? Or is it because you were young?
Amanda Walsh: I don't know. I felt it was just, I never thought of it as an attractiveness thing. For me it was just because I was young and felt like I looked even younger and came across even younger, I had a little voice and that's where I was definitely coming from. But I guess everybody, people make assumptions. It's a natural thing to do. So it was always, I leaned on my sense of humor, and when I could connect with a band on that level, things would usually shift for me. But I felt like I was always coming in with a bit of an uphill climb at the beginning of an interview.
Erica Ehm: I definitely felt the same when I started, but I did it for 10 years, so I learned on the job. Also, the difference for me was that I was considered part of the trailblazers. So what I mean is, the first people to do a job that had never kind of been done before, which is interviewing bands in these chaotic environments with no guidelines or rails to protect us or keep us safe. You kind of did, is that you had all those tapes to look at before, so you had a leg up on me in some way. But do you feel like you were compared to the group that had gone before you? Or was the audience now your peers and the past was irrelevant?
Amanda Walsh: That's interesting. I think it was a bit of both, because within MuchMusic, I think there was always comparison, because so many people worked there for so long. Then it would just depend on the age of the viewers, I had a mix. But I definitely felt, once I hit my stride, I felt very connected to the audience and to my other VJs, my peers that I was on there with.
Erica Ehm: So tell me, who were your cohorts at that time?
Amanda Walsh: Bradford How, we sat right next to each other and goofed off a lot, and that will always be cherished memories to me. George Stroumboulopoulos, Hannah Sung, [inaudible], Jenn Hollett, Rick Campanelli, Rainbow Sun Francks, I hope I'm not missing anyone. That was our main, and I think Devon started just as I was leaving and Sarah started as I was leaving too.
Erica Ehm: So you still keep in touch with those people? Or are they, because you left town and then moved to LA to start a new life, are those people in your life, not in your life? What's the relationship like?
Amanda Walsh: We're in loose touch. It's been a while since I've seen George, but we would often have brunch when he was in LA or I'd see Hannah if I was in town or Jenn. If I'm in the same city where they are and it works out, I still reach out and reconnect.
Erica Ehm: There is an undeniable bond between really all of us, even you and I who have 20 years separating us, where we were part of something that was bigger than all of us. Could you speak a little bit about what your time at MuchMusic meant to you?
Amanda Walsh: Yeah. It was a really, once I got over those first three months, it was a really affirming fun place that I felt like ... I remember when I went for my interview and sitting there and the other VJs were around and they were just joking around, and I had this feeling of like, "These are my people. I know I connect with these people, I'm too shy to even speak right now, but if only I could just ..." Then when I did, I was like, "I feel like we're friends." Then when we did become friends and I think my time there was just ... Getting over that learning curve was a huge growth for me, and then experiencing the feeling of clicking into when you're on camera, and that was me being myself. It's your on-camera self, but it was totally me and what I thought was funny and my responses, and feeling like that's embraced and your instincts are for the most part good.
It was really confidence building in a lot of ways. It was also rolling, there's so much that happened that I don't remember. I found press or flyers of an award show I hosted, I have no ... I was like, "What did I do?" Because it was just go-go-go with all the traveling, sometimes it feels it was a fever dream that happened to me honestly.
Erica Ehm: I'm going to tell you something, I have the exact same issue. I was on air for a decade, and I honestly can't remember probably 82% of it. I can't remember. I was thinking, I was trying to understand, I began to understand this when Christopher Ward interviewed me for his book, Is This Live? Which was a recounting of the early days of MuchMusic, and he asked me questions and I was like, "I don't remember." I said, "I'm not trying to be difficult, I literally can not remember."
So I was trying to understand what is the challenge, why can't I? So I'm going to throw this out to you and tell me what you think. To me, because the office and the whole time was so chaotic and intense and a pressure that no one really acknowledged, that I had to be so in the fricking moment at all times, those four hours that I was on air, as well as the time around it where I was focusing on inhaling the information so that I can present it the following day, because it was like in and out, because the shows were so fast, that I had no more room for memory because I was so in the moment. How do you remember something that you can't remember? How can you, I know this is a weird thing to say, but how can you remember something if all you could think about was the next two seconds that are going to happen. Do you know what I mean? Do you know what I mean?
Amanda Walsh: 100%. I think you nailed it, that's exactly what it was. It was, you're just going from moment to moment, to moment, to moment. It is so intense that it's an exhilarating and freeing and you're living in this energy all the time, then when you come out of it, you're like, "What did I do?"
Erica Ehm: Yeah, I can't remember. So it's always fun for me to look back at old videos, thank God for YouTube, because there's a lot of my old videos. I was like, "Whoa, that was a good question." I still think the same way, right?
Amanda Walsh: You're like, "I was me."
Erica Ehm: Why did you leave MuchMusic?
Amanda Walsh: I left MuchMusic because I'd always, I'd been an actor before getting the opportunity to work at MuchMusic, and that had always continued to be what was in my heart, even though I loved hosting and I still like elements of hosting. So I told myself I wasn't going to stay for really long, because I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to go after acting again if I stayed for too long. That being said, it was a difficult choice, because when they say, "Don't quit your day job," it usually doesn't mean you have an amazing day job.
So I was coming up, I was there a little over three years and I had started to make some contacts in Los Angeles and I had started to send auditions down, and I had gotten close on a few things. So I felt like it was now or never, otherwise I would have stayed, because it was a great opportunity. Then the other side of it was, I felt like, there was so much more I could have learned, but I felt like I had learned what I needed to learn. I also felt like some of the content, it's not the reason I left at all, but things were shifting, it was becoming more celebrity culture and I was like, "It's not really my passion to talk about tabloid stuff and those kind of things."
What I liked was the other, the silly side stuff we got to do, which we still did, but I just felt like I was never someone who was about, I don't know, looking cool and talking about the hottest celebs. I just didn't want to be putting more of that into the world, because it's not where my heart was. But no judgment to people who clicked with it, I just wasn't interested in it.
Erica Ehm: A lot of people say that what you just expressed was the beginning of the end of MuchMusic.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah. I could see that. I certainly didn't leave for that reason, it just made it easier to leave, if that makes sense.
Erica Ehm: Right. So you headed off to LA, now you've already done this once almost three years earlier going to a city where you had next to no friends. I wonder, did you find a group of Canadian expats, actors who had already set up shop down there? How do you survive as a wannabe actor? It's not the warmest, not warmest, it's not the friendliest place.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah. It was interesting. One thing, having done it before in Toronto taught me at a young age that this might be hard, but then it will get easier. It might take a year, so just know that going in. So I already knew that, because I had that experience. What I did is my last year at Much, I would, almost like dipping my toe in LA, I came down for ... I would save up all my vacation time, come here and just audition for those weeks. Then when I did leave, I came down and stayed in a hotel where all these other Canadians stayed, so that was a welcoming environment.
Then when that time was up, I was set to go back to Toronto again and right on the last day, I got a role in a movie, a film in Winnipeg. So I went to Winnipeg and then after that, my agents down here were like, "You should come back, there's some roles, there's a bunch of stuff coming up." I was like, "I can't." I didn't think I could afford it, I'm tired out, this has been really intense. I had one friend who offered I could stay on his couch. I came back and stayed on his couch, and then I ended up getting a job that got me a work visa to be here. Then I just have been here on different jobs. So it was a lot of back and forth, and I didn't know, again, it was a similar, I knew one or two people, but I certainly didn't have a group of friends at all.
Erica Ehm: When you got the job on MuchMusic, it was like a Cinderella story in a way. It happened, you did the work, you made the demo tape, you showed up, you made it happen. So I am not for a second saying you didn't earn it, but it was one of those weird things where you get spotted, they say do a tape, you do the tape, you go do the thing and you get picked. Within a week, you're on live national television, dream job that people, as they had not very nicely told you, reminded you that many people wanted. Then you move to LA and you have to fricking work for every single job, you're back to almost the beginning again.
Amanda Walsh: Yep.
Erica Ehm: Doing pilot after pilot that doesn't go.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah, and even just getting to do a pilot. I think I'm grateful for it, it's an interesting thing to go through being, one, you're on TV and recognized and known, you're treated with a certain level of ... It's not about being super famous, but it's just, if you were to go into a room, you're given time, you're just given that space and that time and that recognition. Then to leave that space and go back to being anonymous again as an artist trying to work your way up, I'm grateful for it because it took away, not that I was really affected anyway, but I almost am like, "Everyone should have to do this, because it really ..."
Any illusions of fame or being known, it's really shown for what it is. I had to start over and I was lucky to have an agent, and I got that from having been on MuchMusic, and I know that is not something that is easy to get either. So I recognize the leg up I had in that respect, but going into auditions and all that stuff, I was just anyone.
Erica Ehm: Interesting. So you actually were part of the Big Bang Theory's original pilot. Oh my god, Amanda. Tell me what happened.
Amanda Walsh: There's not a ton to tell. I believe in a pilot situation, it's a pressure cooker and they're really trying to find the show. At that point, the show was different than the show that ended up on air. There were a few other characters that also aren't on the show. I believe there was another actress before me, then I was brought in and the character was a different character. It was an intense week.
Erica Ehm: So close. You were so close.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah.
Erica Ehm: Someone posted that episode on YouTube for all to see, and what was your character's name?
Amanda Walsh: Katie, I believe. Yes, Katie.
Erica Ehm: You were so good in the blackboard scene.
Amanda Walsh: That was my favorite scene, that was definitely my favorite scene.
Erica Ehm: You were so good. Has that failed pilot for you been beneficial in other ways?
Amanda Walsh: I think I had a good, I made really good contacts with the creators of that show, so I've seen them when I did another part on Two and a Half Men, so it was also for Chuck Lorre and those casting directors know me, so it was beneficial in those ways. It was all positive, and certainly, it's a good show to be associated with.
Erica Ehm: Yeah.
Amanda Walsh: So it has. Then if anything, also it's given me a good Hollywood story.
Erica Ehm: Every actress needs to have a Hollywood story.
Amanda Walsh: I did another pilot with Jim Burrows who directed that pilot, and he was just like, they cast me in another pilot and he was just like, "Remind me to tell you about Lisa Kudrow." Because she had done the pilot for Frazier, and then they made changes. So it just puts you into the whole Hollywood history of it all.
Erica Ehm: All right. You're able to laugh it off to a certain degree, but I do know that there are opportunities that we're presented with, it could be on camera, it could be landing a new job, it could be building a business, whatever it is, but when it is so close you can taste it, and then it's yanked from you. How do you, what is the psychology, how do you cope with it, deal with the obvious disappointments that are inevitable in the business that you're in?
Amanda Walsh: I guess you just, now having been in it for so long, you learn, you get some perspective on what you may have seen as an opportunity, you don't know what not getting this thing or this thing not working out actually freed you up to do later. You never want to be miscast in something or do the wrong thing, because that's not ultimately going to reflect well. So there's a way of looking at it in that way, and certainly now, I have done some jobs that have been so creatively fulfilling that I've actually come to a place where I'm like, "Any disappointment, knowing that it would ultimately lead to this, was worth it." Because if that thing that I'd wanted had worked out, I would be here now. So looking at it through that perspective for sure, it's where I'm at, at this point.
Then I guess it's also, you let yourself just ride the wave and you feel those disappointments, and then you pop back out of them. It's a funny thing to feel like, you feel the down and then how quickly you'll get another audition or you're on to something else and you don't even remember the thing anymore that you thought you cared about so much.
Erica Ehm: One, something that a lot of people haven't talked about yet, but I would like you to talk about is Schitt's Creek. You wrote an episode of Schitt's Creek, what was that all about?
Amanda Walsh: So I was a writer for the first two seasons of Schitt's Creek, they have their writers' room here and I was just, I had written a pilot with a friend. I started, I was more focused on acting when I first came to LA, but would try and dabble in writing when I could. Then as I became friends with more writers, the process got, screenwriters, the process got demystified for me. I saw, I was like, "Okay." I was often being asked to read things and give notes on things, and then I had one friend who she's really established showrunner, and she took me aside and was like, "This thing you think you're just doing for fun is actually a skillset that you have and you should explore."
It was such an important moment for me to have someone championing me in that way. So I wrote a pilot with another actress and we ended up selling it to 20th Century.
Erica Ehm: What's it called?
Amanda Walsh: It was called, it never had a title and it never got made, but it was optioned, which was very ...
Erica Ehm: What was the premise?
Amanda Walsh: It was actually about two former friends who end up back in their small hometown, not unlike Hudson, at the same time and having to work through their stuff. We were really, we had done a pilot together where we'd been cast as best friends and that's how we met, and I felt like, I was like, "We're never going to get cast as friends again unless we write it ourselves, so let's just write something to stay sane in between auditions." Then it actually sold, so that was just a big vote of confidence.
Then Schitt's Creek was happening and my friend who was a writer was on the show and had to leave, and they were looking for someone else. She said, "I'm just going to give them your name, it's good for you to be on their radar. You might not, just go in for an interview and they'll read your sample." I went in for an interview with Eugene and Dan and it went well, and then at the end of the interview, and I don't think this is really commonplace, but they just said, "Do you want to come in the room and see what it's like?" So I said, "Okay." I just went in the writers' room and I started contributing right away, which isn't also normally, but it was just a natural click. It went really well and it was like 3:00 in the afternoon on a Friday and I would say I felt like George Costanza or something.
I was like, "If I just stay, does that mean that I have this job?" Then at 7:00 when we were leaving, Eugene was like, "Okay, so we'll see you Monday." It was really one of those funny things where things really aligned in a cool way, so I got to write on the show for two seasons.
Erica Ehm: Now here's the weird six degrees things obviously is that Dan was a host on MTV, and you were on MuchMusic. So was it the same time? Did he know you from MuchMusic?
Amanda Walsh: He was I think maybe a year after, so we were quite at the same time, because I think MTV was just starting up as I was leaving. But we knew of each other and we had some friends in common, and I do remember when he first moved to LA a few years before Schitt's Creek, I knew him through some people and I invited him to join a book club I was in. So we didn't know each other.
Erica Ehm: Okay, I'm going to make a note-to-self, "Invite people to book clubs for potential jobs." Okay. I want to thank you so much for this conversation, not only have you given me inspiration to invite people to my book club, which by the way has been going for 17 years.
Amanda Walsh: Wow, okay. Ours was like a year long.
Erica Ehm: I'm older than you, that's why. You will eventually catch up to me, as you seem to do. There's a few things that you mentioned during our conversation that I just want to highlight, because I think that they're really useful bits of advice. One of the things is you had this little epiphany about people judging you, and you then said to yourself, "Nothing is about you, it's always about the other person's perception." That you were so happy that you learned it at a young age, and I think that is a really useful thing for people to understand when people jump on you with negativity, to understand that it usually is an issue that they're perceiving, it's their perception that comes from within.
So as I said at the top of the show, this is certainly a conversation about your life, but it is also taking some of the things that you said and to highlight them and so we can apply them to our own lives. You also mentioned about doing interviews and that they became great when you activated your curiosity, and you became more you and you connected to yourself, and that was also in how you approached Much in general. I would again venture to say that in life, when you activate your curiosity and tap and question what it is that you love to do in life, et cetera, answers will appear. Also, we are most happy when we are our authentic selves, when we show people who we are and do what it is that we really love to do and don't fear judgment, right?
Amanda Walsh: Absolutely, yeah.
Erica Ehm: The last thing you said that I just loved, which was what you've learned doing all these auditions. You said, "I learned that this may be hard, but that it will get easier." It's when you moved and you said, "I knew that it would be hard, but that it would get easier." Because you had that experience moving from Hudson to Toronto, and again, I would say that goes pretty much, that's true for pretty much everything. That when you first start it, it's really hard, and then three months in you go, "Whoa, this is easy. I can do this." For people to remember that.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah, just get through that.
Erica Ehm: Just get through it. So before we wrap up, someone from Oakville, his name is Mike, he's one of the listeners of the show and he asked who is going to interview me, "Erica, who is going to interview, you're like a VJ from MuchMusic?" I was like, "No one's going to interview me." Then I thought it would be fun if each person who I interview, since you're all interviewers, to ask me one question. So I'm going to put you on the spot and Amanda, is there one thing that you would like to ask me?
Amanda Walsh: So many things. Okay, I have to pick one. I would say, because you've had such, looking at your career and what you do and all the different things you do, a varied career, and I feel like from my perspective it looks like you have the parts of what you do that are outward and in the public eye and the speaker and an interviewer and facilitating conversations, that kind of role, but then you also have this other side as a creator and a writer. I wondered, how do you, do you even, is it something you're conscious of when you're switching gears from being in this public position to then going and writing the things that you write? Is it something that you have to consciously shift in your own energy or in your own approach, or does it all just flow back and forth easily?
Erica Ehm: As a creator, it lights me up like nothing else. I love, I'm an introvert and I love to make things happen, I love to work. I love it, I love creating, and I like taking something or nothing and turning it into something. But there's another piece of me, being an introvert, where I get to have meaningful conversations like this one for example, or my time on MuchMusic I felt was very meaningful. I wasn't funny on MuchMusic, I know people might have laughed at me, but that wasn't because I was trying to be funny. I'm pretty earnest.
So I'm still creating, I'm creating ideas and thoughts and conversations. I'm really not good at parties, because I can't do smalltalk, because that's not making anything. So it's the same person, it's just two different sides and two different skills. But for me, the art of interviewing is similar to the art of writing, because I do a lot of research, I plan the conversation and I think about it. I try to make an interview or a conversation a little mini work of art, which is hopefully what we did here today.
Amanda Walsh: I love that.
Erica Ehm: So thank you so much, Amanda. It was so great to finally meet my Hudson, this person from Hudson. What are the chances? What are the chances?
Amanda Walsh: It's so strange.
Erica Ehm: Random and crazy, especially for me where there was so little art in Hudson when I was growing up. It was a small town, but I guess because it was close to Montreal, I was able to access all the art there.
Amanda Walsh: Yeah, yeah. It's that perfect removed enough to be a little more peaceful than being in the city, but you're not cut off either.
Erica Ehm: Amanda, you need to go have your baby, so thank you again so much for giving me an hour of your time. I want to remind everyone who is listening that if you would like to be a part of this conversation, there's a phone line that you can call and you can leave a question for any of the guests, you can certainly share memories of your times on MuchMusic, and you can also give us feedback on the show, what you're enjoying, what you'd like us to add. Because really, if not for you, there would be no one listening to the show and then why would I do a show?
So the phone number is 833-972-7272. I'll give you that number again, you can write it down or put it into your phone, and give us a call. It's basically leaving a message for me. The number is 833-972-7272. So call in and give me a call in. If you're not a phone type person, I get it. You can also reach me on all my social platforms, I'm obsessed with living online. You can find me on Instagram, on Twitter, the Erica Ehm Facebook page, I'm on LinkedIn, I'm all over the place. Just search Erica Ehm on each of those platforms and you'll find me. Thank you again to Amanda for agreeing to be part of the show and especially knowing that you could have gone into labor at any minute, but that would have been great for the podcast.
I will see you next week, not you, Amanda, maybe, you can have me on in the hospital after giving birth. For those of you listening, I'll see you next week with another episode of Reinvention of the VJ. Here's to living a life filled with music, meaning and many reinventions.
Announcer: Thanks for listening. Follow Erica Ehm's Reinvention of the VJ podcast, subscribe and follow more episodes. Click to ReinventionOfTheVJ.com. Podcast produced in collaboration with Steve Anthony Productions, editing and coordination, the [inaudible] Communications Inc. Copyright 2020.